IDS 101: Knitting Culture: Purlwise (Books & More)

In Knitting Yarns, twenty-seven writers tell stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped them to grow. Barbara Kingsolver describes sheering a sheep for yarn. Elizabeth Berg writes about her frustration at failing to knit. Ann Patchett traces her life through her knitting, writing about the scarf that knits together the women she’s loved and lost. Knitting a Christmas gift for his blind aunt helped Andre Dubus III knit an understanding with his girlfriend. Kaylie Jones finds the woman who used knitting to help raise her in France and heals old wounds.

Here is the Colonial woman for whom idleness was a sin, and her Victorian counterpart, who enjoyed the pleasure of knitting while visiting with friends; the war wife eager to provide her man with warmth and comfort, and the modern woman busy creating fashionable handknits for herself and her family. Macdonald examines each phase of American history and gives us a clear and compelling look at life, then and now. And through it all, we see how knitting has played an important part in the way society has viewed women—and how women have viewed themselves.

All across America, people are knitting for peace. In yarn shops and private homes, churches and synagogues, schools and even prisons, they meet on weekday evenings or weekend afternoons to knit afghans for refugees, mittens for the homeless, socks for soldiers, or preemie caps for AIDS babies. The tradition goes back as far as Martha Washington, who spearheaded knitting efforts for the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, and has seen a recent flourishing in what is nowadays called “charity knitting,” “community knitting,” or “knitting for others.”

If you’re a novice knitter or returning after a knitting sabbatical, Jil Eaton’s Knitting School will have you knitting like a pro in just 19 lessons. Jil Eaton is a knitting dynamo and she puts her 18 years of teaching and design experience, plus the know-how her popular Knit Simple “Ask Jil” column is known for, into this fully illustrated knitting primer that covers it all—from buttonholes to socks, cables to Fair Isle.

This book explores the art knitting movement, profiling 18 of its most prominent and intriguing artists, including founder Katharine Cobey.

This book of more than 100 crochet patterns is organized by fiber weight, so you can quickly find the best projects to turn your orphan skeins into charming treasures.

Collection of 144 crochet patterns with illustrations and instructions and included index.

An introduction to knitting that provides information on basic knitting techniques, manipulating stitches, working with more than one color, working with patterns, and other related topics.

Every stitch tells a tale. International artists and knitters take a simple skein of yarn to create their extraordinary ideas and stories. Visits different locations around the world where artists are using yarn in new ways, incorporating it into graffiti, structural design, and circus decoration.

Chronicles the production of cloth--and of history--in early America. Ordinary household goods--Indian baskets, spinning wheels, bed coverings, silk embroidery, a pocketbook, a linen tablecloth, a coverlet and a rose blanket--provide the key to a transformed understanding of cultural encounter, frontier war, Revolutionary politics, international commerce, and early industrialization in America.

This book provides a survey of textile techniques from around the world.

This looks at the textile industry from manufacturing to home use of textiles between the mid-1600s through the early 1900s.

Contents include photos and instructions for creating: wrappings, knotting: macrame and other methods; sprang or meshwork; crochet and knitting; rug making; weaving, collage and applique, patchwork, padded work: quilting ~ trapunto ~ soft sculpture, supply sources and index.

In the Loop is split into four sections: Rethinking Knitting; Narrative Knits; Site & Sight- Protest Knitting and Progress- Looking Back. Each section includes essays on these subjects by contemporary knitters, artists and academics. The essays cover the topics of knitting in art, international knitting traditions, knitting as social activism, the oral history of knitting, and knitting technology. These sections include case studies on knitting clubs, artists using knitting in their work, and other progressions in the role of knitting.

The Culture of Knitting investigates not merely why knitting is so popular now but also the reasons why knitting has such longevity. By assessing the literature of knitting, manuals, patterns, social and regional histories, alongside testimonial discussions with artists, designers, craftspeople and amateurs, the book offers new ways of seeing and new methods of critiquing knitting - without the constraints of disciplinary boundaries - in the hope of creating an environment in which knitting can be valued, recognized and discussed.

Knitting machine needle manufacturers industry (Historical document on the competition of knitting needles).

Knitting has recently exploded in popularity. Professionals, punks, and feminists are embracing this ancient craft, an activity that was previously relegated to the realm of the traditional woman, the mother and homemaker. While knitting books featuring such hip projects as iPod cozies and yoga mat bags abound, few explore the subculture of knitting in any depth.

From booties and scarves to art and fashion, The Culture of Knitting addresses knitting as art, craft, design, fashion and performance, and as an aspect of the everyday.