Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art - Hardcover

Strawn, Susan M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0760326215 ISBN 13: 9780760326213

Publisher: Voyageur Press, 2007

Synopsis

The patterns and fabrics of American knitting are an intricate, and intimate, part of the nations history, reflecting the styles and the interests, the concerns and the comforts that touched every homebody, every newborn and newlywed, every homesick patriot in the field.

This is the history that Knitting America celebrates. The first fully detailed, full-color, comprehensive history of knitting in America from colonial times to the present, the book conveys the social and historical realities that the craft embodied as well as the emotional narrative that unfolded at the hands of the nations knitters. With vintage patterns and designs typical of each era, Knitting America comprises a knitted history of American society. Here are the trends and the shortages, the historical happenings and the social movements, the advertising and economic developments that affected knitting and style.

Also included are 20 historic knitting patterns for todays knitters. Beautifully illustrated with vintage pattern booklets, posters, postcards, black-and-white historical photographs, and contemporary color photographs of knitted pieces in private collections and in museums, this book is a treasure of history and craft, an exquisite view of America through the handiwork of its knitters.

About this title

Book Description:

The first fully detailed, full-color, comprehensive history of knitting in America from Colonial times to the present, Knitting America conveys the social and historical realities that the craft embodied as well as the emotional narrative that unfolded at the hands of the nation’s knitters. Also included are twelve historic knitting patterns for today’s knitters. With vintage pattern booklets, posters, postcards, black-and-white historical photographs, and contemporary color photographs of knitted pieces in private collections and in museums, Knitting America comprises a knitted history of American society.

From the Back Cover:

A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High ArtWars and warm socks! Perils and purls! High treason and high art! Here is the history of knitting in America in all its many-stranded, multicolored glory.Knitter and scholar Susan M. Strawn unravels knitting history from pilgrims to pioneers, immigrants to native people, through war and peace. With more than 300 color and black-and-white images of knitters and knitwear, this is a story packed with much ado about knitting Also included are 20 historical knitting patterns—a Jamestown-era cap, Victorian silk gloves and miser’s purse, a Civil War soldier’s stockings, Zoar mittens, Red Cross socks and wristlets, and more vintage lace, shawl, scarf, and sweater patterns you can recreate today. “This meticulously researched look at knitting in America, from Colonial times to the present, earns an honored place on the bookshelf next to A History of Hand Knitting and No Idle Hands. Thing is, it’s so visually interesting, you’re going to want to leave it out on the coffee table instead. The illustrations tell the story as vividly as the text. . . . It’s a must-have for fiber historians.”
—Yarn Market News “Susan has placed the history of knitting within the context of American history, so we can clearly see how knitting is intertwined with such subjects as geography, migration, politics, economics, female emancipation, and evolving social mores. She has traced how a melting pot of knitting traditions found their way into American culture via vast waves of immigration, expanded opportunity for travel, and technology.”—Melanie Falick, author of Knitting in America

About this edition

• Publisher: Voyageur Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0760326215
• ISBN 13: 9780760326213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208