When you embroider, crochet, or knit, there are centuries in your hands. You are a maker, doing the same thing others have done for several thousand years. Their ideas created the techniques you now use. Who knows what pair of hands first cabled some stitches across some other stitches? Who knows where and when the first yarn over stitch was put on a needle to make an opening? All that matters is that they were done, somewhere, by someone. Now they are a part of the very ancient craft called knitting. This craft has endured, for the same reason that all such crafts endure: because people have loved it.
This passage by Barbara G Walker, one of the grandes dames of knitting, strikes me as both appreciative of history and dismissive of history at the same time. On the one hand, she is celebrating the long traditions which created, modified, and handed down so many marvelous methods of knitting. On the other hand, she does not give a hoot who exactly did what first. And yes, there are out there scholars, curators, and other such people who are keenly determined to hunt down first instances.
I would like to add to the quotation, "When you sew...." I see the wealth of dressmaking know-how in the many vintage books and vintage patterns I have and I marvel at the cleverness and creativity on display.
So, a toast to all makers, everywhere, in every era, and thanks.
This is from Walker's 1970 volume, A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, a stupendous collection of a large variety of knitting stitch patterns, and one of her many books.
