Tag: traditional crafts

The History in Our Knitting Hands

The History in Our Knitting Hands

Cynthia Coe

Knitting isn’t just a craft — it’s a way of holding onto history, one stitch at a time.

When we think of “history,” our minds usually go to big things: wars, presidents, protests, politics. But I’ve always been drawn to another kind of history — the quiet kind. The kind that unfolds not in the headlines, but in our homes, in our habits, and in our hands.

This is the history of daily life — what historians sometimes call “social history.” It’s the way people cook, gather, raise children, earn a living, and yes, knit. These are the changes that truly shape how we live, and I believe they matter just as much (if not more) than what’s in the textbooks.

Take the pandemic. Almost overnight, we changed how we shop, work, and interact. We got used to takeout and tracked packages, remote work and video calls. But we also learned to treasure quiet, in-person moments — time with loved ones, and time with ourselves.

As a knitter, I couldn’t help but notice something else: people returned to crafts. Knitting, crocheting, sewing — all the “granny crafts” came back into fashion. These slow, thoughtful traditions gave us something tangible to hold onto in a world that felt unsteady.

That’s no accident. In every time of upheaval, people turn to the familiar. And handcrafts like knitting carry history with them — not the kind of history with dates and battles, but the kind that teaches patience, resilience, and care.

We’ve seen this before. When factories replaced handwork, when knitting mills replaced home spinners, when the internet replaced handwritten letters — we gained speed, but we lost something too. We lost the rhythm of slow work. The connection between hands and heart. The quiet pride of making something, stitch by stitch.

The history I care about most lives in everyday changes like these.
That’s why I write about them, and why I keep knitting through them.

So if you’re someone who’s ever picked up a pair of needles and felt like you were joining a long line of women (and men) who made beauty out of necessity — you’re not just crafting. You’re preserving a kind of history. And that’s something worth holding onto.

Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, a series of fictional stories woven together by the theme of human connections made through prayer shawls and the craft of knitting. Her newest book is her first historical novel, Knitting Through Time: Stories of How We Learned to Knit. Learn more by visiting her Author Page at this link. 

As an Amazon Associate and Author, I provide links to products (including books I have written) and earn a very small fee if you click on the links and buy something. There is no additional charge to you!

How the Internet is Saving Traditional Crafts (Like Knitting)

How the Internet is Saving Traditional Crafts (Like Knitting)

Cynthia Coe

The internet is accused of destroying many things (quality family time, the dinner hour, peace and quiet, etc.). But ironically, the internet may save traditional crafts – including knitting.

Last week, I read the galley proof of a new book on heritage crafting, “Spinning and Weaving” by Lynn Huggins-Cooper. It’s an interesting history of textiles, commercial knitting, and fabric production in the UK. The second part of the book profiles a number of British women who engage in the traditional crafts of spinning their own yarn and making fabric out of it.

What struck me as most interesting about these traditional crafters is that many of them learned this heritage crafts on the internet, some of them completely self-taught. This made sense to me. Most of us probably don’t have someone around in our neighborhoods, towns, or cities who still know how to take a wad of raw wool and turn it into something you could actually knit into a sweater. But do a search on the internet for how to do such things, and presto, you’ll likely find videos for each step of the process.

I’ll have to admit, my knitting skills have improved exponentially this past year, mostly due to resources available on the internet. For Christmas last year, my husband bought me a shawl kit from an online company. It scared me at first, forcing me to learn new techniques and stitches. But I soldiered through it, and I’ve now mastered mosaic colorwork and include professional looking I-cord edges on all my work. I’ve even learned to make socks (!) in the past few months, using free videos available on YouTube. 

Better yet, I’ve connected with many of you, swapping stories and photos, ideas and resources. With all this combined wisdom floating around on the internet, I would bet the collective skill level and availability of knitting resources has never been stronger!

Happy Knitting and Sharing! Cindy

Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, a collection of interrelated short stories about knitters and those they meet through knitting and sharing prayer shawls.