You and I call it crochet, as do the French, Belgians, Italians and Spanish-speaking people. It is known as haken in Holland, haekling in Denmark, hekling in Norway, virkning in Sweden.
The craft of crochet is
popular in many areas and cultures. It was high fashion in the 60's and
70's but by a few years ago, people who spied someone
crocheting in a public place, could be heard saying that crochet was a “lost
art.” It fell out of the fashion scene,
and seemingly, off the face of the earth!
Now, mainly thanks to the Internet, isolated pockets of people working at their solitary hobby have connected and have discovered that crochet is alive and thriving. Clothing designers are putting crocheted items into their designs again, movie stars are wearing them and suddenly crochet is "in".
The exact origin and date of crochet is in great doubt. Some believe it goes back to before the time of Christ, and that the earliest crocheted projects were made by finger crocheting (using fingers instead of the traditional hook that we use today). Crochet hooks have been traced back to the time of Jesus and were probably used as everyday implements of that time.
Others say that the techniques used prior to the 1700’s were, instead, naalbinding, which is very different from crochet. Naalbinding, also called needle knitting, is a Scandinavian technique for making a sturdy, elastic fabric. In regular knitting, each loop is only connected to those directly above and below it, but in naalbinding each loop is connected to at least one on either side as well. Naalbinding is slower than crochet and knitting because the entire length of yarn must be pulled through each stitch, but it will not run.
Some believe crochet as we know it could have existed as early as 1500A.D. and may have been part of nun’s work or nun’s lace which included needle point lace and bobbin lace for Catholic churches. However, if that is what "nun's work" was, we'd expect to see some examples. It is far more likely that the term simply meant any ornamental work done by nuns. It's fairly clear that crochet as we know it doesn't begin to be commonly seen until sometime after the mid 1700s, when tambour embroidery (a chain stitch done with a small crochet-like hook) reached Europe.
In this technique, a background fabric is stretched taut on a frame. The working thread is held underneath the fabric. A needle with a hook is inserted downward and a loop of the working thread drawn up through the fabric. With the loop still on the hook, the hook is then inserted a little farther along and another loop of the working thread is drawn up and worked through the first loop to form a chain stitch. The tambour hooks were as thin as sewing needles, so the work must have been accomplished with very fine thread.At the end of the 18th century, tambour evolved into what the French called "crochet in the air," when the background fabric was discarded and the stitch worked on its own.
The word crochet originates from the French word "croche" or "croc" meaning to hook. An early form of crochet was used in France and other Western European countries in the late 1700's. However, there is no record of this form of needle art before the 1800's and Crochet leaped into recorded history in the early 1830’s. Crocheting as we know it today did not become popular until the 1840's when written instructions began to be published.
Mlle. Riego de la Branchardiere, who was best known for her ability to take old-style needle and bobbin lace designs and turn them into crochet patterns that could easily be duplicated, published many pattern books so that millions of women could begin to copy her designs. Mlle. Riego also claimed to have invented "lace-like" crochet, today called Irish crochet. The first formal school of crochet was started in 1847 by Mrs. Susannah Meredith, shortly after written patterns began to be published.
At one time crochet was considered for the wealthy only, for lavish decor in the home and dress. The poor folk were expected to stick with knitting basic needs such as socks and clothing and not dally around with experimental crochet. Angry words were published in magazines from the wealthy stating the lower class should stick to making necessities rather than fancy items that was not their place to wear or display. The poor to middle class lashed back as to their rights to use crochet as they pleased. Much of this idea stemmed from fear the servants would be spending time crocheting when they should be working at the employer’s home.
Patterns from the 1800 or 1900's
look like most of the directions are missing. Crochet has been handed down from generation to generation through family and
friends, without written patterns. It was very common to work directly from a picture of the finished work or from
a sample of crochet.
When an item was crocheted in rows, they did not turn the work and go back the other way. They broke the yarn or thread and reattached it to the beginning of the row just completed! All stitches were worked in the back loop only, unless otherwise stated. The back of the fabric was considered crude and was not to be seen. Now it is the accepted practice to crochet a stitch using both loops of each stitch and to turn to continue your work at the end of each row.
In some of the old Victorian patterns you might find directions that tell you to work one pattern using loose crochet and another pattern using tight crochet. Now days all patterns come with a specific tension requirement and are largely dependent upon the crochet hook if done properly.
Vintage Victorian hooks were handmade, usually with materials such as real ivory, brass, various woods, and other bone material. Most vintage hooks were ornately carved and that the more ornately carved crocheting hooks had a higher likelihood of being a wedding gift.
Most crocheters hold their hook like a pencil. In Victorian times it was thought that it gave the lines of the hand a more feminine and graceful look. Now they are discovering that if you hold your hook in the palm of the hand it cuts down on carpal tunnel problems. Surgeons typically include a crochet hook as one of the primary instruments when performing arthroscopic surgery.
Crochet began as a cottage industry in Ireland with a lace called Irish crochet or guipure lace. In the mid 1800's it became a large industry because of the need of the people to supplement their income due to the great potato famine of that time. It has been suggested that four Irish nuns who were trained in a French convent introduced crochet to Ireland. It was a common practice in that time for each person to become skilled in making one thing and one thing only, such as a leaf or a flower. Another person would then crochet the different motifs together using a background stitch. If you have ever tried to crochet an Irish crochet pattern you can understand why it becomes such a difficult and tedious a project. The people who crocheted the Irish laces were truly masters of their craft. They didn't have radio, television, or even access to very many books during this time in history. This contributed to their ability and desire to focus on such an intricate and elaborate art and create such finely detailed work.
It is still a cottage industry today in some countries such as India, Greece, Italy, and some Asian countries.
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