The First Granny Square Pattern

https://theyarnqueen.co.nz/worlds-first-granny-square-pattern/

by ohpissoff • 4 years ago

44 13 4 years ago

theyarnqueen.co.nz

bregma• 4 years ago

It's interesting that a technology (crocheting) used in fishing communities for millennia and a pattern ("granny squares") used in furniture making for centuries can be traced back to American pioneers after the commercial revolution.

I have no doubt it's true that granny squares made out of commercial yarn only developed in the 19th century after commercial yarn became available, and patterns only became published after mass-market magazines became widely available. I'm more skeptical that the technique of crocheting, a technology used to make and mend fish nets, was not in use by the distaff side of a household long before that and the the relatively obvious way of making piecework using homespun yarn and hooking through the holes of a previous row was not common among groups of otherwise-idle hands. Techniques and patterns have long been passed on orally.

Unfortunately history of textiles and domestic arts is pretty much entirely unrecorded and unstudied because it doesn't tend to leave much hardware lying around. There are 25000-year-old spindle whorls sitting beside rough-knapped stone axes, shure, but a wooden crochet hook? Rotted away. Sheep-wool granny squares? Eaten by moths. Oral history? Unheard.

eesmith4• 4 years ago

The article is clear that there are related technologies, but they are not the same:

“I’m not aware of a single verified example of European or American crochet in the 17th or 18th century,” Jay Templin said. Crochet-type hooks were used for lacemaking, but not for what we now know as crochet. Blankets in this era were strictly made of woven fabric. “We don’t see any knit or crocheted blankets in the colonies at all; they show up in the U.S. in the middle 19th century,”

The Wikipedia entry adds:

Knitted textiles survive from as early as the 11th century CE, but the first substantive evidence of crocheted fabric emerges in Europe during the 19th century.[5] Earlier work identified as crochet was commonly made by nålebinding, a different looped yarn technique.

I can find no mention of how crocheting came directly out of making or mending fishing nets. Looking at descriptions of how to make fishing nets (eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8gQ8MR-bb0) they don't look similar.

Indeed, quoting the nålebinding entry in WP:

the technique is distinct from crochet in that it involves passing the full length of the working thread through each loop, unlike crochet where the work is formed only of loops, never involving the free end.

while that fishing net example shows passing the rest of the line ("the free end") through the net.

msrenee4• 4 years ago

I don't believe crocheting was ever used for fishing nets. It really doesn't make a lot of sense for that use. A big problem with crochet is that it's made with a single strand of yarn and if you pull the end, it will unravel. There's a lot of useful knots for mending nets. I'd really need to see a reference to believe crochet has ever been a preferred method.

I googled granny squares in reference to furniture and can't find anything about that either. I can't pretend to know anything about furniture making though.

wly_cdgr• 4 years ago

It's funny they were surprised to find crocheting tips in a farming magazine. They must have forgotten this was when crochet was part of real life rather than a lifestyle hobby for middle class people

eesmith4• 4 years ago

I had a rather different interpretation. They write the "modern edition is strictly limited to farming". I think the surprise is that an 1880 farmer version contains non-farming content.

Out of curiosity, I pulled up a copy of Dorcas from 1885 - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxitid&view=1up&s... .

I get the feeling it was a lifestyle hobby for middle class women in the 1880s as well.

msrenee4• 4 years ago

Did you get a chance to read the article staring on page 38? It talks about the evils of idle reading.

elliekelly• 4 years ago

What an interesting link! I really enjoyed the story titled "Helps for Homely Women" about the dangers of mouth-breathing/breathing exercises for corset wearers and the blurb about the etymology of the word "doily". Although I can't seem to find anything to corroborate the doily tale...

kaoladataveez• 4 years ago

Good to read this.

jerich• 4 years ago

I thought it was most interesting to see how clearly crocheting was “generation-skipping” with the 40-year periods between peaks in popularity: 1890s->1930s->1970s->2010s

Maybe the latest peak is pushing out due to having kids later in life (i.e., grandparents now 50-60 years older than grandkids, rather than 40-50)

msrenee4• 4 years ago

The way I read it was that granny squares saw a cycle of popularity, rather than crochet in general. 40 years would be a pretty normal length of time for something to be cool, then dated, then cool again.

Personally, I learned granny squares and mile a minute afghans from my mother. Until the last 5 years or so though, I definitely saw them as old-fashioned and out of date. Now they're coming popular again with different color combos and I'm coming back around.

The First Granny Square Pattern

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