In this month’s ‘Yarnwise’, I took a look at the knitting sticks in the collection of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, here in Yorkshire. And came to some interesting conclusions about the knitting sticks, and the Brontes’ experience of knitting. One conclusion I came to was that at least half of the […]
Category: Textile Arts
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Miss Ryder Rides Again!
This pattern, based on instructions by Yorkshire knitting writer, Miss Elizabeth Ryder, was originally a downloadable elsewhere on the net. Figured it out last year, and thought I’d put it up for anyone interested in arcane stuff like how to knit an 1860s’ stripey sock. Stockings with vertical stripes were fashionable around the 1790s. Into […]
Two weeks ago today, we were privileged to spend the weekend doing living history at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, where William Wordsworth and his family lived from 1799-1808. Wordsworth was a revolutionary; writing about ordinary people going about their everyday lives; finding poetry in the mundane and his environment. He wrote about beggars, leech-gatherers, the disenfranchised, […]
“Guernsey…. A thick, knitted, closely-fitting vest or shirt, usually made of blue wool, worn by seamen. 1851.” The Shorter Oxford Dictionary Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in traditional knitting. Ganseys or guernseys are being knitted, worn and enjoyed, by a whole new generation. Ganseys are jumpers knitted from 5 ply, unoiled, worsted-spun […]
“Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’ ‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other—one of those people, at all events, who are paid to be memorialized—about his affairs. I suppose it will go in, one […]
Here’s Lewis Harding’s 1870 (ish) image of two little Polperro girls, Mary Jane Langmaid and Elizabeth Joliff, knitting. This is the iconic photo for people interested in the history of traditional knitting. A couple of people used it in their presentations at Ganseyfest, and folk wondered if the photo was staged. One or two even […]
This morning I had to wait in for A Man. So, to pass the time, I looked up the words “knitted jacket” in the 18thC newspapers. As you do. By the time the Man’s long-awaited plumbing visit happened, it was more a ‘Person From Porlock’ * incident, as I was so engrossed in the […]
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High-end Spinning Schools
Not usually much of one for princesses – to the point I throw up at first sight of a Disney princess – but this is one who had her own spinning school! Got to admire a woman with her own spinning school! I’ve been researching much lowlier spinning and knitting schools of the 18thC and […]
The latest Yarn Forward, No 33, features the mysterious and elusive Bob Jenkinson. Some time ago, Filey Museum’s lovely staff gave me permission to use this photo. But there was no real provenance for it – just amongst a batch of things donated long before there was a protocol in place to record the whos […]
Here it comes again! ‘Sunk Island’ (my Humber/Ouse kids’ gansey) has just been re-published in ‘TheKnitting Collection 2’. Available from W.H. Smiths or via Yudu. You can see it on the back cover, in rather nice company, bottom row. It’s second from right. No 5 son thought it a bit surreal as when we picked […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 