Sunday 15 September 2013

I don't suppose I'll ever learn to knit: no patience, no skill, not much desire for the end product. But I still found this programme about the golden age of British knitting enormously engaging, starting from the Prince of Wales's espousal of Fair Isle sweaters in 1922 up to the present-day resurgence of wool shops. (But omitting the current fad for yarn-bombing which becomes slightly less amusing once you've passed your umpteenth gatepost wearing a knitted bobblehat.)
But there is a proud tradition of utterly useless knitted goods and if you have time on your hands, may I recommend a 1950s poodle bottle-cover to hide your desperate housewives' Sanatogen tonic wine. Might also keep tonight's bottle of Shiraz nicely chambré.
There's some wonderful archive footage ... the Queen Mother knitting for victory, Fair Isle knitters knitting on the trot as they tended the sheep, and who would have guessed that the Imperial War Museum holds a knitwear collection made by POWs?

8 comments:

elegancemaison said...

Very many thanks for this heads up, Mrs M. I have now booked a reminder on my TV guide. The other two programmes in the series are also interesting to me - Wallpaper and Embroidery.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, I shall watch that with interest; I learned to knit when I was four and have found it a useful resource since.

mary said...

I haven't seen the other two, but they sound promising - I like the sound of the wallpaper programme, Elegancemaison.

Noelle the dreamer said...

Marvelous Mary! You always provide some entertainment for this islander!
Want to laugh? Remember Letters from Skye? You advised not to purchase it, simply borrow it from the library...I had a whole list for our local library hoping to have some great new titles for this dry dock of ours...They came up with one solo title...You guessed it!
I'll have to get back to you on that!
Blessings Dear, keep it coming!
I know: I should get back to knitting more seriously! Voila!!

mary said...

Gosh, Noelle, I've just been over to visit ... I think you'll
need all the reading matter you can find! Good luck - and hope you have some lovely days with no distractions in the next few weeks.

callmemadam said...

I'm looking forward to that. As Sue said, BBC4 is the channel to watch.

Cosy Books said...

Right up my street, Mary! It might just provide the push I need to knit the last few rows on a pair of socks that have taken up residence on a dining room chair these past four months.

Vintage Reading said...

Ooh must catch up with this. Bit of a weakness for knitwear.

Re yarn-bombing - waste of time and wool!