Images of knitting #3

May 23, 2013 By Kate in costume, ephemera, History, Images of knitting, textiles Tags: ephemera, images of knitting, knitting, national costume, national stereotypes, postcards, Welsh women 22 Comments

Here are a couple more postcards from my collection in which knitting is represented in association with regional / national stereotypes.

This is an American card dating from the very early 1900s. It is number 11 in the popular “St Patrick’s series,” whose tone is, of course, incredibly sentimental and nostalgic. One could hardly imagine a representation of Irish femininity more stereotypical — the knitter stands barefoot outside her “wee humble cottage” in a shamrock-encircled John Ford fantasy of rural domesticity. The knitting is a sort of accoutrement of her simplicity, and her bare feet are a familiar feature of other postcards in this series.

This card was produced in the early 1900s by venerable British photographers Judges (who are still in the postcard printing business after a more than a century). By this point, the figure of the “Welsh Lady” in stovepipe hat and shawl had become a recognisable tourist novelty. Here, the ball of yarn and needles have been taken out of the dressing-up box to form decorative additions to her “costume.” I am interested in the subtle shifts of representation of Welsh women’s hats — as, in many Eighteenth-Century accounts I’ve read, the wearing of men’s hats is described as masculinising Welsh women in various ways. In this context, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby’s signature hats seem to be a deliberate form of costume, but by the time of Augusta Hall’s famous Cambrian sketches, the hats have become picturesque – and acceptably feminine – curiosties.

Augusta Hall, “Welsh Girl in the Costume of Pembrokeshire” in Cambrian Costume, Dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of Wales (1834)

I am perhaps particularly interested in picture-postcard representations of the women of rural Wales because, where tea-drinking, hand-knitting, and “masculine” roles are concerned, there are so many similarities with familiar stereotypes of Shetland women.

As always, your thoughts and comments on these knitterly images are most welcome!

Renovation update! things seem to be going very well with the plumbing and plastering, though I am now in the odd and somewhat difficult position of having no water. I will now be offline for a few days as the work continues. Next time I post I hope to have a bathroom!

Of Note

April 22, 2013 By Kate in design, History, knitting, review, textiles Tags: Coop Knits Socks, design, knitting, Lynne Barr, Malhas Portuguesas, pattern, Portuguese textiles, Rachel Coopey, review, Rosa Pomar, socks, The Shape of Knitting 27 Comments

I’ve been really inspired by some fantastic knitting books which have turned up here recently, so I thought I’d give them a shout-out. First up is Rachel Coopey‘s much anticipated first collection. Rachel is truly the Queen of Socks — she has a distinctive feel for pattern and structure which suits her foot-shaped canvas perfectly. Her designs are thoughtful, precise and definitively knitterly — she often reverses or mirrors stitch patterns across her socks in ways that are not only aesthetically pleasing but will really engage the maker’s interest through a pair. For example, Milfoil (the green pair that you can see above), has a horizontal mirror between cuff and foot that makes each sock the opposite of the other, while in Budleigh (my favourite design in the collection) neat cables and twisted stitches flow through the design with a vertical reflection that separates left from right.

Inside the book are ten beautifully written and laid-out patterns; a technical section with instructions for essential sock-knitting techniques (including a useful illustrated afterthought heel-tutorial) and jolly English seaside photography. What’s not to love?

You can pre-order the book directly from Rachel here.

Next up, and top of the tree for pure knitterliness, is Lynne Barr’s new book, The Shape of Knitting. Lynne has an amazingly innovative approach to stitch, and I think she is one of the most creative and inventive designers around today.

My approach to design tends to be very referential. I see a thing, or read a thing, or hear a thing — I like the thing — and I want to somehow render, or celebrate, or get to the heart of the thing in stitches. Lynne’s approach is completely different, and I completely love it. She says:

Inspiration isn’t always derived from things we see around us — or even from words we read or hear. Sometimes it comes from something intangible within us. When playing with a technique, I sometimes feel like a dowser, but holding knitting needles instead of a dowsing rod to guide me toward an unknown goal.

I feel about two hundred years behind Lynne’s design-aesthetic — a plodding Wordsworth to her John Ashberry. Don’t get me wrong — I love the technical aspects of designing, and I like to make stitches do things for me, but I think that Lynne’s relationship to stitch is on another level entirely — like the listener of a symphony who has somehow become a sort of instrument themselves. If you have any interest in the creative possibilities of knitwear design, then you need to immediately get hold of a copy The Shape of Knitting to put on your shelf next to Lynne’s previous book.

