Fun
Hands-Free Knitting with Belts and Sheaths
A few years ago, I asked my sister-in-law Joyce if she’d show me cable knitting. She brought over a project in progress to demonstrate and proceeded to put her right-hand needle in her armpit like a medieval jouster.
Thus began my expanded view of how needles could be held. I knew about English-versus-continental styles, but this was something different. This went to the very essence of how your needles connected to your body.
I thought perhaps pit-knitting was just a Cumbrian thing until two of my friends from opposite ends of Britain said their mothers and grandmothers also kept their “pins” in their pits.
My mind was still working on this, when I visited the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes and I saw my first wooden knitting sticks or sheaths.
A selection of sheaths from the Dumfries and Galloway Museum, Scotland, including goose wing, twisted, and notched.
The sheaths were works of wood whittling given by suitors to sweethearts, husbands to wives, fathers and brothers to daughters and sisters. Some had little inset glass windows with inscriptions behind them. Others had puzzle chains attached to them to show the carver’s skill. Some were shaped like shoes or legs.
Examples of heart and fish-shaped sheaths as well as a goose-wing style. Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes.
Across Europe, sheaths were made of everything from wood to bone, silver to even glass. Regions favored a material like copper or clay based on availability. Some styles of carving proliferated in regions like a goose-wing shape in the north of England or a fish shape in Cornwall. Some Dutch examples have porcupine quills woven in a casing around them. Ultimately, wood was the most accessible and workable material.
To use a sheath, the knitter wore a belt or used an apron string around their waist. The sheath was inserted between the belt and body. The stick often had a notch, carved feature, or texture that helped anchor it and kept it from slipping through the belt. There was a hole in the end of the stick and that’s where the needle went. The needles would be double pointed and sometimes curved.
Martha Dinsdale of Appersett, Wensleydale, using a sheath. Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes.
The fact that the needles were double pointed didn’t always mean that the knitting would be in the round, it was simply the case that needles with knobs on the end were not common until the 19th century. Since a huge amount of the hand-knitting trade was in stockings and hose, knitting in the round was an essential skill. Needles were made of wire by a blacksmith or sold by a traveling peddler because there weren’t shops where you could buy needles.
An unidentified Daleswoman using a sheath. Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes.
If you look further afield to Shetland, you’ll find their similar way of keeping the right-hand needle secure—the knitting belt. There you had an oval leather pillow filled with horsehair. One side of the pillow was punctured with holes the diameter of the needles. The pillow was either attached to a belt or inserted between a belt and the body.
There are further variations of “sheaths” such as leather or cloth cones stuffed with straw, wooden spills, or porcupine quills which you could secure in a belt or under your arm.
Collection of Ann Kingstone. Study day, Hawes.
One of my favorite variations are the metal hearts that would be sewn to a small pillow and then secured by apron strings or a belt. They had a knob soldered to them into which the point of the needle would go.
It’s one thing to marvel at all of these knitting needle holders and another to consider why it would be practical to have your long needle secured in a sheath, pillow, or cone at your side. And the answer, of course, is work and getting on with it at all times.
Knitting stick, 18th century, German, boxwood with silver cap. Upper part is carved with the heads of putti, beneath which are figures representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. Grooved spirally and twined around with serpents. I saw this in person by using the V&A “Order an Object” Service.
Shetland women gathered peat in baskets on the moors and then walked home with baskets on their backs. As they walked, they clicked their pins at a rapid rate. Having their knitting suspended on a needle at their side meant their hands were freer as they walked and worked. The weight of the wool was on their needle, not in their hands.
If you are pressing cheese, stoking a hearth fire, walking to trade eggs for butter in the market town, tending children, and generally managing a home without modern conveniences, your hands need to be free. But you also need to knit for your family and for extra income. So, your knitting doesn’t stay in a basket by the fire, it sits right on your hip where you can do another few rows as you wait for the bread to bake or the fire to catch.
This is not to say that knitting sticks and their cousins were only used by working women. There are exquisite examples of knitting sticks used by privileged ladies who held their needles in the same manner as those in humble cottages.
Some knitting sticks had wooden chains with hooks at the end onto which a ball of wood could be fastened. Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes.
By now you might be wondering “Where was the ball of yarn while these knitting sticks were used?” That is a tale for another time.
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I had a friend many years ago who had a disability that caused her to be unable to move her right arm. She held her right knitting needle in her armpit. I was impressed seeing her knit that way, I’d never seen anyone else do that. Human ingenuity and resourcefulness is amazing.
I really want to know “the rest of the story”. I can’t help picturing the ball of yarn falling out of an apron pocket into the fire. Maybe a button to keep the pocket closed?
Thank you for this review. Hope you or someone else will expand and show how that knitting was actually done with a needle that is stationary (be it in an arm pit or in a holder on the waist). Is it more time efficient? Inquiring minds want to know. LOL.
