ancient knitter

Omg

Knitting finished as of last night! Still need to weave in a few ends, wash, and block.

It's warm... it's fashionable.... it's hot coo-ture!

i made a the pigeon sweater (by Michelle Tsai) for my friend! i've been wanting to make another top for ages, but I have way too many sweaters already, so when she mentioned seeing a sweater she really wanted it was like serendipity 🕊️

i'm so psyched with how this turned out; she lives over a thousand miles from me so i had nothing but some measurements, math, and a lot of faith that this would fit properly (and it does!! perfectly!!)

and its sister, "You can still do that even though the pattern doesn't tell you to"

Matcha themed kitten catch mittens are finally done!! Not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud of these 🤍💚

I even knitted a gauge swatch on 2mm needles to adapt the pattern to a baby version. It was torture. Be proud of me.

Pattern: Kitten Catch Mittens by Florence Miller Yarn: Knitting for Olive Merino in Pea Shoots and Wheat

dividers

Firstly, you don't just need two sticks. You need at least two (fairly) identically sized, (fairly) identically weighted, straight, smooth sticks that are strong enough to carry the weight of what you're making. Which isn't impossible to do with bronze age technology, but it's gonna take time or money. And every time you change gauge of thread, or want a different tightness of fabric from the same artisan, you need a new size of needles. A loom is more flexible about these things. Nalbinding, which looks very similar and fills a similar niche, is more flexible about these things and uses way less resources.

Secondly, it's probably older than the 12th century sock find. That thing has colorwork and a shortrow heel. Not something you do instinctually, not something you figure out on your first or second or fourth attempt if you've never seen it done. So we know it's older. We also know from contextual evidence that it doesn't show up in texts or art or myths before the Middle Ages, so... Not hugely older. It's hard to find archaeological evidence because almost every part of knitting, until fairly recently, was made of material that loves to decay. And if you were to find a knitting needle... It's a pointy stick. Made of wood, maybe bone. Even in the context of lying in a dwelling, that could be many, many things. Loom weights are slightly easier to categorize.

So: Harder, and probably slower to work. Fragile tools, which are probably difficult to make in standardized sizes. Hard to get a consistent gauge you can price for the market. Like you said, these issues aren't impossible, but they might make it less economical, and less likely to become popular.

It's probably not a coincidence that our earliest knitted artifacts are socks, which are A) more durable than most knitted clothes, B) normally knit with heavier yarn than thread, and C) an item much more suited to knitting than weaving, so there's a stronger incentive.

When you have to produce all textile goods for your family, of course you’re going to go for economy. I saw somewhere that it would generally take two or three hand-spinners to produce enough yarn for one weaver, so I can’t imagine how that would translate to knitting or crochet which use a lot more yarn.

Also, worn out woven fabric can be cut down and repurposed into other useful items, while knitting and crochet would come apart if you tried to cut it.

Naalbinding, as mentioned above, is much older than knitting! It uses what is essentially a single large-eyed needle similar to a tapestry needle. A type of needle that you could also use while making your weavings. But additionally, while knitting and crochet are ideal for using a long, single length of yarn, Naalbinding excels at using shorter lengths of yarn - If I use anything longer than 3 ft (about 1m) I run into problems very quickly.

Now when you're weaving? Any loom is going to have waste yarn in the warp - this is how it holds the tension needed to weave. Even on the small table looms I've worked with these scraps can be about 1-2 ft of yarn - a great size for Naalbinding, but extremely difficult to use for knitting or crochet. It's very efficient to take these weaving ends - yarn and thread that's already been worked heavily to simply get into yarn for the weaving! - and use them for naalbinding.

We don't really weave socks because, well. They're a tube. And not just a tube, but to be comfortable, it's a closed tube! With a curvy end! and decreases! This would be really hard to make via weaving, which excels in Flat Rectangles (see: why a lot of Ancient clothing was Flat Rectangles with Fancy Pinning) and simpler shapes.

Even knitting has some issues with socks - though I'm fairly sure knitted socks are going to be more comfortable than naalbound ones, as the fabric has a more even drape. It's not just two even sticks of the same size that you need for knitting a tube - it's a minimum of four. Usually five!

It's also easier to make increases and decreases in naalbinding than knitting, IMO. A closed tube is honestly ideal for the craft, especially if you are fitting it to yourself or a close relative as a mitten or a sock. Like, say, when you're both crafting next to the campfire and every row or two you can hold up the item against their body, and be sure you're on the right track for the fit.

Unsurprisingly they are made of stone. You put a slightly oversized stick there and rub the stone along it until it fits into the groove with no gaps. This one was for arrow shafts (source: https://sandiegoarchaeology.org/artifact-of-the-week-shaft-straightener/)

Here's another one, repurposed from a stone axe:

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357166805_New_Data_for_Research_on_the_Early_Bronze_Age_in_Northern_Poland_2350-1600_BC. Figure 4, page 481.

But you could make these to produce any diameter, and use either sticks or split wood. (As a woodworker myself I'd go for split wood--easier to do in bulk and stronger due to avoiding the pith).

Meaning needles, including 5+ set dpns, would have been well within the technological grasp of, at the very latest, neolithic peoples. Not that they did--i'm just saying, making wooden knitting needles would not have been a hardship at all, including sets of different gauges. And we know stone age peoples had knowledge of the wood they were using; certainly enough to know what species of tree to use. So, split some green ash, round and smooth it on your shaft straightener, whittle the end to a nice point, smooth that on the rock also, let dry a while, and repeat as needed. A lot of modern wooden needles are made from softwood (looking at you, knitpicks laminated birch needles that snapped as soon as I touched them), so remember that hardwood needles would be much much stronger and less delicate. Finer gauge wooden needles still are always going to be somewhat delicate, but theyre usable for a lot of people, so I don't think they should be ruled out by any means.