"Richard Eney" wrote
>> wrote:
>> >One can save a few minutes knitting in the round and then steeking.
>> >For the contract knitters that were so poorly paid, every minute counted. >>
>> Were there contract knitters in Scandinavia too? The English and Scots
>> say they never did steeking until the immigration of many Scandinavians
>> in WWII. Even when they do it, they still don't call it that in Shetland;
>> they call it "extra stitches."
>>
>> =Tamar
>
>Gladys Thompson offers a steeked pattern from Cartaret and Patourel of
>Guernsey that she says, they state to be "an island traditional style."
>GT published this in 1955, but she probably collected it in the 1930's.
In her preface, she says that the 1955 revised version includes several new patterns, including the pattern for the Channel Islands Guernsey. So no, she didn't collect that one in the 1930s, she collected it after WWII. The pattern also gives both ways of knitting it, both steeked and not steeked.
Guernsey was a center of contract knitting before the Napoleonic wars.
True, Rutt even quotes a letter from Paris in the 17th century telling the dealer what the latest stocking fashions were. It's a pity that he never mentioned the waistcoat patterns. There are some lovely flat-knitted silk waistcoats from the 16th and 17th century that were worn by both men and women, with knit-purl patterning, intarsia, and stranded colorwork, frequently two types in the same garment.
It is clear that Guernsey ganseys were going fishing off
>Newfoundland by 1246, so a traditional style might have some deep roots.
I have not yet located the books telling about the clothing of those sailors.
I stand corrected. However, the story of the diplomate's wife being taught to knit the traditional pattern because the old knitter did not want the traditional pattens to die with her tells me that contract knitting on the Channel Islands had essentially died out by WWII.
Make one steeked and one not steeked. Then try sleeping in them in a canvas hammock. The not steeked one is more comfortable and durable. It fits your body like a good, handknit sock fits your foot. You make that kind for your husbands and sons. The steeked one is a bit faster to knit. But, you will notice the steek against your hammock (You make that one to be sold cheaply off island. Both could be traditional.
When you find those books, remember that books discussing the uniforms of the British and French Navies do not often mention the woolen undergarments (sometimes handknit on the Channel Islands). Do your calculus. What woven materials are warm enough? And, do such fabrics allow the freedom of movement that a top sailor needs? (Pea coats do not. Pea coats are for standing watch on deck.) Such garments could certainly be constructed by Nalbinding, but how long would that take? And, how much would such garments cost? Could a wife and mother produce enough of such garments to keep her fishing husband and sons from perishing? One advantage of knitting is that it is faster, and thereby cheaper than Nalbinding.
A few years later (c. 1410) , we know that fishermen on cod boats fishing the Banks were wearing very sophisticated knit ganseys, with established traditional patterns that differed from parish to parish. Did they take the stitches from Nalbinding and learn to knit them into garments with similar thermodynamic properties? Or did, knitting stitches have a few years to evolve so that local ganseys had thermodynamic properties appropriate to the climate where the men fished? Run a correlation between climate and the thermodynamic properties of knitting stitches in the local patterns.
I have had a running argument with the Fishery Museum of the Atlantic over "nippers." They say that fishermen knit nippers. I say, they knit socks, and when the socks had worn to the point that the heel and toe could not be repaired, the top of the sock was cut to be a wrist guard (with a hole for the thumb) and the foot of the sock was cut into nippers. This works. It provides warm feet, warm wrists, and protection for the fingers while they hand line in a big cod.
They had this girl sitting there knitting "nippers." She spent as long casting on and binding off as she spent knitting the things. And, the fabric was too loose. It might work for a modern 10 pound cod, but in the old days cod weighed 80 pounds. My felted bands (from old socks) work much better for bigger fish. But, the Fishery Museum of the Atlantic has documentation! They have an advertisement from the 1860's to fishermen to use a patent rubber nipper, rather than "wasting time knitting nippers." FMA say that this is proof that fishermen knit nippers. Sometimes I do not believe documentation. I believe in what works!
Another possible hint, from 1811 if I recall correctly: an old woman was observed using what the Scots and English called "shepherd's knitting" to make undergarments for her husband; what she was doing was slipstitch crochet (in the US; the English call it single crochet), rows and rows and rows. It's faster than nalbinding, very thick, and is documented as Bosnian Crochet and a half-dozen other names where it was and still is used in Europe to make thick-and-quick undergarments and slippers. There are subtle differences in how much the designs slant according to just how the stitch is made.
On the other hand, there are documents recording the sale of literally thousands of Lee-frame machine-knitted undershirts to the English army during the Napoleonic wars (I think it was Kathleen Kinder who found them). The Lee frame was invented before 1600 and as soon as it was made more functional early in the 17th century, machine knitters began to produce thousands of 16-stitches-per-inch socks and flat-knitted undershirts. The better quality ganseys were hand-knitted and I agree completely about the greater comfort of a seamless sweater.
