Here, for your fun and useless trivial information anecdote of the day, you will find lots of pointless facts about the history of knitting and the people who have been doing those lovely knitting jobs throughout the ages.
Throughout history, knitting jobs have been for both the super-poor and the super-rich. During some periods of history, knitting was associated with royalty and in some locations, knitting is a tradition going back literally tens of thousands of years since the prehistoric days.
While it is difficult to know exactly where it began, knitting jobs throughout the ages all have one thing in common.People who knit seem to share an intrinsic love for making beautiful creations. The people who do those knitting jobs have been from all different areas of the world and society but they all seem to take great pride in their knitted fashions and other knitted items.
Knitting In Spain
In Spain, knitting is relatively new historically speaking. The knitting jobs in Spain mostly go back to somewhere during the middle ages around the 1100s and 1200s when the Merino sheep was introduced by Muslim Traders. The Merino sheep, largely due to the fine quality of wool and knitting yarn produced from them, were primarily owned by the Royal Families and the Church. For quite some time, if a commoner were found with the sheep, the wool or the yarn, it would very likely end with a death sentence. Now I know we all take our knitting jobs seriously but that does seem to be just a little bit extreme.
Knitting In Scotland
In Scotland, evidence shows that both knitting and weaving has been around since history has been recorded and probably further back then that. In the lowlands of Scotland, much of the wool was woven into linen or light fabrics to accommodate the higher temperatures. In the highlands however, spinning the wool into yarn and then using the yarn for knitting jobs to make kilts, shawls and wraps that were more durable and capable of fending off the colder temperatures.
In fact, one of the most common forms of knitting today is the Fair Isle method which is a derivative of the methods used in both the Scottish highlands and in the Coastal Regions where protection from the weather was much more than a matter of comfort. In many cases, it was literally a matter of survival though being more comfortable certainly did not hurt.
Knitting In Ireland
Not to be outdone, the Irish have also made many contributions to knitting. Jobs including lace embellishments and fancier knitting designs were common in Ireland and many of these techniques are still used today.
Knitting In France
Knitting jobs did not become commercial enterprises until the middle of the 1500s in France. Since that time, most commercial knitting is done on knitting machines. Hand-knitting has piqued and ebbed in popularity since those days but it remains an excellent hobby, craft and just an excuse to get together and pass some yarns back and forth.
Knitting jobs through the ages may have undergone some changes but the love for creating something beautiful seems to be one of the things that draws knitters, young and old, experienced and new, into a common bond.