As I stand (sit) here ironing (knitting)

[lady_schrapnell]

I turned my first ever heel yesterday, and have now got a piece of knitting on my needles that will obviously be a real sock-shaped sock someday in the not too distant future (assuming I live that long). This isn't at all a momentous thing for accomplished knitters, and non-knitters probably wonder why on earth anyone would bother to knit something using teeny tiny knitting needles, and beautiful wool which will have to be washed cold and gentle and still isn't going to last all that long, leading to hideous dilemmas like 'Can I really stand to darn this stupid thing or am I going to use the Yarn Harlot's darning method?' (Most amusing aside in what'll probably be a string of them before I finally get round to the books: apparently the Yarn Harlot's technique for darning is to hold the sock over the trash bin shouting 'Darn, darn, darn!')

Anyway, I'm inordinately pleased by passing this almost mythical milestone, and of course it made me think of knitters of the past, both literary and otherwise. My maternal grandmother, born about 1900, was a very good knitter, and knit socks for my grandfather pretty much until he died. And of course a lot of women then would have learned to knit of necessity, because socks weren't something picked up at a couple of Euro for a pack of three, and her family was on the genteel poor side (her father, a clergyman, having died when my grandmother was four). Then there were the big knitting efforts for World War I, and again for the second - also obviously entirely practical. (There are some fascinating web sites which have patterns from the time - and thick wool socks or a woolen hat to go under an airman's helmet could have made the difference between losing toes or parts of ears or not, as an extreme example.)

I was thinking about all the many scenes of Jo et al knitting (IIRC, Polly [An Old-Fashioned Girl] is seen mending a lot and sewing quite often, but not so much with the knitting) and thinking about the similarities and differences in how they were doing it - I'd have guessed there would have been some kind of written pattern for lace-work, as for shawls, but the socks seem to have been done just from experience: Jo's once reading aloud while knitting a sock - and says she'll teach Laurie how to knit like a Scotchman! While I was teaching myself, from a book ordered online and also referring to two online tutorials with lots of photographs, using bamboo needles (at least the style of needle - double pointed - was the same!), and the yarn is a most glorious red, made by a company who does 'artisan dying' in Chile... But the basic knitting and purling and increases and decreases are all the same. Then that got me thinking about the scenes with sewing in the Little House books, and I remembered one - possibly Little Town on the Prairie? - in which Laura is taking advantage of the newly-available sewing machines, and improvising on a seaming technique - which sort of shocks Ma, but not too badly. And I thought how interesting to look at a time when something so basic to the lives of countless women (and some men) was starting to change...

Anyway, I came up with a few other scenes of knitting and sewing in books set in the past, though I'd always love to be reminded of more. Interesting, too, the differences between necessary sewing, like dress-making and knitting, as opposed to purely decorative needlework like embroidery. Jane Austen was well-respected for her embroidery skills, I believe.

So, that led me to another train of thought - which was knitting (or embroidery, or whatever) in contemporary books. Not counting the Chicks with Sticks books (I've only read the first), which isn't the same as knitting is really its raison d'etre, I couldn't come up with one book in which a main character knits or does needlework. But there are many, many examples of books in which protagonists are artistic in other ways: either talented at drawing/painting/photography or writing of some sort or other, or musical. In fact, I just checked and this is true of all of the last three contemporary YA/kids' books I read, and is true of the one I'm currently reading (Girl at Sea). I can see the appeal of an artistic protagonist for his or her artistic creator, obviously, and I can see the value of artistic talent as sometimes, almost (or fully) metaphorical for self-discovery etc. Like magic in fantasy. But what about the possibilities of self-expression and creative satisfaction for the ones who (like me) couldn't draw their way out of a paper bag? Do current YA authors shy away from the having a girl do needlework because of the taint of Martha Stewart-ism or feeling that it's potentially too sexually stereotyping? Certainly there are many RL teens who are into knitting, sewing, designing clothes, and a slew of other such skills.

Thoughts? Examples I haven't come across? If anyone can point me to a book with a teenage boy knitting (or embroidering or whatever) I'd be thrilled. (And if any author reading this wants to pick up the hand-knit knuck (gauntlet-equivalent, if you don't feel like checking) and write such a thing... That would be good too.)

Comments

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

Chicks with Sticks... *shudder* I warn people away from it as if it were Satan in tapered satin pants.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Satan in tapered satin pants is -- not such a good thing? :)

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the heel, now the next challenge will be to cast on and knit the second sock!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - I can easily imagine having a lone, lorn sock for a while. There are Christmas gifts to work on! New yarns to sample! Learn something new!

Like older daughter after starting school (and having had numerous books like the Ahlberg's Starting School read to her in preparation) - looking rather amazed that you went back another day and did it again!

[(Anonymous)]

In THe Secret Under My Skin, by Janet Macnaughton, boys knit.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I was thinking of contemporary setting rather than futuristic, but it's still good.

[sheenaghpugh]

Anything with sailors in it, I should think. Dunno about modern times, but most sailors used to be able to knit and sew - my grand-uncles certainly could. I've also heard the actor and director Sam West is hot stuff with an embroidery needle and did it as a hobby on the Hornblower set - don't know if he started as a teenager.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Definitely to the sailors. Hadn't heard that about Sam West - that's great. Lovely to have something to do like that for all that sitting around time.

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

Socks! how impressive. I am actually knitting, or well, stuck on row 17 or so, I want to do a stripey scarf...
My mind is blanking on mentions of needlework. All i can think is the magic and the quilting ( knitting, weaving, embroidery, etc) club in McKillip´s Winter Solstice. I keep thinking I am missing some obvious reference though!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Oh - you should put a picture of it up on Flickr! Hope you're past the stuck bit now?

And thanks for the Winter Solstice reminder - um - made me want to reread now...