As I said, I don't have the books that describe those garments. The earliest extant European knitted garments that I know of are slightly later; there is a fresco showing a woman knitting a sock and a painting of a sweater being knitted from the 14th century, but the only surviving
14th C garments I know of are gloves, socks, and hats, and none of them involve texture pattern stitches, only color-stranded patterns. The
14th century hat (from Saint-Denis, France) does at least prove they knew either the purl stitch or how to knit backwards, because the flap at the back of the neck is flat-knitted in stockinette.
I wish I could prove it. There are some nalbinding fragments from the 3rd century AD (Dura Europos) that have Aran-like patterns but are definitely nalbinding, not knitting, and as far as I know there are no textured patterns in knitting until the 16th century, even though they definitely knew how to purl. The pieces we have are elegant silk with fairly simple texture patterns and lacy holes in patterns. Obviously it was being done earlier because the garments (stockings and a pair of trousers) are not practice pieces, but just how much earlier can't even be guessed.
Don't forget, while knitting is faster than nalbinding, weaving is faster still, and sailors used woven wool undershirts for thousands of years before knitting was invented. Layering clothing so that the windproof fabrics were on top and the looser woven ones were underneath to hold heat was probably discovered as soon as someone had more than one shirt to his back. The great advantage of knitting over weaving was and is that it is more portable, so it can be done at odd moments while traveling or watching sheep or goats. (Even a backstrap loom has to be set up and limits your mobility.) (Nalbinding has the same advantage and has the further advantage of being usable immediately even if you ran out of yarn, because each stitch is sewn in place and won't run; so you wear a short shirt and add length when you get more wool.)
By the time a sock can't have a new toe and heel put on, it needs a new foot all the way; so the wrist could be rolled up and used as a nipper, _if_ the sailor had another pair of socks available. There was a long tradition of the barefoot sailor, though.
Several topics are involved. First, demonstration knitting is done by whoever they can get, and I doubt they had a nipper that had been in use from long enough ago to prove anything about the gauge used. The whole point of nippers is that they are subject to abrasion and get worn out.
I agree that a firmer band would be more useful, and given that we have evidence of the deliberately felted "salt-water" mittens of Maine and Newfoundland, my guess is that nippers were also deliberately made large and felted down. They may also have been made from worn-out sea mittens. I would think that some people knitted nippers and other people used whatever was easily grabbed, even if it was a washrag or a spare hat.
Advertising isn't always reliable, and even less so when it makes direct statements. I am reminded of a fairly recent series of ads that were disparaging home knitting (in favor of buying whatever their product was), and also of a gadget that supposedly was a fast home-use gadget to replace boring old needles and yarn. Both ad campaigns were filled with supposedly representative knitted objects, and every single one of them was crocheted!
The American fishermen (cod and whalers) used machine knit woolens early on. By 1610, American woolen mills were bringing British master knitters over, not to knit, but to maintain and repair water-powered knitting frames. So, how did American fishermen stay warm?
The Gloucester cod men had fast sloops and fished local banks. A fishing trip was 4 or 5 days, On such a short trip, you can take a change of clothing or two and it is not so essential that your gansey dry while wearing it. Similarly, a sloop like the Blue Nose or the Lunenburg could slip out of St. Johns or Halifax, fish the banks for a few days and be back with fresh fish in a week.
Likewise the Vikings, island hopped, and no voyage was intended to last more than a few days. Moreover, Viking sail rigging did not require sailors to spend substantial time in the rigging and did not require the acrobatics in the rigging by sailors that later, larger, trans- Atlantic ships demanded.
Earlier Mediterranean maritime traditions, involved hopping along the shore, and building a fire each evening to cook food and dry clothes. Even transport of grain from North Africa to Rome, could be accomplished with the longest planned stretch of open water being only 3 or 4 days sail/rowing. For this, woven fabrics would work. Of course as Homer recounts, things could go horribly wrong.
Thus, it was the Portuguese, Channel Islanders, and by 1410, the Irish that were involved in long (10 to 16 weeks), commercial fishing voyages. These were made possible by cheap salt, more sophisticated sails and rigging, a fish that could be preserved with salt (i.e. cod), and a way to keep the fishermen from perishing of cold on the Newfoundland banks. On such a long voyage, it was essential that a fisherman's gansey be very warm and dry while it was being worn. Fancy hand knitting achieves this. Flat machine knitting does not. woven fabric did not meet this need.