Hi there Robyn, here’s a great video showing the technique!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-M37brGx8
When I was 8 years old & learning to knit, I was too little* to hold the needles & the weight of the worsted weight yarn so I started using a “weird, not elegant like your Mom” method that worked for little itty bitty me! I held my “left hand needle” between my knees, basically duplicating this armpit method but more in front of my itty bitty eyes & other hand! I kept using this technique until I discovered the glorious new invention of interchangeable circular needles. So many times I had people try to tell me I was “doing it wrong” so I held up my finished fabric & asked them “What’s wrong with this? Tell me”!
They never had an answer…
They always stopped their criticism!
*I was the youngest of 3 & always small for my age. There’s a family legend of our OB/Pediatrician saying to Mom in the delivery room at my birth, “Oh! This must be the runt of the litter!” Mom was not impressed, but she laughed all the same. We all still do!
I love this story so much. Thank you for writing about itty bitty you and the fact that there are so many ways to knit. Wonderful!!
This week I’m so busy I have barely had time to sit let alone knit A row or two. These contraptions would have come in handy!
I am very tempted to start knitting while I walk. Just doing something simple at first to train my hands and then going from there. I think I would walk a lot more if I knitted at the same time!
The mini minders from Lemon wood are good for holding your knitting while you walk!
I still will knit with a straight needle between my legs for a large project like a lap robe. It’s better for me than trying to hold up the weight of the project with my left hand. I had been taught to knit when I was 4 and discovered my legs helped me just fine. LOL
I love knowing that, Karen! I love that my knowledge of how people hold their needles keeps expanding!
I learned to knit that way from one of my first knitting books, A Handknitter’s Handbook by Montse Stanley. Nowadays I mostly use circulars, but when I do use straight needles the right one is in my pit. It gave me so much more control, especially when I was first learning, and is much easier on the wrists.
I agree about the wrists. My wrists don’t seem to be able to cope with anything over a 4mm needle and matching wool weight, so I am thinking of switching to this technique for wrist relief.
Thanks for this beautifully written piece right down to the sneaky cliffhanger ending. I usually gloss over the technical parts (too much concentration!) but your writing style is so fluid that it slid me over the “boring” parts and I didn’t even know it. Looking forward to the whereabouts of that yarn!
That’s such a great compliment, Chloe! Thank you!
Fascinating article with incredible pictures, thank you very much. Can’t wait to find out more!
Thank you, Ann. I’ve posted a comment with links and resources if you want to learn more!
A young neighbor taught me to knit in Scotland when I lived there as a newlywed for a year. Right needle held by the armpit. That’s still how I do it. Circulars just don’t feel quite as comfortable.
I love that story!
I would love to see a demo of how to use some of these things. The multi-tasking is very impressive! My knitting style is anything but elegant, but that doesn’t seem to detract from the pleasure I take from the craft!
Hi Arlene, here is a link to a video which shows the sheath technique demonstrated by Elizabeth Lovick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-M37brGx8
Hi all, thank you for so many positive and informative comments on my article! I love hearing about all of the ways that you and people you know have learned to knit or adapted knitting using similar techniques and tools as sheath, pit, belt, and porcupine quill knitters.
Here are some further resources including a link to a video which shows the sheath technique demonstrated by Elizabeth Lovick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-M37brGx8
Knitting Sticks and Sheaths: A History by the late Dr Ian McFeeters. Bleasdales Press. A comprehensive guide with extensive photos. He provides a thorough list of where sticks can be seen in museums and collections across Europe.
Susan Webster in Australia keeps a website full of comprehensive examples and history of knitting tools including knitting sheaths.
https://knitting-needle-notions.com.au/articles-and-presentations/
Jeni, so very interesting and thanks for including links to videos in so many of the responses! Can’t wait for more “yarns”! Why were the “balls”eventually added to the yarn “sticks”…I could google that but more fun to learn here!!! Take care!
The sheaths and other tools are so beautiful! That shows an appreciation for the craft, I would think.
I’m not sure that I can (or should) walk and knit at the same time! But I’d love to try with some of these gorgeous tools.
I LOVE reading your columns. It is always something new and fascinating. I am looking forward to watching the video. I knew this existed, but never knew that much about it. Thank you so much for this sharing your research.
Amazing article. I’ve learnt something today, but I’ve never learnt to knit.
Looking forward to the next story
I had a friend who was from Lebanon and grew up during the war. Even here in the states, she would knit while she made yogurt with the right arm method in play. So ingenuous.
Who knew?! Not me! Thank you! 🙂
Thanks for the article. I’ve never heard of knitting sheaths, let alone with chains and hooks on them. Neato! The carvings are so awesome!
I’m thinking of whittling my own, but I’d like to understand it better first. I can’t quite picture how the chain/hook part is used. I can find video/pics of the sheath being used but not the chain/hook or “clew-holder”, as one website called it, I think? They mention that it holds the “weight of the work”. Does this mean you hook your project on it? I was thinking I’d shove the hook through my ball of yarn and let it dangle, haha, but then it’d unwind while walking. What’s the truth of it? TIA!
I visited the Dales Museum a couple of years ago and found the knitting sheaths fascinating. Some of my ancestors were kead miners and farmers in Swaledale and I have no doubt that they would have used them.
My grandmother was from Leeds and she used to knit in the 60s and 70s with one needle in her armpit and often the ball of wool in an apron pocket so she could ‘knit on the go’.