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The Knitting Sheath PDF

32 Pages·1982·38.967 MB·English
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The Knitting Sheath bj PETER C. D. BREARS Reprinted from FOLK LIFE A Journal of Ethnological Studies Volume Twenty 1981-82 The Knitting Sheath by PETER C. D. BREARS INTRODUCTION In their introduction to European Folk Art, Robert Wildhabcr and Hans Jurgen Hansen stress the need for further studies into this most significant but neglected subject.1 They then proceed to reject totally the popular nineteenth-century view of folk art as an expression of nationalism, arguing that the arts of any region or state all follow great international stylistic movements, although their detailed application may vary consid­ erably even from one village to another. This paper seeks to illustrate and endorse these concepts through the study of the knitting sheaths of England and Wales, first defining their use, materials and distribution, and then discussing their significance within a European context. The history and development of hand knitting has been described elsewhere.2 In brief, this technique of making garments had spread through southern Britain by the late sixteenth century, often being promoted in urban areas where it provided suitable relief work for the poor. In the eighteenth century the craft was forced out of the towns by industrial framework knitters, and thus became firmly established in the relatively poor upland areas of Wales, northern England, the Highlands and Shetland. From the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, hand knitting organized under the domestic system provided a major source of income for these areas, its importance being indicated by the great value of its products, the stockings from Swaledale and Wensleydale in Yorkshire alone being worth at least £40,000 per annum in the 1820s.3 In Wales too, the knitting of stockings was an important cottage industry.4 Knitting was also practised around the coast of Britain, but here women tended to knit largely for the men of their own families.5 By the seventeenth century at the latest, knitting was being carried out on a number of curved metal needles, one of which was held rigidly between the right hand and a purposely made support or sheath secured at the side of the body between the waist and the armpit.* In 1844, William Howitt described the knitters of Dentdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire: their knitting goes on with unremitting speed, they sit rocking to and fro like so many weird wizards. And this rocking motion is connected with a mode of knitting peculiar to the place, called swaving, which is difficult to describe. Ordinary knitting is performed by a variety of little motions, but this is a single uniform tossing motion of both the hands at once, and the body often accompanying it with a sort of sympathetic action. The knitting produced is just the same as by the ordinary method. They knit with crooked pins called pricks; and use a knitting-sheath consisting commonly of a hollow piece of wood, as large as the sheath of a dagger, curved to the side, and fixed by a belt called a cowhand. The women of the north, in fact, often sport very *Thc term sheath has been preferred to ‘stick1 or ‘needle support’ since it was used almost without exception up to the early twentieth century; sec Fig. 3, No. 7. THE KNITTING SHEATH 17 curious knitting sheaths. We have seen a wisp of straw tied up pretty tightly into which they stick their needles; and sometimes a bunch of quills of at least half-a-hundred in number. These sheaths and cowhands arc often presents from their lovers to the young women. Upon the band there is a hook, upon which the long end of the knitting is suspended that it might not dangle.6 This technique survived almost up to the present day, its widespread use probably originating from the tuition provided at knitting schools such as those founded in York in 1590, or in Lincoln in 1591,7 At the York Spinning School in 1800, for example, each girl was allowed to have a ‘knitting sheath ; new set of Knitting Needles’ at Easter.8 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries this method gradually fell out of use, education authorities considering it to be harmful to the posture, producing a weak chest and rounded shoulders. In its place, children were taught to knit without the sheath, in the modern manner.9 In preparing this paper, a full bibliographical survey was first completed, followed by visits to those museums known to hold sheaths within their collections. Museums either having well established social history collections, or being situated in areas where knitting formed part of the local economy, were next contacted, and visits made where appropriate (see Fig. 1). Only soundly provenanced examples were recorded, and from these a typological classification was established. A full list of the provenanced examples of each type has now been deposited with each of the museums holding type specimens. In the following pages, references to particular sheaths are given in the form of a prefix indicating the individual museum or source followed by the appropriate accession number (see Appendix). Great tribute must be paid to the collectors of knitting sheaths, especially Mr O. R. Whitehead of Bradford, for their scholarship and generosity, which have so enriched our public collections and made the present paper possible. Through their efforts many hundreds of sheaths have been preserved together with their detailed provenances, but thousands more must have lost their provenance or been destroyed prior to the late nineteenth century. It is probably for this reason that so few sheaths have survived from lowland Britain, where they were undoubtedly used in earlier times. MATERIALS Although a number of sheaths were made by professional woodworkers and turners, the majority of the finer and decorated sheaths were made by amateurs who might earn their living as shepherds, farmers, quarrymen or miners. Very