Finally, here is a book I’ve been looking forward to seeing for some time.

I admire Rosa Pomar for many reasons, but perhaps most for her thorough commitment to exploring and documenting the history of Portuguese textiles from the grass-roots up. Behind this wonderful book stands several years work, as Rosa has travelled around Portugal, researching animal husbandry, spinning, weaving, knitting, garment construction, and the traditional craft and design practices of men and women all over her beautiful country. Though my Portuguese is non-existent, I still find so much food for thought here.

As well as exploring the history and distinctive techniques of Portuguese hand knitting, the book also includes patterns for twenty lovely accessories inspired by traditional design. I think that this one is my favourite . . .

. . . not least for the way it showcases Rosa’s own Mirandesa yarn, which is hand spun and plied in Trás-os-Montes from the wool of Churra Galega Mirandesa sheep. This book marks an important landmark in the way the history of hand knitting is researched and written about, and you can buy it from Rosa here.

a kiss from France

April 9, 2013 By Kate in embroidery, History, textiles Tags: embroidered postcards, embroidery, first world war, first world war postcards, First World War silks, postcard history, postcards, sentiment, silk postcards, stitch, textiles, World War 1 silks 78 Comments

I so enjoyed your translations and comments on this post, that I thought I’d continue the First World War theme with some of my favourite items in my postcard collection. Known to collectors generically as “silks”, these machine-embroidered cards first appeared around 1900, and were produced in vast quantities during the twentieth century’s first two decades. As an attractive and eminently portable form of sentimental greeting, these cards proved particular popular among British troops serving in France. Some estimates suggest that, in their wartime heyday, more than ten million were produced.

Sources used to suggest that these cards were hand-embroidered, but this isn’t the case. Though particularly elaborate panel designs might involve finishing by hand, I have never seen one that didn’t feature machine embroidery. Using innovative Heilmann or Schiffli embroidery machines, a design could be repeated up to 400 times across large panels of organdy before being cut out, and individually assembled into framed and embossed cards. There were several factories in France and Switzerland where cards might be manufactured from start to finish, but some machine-embroiders also produced piece work from home, sending completed panels to be finished and assembled elsewhere.

The cards were usually sent in military mail pouches rather than being stamped and posted in the ‘open’ mail. Because they were protected in transit, the embroidered panels could be quite delicate in design. Many of the cards use the structure of the embroidery to create a tiny envelope:

Into which another card, with a personal greeting might be inserted.

This is one of my personal favourites: the card would have been placed inside an envelope; the card is, itself, an envelope; and the embroidered panel also depicts an envelope-carrying bluebird.

Cards might be designed for specific occasions . . .

. . . or with specific addressees in mind . . .

While many of the designs are conventional (though nonetheless appealing) others feel perhaps more modern and innovative.

and while theres a tremendous variety of embroidered designs, the same might be said of the paper-embossing, which on some cards is more elaborate than the stitching.

These cards carry human stories.

And there’s a particular kind of confluence between these stories and the stitches through which they are conveyed.

Here is one of my favourites: it is a scene unmistakably French with trees and tiny church; ploughed field and red earth . . .

. . . flowers bloom at the field margin . . .

. . . framing a message of poignant reassurance.

The roses hide. . .

. . .an envelope . .

. . . containing a message.

It is a simple, mass-produced, material object.

It is also a massive conveyer of meaning.

images of knitting #1

March 28, 2013 By Kate in ephemera, History, Images of knitting, knitters, knitting, reading Tags: Austria, ephemera, first world war, History, knitters, knitting, Philadelphia N Robertson 49 Comments

I have a small (but ever growing) collection of prints and postcard in which knitters, and the activity of knitting, are represented. Some of these are really very interesting, and I thought I’d occasionally share them with you here.

