Margrethe Hald’s definition of nålebinding presented in the preceding post was intended to describe older textiles of Danish origin. She only used the name in Danish discourse and called it “looped needle-netting” in English. Nonetheless, nålebinding (lit. ‘needle binding’) made its way into the yarncraft vocabulary where it is now firmly established. Alongside the anglicized ‘nalbinding’ it names both… Continue reading Nalbinding: stitch structures
In an earlier post about a Swedish looped purse made in 1693, I noted that the name given to that craft — virka — has been used over time for a number of different crafts. It next appears in a dialect dictionary compiled during the late 1790s, in the definition of sömma, a common Swedish designation for what is… Continue reading Nalbinding: derivation and description
The long cylindrical hook normally associated with Tunisian crochet doesn’t differ physically from a hooked knitting needle. The past few posts here have considered evidence of that tool having been co-opted for some form of crochet before the first descriptions of Tunisian stitches were published. In contrast, the double-ended hook appears to have been taken into the… Continue reading The double-end tricot hook
Some software displays the first image in a WordPress blog as a banner. I’m therefore prefacing this post with a suitable early–20th-century tutorial photo of slip stitches made with what is labeled an ordinary crochet hook, advertised as available in lengths of “5, 8, 10, 12 and 14 inches” (and in a customary range of gauges).… Continue reading A Scottish knitter
Frances Lambert was the first English author to discuss the history of crochet. She made a summary presentation in 1842 that she expanded two years later: Crochet – a species of knitting originally practised by the peasants in Scotland, with a small hooked needle called a shepherd’s hook – has within the last seven years,… Continue reading Scottish knitting
As discussed in earlier posts, Cornelia Mee and Mary Austin describe a craft they called crochet à tricoter in a series of five booklets published between 1858 and 1861. What I hadn’t either noticed or noted previously is that the first three are titled Crochet à la Tricoter but the authors shorten this to Crochet… Continue reading Name change in 1861
An earlier post on long-hook crochet promised further details about the five-part series on Crochet à la Tricoter published by Cornelia Mee and Mary Austin between 1858 and 1861 (but not yet available online). The first volume does not indicate the date of its publication but it was advertised in the 25 November 1858 edition of… Continue reading Long-hook crochet in 1859
