Talk:Knitting

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[edit] older entries

This is a good article about hand knitting, but is missing information about semi-industrial and industrial knitting machines.

Achury

[edit] GA On Hold

I know a thing or two about knitting, so I thought I'd give this article a review:

  • There doesn't appear to be enough references and cites in this article. It is commonplace to quote page numbers when quoting from a book and is unclear where large chunks of the infomation comes from. A good example of a well referenced article is Iron Maiden.
  • I think it is inappropriate to mention Yahoo groups, ...but I could be wrong. It seems like the article is advertising a social group and it's not common for all knitters the world over.
  • There appears to be no mention of casting on and not enough references to the different names used for the stitch styles throughout the world. (BTW: Personally, I am looking at this from a British perspective and it doesn't seem neutral enough)
  • The History and Culture section seems to be quite short for a function that was traditionally enjoyed by both men and women for thousands of years.

I have put the article On hold in hope that you will have time to fix the above.

Fluffball70 20:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to do this! It may take me a little bit to get to this; I hope you'll allow me a few days before you pass or fail this article. I may require the full seven day maximum, as I am rather busy, unless someone else steps in to do this, as well. Again, thanks! – Dok(talk|contribs) 00:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been 7 days and I see no progress. As the GA Nominee list is long, it's probably best if I fail the article and let you re-submit it when it is ready. Sorry!! Fluffball70 23:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Totally understandable. Thanks for your help! – Dok(talk|contribs) 12:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I just had to mention that knitting is not necessarily thousands of years old. The earliest example of knitting is from c. 1100 CE. Any earlier examples of fabric that look like knitting is often "nalbinding", a technique using a needle and short lengths of thread. it looks very similar to knitting and so if often confused, even by experts. For citation purposes, I used The Cambridge History of Western Textiles and 5,000 Years of Textile History.

I was expecting to find here an encyclopedia of knit stitches. Is this a good idea? Is this page being actively edited?Newbohemianknitwear (talk) 11:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New external link

I'd like to added the following link to this page

The pages in this section give examples of knitting from the V&A's collections (many early examples), articles about knitting and various free patterns. VAwebteam 08:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

    • I've added this link as I've not had any answer or comment to my request. VAwebteam 12:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Knit stitch

Note: I moved the message of User:Newbohemianknitwear from Talk:Knit stitch that the main page has been redirected here. Dekisugi (talk) 15:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The knit stitch is the basic building block of all hand knitting. This is the text I would like to add to this page.

[edit] method

The best way to learn the basic methods of knitting is to be shown by a more experienced knitter. If you do not have access to somebody to show you, the following instructions may be helpful.

Hold your knitting in your left hand, with the empty knitting needle in the right hand.

Slide your right hand needle into the first loop. Just the tip needs to go through.

Wrap your yarn around the tip of the right hand needle so that it rests between the two needles.

Using the right hand needle catch this yarn and pull it down, forming a new loop on your right hand needle.

Pull the old loop off the left hand needle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newbohemianknitwear (talk • contribs)

[edit] Re-organization of article

I think that this article needs to be pretty majorly re-organized, with parts of it perhaps being moved into other or new articles.

As far as knitting is concerned, there are two branches that would interest two different demographics: machine knitting and hand knitting. The article knitting should deal with content that is common between the two; properties and appearance of knitted fabric as it pertains to the loops and things. Perhaps "Properties of knitted fabric" should be incorporated/merged into Knitting.

Then there should be two separate articles: an article that treats knitting as a craft (where all the stuff about needles and yarn and the cultural aspect of hand-knitting would go), and another article that deals with machine-knitting.

I think this approach would effectively get rid of whatever cruft there is in the article, eliminate the craft-knitter bias, and organize the content based on what the reader is looking to learn.

What does everyone think about this? And if so, what should be included in the main Knitting article and what should not? – DroEsperanto(talk|contribs) 17:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm just beginning to get back into editing this, and I see that I've come at a good time! :)
I agree that it would be most sensible to add two daughter articles, hand-knitting and machine knitting, and focus on the properties of knitted fabrics here, regardless of how they are produced. From my perspective, though, it might get a little tricky; for example, much of the material now in the Yarn section would pertain to both types, no? Perhaps not ball-winding and whatnot, but all the material about spinning, twists, plies and dyes would be common, right?
I'd also like to put in a plea that we allow a description of fabric structure and also the techniques by which such a fabric can be produced. Some might object that the latter is a "how-to" and doesn't belong in Wikipedia, but I look at it as a mere description, in the same way as you might explain how lumber is produced from a tree. Other encyclopedias have included such descriptions, no? I'm not asking that we include detailed stitch patterns, but that we at least be able to discuss the principles behind the methods. I say this because I was recently surprised by the deletion of bobble (knitting). WillowW (talk • contribs) 18:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Summary style would be fine when the subtypes become detailed enough to require their own daughter articles because of space constraints. For the present, I agree that craft knitting gets undue weight (especially with respect to economic importance). For now, one daughter article seems right because of the material contributed so far. If you know more about industrial knitting (I don't) then by all means expansion is welcome. DurovaCharge! 01:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
BTW, excellent image additions. Especially using similar backgrounds; looks neat and crisp. DurovaCharge! 01:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I think a lot of what ends up reading like "how-to" material is really about how it's worded. If you say "yarn is drawn through the back loop into the front" or whatever, it's encyclopedic, but not if it's written as in "the knitter puts the needle into the back loop" or "pull the yarn through" or something similar. However, part of the problem is that there are just so many different little stitches and techniques that it's difficult to tell what's worthy of inclusion and what's not. I agree that it can be helpful to give a couple or a few examples of things, but that often quickly grows into a crufty list.
However, those are problems that we should probably deal with when we get to them. First, let's just do the messy work of splitting the articles and deleting articles that need deleting. – DroEsperanto(talk|contribs) 01:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)