Meandering along the Wool Roads, we might peer into courtyards and windows over the shoulders of knitters, we catch village folk walking and knitting along the hillside paths that follow the sheep’s direction. What are they knitting? Most are making practical items needed by their families – socks, hats and sweaters, for example. But looking … Read more
As most textile researchers point out before they make statements with any certainty about the early origins of knitting, attributing the development of knitting to a specific time and place is a difficult task because textiles are most often made of organic substances that easily wear and rot. This makes it difficult to assign a … Read more
Sheep hold a special place in human economies, and they have for a very long time. Sheep tending is compatible with nomadic life or settled life; the Vikings and Spaniards kept sheep with them on sea voyages. They provide milk, cheese, and wool (when alive) and meat (when killed). Their hides can protect and warm. … Read more
Berber people are a North African population that has long traveled the dusty Wool Roads from the Nile Valley in Egypt to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and south into Niger, southwest to Mali, and west into Libya. Berber peoples have included many different tribes – both farmers and nomads. Before the famous dynasties … Read more
The colorways for this shoulder bag are borrowed from cloak designs from ancient villages in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, each with its own distinctive pattern. The Ait Haddidou people live in the High Atlas Mountains of North Africa, and one of their patterns is used in this piece. The beauty of the traditional … Read more
A Wool Road winds a well-trod path in northern countries where cold and wet come together in frigid seas, snowy pastures, and icy mountain paths. Wool’s fiber creates pockets, trapping air to keep warmth next to the body. Wool is ideal because it stays warm even when wet. The need is less in areas with … Read more
The Fulani are thought to be the only weavers in Sub-Saharan Africa who use wool. The English term, Fulani, is the anglicized version of the word that the people call themselves in their own language, Fulɓe3, while the French term, Peul,comes from the Wolof name for this same people. The French term sounds like purl or pearl and … Read more
Known in the West as dervishes, trance-dancers in white wool cloaks and red felted hats spin their bodies as part of their devotion. Scholars trace the origins of the sect’s name to the Arabic Suf (sūf), which can either be linked to the root word for wool weaver or person who wears wool. Some historians … Read more
This project unites meditative practice with practical knitting. The project is a head covering that is light and lacy. The stitches pattern is called Turkish Stitch in North American, and worked well for this pattern because it is lacy without the onerous counting or stop-start manipulation one might find in lace knitting. This might seem … Read more
It may be tiny, but the island of Gotland is located in the middle of everywhere when it comes to knitting. On the map, the island appears as a small dot in the lower center of the Baltic Sea, surrounded by modern-day Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland. If a boat were to … Read more