You really need to look at the records of ship's cargos to and from Irish ports in early 1400's. Some authentic cargo manifests are available, these are reliable, primary references, and they will open your eyes in matters related to the history of knitting.
additional comments below
Aaron
Bosnian Crochet produces a dense fabric, but it does not have the 3 dimentional structure that provides extra warmth and that allows ventilation and drying while being worn. Works in and land areas where you can dry your woolens by the fire at the end of the day. Also, we have knitting documented earlier.
An army, can stop, build a fire, and dry their garments. Fancy stitches that allow a gansey to dry while being worn in a damp environment are not required. If you look at either ship cargo manifests or Admirlty records, you will see that various navys also bought hand knit ganseys for their sailors.
Woven wool undershirts do not dry while being worn in the mists at sea. They got taken ashore and dried by the fire. See Homer.
The Chineese used quilted silk - and used ship rigging that could be managed almost entirely from deck. This was possible because they sailed with the monsoon winds and they did not go into the North Atlantic looking for cod.
NO! The fabric has a differnent texture. That is why I had to knit a gansey to find out how North Atlantic fishermen stayed warm. I lived in woven woolens when I did forestry research in the Adirondacks. Boiled wool fabrics (such as pea coats) are very warm but heavy and stiff. A sailor simply could not work in the rigging wearing such a heavy garment. Think about hanging from your hands 90 feet above deck! Would you wear a 12 pound pea coat or a 1.2 pound gansey? No woven fabric that I am aware of can provide the warmth for the weight and flexibility of the gansey that I am wearing. (I was wearing a thick, woven LL Bean wool shirt when I came into the office this morning. But then my hands got cold and I changed into my gansey. Now my hands are warm again.)
Note that gansey knitting died out as soon as power driven boats became common. A sailor on a power driven boat did not need the extrodinary qualities of a gansey and cheaper clothing was adopted. Thus, gansey knitting died. Thus, knitters stopped needing the leverage of a knitting sheath to knit very tight fabrics, and the use of knitting sheaths ceased.
Weaving - even the most sophisticaed Jacard weaving does not achieve kind of warmth and dryness that a well knit gansey has. You need to make up some of these fabrics/garments and test them for their properties. Touch and feel Aran fabrics knit from Aran yarns at more than 7 stitches per inch. With cables and bobles, that kind of fabric is very different from woven fabrics. (With bobbles on it, you are not going to sleep in it!) Wear them in the mist and the fog. The cables and bobbles allow ventilation, the thickness of the knit/ purl stitch patterns provide warmth, and the stretchiness allows freedom of movement. It is very unlike modern knitting where Aran weight yarn is knit at less than 4 spi.
Jamestown was only settled in 1607. I'm not aware of any American woolen mills in 1610. I believe the Massachusetts colony wasn't founded until 1625. Are you perhaps thinking of 1710? There were strict rules against exporting textile machinery to America, let alone the knowledge of how to build it and maintain it, because England wanted to keep its supremacy as a textile exporter.
Where might I find copies of those manifests?
Bosninan crochet is pretty darned thick, in my opinion.
True, but Bosnian crochet and its variants continued side by side with knitting through the 19th century, just as nalbinding survived in the areas where its advantages outweighed its disadvantages. Just a data point.
I wasn't thinking clearly here and made a mistake; the late 14th century garments were from the late 1300s, therefore they were before the 1410 date you gave. That means that knitting was definitely being done in northern Europe before 1410, though there is not enough evidence either way to make claims about how widespread it may have been.
I didn't say the only advantage, only the greatest. From the point of view of someone who has to carry everything they own while they travel, the ability to make clothing while on the move is a major advantage. Weaving is faster but knitting equipment takes up less space, weighs less, and can be used with less set-up and take-down time.
That said, your point below is well taken: the greater flexibility of knitted sleeves even when tightly knitted is a significant advantage.
Agreed. Farmers and housewives in Scandinavia also wore knitted sleeves sewn to their woven jackets because of the greater ease of a knitted sleeve.
Not so fast... you needed the extraordinary qualities of a gansey while on boats in winter... and ganseys were being knitted and worn through the 1930s, well into the era of powered fishing boats.
I believe that after the sailors no longer had to climb in the rigging, the perceived advantage of a hand knitted gansey was that, being made in the round, it wouldn't open at the seams under stress. Once the machinery for knitting in the round was able to handle knitting the body of a sweater, the lower price of a machine knitted wool sweater overcame the appeal of a firmly handknitted sweater. When the machines were invented that knitted firm knit-purl texture patterns, the last obvious reason for handknitting the gansey was lost. They were still relatively impermeable then. It was later that the thicker yarns and looser gauges became fashionable and the relatively impermeability was lost. By then the sailors had forgotten any advantage they ever knew of the textured patterns. The patterns were seen as fashion rather than utility.
InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.