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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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stocking
1. A close-fitting, usually knitted covering for the foot and leg made from nylon, silk, cotton, wool, and similar yarns. 2. An item resembling this covering.
ETYMOLOGY: From dialectal stock, from Middle English stokke, leg covering, probably from stok, stock. See stock.
OTHER FORMS: stockinged —ADJECTIVE
http://www.bartleby.com/61/86/S0768600.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear of troy: can you tell us when knitting became sufficiently advanced for thigh length stockings to become affordable? I remember seeing cliché depictions of Vikings
with signature feature double helix leather wrappings holding rags in place to keep their legs warm. It must have been quite a chore to put them on effectively.
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Carpal Tunnel
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knitting, like all yarn crafts is hard date. scraps of knit socks have been found in excavated egyption tombs, and better still, foot prints, left in soft, muddy soil have recorded the imprint of knitted socks!-- so knitting goes back to 1,500 BCE, at least!
knitting lore has it christ went to his death wearing a knitted robe--in the gospel, its is recorded that the roman soldiers cast lots for his robe, be cause it could not be rent..You can't "rip knitting apart" with out distroying it.. so it stands to reason it was knit.
and in preindustrial days, knitting was cheaper (and more likely to be worn by the poor) as it is faster to make a knitted garment that a woven one (setting up loom take time, then weaving, finaly the woven cloth has to be cut and sewn.. where as, with knitting, you take the yarn and just start!
knitting is more flexible and stretchy, so it requires less fitting.. one size fits most sort of thing..again, very suitible to low cost clothing.
So knitting is old. its seems to have traveled slowly, and recorded knitting in italy is dated to the 13 century-- a famous (at least among knitters!) picture of mary, knitting for the christ child, and to germany (again as recorded in paintings of the time) in the 14th century.
styles became isolated, and different geographic areas developed different styles, the guernsey fisherman have very different styles of sweaters than the fisherman of aran island, or of the norwiegian fisherman!
knitting was a guilded craft in the 1300's to the 1600's in england and other northern european countries (several members of the Mayflower were 'master knitter' who had trained in Holland- they couldn't join english guild because of their religious beliefs.)
unfortunately, since knitting was the clothing for the poor, (with exceptions made for specialty items like finely knit stockings, or gloves) very little of its history is recorded. the 2 noteable exceptions are queen Elizabeth's silk (knitted) stockings, and King Charles, who wore a knit shirt to his beheading..(again silk, with a finely knitted in diamond design.) Queen Elizabeth's stocking came from the spanish ambassidore, (giving further 'proof' to knitting being a skill that was learned from the arab world)- there was plenty of knitting going on in England at that time, but it was the work of the very poorest, and they seemed to be engaged in making coarse stocking, mittens and gloves.
knitting may have been one of the 'knowledges' that came to europe with the crusades.. it might have been common in egypt, or other places, but it seems to be virtualy unknown in most of europe until after the crusades.. and since it is an easier skill to first learn and simpler to get started with than weaving, it might be after the black death sweeped through europe, knitting suddenly was a quick cheap alternative to weaving.. and it spread rapidly... but as populations recoved, they went back to weaving...
so its likely the vikings (as we know them, ie, peoples of the north countries, before the 1200's) didn't know about knitting.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear of troy: I think knitting is far older than the Egyptians. Remember my post a long time ago, about the Venus of Willemdorf(?sp.), who was at first said to have an elaborate hairdo, until a lady amateur arhaeologist declared that the venus was actually wearing a knitted cap.
Tiny squares hitched together like Afghan my grandomther made. I figure bird fibula knitting needles were to short to make large squares. And the same lady noticed imprint of fabric on the clay from which the Venus was made, over 20,000 years ago. I'll try to find that URL again.
What in hell has the internet come to? Searching for
"Venus of Willemdorf" brings up a Porn site!
http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nhm-wien.ac.at%2FNHM%2FPrehist%2FCollection%2FObjekte_PA_01_E.html
I tried making a shorter link, but couldn't copy it, wh;en I tried to it just brought up the site again.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The village stocks - used for punishment - are often pictured as trapping the malefactor by the head and wrists, but I believe that originally, and mainly, they held people by the ankles. Presumably the origin of the word 'stocks' is the same as for stocking.
The history of knitting was super.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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By the way, what does 'Ya hoser!' mean, please?
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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RE:what does 'Ya hoser!' mean, please?
this is a thread crosser.. Ya hoser is a term used by canadians to other canadians, (and made popular by a canadian TV series that got picked up by any number of TV's in a whole bunch of norther US states, and then was actually broadcast by some US stations..)the MacKensey brothers -- i think--(i've seen excerpts.. never the whole show, but it was popular in norther NH, where there are plenty of canadian immigrants.. in any case it was just a play on words.. hoser,/hosier sort of thing... (hoser rhymes with rose(r)...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Re:about the Venus of Willemdorf(?sp.), who was at first said to have an elaborate hairdo, until a lady amateur arhaeologist declared that the venus was actually wearing a knitted cap.
i remember reading something about that-- but not that the 'hairdo' was definately knitting... just that is was a textile of some sort, woven, or knit, or netted.... its hard to tell. knitting might well be much older than 1,500 BCE-- but i don't know of anything that is definative..
weaving is a much more logic thing. since you can weave with out a loom (finger weaving) or even woven sticks, strips of wood-- kids still do it to day out of 'popsticks' the stick in the center of a frozen popcycle..
and weaver birds -- really do weave (over/under with bits of grass and strings..) but there is no 'natural' form of knitting..
it starts with finger loops.. (which are univeral) a slip knot and nested loops from the knot.. but moving from that single strand to knitted cloth is a big leap.
early knitting might have been done on spools- of various sizes.. large ones for garments, medium ones for socks, small one for fingertips on gloves..
and in scandinavia, there is a knitting style that uses what i would call a knitting jenny-- similar to a spool, but rectangualar, not round; it is made from parallel pieces of wood, set with pegs on top. the yarn is wound over the pegs in a pattern (similar to the shape of 'loop' in script writing, but doubled) and the stitches are formed by using a hook or pin to pull one layer of yarn over an other..(just as done in spool knitting)
no one knows if this form of 'knitting' came first, with needles knitting following..
knitting with needles is much more versital.
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old hand
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old hand
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what does 'Ya hoser!' mean, please?
Just to add to what helen wrote...
It's usually used in the sense of "loser". As in, "You're such a hoser, eh?" You gotta watch Strange Brew (it's an older movie, maybe 15 or so years old, and stars Bob & Doug MacKenzie), then you'll get the "hoser" thing. Or else you'll think Canadian comedians are a buncha loonies.
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