few examples are closely provenanced with regard to their makers, but in some cases it is possible to trace a continuous tradition of woodcarving throughout several generations of the same family. In Middleton in Teesdale for example, Thomas Tarn was carving excellent stay-busks in the 1780s, his descendant Timothy Tarn producing some of the finest sheaths over a century later, a similar continuity being recorded for the Scott family of Walker Hill Farm in the same village.10 Usually the sheaths were carved as love tokens for the young man’s intended bride, but this practice was by no means universal, for men made sheaths for their daughters, or for other close members of their family.11 THEKNITTINGSHEATH 19 The early sheaths sometimes bear simple incised inscriptions similar to those found on the slipwarcs and other decorative arts of the period, such as: BE FRIEND TO FEW BE FO TO NON BE KIND TO AL AND LOVE BUT ON 1688 The Gift is small But love is all 1728 WORK FROM HEAVEN PERFORMED BELOW MY FAITH IS GIVEN THIS PLEDGE DOTH SHEW PAM 1690 or more specifically: I am of box and brass within My place is on your apron-string 167912 The later examples range from the simple ‘A Present for a friend’ or ‘Forget me not’ to the loquacious: Art thou not dear unto my heart search that heart and see and from my bosom tear the part that beats not true to thee but to my bosom thou arc dear mor dear then words can tell & I but fault be cherished thare its loving the to well September th 23 1831 JR13 In contrast to these romantic sentiments, a number of sheaths have moralizing or religious texts, including: Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth (1843) Let virtue be thy guide (1854) ABSTAIN FROM ALL APPEARANCE OF EVIL. THESS. V 22 MARY WAITE14 The materials used to form knitting sheaths were of the greatest possible variety, often being improvised from any available sources, ranging from goose-quills to bundles of twigs or rolls of straw, but the present article is solely concerned with purposely manufactured sheaths. In its simplest form, the sheath might be a twig bored out with a Fig. 1. (opposite) Distribution of the major types ofknitting sheath in England, Northern England {top) and South Wales {bottom) a. Airedale Hearts H. South Wales Sheaths o. Essex Sheaths b. West Cumbrian Hearts I. Eskdale Sheaths s. Stepped Sheaths c. Clapham Sheaths j. ‘Triangle’Sheaths T. Teesdale Sheaths d. Durham Sheaths k. Welsh Double-Ended Sheaths \v. Weardale Sheaths e. Eden Sheaths l. Warwickshire Spindles • Spindle Sheaths F. West Cumbrian Sheaths m. Cornish Sheaths G. Dent Sheaths n. North Yorkshire Hearts 233SO RP*> B E IFRS END nr O ■ FftyT g NJ^B&igND-TO-AL-AHD TPVg 16 g )ZZ2% ____ (WfoeGift \Z Ira,ill But loUP L) & 18 Vi ■J insp »M** THE KNITTINGSHEATH 21 piece of hot wire, while clothes pegs or pirns, the narrow bobbins used in textile mills, could also make efficient sheaths (Fig. 2, Nos 1-3). By far the most common material employed in making knitting sheaths was wood, virtually every native timber being used for this purpose, although an increasing number were made from imported woods, such as mahogany, from the early part of the nineteenth century. The crudest sheaths, roughly cut to shape and totally undeco­ rated, were in the minority, for the majority were carefully smoothed and enriched in a variety of techniques, including carving and inlaying with contrasting wood, bone, hard wax or pewter. It is suprising to find the latter so proficiently used in the northern counties, for, with the exception of lace bobbin decoration, its use in this manner is virtually unknown in either the polite or folk arts of this country (Fig. 2, No. 5). The surface of the sheaths might also be recessed to receive either small paintings or suitable inscriptions written by hand, printed, or even composed from individual letters obtained from newspapers, etc. (Fig. 2, No. 6). Some sheaths were either wax polished or perhaps varnished, whenever a high finish was required, although the majority were left quite plain. In exceptional examples, coloured paints and inks might be introduced to produce a highly decorative effect, this being seen to advantage when applied to the lighter toned woods (Fig. 2, No. 7), or when used to pick out the detail of the carving, where it produced an effect very similar to that of inlay. In addition to wood, the materials used included bone, leather and horn, the latter being conveniently shaped by heat and the knife in a similar manner to that employed to produce shepherds’ crooks. Sheet metal could be cut into small heart-shaped sheaths which, when sewn back on to a fabric backing, might be pinned, sewn, or placed into a purposely-made pocket on the dress of the knitter. In Cumbria and parts of North Yorkshire, these were usually of brass, filed and engraved to a high standard, while in West Yorkshire they were more crudely made from tinplate. Solid metal sheaths were also made, cast bronze and wrought iron examples being recorded, although these are very unusual (Fig. 2, No. 13). Ceramic knitting sheaths were probably produced more for their novelty value rather than for any practical use, but at least two of blown glass are known, one other being of white pottery decorated with blue and red colours, resembling the wares of the Sunderland potteries.ls Fig. 2. (opposite) Materials, Techniques and Inscriptions 1 Twig, Devon, 1870 8. Horn, Annficld Plain, 14. Iron, Llanclwedd, Radnor 23.. (PPleirrg n5,, 3 DB4u/r1ra9hd6af8mo)r d(b5 1980/804/2) 190. DGLeluaarsthsh ae(mhr )( k(b) 1968/160/2) 15. (N(ssffo 45rt00h//14 W9502a)/l4e)s? 1690 4. (Icnmla id10 w6/o6o7d/1, 3M 1)iddleton in 1 1. SRiilpk oann d(c sme q1u1i5n6s/ o5n0) wood, 16. U(bnhptr o1v32e2n)anced 1688 65.. TIInnelleaasiiddd agplleeaw s(cst empra 1n0el6,/ 6E7g/g90le)stone, 1123.. (MBbo e1nt9ae8l, 0iMn/5lia0dy8d,/ l1We)toenn silnc yTdeaelscd ale 1178.. C(Uaanhmp 7rb9orv/i1de3gn 5ea)snhciered 117823 81 Teesdale (b) (b 1971/55/O (BMT1323) 7. Painteddecoration(bmt1345)

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