This card, which was posted with an Austrian stamp in 1916, depicts a ‘continental’ knitter working on a long stocking, whilst literally being haunted by thoughts of war. It is undoubtedly a sentimental image: like equivalent representations of industrious female knitters in Britain and America during the First World War, the needles seem to be there to enable this woman to be ‘doing something useful’ for the war effort, producing functional objects that also serve as testimony of her affection. The woman’s face is the very image of serene meditation — her surroundings are quietly and comfortably domestic; but the ghost of the war hangs over her pleasant home in the shape of the uniformed figure by the window. Is this half-present soldier conjured up by the act of knitting itself, as the repetitive action of the needles frees the knitter’s mind to wander among her thoughts and memories? Is knitting, therefore, a soothing activity that allows this woman to be comforted in her solitude by the idea that she is creating something equally comforting for her absent beloved? Or is the transparent figure an actual ghost — the soldier who has returned after death to haunt his faithful partner? If so, then knitting is an activity that transforms the woman into a tragic figure: an image of steadfast affection and domestic industry, steadily turning out socks for a man already dead.

I find this image interesting because it is troubling and because it disturbs those gung-ho ‘knit your bit’ stereotypes that are generally associated with the 1914-18 war effort. The way that the solider’s ghostly presence brings the war into the woman’s domestic environment is deeply suggestive, and the whole image is, in its own way, as unhinged as the narrator of Philadelphia Robertson’s poem, A Woman’s Prayer (1916), who knits on the edge of sanity:

“I am so placid as I sit
In train or tram and knit and knit;

Within the house I give due heed
To every duty, each one’s need,

Sometimes the newsboys hurry by,
And then my needles seem to fly

And when the house has grown quite still
I lean out on my window sill —

And pray to God to see to it
That I keep sane enough to knit”

I’ve scanned the reverse of the postcard, just in case any of you can decipher it.

thinking time

February 18, 2013 By Kate in Fair Isle, fairisle, History, knitting, Shetland, textiles, writing Tags: fair isle, fair-isle knitting, fairisle, History, knitting, Lerwick, Shetland, textile history, textiles, writing 29 Comments

Well, I had a fantastic time in Shetland. As I was on my own, I stayed in Lerwick. I really enjoyed meeting up with Shetland friends old and new, and pottering about toon.

But I was there to work — I have a couple of writing commissions in the pipeline, one of which involves producing a short history of Fair Isle knitting for a new (and very exciting) book about Shetland textiles. So I examined a lot of Fair Isle pieces, and I thought a lot about them.

I saw some truly incredible textiles . . .

. . . so many of which defied any idea of the ‘traditional’ in Fair Isle knitting.

(This striking allover features 4 shades of Shetland wool and 3 shades of artificial silk)

(Fair Isle motifs, but not Fair Isle knitting)

(Fair Isle or . . .Tartan?)

So much to think about.

The Sixareen Kep

October 9, 2012 By Kate in color, colour, design, History, knitting, patterns, Scotland, Shetland, teaching, textiles Tags: cap, caps, design, fishermen, fishing, hat, hats, History, kep, keps, knitting, Shetland, Shetland Wool Week, textile history, The Sixareen Kep 46 Comments

Hello from Shetland, everybody! Wool Week is in full swing, and it has got off to a great start.
I thought you’d like to see the pattern we produced yesterday at the Shetland Museum — named and photographed by the workshop participants, and modeled here by the lovely Tania — the Sixareen Kep.

In the workshop I talked a bit about the way I tend to build up ideas and inspiration for a project, and I thought I’d share with you a little of the background to the design of this kep (cap). This was my starting point:

Stanley Cursiter, The Fair Isle Jumper (1923) Edinburgh City Arts Centre.

Some of you may remember this amazing portrait from the front cover of A Shetland Knitter’s Notebook, and I’ve also mentioned my fascination with it before here. What the sitter is wearing on her head is is a sort of fancy seafarer’s kep. I just love this hat – perhaps apart from the pompoms – and thought it would be an ideal use of Jamieson and Smith’s Shetland Heritage yarn, of which I conveniently had six balls – one in each shade.

(mmmm . . .tasty Shetland Heritage . . . )

The shape of Cursiter’s sitter’s kep also reminded me strongly of the Phrygian or Liberty cap — a symbol of freedom that’s perhaps most most familiarly associated with the French Revolution.

I thought I would like to make the main body of my kep red, rather than white, recalling the Phrygian cap.

Then I started thinking about the different kinds of head-covering worn by fishermen around the coasts of Britain.

