guess I need a title

.

me: yeah, i posted on tumblr

publisher: .........tumblr?

me: that's where the gays are.

publisher: And what is your marketing strategy on... tumblr?

me: idk, i shitpost at 2am?

publisher: .....and it works?

me: depends on what the gays find funny at that point in time.

publisher: Could I have a link to your tumblr?

me: .......absolutely not.

publisher: I've been looking into tumblr, have you thought of using Blaze to promote your book?

me: NO

publisher: But it seems like an efficient way to get this in front of more eyes-

me: people on tumblr hate Blaze.

publisher: There is no algorithm and you can't pay to promote a post? I don't understand how anyone advertises anything on tumblr.

me: That's the best part. They don't. They can't.

(trying to make him understand that we do not control the attention. We just have to show something shiny and gay enough and if people are interested, they'll reblog.)

This is Cosmos, my publisher's dog.

He barks at my publisher's phone notifications. So every time a book is sold, Cosmos barks.

It's been days.

I think you guys would love to know that when you buy a book, a dog barks in Vancouver, Canada.

"Oh hey these people have their own style of [language A's word for thing. Say, what do you call it?"

"Oh it's [language B's word for thing]."

[item] the way [culture] makes it. 

If you don’t want sliced bread, you want bread the way Eastern Indians make it you ask for Roti, not bread. Because Roti is bread THE WAY [EASTERN] INDIANS MAKE IT. Like fuck, it’s not that complicated a concept. 

“That’s funny” said the child “because 2+4=6 and two pounds and four pounds is six pounds. It’s like the same as math!”

“What happens if you add 6+1?”

“SEVEN”

“What if we put one pound of mangos on the scale?” <mangos added>

“IT’S THE SAME!!”

“OK, what’s 7-4?”

“Three?”

“What if we take the four pound watermelon off the scale?” <watermelon removed>

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.

First is that naalbinding is much sturdier when damaged than knitting is. If knit fabric is cut it will all unravel, either rapidly or gradually. This can be decreased or eliminated by fulling (often called felting but technically with already made fabric it's fulling), but that isn't seen very often. In northern European cultures where a lot of time is spent on boats in cold weather, naalbinding has always been the preferred method for making mittens because when the mitten is damaged it doesn't unravel far (often not more than one stitch) so they can just keep working and wearing the mitten.

Second is that knitting is an evolution of netting, which so far hasn't been mentioned! Netting is also an ancient technique, much like sprang, and involves making interlocking loops that hang on previous loops to make a fabric, like knitting does. This is another reason that I find it easy to believe that knitting developed earlier than we know.