Although a craft not as old as other needle arts, knitting has a long history and currently used tools and techniques have come quite some distance from nalbinding (nalbinding employs the thumb and a needle as tools for looping). Examples of nalbinding dating from the third century have been found in destroyed Roman outposts. Evidence of nalbinding is also found in early Scandinavian cultures.

Older examples, dating from the Iron Age (400 B.C. - 1 B.C.) have also been discovered. Knitted socks dating back to the fourth to fifth century A.D. as on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Some of the first knitted gloves had been produced by the thirteenth century. Luxury knitting for Liturgcal clothing such as gloves was state of the art.

Queen Elizabeth I preferred knitted silk stockings, and with good reason: Knitting adds flexibility to a garment even while adding warmth. Knitted stockings were worn mostly by men, however. An appetite for knitted stockings spread through the Royals of the time, which created a growing guild of knitters throughout Europe. However, it wasn’t long before knitted hosery was the preference of the masses, and a competitive hand-production throughout England was underway with peasants willing to knit for low wages. Fashions change, and men started to wear long pants during the time of the French Revolution, and that brought a swift end to the peasants’ trade due to the reduced demand for the long hose.

The knitted sweater is quite young as a form of garment; the first known sweaters date back only to the seventeenth century. Fishermen word hand-knitted sweaters so they could stay warm and free to move about their boats without being caught on the rigging and other parts of the boat. Sweaters knit for and worn by fishermen were known as Guernseys or Ganseys. Each village had its signature pattern. Sadly, one of the reasons for this was to help identify the bodies of men who had died at sea.

Knitwear’s popularity increased as the Industrial Revolution allowed for more leisure time for the wealthy. Men found that playing gold or tennis was much more comfortable in flexible knitting clothing rather than stiff woven fabrics. Women of today who enjoy the freedom of knitted clothing can thank the wives of those wealthy golf-club swinging men. The women of leisure enjoyed sports as well and quickly abandoned the corset in favor of the comfort of knitted garments.

Knitting found is way to America with the Puritans and was taught to all young girls, no only to prevent the evil dangers of idle hands, but to teach a valuable skill that could provide income. Once knitting in factories was in play, hand knitting became a pastime rather than a necessity for middle and upper class women. Social class was not to be ignored, however. Since peasants still also knitted, a class line was drawn in that the leisure knitters developed new ways to hold their needles so as to not be associated with the lower social strata.

Eventually knitting became a medium for creative expression and fashion statements. Colorful and different pattens emerged as the art circled the globe. Coco Chanel introduced her first collection of knitted clothing in 1916, made from surplus knitted fabric intended for undergarments.

Knitting has its own language today, including abbreviations, guage sizes, increases and decreases, special stitches, and shaping symbols. There is a plethora of tools and gadgets available to assist the knitting enthusiast, and a wide variety of knitting needles is also available. Even the simple knitting needle, once only a thumb tip or a branch of a tree, is now a basis for decoration and ornamentation. As with everything else we do, we like to leave our mark. Although not often found in a mass merchandise or larger chain craft stores, an internet search for decorative knitting needles can turn up hundreds of options: Needles with beads that look similar to hat pins on the button end, some have wire coiled around the last 1/2 inch of the needle, some are decorated with polymer clay beads. Filigree caps and other decorative jewelry findings can also make attractive embellishments for knitting needles.

When decorating knitting needles, there are a number of concerns that need to be taken into consideration. You don’t want the finding or embellishment to be getting in the way of the yarn, which leaves the button end of the needle the only place available for easy decorating. Challenges arise in decorating plastic knitting needles because the ability to use a head pin or any sort of sharp point to hold findings or beads is eliminated, therefore embellishments can only be affixed with glue or another adhesive. Since knitting needles come in so many shapes and sizes with the buttons also being of different shapes, it makes it very hard to standardize the decorating unless you use a beading technique on wooden needles. Decorated knitting needles can certainly be as extravagant as the user wants them to be within the limitations of obstructing the ability to knit efficiently.

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Andrea Twombly
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