These noble chaps were photographed by Hill and Adamson in 1847, just down the road from where I live, in Newhaven. The one on the left is wearing what I think of as a kep — the kind of tall ‘wursit’ hat that would have been familiarly worn by Scottish and English fishermen throughout the Nineteenth Century. While the Newhaven fisherman’s head-covering is evidently fashioned in a single colour, in Shetland, such hats would have been knitted in several bright shades:

In the words of Samuel Hibert, in his Description of the Shetland Islands (1822):

“The boat dress of the fishermen is in many respects striking. A worsted covering for the head, similar in form to the common English or Scotch nightcap, is dyed with so many colours that its bold tints are recognized at a considerable distance, like the stripes of a signal flag.”

The collections of the Shetland Museum abound with beautiful examples of such hats. These keps are knitted at typically tight gauges, and feature internal linings which would have made them incredibly cosy and windproof. With a little further poking around the Shetland Museum online archives, I found this description of some wonderfully elaborate examples, that were knitted up to an old design in the 1950s:

“Haaf hats were the type of hats worn by the crew of a sixareen at the haaf (deep sea) fishing, and were typically patterned with small geometric designs . . .The skipper of the boat wore a bright red cap, while the rest of the crew wore darker ones. This differentiated him from the rest of the crew.”

So with these resonances in mind — the hat in the Cursiter portrait; the red Phyrigian cap; the brightly patterned keps described in nineteenth-century accounts of Shetland; and the sixareen skipper’s red “haaf” hat — I knitted this:

My kep begins with a knitted-in lining, and the colourwork brim is knitted on 2.75mm needles. After joining the lining to the top of the brim, I went up a couple of needle sizes, knitting the main body of the kep at a looser gauge to make it drapey (as well as having great stitch definition for colourwork, because of the way it is spun, the Heritage yarn also drapes well). After knitting and shaping the body of the kep, I finished it off with a braid, made from 3 different coloured i-cords, which I plaited and joined together. Here’s the end result:

The workshop participants had a great discussion about what to name the hat — associations were made with Burra’s famous Papil Cross, the distinctive red geology of Ronas Hill as well as different aspects of Shetland seafaring. A vote was taken, and the name that won out was the Sixareen Kep.

So, the pattern for the Sixareen Kep is now available from Ravelry!

Many thanks to all who participated in the workshop: Victoria Wickham, Shelly Kocan, Tania Ashton Jones, Susan Freeman, Evelyn Mackenzie, Emily Poleson, Mandy Moore, Mary Pirie, Aileen Ryder, Outi Kater, Joyce James, Tori Seirestad, Charlotte Monckton, Ann Leibert, Mary Henderson, Monique Boonstra, Joyce Ward, Lesley Smith, Melanie Ireland and Jen Arnall Culliford.

suit of the day

August 23, 2012 By Kate in fashion, History Tags: fashion, fashion history, History, Paul Poiret 28 Comments

This Poiret suit is from 1914. I love its lines so much. I know I would be rubbish at actually walking in that skirt, though. Bring on the 1920s, and the knee.

A grand day

July 25, 2012 By Kate in art, design, events, History, industry, knitting, textiles, wool, yarn, Yorkshire Tags: Abraham Moon, british wool, campaign for wool, Curtis Wools Direct, hand knitting, Haworth Scouring, Jamieson and Smith, knitting, Real Shetland Company, textiles, Vi-Spring, wool, wool industry 40 Comments

(combed tops and yarn in the sample room. Wool heaven.)

Yesterday I had a grand day out. Martin and Janet Curtis kindly invited me to the opening of the new showroom at Haworth Scouring, the world’s largest commission scouring company, and an important hub of the British wool industry. The opening showcased many different elements of the industry — from processing right through to retail and distribution — and I was there to demonstrate hand-knitting and design. My sister, Helen, lives nearby, and it was great to bring her along as a spare pair of knitterly hands. Here she is working on a BMC, with some of the beautiful throws from the Real Shetland Company and my Rams and Yowes blanket behind her.

She couldn’t resist trying out one of the Real Shetland throws.

And here she is having a gander at Knit Real Shetland. (Note the obligatory Manu cardigan!)

The showroom had been fitted with a luxurious Shetland carpet, and there were other superb examples of British wool carpeting on display.

. . . as well as woven textiles . . .

(These samples are from Abraham Moon, another great Yorkshire company)

. . .knitting yarns . . .

(Jamieson & Smith’s amazing Shetland Heritage yarn, of which more another time).

