Crafts
Knitting
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Fabric built one loop at a time on two or more needles, from a single continuous strand of yarn. Because the loops interlock rather than cross, knitted fabric stretches in every direction, which is why socks, sweaters and gloves are its native territory, and why the craft has never been fully displaced by the machine that mimics it.
Facts
Earliest Evidence (Circa)The earliest surviving true knitted pieces are cotton socks from Egypt, circa 11th century CE; earlier lookalike fabrics are nalbinding, made with a single needle 2 OriginSome fabric that looks knitted from before the eleventh century is not true knitting at all: it is nalbinding, a related single-needle technique worked in short lengths of yarn, which has repeatedly confused how old knitting itself really is. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Has Figure
Tools Used
Catalogued beside knitting for lack of a dedicated spinning entry in this atlas; the niddy-noddy skeins hand-spun yarn used across the fiber crafts, not knitting specifically.
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
Where and when was true knitting invented?
The earliest surviving true knitting is a group of finely worked cotton pieces from Egypt around the eleventh century CE, which are far too accomplished to be anyone's first attempts, so the craft must be older, yet nothing earlier survives: textiles rot, and the older sock-like finds once called knitting have been shown to be nalbinding, a different single-needle technique. Where the two-needle craft actually began, and how it reached Egypt, is genuinely unknown.
What would resolve this An earlier securely dated textile find identified as true knitting by loop structure, or documentary evidence locating the craft before the Egyptian pieces.
Textile archaeology, Conservation scienceHistory of Knitting (Wikipedia)
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