PENELOPE HEMINGWAY
I made some databases, number crunching the known Dales knitters from the censuses 1841-61. And it’s been some time but our day out yesterday in rainy, beautiful Gayle and Hawes made me think that some of you, Dear Readers, might be interested to see this data …
…We’ll find out which Victorian novelist’s mauve ribbon was trapped in her coffin lid and discover clothing-as-evidence in an infamous London burking case (“Burking” as in “Burke and Hare”).
And we’ll watch a Yorkshire farmer’s wife knit a blue stocking on the morning of her murder and a caddish, handsome soldier murdering his stocking-knitting new wife. We’ll also spend time in the county asylum with a world famous dyer’s incendiarist wife and an embroiderer who used her art to say the unsayable…
The myths around traditional knitting are worth exploring. One new one seems to be the idea that Tudor, even medieval, sailors or fishermen wore a forerunner of the gansey. I’m going to explode a few myths in a forthcoming book, so should keep my powder dry – but here’s a few thoughts and woolgatherings that […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 