Knitting – For Women Only?

By: Jana Walliser

At first glance, knitting appears to be something only women do. When you think about knitting, you might have that picture of an elderly woman in her rocking chair in your mind, surrounded by her grandchildren wearing nothing but knitted clothes from head to toe.

Today, many young people do not know how to knit. Their hands are used to operating a computer mouse, to typing on a keyboard or to pressing keys. Holding two knitting needles as well as the wool in your hands feels like visiting an Asian restaurant for the first time. Starving and looking at a plate full of rice, you'll have to try and eat your food just using those two chopsticks. Too bad if you are really hungry! There are many people who do not know how to knit. Beginners, in particular, need a lot of time to create their first masterpiece. Stitch by stitch, row by row. You have got to have the right feeling, patience and concentration for this.

But where does all that knitwear which you cannot even tell it was knitted come from? A closer look reveals that there must by high-tech knitting machines capable of knitting even the most complicated patterns in no time. And that's where you find the men! They operate these giant knitters and they see to it that thousands of jumpers and gloves leave their machines ready to be sold. You see, knitting is not for women only and it is not necessarily about handcraft, either, though you might not have guessed that at first.

Kala, the cable lamp which is displayed at the exhibition KNITTED WORLDS, is surrounded by a 5 meter long, knitted tube composed of thousands of meshes. Impossible to knit all of these knitted tubes manually. It is hard to believe in what way those knitting machines are capable of knitting even the smallest meshes – that is simply fascinating!
Kala is available now in the TextielShop of the Textielmuseum.