The history of the hook, knitting needles, hinges

The English Queen Elizabeth Tudor, who ruled during the time of Shakespeare, paid exceptional attention to clothing and ornaments, not only for her own, but also for her courtiers. A luxurious, quaint costume helped to make a career at court, and many noblemen sold their lands, forests and whole estates to purchase clothes that met the requirements of fashion and etiquette. On the courtiers everything was shaggy: monstrously starched collars, white, yellow and blue crinolines of all sizes and shapes, huge pants stuffed with horsehair, various raincoats, velvet fur coats with wide sleeves lined with fur.

For needlework. Silhouetted drawing.

Elizabeth frankly expressed her contempt for modestly dressed people. Once, she even pointedly spat on the simple jacket of the old courtier. She did not grant William Lee, the inventor of the world's first knitting machine. Just think about it! The stockings connected with the car turned out to be thicker and coarser than those brought to her from Spain and knitted by hand from silk threads. Who needs such a car? The inventor was refused a patent. Hence, the quality of knitted articles by the time of the reign of Elizabeth was very high, since so meticulously met the new invention. And this skill was perfected for thousands of years.

During the excavation of one of the ancient Egyptian tombs, archaeologists were surprised to find next to the golden statuettes and precious boxes. .. a knitted sock toe. And the thumb was tied off, like a glove, separately - probably to put on sandals more conveniently( then in fact they wore shoes like the current beach slippers).As scientists have established, the age of the sock is about 5 thousand years!

The most skilled knitters of antiquity are nomadic Bedouins. Knit them made life. Day in the desert heat, but the nights are so cold that you can not do without warm clothes. There was no shortage of camel wool, it was only necessary to find a way to turn it into clothing. Initially, the Bedouins only knitted straight things. And men were engaged in this, women were only trusted to spin their wool. When the shepherds went to the pasture early in the morning, they invariably took a tangle and needles with them.

These shepherds laid the foundations of modern handicrafts - invented air loops, a method of knitting a round heel and a super-tight knit.

Lace collar. France of the XVIII century.

The art of knitting, having got to Europe, was at first a privilege of men. Noble knights, after returning from the tournament and taking off their armor, did not consider it shameful to spend long winter evenings in their castles for knitting. High skill was famous for the Spaniards, the Scots and the French. The national headdress of Scots - knitted beret - counts several centuries. In France, manual knitting since the XIII century has become a very profitable occupation. This way they made hats, berets, sweatshirts, gloves. In the XIV-XV centuries, they learned to knit hoods, socks and even trousers.

Becoming a knitter was not easy. Students were recruited from the most clever boys, who for 6 years comprehended the secrets of the future profession. Upon completion of the training, the candidate for the master was waiting for the exam. It was necessary to prove that you know all sorts of yarn, all kinds of loops, you know how to take measurements, reproduce dense and openwork patterns. In addition, to introduce a self-tied hat, a pair of stockings, a shirt and. .. a carpet measuring 12 by 20 feet( foot equal to 0.3 meters), a yarn for which consisted of 30 colors! All this was released for 13 weeks.

The creator of the knitting machine, the English priest William Lee, as the legend says, did not think about any inventions at all. He just fell in love with Mary, the girl who was always knitting during his visits. Lee wanted so much to ease Mary's hard work( and to free her time for dates) that she was determined to invent a knitting machine. He watched for hours the flickering of spokes, then mentally dismembered the process of knitting for simple movements. And soon he offered his hand, heart and. .. a knitting machine to his beloved.

This machine, invented in 1589, was so perfect that for many decades it was beyond competition. And in the most modern knitted machines equipped with electronic devices, the main working element is a needle with a hook at the end remained practically unchanged. The inventor, as we already know, did not receive a patent for his car in England and went to France. It was not very long, and his car was appreciated. She began a victorious procession through the countries of Europe, displacing hand craft. The number of cars in only one of England increased from 650 in 1660 to 43,000 in 1844. Moreover, despite the strictest ban, they were exported outside the country. In America knitting machines appeared in the middle of the XVII century.

For almost 250 years, mass production of stockings, socks, jackets, sweaters was carried out with the help of such knitting machines. To obtain the desired shape of the part of the product( sleeve, back, collar), the needles were moved manually in the grooves of the plates( needle beds).If the needles were removed, the part narrowed, if extended - expanded.

At the end of the 18th century, a round knitting machine was invented in France. It produces a canvas in the form of a tube, from which it is then cut out the details of clothing and stitched. On such equipment today is produced a variety of knitwear: thin - for clothes, dresses;thick, coarse - for coats, jackets.

Knitting machine.

And why do we like jersey? Clothes made of it are practical, convenient to wear - stretched, does not constrain movements, does not crumple. In this case, the process of making knitted fabrics is shorter than fabrics, and the productivity of a knitting machine is much higher than that of a weaving machine: in one hour it produces 16 times a longer fabric than the machine. For 1 minute a knitting machine can form almost 6 million loops, and this is not the limit. Machines are created with electronic control systems, a large number of needles, which makes it possible to knit a very wide blade.

Along with ready-made knitwear, we like to wear clothes that are tied by our own hands. Especially as knitting, as doctors rightly say, drives away dark thoughts, soothes, improves mood. When knitting you can show imagination in everything - choosing a style, a combination of colors, decoration. And you can knit not only clothes, but also all kinds of rugs, pillows, little animals - just try it! It is not excluded, you will even become a record holder in this already become a sport, occupation. To assess their abilities, get acquainted with the champion, whose name is included in the Guinness Book of Records. This is the Englishwoman Gwen Mathewen. Her record is 111 loops per minute, and the total "account" is 915 linked jumpers!

Take note

With some types of mating it is difficult to understand where the front, and where the wrong side of the canvas. Look, from which side the end of the thread is located, left after the set of loops. If on the right, then the front side of knitting is in front of you. Dissolving the old thing, you can straighten the yarn without erasing it. Wrap threads on a cardboard or plywood rectangle and steamed through a wet rag with a strongly heated iron. After 10-15 minutes, when the threads are dry, roll them into a tangle. You can also hold these threads over a pot of boiling water.