Herstory and Technology

Today a customer came in who was making a scarf that when rolled up would look like Sushi! I LOVE IT! It was fun helping her pick out the colors that she needed to match the ingredients of sushi. I am amazed at how "advanced" South Dakota has become in the last few years. At least in Rapid City we now have several Sushi Bars and sushi served at several more restaurants. What used to be considered "foreign" or for the "elite" is now commonplace.

That can translate to technology also. A customer came in over the summer months from out of town to look at our yarn. She had her ipad with her and she kept referring to it as she looked at yarn. I was curious so asked her about it. She said she had a pattern on the ipad that had a picture and she was comparing yarn colors with the picture of the pattern to see if she liked the color of the yarn for that pattern. Then she showed me the pattern with the yarn specifications, the needle sizes, etc. It was so wonderful that she could take her pattern with her on the same device that she had used to find our store with!

I had another customer, a husband, that came in and took photos of the yarn and sent them to his wife, who was at work, to make sure he was getting the right color and brand. Later, she came in with him and they bought different colors also, because she had seen them on his phone photo and our web site.

Just now I visited with a lady about tatting. We talked about the hankies she had gotten from her mother that all had tatted edges. I remember seeing older ladies, when I was a child, tatting with that little shuttle and being amazed at the delicate edgings that they were adding to their knitted items. We just don't see much of tatting anymore. I know where to buy a tatting shuttle, but I am not sure if I could find someone to teach me how to tat.

Fiber arts: knitting, crocheting, tatting, embroidery, spinning, weaving, bobbin lace are all part of Herstory. Our female relatives from ages ago all had to do some if not all of the above in order to be clothed. We take so much for granted these days of WalMart, Target and Sam's Club. Back in the day of our ancestors there was much time spent in knitting socks, underwear, outerwear, mittens and hats. Before we had factories to manufacture our cloth we spun the yarn from our sheep, wove the cloth and then sewed it by hand. Many women were seamstresses and made clothes for others besides their own families.

Much has changed since the Industrial Revolution. Now we have the Technological Revolution. However, Herstory continues on in that we are using the Technological Revolution (electronic devices like ipads, computers, cell phones, internet) to connect us with the women of our past. I can go to the internet and get a copy of a magazine printed in the 1900s to the 1960s and read it on the computer or maybe purchase a digital copy and load it on my ipad or smartphone to read later. I can find the patterns that my Yarn Aunty knitted or crocheted for me 60 years ago. I can see how the weavers in England differed from the weavers in Asia by "googling" the information.

But the best part of all is that I can sit down and knit, crochet, spin or weave by myself or with a group and be connected to the past women in my life.  There is a connection, almost spiritually, almost physically, with the women of the past when I pick up my shuttle at the loom and weave. I can imagine what the lady of the house in long ago times must have woven. Did she sing as she wove, did she pray, did the children gather around the loom? Questions that run through my head as I weave. When I knit, I remember my Yarn Aunty Gladys and think about the 1950s and 1960s and how drastically things have changed in my lifetime. But I am still connected to Aunt Gladys, Grandma S, Mama, Grandma G through my knitting. I am also connected to my friends at the yarn shop that gather to knit or crochet once a week.

Connecting is what social media, via technological devices, is all about. However, knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, quilting are all about connecting too. Sit outside on a nice day with your knitting in a public place and watch as people ask you questions and want to see what you are doing. Try spinning on a wheel outside your local yarn store and watch as the foot traffic slows down to watch you. People are fascinated with these arts of ours. They are fascinated with the tools, the process and the end result. And for however long they watch you or ask questions they, too, are connected to the past and to the present.

Keep sharing our Herstory with the world. We need to preserve the ancient arts of knitting, crocheting, spinning and weaving and pass them on to the next generation, especially if they are knitting a sushi scarf!

Yarny Aunties

Do you have a Yarny Auntie? What is that?, you ask. Yarny Aunties are the ladies in your life that encourage you to knit, crochet, spin, weave or sew. I told you about GG my grandma, she taught me to knit, just like many of your grandmas taught you. But, I also had for inspiration a Yarny Auntie. Auntie Gladys, she was my father's youngest sister. She was quite the talented lady. Not only did she knit many things, she also crocheted, made human hair wigs (pulling strands of hair through a wig lining one little bunch at a time) and she taught lots of women to knit and crochet. She was amazing.

Her mother taught her to knit as a child and by the time she was a teenager in the late 1930s, early 1940s she was knitting bathing suits for boutiques in Hollywood for the movie stars.

She would knit for the girls in the family (me, my sister, my mom, my Aunt E, Cousin D and Cousin T) matching sweaters almost every year at Christmas. I remember wearing the beautiful soft white mohair pullover with big colorful circles on it in a "Girls Only" photo one Christmas as a teen. What an impressive sight, 6 of the same patterned sweater in 6 different sizes.

For my wedding gift, 33 years ago, she asked my husband and I if we would like an afghan. We jumped at the chance and she knitted us one, with her own pattern that is still intact and warm today all those years later.

I also have a crocheted "cat" that she made for me when I was an infant. She was making up her own pattern and the cat had too big of a head for the rest of the body. She had finished it while we visited her and Mama said that Gladys laid the stuffed cat down near me and I grabbed it. I chewed and chewed on the cat's head and Gladys laughed and told Mom I could have it. I still have it and that was over 60 years ago.  