. . . finished garments . . .

. . . and other innovative British wool products, such as these Shetland duvets, and a fabulous Vi-Spring Shetland mattress, of which I completely failed to take a photograph.

But my favourite thing, out of the many wonderful woolly things on display in the new showroom, was a piece by artist Angela Wright.

Angela’s wool installations take coned yarn (supplied by Martin Curtis), which is reworked and rewound into gigantic woolly hanks. These huge hanks, when arranged, suspended, and carefully laid down by Angela, have a profoundly transformative effect on the spaces in which they appear. I only had my macro lens with me yesterday, so was unable to take a picture capturing the full effect of Angela’s piece on the showroom space, but you get a good sense of her work from this earlier piece in Bradford Cathedral.

I think it is quite rare to find textile art that manages to combine the spectacular with the contemplative, but Angela’s work is both. These installations are grand and public in scale, but there’s a quiet intimacy about them too, which arises from the woolly materials Angela is using, and (very clearly, I think) her own distinctive personal ‘feel’ for space and substance. Sited in Bradford, the historic home of the British wool industry, the installation seems celebratory and commemorative, both veil and shroud, a portal connecting past to future. There is a tremendous weight to Angela’s pieces — the wool threads hang, drape, and flow with a heaviness that is deeply emotional. Angela told me how some folk were moved to tears upon encountering the piece in Bradford Cathedral — I can well believe it.

I recommend you go and have a look at these photographs which document the process of Angela’s wool installations from Yorkshire sheep to finished piece. Pretty amazing.

Here is Angela, discussing her installation with Sophie, Countess of Wessex, who came to open the showroom yesterday and who, like her brother in law, is firmly committed to the Campaign for Wool.

. . .Martin Curtis presented her with a very special woolly gift. . .

. . . a beautiful hand-knitted lace stole, created as part of the Shetland fine lace project.

It was a day in which, from start to finish, the best of British wool was celebrated. Helen and I felt honoured to have been a part of it and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Thankyou, Janet, and Martin, for a truly grand day!

60 North

May 9, 2012 By Kate in History, knitting, Shetland, writing Tags: History, knitting, Promote Shetland, Shetland, Shetland Lace, writing 18 Comments

Just dropping in quickly to say that the new issue of 60 North is out! What? You’ve never heard of 60 North? The name refers, of course, to Shetland’s line of latitude, and is a really well-produced magazine put out by my friends at Promote Shetland. Features in the magazine explore many different aspects of Shetland’s landscape, archeology, wildlife, and culture – including (of particular interest to me) – a piece on Shetland Wool Week, and a great article exploring the fine local tradition of Sunday Tea. Also, you may remember that last Summer I published a feature exploring the history of Shetland Lace with Rowan. I know that those of you who are not in the UK sometimes find it difficult to get hold of the Rowan Magazine, so we have now re-published this piece in 60 North, where everyone can see it. Yes, that’s right: 60 North is available online and it is completely free! Stick the kettle on and and download yourself a copy!

Textisles is out!

March 20, 2012 By Kate in History, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, textiles, textisles Tags: Betty Mouat, History, Jen Arnall Culliford, Kate Davies, Kate Davies designs, Melanie Ireland, susan crawford, swimsuits, Textisles 35 Comments

WHOOT! I am exceedingly happy to report that Textisles Issue 2 is now available!

In this issue you receive:
Two patterns (for the Betty Mouat sweater and the BMC)
and four feature articles (three by me, and one by Susan Crawford). There is also a “meet the maker” interview with Griseldis Schmitthuber, who, with a little knitterly-know how and a few skeins of Lana Grosa sock yarn, whipped up a truly fabulous swimsuit.

And there’s more!

Thanks to the unstoppable Melanie Ireland, there are 3 video tutorials available to help those of you who want to knit the Betty Mouat patterns, but are unfamiliar with the techniques that they involve. The videos look at: 1) no-purl garter stitch; 2) working with several colours; and 3) cockleshell lace. You can view the tutorials here.

Both patterns were test knitted by Melanie Ireland and tech-edited by Jen Arnall-Culliford. I love working with Jen and Mel. I love my work! Seriously, I have had a blast putting this whole thing together.

So what are you waiting for?

Download your very own copy of Textisles Issue 2 today!

Kate Davies Designs

Category Archives: History