The image of European settlers trading cast beads for pelts with Canada’s Indigenous people is one that many of us hold from our school history studies. What is perhaps less well known is that one of the coveted items of trade was sewing needles.
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The life cycle of wool, from sheep to shop and onto the needle, is bred in the bone of Fibre Nook co-owner Ros Gullickson. She was born in the little town of Bairnsdale in southeastern Victoria, Australia. Her grazier father raised sheep and cattle and grew such crops as barley and oats on a farm in a small community near the Gippsland Lakes.
Posted on August 04, 2020
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Before the 19th Century, the most common knitted cast on in Europe was the thumb method according to A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt. Crochet chain and cable cast on were also used. Rutt notes that Victorian knitting books rarely included instructions for casting on. Presumably, knitters drew from one or two techniques passed down to them, which were often not ideal for the appearance and flexibility of the project, but provided a sturdy base upon which to build.
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Crafters will go to great lengths for a good joke, and they don't let them die young either.
Posted on January 01, 2020
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While most of us are stitching into the future, working on such projects as winter woolens, Christmas gifts and handmade items to welcome wee ones on the way, there is a group of folks in the city who regularly knit and crochet their way into the past. They are the Fort Edmonton Park knitting circle: 25 members strong with some 60 others waiting for an opening.
Posted on December 21, 2019
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What would Papa (Clifton Price’s paternal grandfather) make of his strapping, six-foot grandson knitting up a little dishcloth?
That question was on Price’s mind as he travelled to Ontario six years ago to visit both sets of his grandparents. It wasn’t as if the young man was put off by what people might think of him knitting. After all, he was then clicking his needles in the Alberta oil fields where he worked as Measurement Well Drilling Engineer, fending off such comments from the roughnecks as, “Come on man, you’re not fxxxing knitting?”
Posted on November 09, 2019
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