Mary Hawkins, a long-standing member of Knitting History Forum, has spoken more than once at KHF conferences and meetings on framework and machine knitting, still a mainstay of the modern garment industry. She also volunteers at the Framework Knitters Museum in Ruddington. Mary has kindly offered us a very brief tour through the history of machine knitting, from William Lee’s invention of the knitting frame in 1589, to the technological advances of the post-war period. A Short History of Machine Knitting is available to read in the Resources section.
KEME: Knitting in the Early Modern Era
new interdisciplinary research project will be taking a closer look at early knitted caps. The Centre for Textile Research or CTR in Copenhagen and Dr Jane Malcolm-Davies of The Tudor Tailor have been awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship for “Knitting in the Early Modern Era: materials, manufacture and meaning“, or KEME. Based at the University of Copenhagen, the KEME team will be investigating in detail more than one hundred extant knitted caps from the Early Modern period, submitting them for technical examination and analysis, compiling an economic map of early knitting and clarifying terminology as a basis for future research to build upon. A database will be developed to make the information gathered in the project available online.
Jane will be speaking on “A knitting revolution? A scientific survey of sixteenth century knitted caps” at the Knitting History Forum Conference 2015 in London, Saturday 14th November. Her paper will introduce KEME and she will be appealing for knitters, volunteers and collaborators to participate in the project. A blog, Facebook page and Ravelry group called Strickersvej (Knitters Way) are to launch in November.
Read more at the Tudor Tailor website. And don’t forget to book your place at the Knitting History Forum Conference, to hear Jane speak on the KEME project, its aims, methods and how YOU can help.
Terminology of Knitting and Knitted Fabrics
We are pleased to publish an aid to knitting terminology by Ruth Gilbert, available now for downloading from the Knitting History website.
Entitled ‘Words for recording knitting and knitted fabrics. An introduction to important distinctions and concepts’, Ruth’s concise but precise paper aims to avoid confusion by promoting the use of clear and accurate terms in the description of knitted fabrics and artefacts, many of which are already used in machine knitting and in the knitting industry. Please visit our Knitting History Resources and scroll down the page to view or download Ruth’s paper.
It is part of a wider movement towards improving understanding and will undoubtedly become essential to future knitting history research. More information will be available in the forthcoming and much-anticipated 60th edition of Archaeological Textiles Review, to be published this Autumn. As the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter website explains : “Issue 60 will primarily include articles on evidence for knitting in Early Modern Europe, and we hope our readers will appreciate the importance of this long needed initiative and embrace the scientific impact and upgrade of this over-looked research direction.”