Today is the feast day of St Blaise of Sebaste, patron of knitting. 10 things you might not know about knitting:
It’s hard to ascertain how old knitting is, because knitted fabrics decay over time. Archaeologists can’t even know for sure whether pointy sticks found at digs were knitting needles or not, given that pointy sticks are handy for a lot of other things as well.
The oldest knitting ever found was a pair of cotton Socks found in Egypt from the first millennium A.D. In those days people knitted blessings and symbols to ward off evil into their socks.
The English word ”knitting” didn’t appear until the 14th century. It derives from the Old English cnyttan, to knot.
Knitting was originally a male occupation, possibly arising from men mending fishing nets. The first knitting union was founded in Paris in 1527 and it was strictly men only.
It may be that women started knitting when the men went off to war. Knitting socks, hats and scarves for soldiers posted to cold places was part of the war effort. Sending knitting patterns abroad, however, was banned by the Office of Censorship during the second world war because they could contain coded messages. Knitting itself was used as a code by the Belgian resistance. Women of a certain age whose windows overlooked railway lines were recruited to knit a code for the trains that passed by the window. A purl stitch meant one kind of train, a drop stitch another.
The knitting machine was invented in 1589 by an English clergyman called William Lee. This turned knitting into a cottage industry and knitting by hand into a hobby rather than an essential activity.
The first knitting pattern book was published in 1611 by Johann Siebmacher and contains 126 pages of needlework and colour charts, many of which were painstakingly filled in by hand.
Knitting is good for you. Studies have shown that knitting reduces blood pressure and decreases Heart rate as well as providing good mental exercise which helps prevent dementia and memory loss.
Slow TV in Norway once broadcast a knitting marathon lasting 13 hours, which was watched by 1.3 million viewers.
Finally, some world records connected to knitting: 2014, David Babcock set a record of 3hr 56min for running the New York marathon while knitting. The longest knitted scarf is 4,565.46 metres (2.84 miles) long. The record for most people knitting at the same location is 3,083 at a Women’s Institute event at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2012. The world’s largest knitting needles measured 4.42m long and had a diameter of 9.01cm. To claim the world record, the needles had to be capable of knitting ten stitches and ten rows of yarn.
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