While the origins of knitting are unclear, we know it has been practised in many different parts of the world, over many centuries, producing objects of great beauty as well as items fulfilling practical needs. When done by hand, it has used simple tools, such as hand-carved sticks of wood, bone, quill and ivory or metal wires and fine steel knitting needles that were commonplace in the 19th century. Hand-knitting today is most closely associated with flat-knitting, which is worked in rows using two knitting needles and where the piece is turned from front to back on each row.
But there is also a long history of knitting 'in the round'. Here, four or five needles are used to create a continuous seamless tube β a technique particularly used for caps, stockings and gloves.
Today's dominance of flat-knitting is partly because it's easier to represent on construction charts and patterns. An early woollen item in our collection is a pair of socks from Egypt that date from the 3rd to 5th century AD. Some believe that this technique was a forerunner of the faster method of knitting with two or more needles. The earliest example of double-needle knitting in our collection was made in North Africa in about β , during a period of Islamic rule.
The blue and white abstract design echoes the colour combinations and patterning found in Islamic ceramics. It's likely the sock's shaping was achieved by changing the size of the needles during knitting. We know from archaeological finds in medieval cities and surviving tax lists that the use of knitted goods spread in Europe from the 14th century. In England, the manufacture of knitted caps was sufficiently important to merit control by parliament.
The Cappers Act of stated that every person above the age of six years except for "Maids, Ladies, Gentlewomen, Noble Personages, and every Lord, Knight and Gentleman of 20 Marks Land" in England on Sundays and holidays should wear except when travelling , "a Cap of Wool knit, thicked and dressed in England, made within this Realm, and only dressed and finished by some of the Trade of Cappers, upon pain to forfeit for every Day of not wearing three Shillings four Pence".
