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Why Knitting?
When I was five, my mum was in a knitting club. I loved tagging along, doing coloring pages while her and her friends chit-chatted. By the time I was eight, I was doing small sewing projects while they all laughed over their knitting needles, giving me small tips and tricks along the way. At thirteen, my mum had stopped going to the knitting club, but I sat down with her one day and asked her to teach me to knit. My mum taught me the knit stitch and the purl stitch, taught me which needles to use with what yarn, how to hold my yarn, and so much more. My first knitting project was a chunky scarf, and I showed Mum the completed piece. She looked so proud, even if my stitches were too tight.
The First Knitted Creations
Photo Credit: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Photo Credit: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Knitting is something that bonds people from any time period together. The oldest, and arguably coolest, knitting creation is a pair of socks from 250 AD Egypt. They were not made with the knitting that is known today, but with a single sewing needle threading through loops of yarn. This technique is more labor intensive, and it was the technique that made double needle knitting a thing
Modern day knitting is described by Merriam-Webster as “interlacing yarn or thread in a series of connected loops with needles.” The first creation found with this style of knitting is a North African piece from 1100. It’s thought to be modeled off of Islamic ceramics, since its original coloring was blue and white. Now it is old, and its colors have yellowed to look as though it was black and white.
Awesome People Knitting
Knitting has been a craft that is mainly associated with women, and there have been some awesome women that knit. Way back in the 1600’s, Britain was trying to industrialize knitting. They raised taxes on clothes to a ridiculous amount, and made a mandatory dress code for civilians, so that they were forced to buy the ridiculous priced clothes. Instead of buying into the government's scheme, women all over Britain hand knitted the mandated clothing to avoid taxes.
During World War II, knitting was a practice that spies used to transfer information in and out of opposing countries. One woman in particular, Phyllis Doyle, knitted morse code into her pieces. Since she was a British woman in Germany, the English army used her to spy on the Germans. She knitted flat panel pieces, and encoded into the pattern was morse code, which would later be decoded by the British.
The greatest fun fact about knitting is that during this time in WWII, the US had to stop the trade of knitting patterns. They didn’t want anyone to accidently trade government secrets, since encoded morse code in knitting was just that popular.
Scientifically Knitting
While amazing women of the past used knitting for war help, modern day women are using it for science. A nonprofit called the D.O.V.E. foundation is using knitting to help in the medical field. Using pure cotton yarn, and 4 millimeter needles (that is really tiny), four inch wide and four feet long bandages are knitted. They are then sent to a country that may not be able to afford fancy disposable bandaids.
On the opposite side of science, physicists have started to use knitting too. They wanted to learn how something as non-flexible as yarn can become a stretchy fabric. Somehow these awesome people have discovered that any knittable knot (since knitting is just loops and knots over and over again) is a knot called a ribbon knot. These ribbon knots come together and form a knitted piece, which is more stretchy than just a ball of yarn. All of this information comes together and forms what physicists are calling the knit theory.
Concluding Why Knitting is Amazing
Me and my mum learning about knitting at Ellis Island
Photo Credit: me
The idea that knitting can lead to anything, from clothes to spying and then to science makes me all the more proud to have it be such a big part of my life. I find it amazing that one of my favorite hobbies is shared with people who have done such cool things with their lives. I love that it is something that connects me to the far off past, while also bonding me tighter to my mother. I’m excited to someday pass this craft down, while telling stories of my mum trying to get me to hold the yarn properly. She taught me to knit one day because I was bored, and now it is something that will always tie me to her.
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