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Book Review: Knitting Ephemera

April 7, 2016 by Sarah White

knitting ephemera book reviewAny craft that has been around as long as knitting has is sure to have a lot of lore, fun facts and trivia attached to it. Carol J. Sulcoski gathered a bunch of those facts, stories and tidbits into her book Knitting Ephemera: A Compendium of Articles, Useful and Otherwise, for the Edification and Amusement of the Handknitter.

That pretty well explains what the book is. It contains a miscellany of information about where knitting came from, how it has been practiced through the years, different techniques and styles, facts about fiber, famous knitters and famous people who are knitters. There’s information about fictional knitters, knitting acronyms and figures of speech that come from the fiber and knitting world.

Opening the book up randomly, I find a discussion of the difference between the knitting patterns Feather & Fan and Old Shale, a collection of surnames derived from fiber-related occupations (like Howard, from an Old English word for one who tends ewes), a collection of punny yarn shop names, a brief history of Bohus knitting, the possibly apocryphal story of why William Lee invented his sock knitting machine and the story of the name Susan Bates.

It’s a really fun book if you’d like to know more about the history, personalities and trivia of knitting, if you’d like to know and share fun facts about your favorite craft with others, or as a gift to a knitting friend.

About the book: 136 pages, hardback with ribbon bookmark. Sixth & Spring Books, published February 2016. Suggested retail $14.95.

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Comments

  1. Linda Shelley says

    June 6, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    I love all that trivia. So fun to learn how things got started or used to be used. I think the shepherds used to knit while tending the sheep.

  2. Mary Sue Owens says

    June 6, 2016 at 7:10 pm

    How fun to put my love of reading together with my love of knitting and yarn!! :>)

  3. Persistent Vision says

    June 7, 2016 at 9:45 am

    I’ve read through the preview on Sixth & Spring Books website — I love it!

Have you read?

Knit a Linen Stitch Hot Pad

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough. 

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern. 

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed. 

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do. 

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces. 

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls. 

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry. 

40+ Hot Pads You Can Sew For The Kitchen [Sewing]

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