Knitting and crocheting lasts. And so do the memories of our Yarny Aunties. Gladys was never able to teach me how to knit socks, the one thing that she did as regularly as most people wash dishes. But after she died I remembered her knitting sock after sock for her husband, my Uncle Red (he had red hair). I was inspired by the memory and decided that I could teach myself a few things that Gladys did that I had always wanted to do. So, I got out a beginning knitting book and taught myself how to do cables, first. I had assumed that cables were so hard to knit. Boy was I wrong. That was so easy, I decided to teach myself how to knit socks, next. I got another beginner's pattern for socks and away I went. What an adventure. I can't tell you what kinds of words I said as I learned how to do that by myself! Of course the first sock I knit was HUGE, but I TURNED THE HEEL CORRECTLY.  So, then I began practicing. I knit a lot of baby sized socks until I was better at figuring out my foot size. Then I thought that I would love to knit my husband and son a Christmas Stocking just like the one that Auntie Gladys made for me when I was 1 year old. By this time, the internet was becoming more accessible and I was able to search the internet for these sock patterns that Auntie Gladys always used for Uncle Red's socks. I had already been searching stores everywhere I went to see if I could find a Grace Ennis pattern. I had no success. When we moved to Rapid City the internet service was wonderful compared to dial-up access in the rural area where we lived before. I found a web site with Grace Ennis' patterns! But, not before a catalog came in the mail with the very pattern I wanted! I was so excited to see the pattern that I ordered the Christmas Stocking pattern from the catalog. Then I wrote this letter to the man who put up the web site. He published my letter on his site:

Dear Grace Ennis Graphic Knitting Patterns:
Thank you.  Thank you  for saving these wonderful patterns and bringing back to us the joy of those years that Grace was designing. 

I received a Grace Ennis Christmas Stocking, the Reindeer and Sleigh, for a Christmas gift  when I was about 1 year old. I still have that stocking and proudly display it on the wall each Christmas, that was 47 years ago! The aunt that knitted that stocking, knitted 4 others for her children and nieces and nephews from the first time that Grace's pattern came out in 1949. This aunt also knitted quite a few of Grace's men's dress sock patterns, as I remember watching my aunt make magic with 4 needles and yarn as she turned out sock after sock for her husband.
 
Last Christmas my teenage son asked me why I didn't make he and my husband matching Christmas stockings like the one that I had and I replied that I had no idea where that pattern came from and if I could ever find it again. Then last week I received the Patternworks catalog and there was the very pattern of my stocking!  I am so happy to have a little of my history restored to me, and to know of the history of Grace and the knitting patterns. 

When I was 10 years old I watched the flames from the Bel Air fire from the roof of my parents' house in Van Nuys, California and wondered about the people who were losing their homes. Since I taught myself to knit socks, my aunt passed away without showing me, I have often wondered about her sock patterns for her husband. Thanks to you, I have to wonder no more!


A Happy Knitter thanks to you!


Sue Jensen


Rapid City, SD

I knit two of those Christmas stockings and they hang on our wall every Christmas.

Memories are made while you watch life go by. Please make memories as a Yarny Auntie, or the Mom, Grandma, Sister etc that teaches another person to continue the time-honored crafts of knitting, crocheting, spinning, and weaving. Some day someone that you taught will be blogging about YOU!

Have a great week.
SUE

Grandma Genevieve

   
Every morning while brushing my hair I think of Grandma Genevieve, my mother’s mother. GG had long, long hair when I was a teenager. She had long hair most of her life, but in the 1920s she cut it short, a bob, it was called. After she was married, she grew it out long again. When I was a teenager she used to brush her hair and compare her hair length with mine. Even though my hair was long, past my waist, hers was longer. She had strawberry blonde hair until she was in her 70s when it finally turned gray. She would wind it up into a kind of roll of hair around the circumference of her head and she would look wonderful.

GG was a fun grandmother. She was always intensely interested in what her grandkids were doing. She wanted to hang out with us instead of sit with the “boring grownups” she would say. She even began to learn how to use Tofu in her recipes because it would connect her with me, who had become a vegetarian and ate lots of Tofu!

GG taught me how to knit when I was a young girl. Mama knit all the time and one day while she was knitting and GG was visiting, GG said, “let’s knit Susie, you will like it”. Mama had tried to get me to learn but I wasn’t really interested until GG suggested it. She taught me how to knit “English” style because that was how she learned. She taught me with a very special pair of needles, my Dad’s Mom’s bone size 8 needles. I don’t remember what I knit, I don’t remember how old I was, I just remember that I have knit for a long time and I used those bone needles for many years.

Knitting runs in my family, like blue eyes.  Both my grandmothers knit. My Dad’s sister knit bathing suits for movie stars in Hollywood when she was a teenager and she knit every pair of socks her husband ever wore while they were married. My mother knit, in fact we would help her pick out a pattern and when she was finished knitting a sweater my sister and I would “borrow” it to wear to school. From the time I learned to knit from my GG, I would go with Mama to the local yarn store. I remember sitting at their big round table in the middle of the shop just fascinated at all the beautiful colors and textures of yarn. The ladies would let me touch the yarn and would encourage me in my knitting no matter how awful it really was. All I remember about those nice ladies was their gray hair and smiles. I now work in a yarn shop and I am the one with the gray hair! I have very fond memories of the Reseda Yarn Shop.

Who inspired you to knit? Did your Grandmother teach you? Or perhaps your Mother or Sister or friend? Did you always knit the same type of things; scarves, hats, mittens? We all have such interesting stories to tell about where and how we learned to knit or crochet, or spin or weave.

Would you like to share your story with us? We would love to hear from you. You may contact me at c_r_yarn@yahoo.com. Just put Stories for Sue in the subject line and I will get right back to you!

Thanks for reading today and especially thanks to all those Grandmothers, Moms and Aunties out there that teach someone to knit, crochet, spin or weave on any given day. You all ROCK!

SUE