Me, circa 1969
Does this picture explain where my love of yoked sweaters comes from?
Looking forward to reading the new book about my favorite type of sweater to knit by Kate Davies: YOKES (eleven signature designs, with stories of the sweater that changed the shape of modern knitting). More yoke wonderfulness; here, and here.
yoke: that which joins or unites. There are many ways the word is used.
Lanesplitter in progress / Feb 2014
Knitting in the sounds and surroundings. The colors and conversations. Knitting is time solidified.
Let us seek to engage in the peaceful arts (if more men learned to knit sweaters in the round there might be less practice of the murderous arts) / Hand-knit patterned yoke sweater; icelandic geometric motif; 100% wool
“We delight to glorify the 'new woman,' the advanced woman. If, however, we study Prof. Otis T. Mason's book, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, we find the 'new woman' to be only a revival of a very ancient type. Prof. Mason says that, for the highest ideals of civilization, in humanitarianism, education, and government, the way was prepared in savagery by mothers and female clan groups. While men were the inventors of every murderous art, women were the actual inventors of the peaceful arts, and excelled in weaving, pottery, agriculture, the preparation of foods, and the substitution of other forces to do the work of the human muscles. Woman made rough looms. She tamed the present domestic animals. The first empirical physicians were not the sorcerers but the herb women, who collected also the earliest materia medica. Savage woman founded all the modern crafts. She was the butcher, the cook and server, the skin curer and dresser, the furrier, tailor, carver, cobbler, the hat and dress maker. She it was who made possible the great modern textile industries. In weaving, dyeing, embroidery, molding, modeling, and painting, in the origination first of geometric patterns and then of free-hand drawing, primitive women elaborated aesthetic art.”
~ an excerpt from The "New Woman" and Her Debts by Clare de Graffenbried, 1896
“Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair”~ an excerpt from Sabrina Fair by John Milton
Knitting cables: CB6 means slip three stitches onto a cable needle and hold them to the back, knit the next three stitches, then knit the stitches off of the cable needle / Mt. House / Feb. 2010
This was the morning of the guitar players and the knitters discovering how much they had in common. Look, said the guitar player, pointing to the cable sequences on the knitting pattern, you have minor chords in knitting, too.
The Knitting and Luthiering Workshop / Mt. House / Feb. 2010
This was the morning of the guitar players and their strings and the knitters and their strings working in companionable harmony at the Knitting and Luthiering Workshop.
I can't stop knitting this soft Malabrigo merino yarn from Uruguay in Liquid Amber / New Jersey / Feb. 2010
“Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of the church bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness incompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night all-potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.”
~ Charles Dickens, 1890, A Tale of Two Cities
And lately, I need my nerves quietened / New Jersey / Feb. 2010
“Knitting is very calming work; it quietens the nerves, and helps people to take a philosophical view of life. It is easy to get rid of worry, ruffled temper, and discontent, when we can knit these disagreeable companions into a pair of stockings.”
~ Phyllis Browne, Hot to Knit a Stocking, 1888
This is the day of the dogs venturing out into the snow-white blizzard in colorful, stylish hand-painted Fair Isle-style yoke sweaters.
Ruth, 79, and her sister Toni, 85, once worked as milliners; originally from Neustrelitz, Germany, they survived concentration camps and Soviet labor camps and now struggle to survive in Brooklyn / New York Times photo by Michelle V. Agins / Jan. 21, 2010
Ruth's sweater (not to mention the beautiful faces of the two women) caught my eye. A lovely example of a seamless yoke sweater. It is my favorite style to knit — done in the round either top-down or bottom-up using a circular needle. A design element that radiates out and encircles the neck in a yoke-like fashion. It makes for a comfortable sweater, it's not fussy, requires very little finishing work, and there are millions of different colors and patterns to be knit — what could be better?
One of the definitions of yoke is “that which joins or unites; bond; tie” as in the yoke of friendship.