Knitting

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Book Review: Knitting Ephemera

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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.

Comments

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

Have you read?

Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use. 

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make. 

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!). 

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn. 

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart. 

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern. 

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.