Petunia rambles on

Oh, what a dumb shit I am!

I’m reading a book and really getting a lot out of it, and I’m really impressed and amazed by what I’m reading, and then in a flash, I had one of those Eureka moments, where the lightbulb in the bubble over my head finally suddenly lit up.

And I realized why other people publish books, perhaps become famous, maybe, if they’re lucky, even make money/become rich, and here I am, still sitting on my arse, trying to figure out how I’m going to pay next month’s heating bill. It’s because they see the obvious, the things that are right there in front of all our faces for all of us to see, and they sort out the profound and they write it down FIRST!!!

Because the first thing that hit me, as I was reading this, was, “Duh, Well, Of course!!” And the next thing I thought was, “5 minutes of thought in the right direction, 2 minutes of History and a few tablespoons of common sense would have sent you here, too.”

Ok, so bear with me while I set out a few thoughts. It’ll all connect together eventually. Now, whether anyone will care that long, or even live that long, remains to be seen. Remember that show on PBS called Connections, where a whole bunch of stuff is put before you, all seemingly unrelated, and then, magically it’s all pulled together and you think to yourself, “But, of course!” and then you think, “Why didn’t I have him for a History Teacher, instead of Sister Agatha?” That’s what’s gonna happen here. First, we need to set the stage.

In the course of time and real inventiveness, someone, somewhere, learned to use a spindle and make yarn, then eventually came the spinning wheel, which certainly speeded up the process. And they woveth cloth! And one lonely, dark night, someone figured out the concept of knitting.

Skip to our story:

Once upon a time, a long, long, long time ago, far, far away, in a distant galaxy land, say, maybe, Lappland, there wasn’t a paper factory in sight. Not a one. This wasn’t the problem you might have first thought it would be, way back then, because, along with not having paper, hardly no one back then could read, especially the peasant farmers and herders and such. If you can’t read, not having paper isn’t a major issue in your life until it’s time to go to the outhouse. No one had maps, but as no one went very far, and everyone knew their way around, well, see, it just wasn’t a problem. They lived their whole farmer/herder lives happily, without benefit of papers that told them Beware!! Hot Coffee is HOT!! Hard to believe,huh?

History doesn’t record where knitting started. Knitted goods were made to be used, and used they were, worn clean out til there was nothing left, and so even the earliest recorded find of actual knitting doesn’t tell us when it really started. Maybe this “great find” only tells us of someone who was supposed to take the trash out and didn’t. What we do know is that much of the innovative ideas and techniques, still in use today, came from Scandinavia, Northern Europe and the British Isles. Remaining politically correct here, I must make it clear that I’m not saying that Northern peoples are smarter or more inventive than southern folk. No, indeed. What the northern people had was a whole lot of long, long boring winter nights, and a whole lot of COLD. I think discovering that the cold could kill them probably gave a lot of incentive towards the textile and fabric arts. Certainly they had more interest in knitting heavy wool sweaters, hats and mittens then, say, Panamanians.

So now we’ve established that these folks had a vested interest in knitting heavy woolly garments. They came up with contruction ideas, colorwork and patternwork, repeated over generations. Shetland sweaters, Aran sweaters, Fair Isle work all came about due to the inventiveness of folk who initially made the basics for simple survival. The “pretty” part came later, to reduce the boredom of the work, to make it go faster. Techniques evolved, designs came about, styles were worked in certain areas until they symbolicly represented countries or cultures.

And of course, this means that the knitted items got more involved to make; more skills were needed.

I like stuff. Some think I have stuff, well, just to collect stuff. It would appear there’s a smattering of truth there, at least. What I do have is a lot of knitting stuff. I have pattern books, and technique books and idea books. More How-To’s than you can shake a knitting needle at. I have patterns, pamphlets, leaflets, and downloaded stuff off the internet. All kinds of designs for sweaters and scarves and mittens and hats. I have so much shit it’s causing a storage problem. Cause I need all that to make stuff.

How else would I know how to do it?

How else, indeed!!

Uh, ok, then, how did the farmer’s wife make his sweaters, when she had no written pattern to follow, and couldn’t read one if she did?  How could all these folks, without pattern or direction, create all the beautiful work that was done for generations?

Read Knitting in the Old Way: Designs and Techniques from Ethnic Sweaters by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Clearly, beautiful complex work was done before written patterns, and done by many who could not read. They used a native intelligence that apparently we’ve lost.

Almost all the “native methods,” from all over the world, were in-the-round knitting. Reason being, it’s faster! Duh, 7 kids to clothe, using handmade candles for light – yeah, speed’s an issue. Most of the styles were knit that way because they eliminated seams, too. Sleeves were knit in the round and most of them were started at the top with stitches picked up off the sleeve opening, reducing seaming again. (Everybody that just loves to do seams the best of all can step up to the front now) And in this book, all the pages and pages of intricate directions, decreases here, increases there, cast on, bind off are all reduced down to “the lowest common denominator” of native thought – or, as my grandmother would say, “any damn fool can do that.”

And not too far into the book, I sat back, and thought and thought, and then, quietly, said, “Well, duh” because it became so obvious that this is what every knitter needs to do, needs to work. Spinners often say they spin to connect themselves with all those spinners who came before us; the thinking, the knowledge, the methods in this book will connect us to all those knitters who worked by candlelight, near a fire for warmth, rocking a cradle with one foot.

What truly impressed me most about this book that has NO directions in it is that it gives you the knowledge to do just about anything!! And it gave me ideas. And it made me think. And it made me think I can make all of them!!!!!

Many are joining the National Knit a Sweater Month for November. I thought this was a really good find for the occasion. I hope others are as impressed as I am; this book isn’t just a keeper. I’ve got plenty of those. This is one I’m gonna keep using!