Hand knitting started in the 18th century but was confined to items like stockings, hats, mittens or gloves and on V&A’s website they have this picture above of an 18th century hand knitted silk pin cushion. It was knitted from silk in two sections in stocking stitch and joined at the seams.
The World War 1 poster was to encourage people to knit socks for the troops. In fact ‘Make Do and Mend’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knitting a very popular saying at the moment, was actually the title of a booklet produced by the British wartime government department. Wool was in short supply at that time and the booklet encouraged women to unpick old woollen items in order to make new ones.
In the 1950’s and 60’s knitting was ‘Haute Couture’, and lots of colours and styles of yarn were introduced. The well known ‘twinset’ was something every woman had to have in their wardrobe.
Girls were taught knitting at school at that time as it was thought to be a useful skill rather than a hobby.
Magazines such as “Pins and needles” in the UK carried patterns of varying difficulty including not just clothes, but also blankets, toys, bags, lace curtains and items that could be sold for profit.
However during the 1980’s knitting was not the ‘in’ thing anymore, and sales of patterns and yarns dropped drastically so much so that schools took knitting off the curiculem.
But, like everything else what goes around comes around and in the early 21st Century there was a resurgence of knitting. Celebrities were getting on the band wagon including, Winona Ryder, and apparently Julia Roberts taught Cameron Diaz to knit in between takes.
Since then it has just blossomed and become more and more popular with an abundance of celebrities joining the knitting trend. You only need to head to Pinterest Celebrity Knittershttp://pinterest.com/sitnandknitn/celebrity-knitters/ page to see who’s doing what.
The internet has helped fuel the hobby with knitters connecting with other knitters and exchanging patterns. Knitting groups are popping up all over the UK and the world to connect with others who are enjoying doing something started so long ago.
Crochet however is believed to have started in the early 18th Century and ‘crochet’ is French for ‘hook’. Similar to knitting, it’s a pattern made from pulling loops through other loops but the difference is that with crochet you only work with one stitch at one time.
There are a number of crochet magazines available and America has its own non profit magazine dedicated to promoting crochet. With the help of ‘You Tube’ you can soon learn how to crochet by following different videos made especially for this.
Of course this has prompted people to pull out their vintage crochet squares and doily’s to use yet again while its all back in fashion. If you spot them in charity shops they are well worth buying as they are started to fetch quite a good price for some vintage ones.
Crafted By B Studio 