Holding Needles

Sometimes I record strange little films on Turner Classic Films to have on while knitting. A description calls to me and I give it a shot. Such was the case with "The Ghost Train," a British film from 1941.

Imagine my glee when I saw that one of the characters was knitting! She seemed to be working on an amorphous blob. She was knitting rather rapidly, I might add -- although something seemed strange. It was the way she held her right needle like a pen rather than like a knife. I knew people knitted this way, but I'd never seen it.

I dug through my copy of A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt and found this on page 17:

By the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign (and perhaps for a while before) English ladies, as distinct from working knitters, had abandoned the older way of holding knitting needles. Instead of holding the right-hand needle under the palm of the right hand they began to hold it like a pen, grasping the point between the thumb and index finger and allowing the shaft to lie over the thumb joint. Before long, working class knitters, especially in southern England, began to emulate the new fashion, which is inefficient and limits the speed of knitting, but is to this day the commonest way of knitting in England.

Do you or anyone you know knit this way? I thought it looked quite elegant, but on reflection realized I would be terrible at it. The character in the clip, Miss Bourne, was played by Kathleen Harrison. I don't know if there is any correlation between longevity and the way one holds knitting needles, but Kathleen Harrison lived to the ripe old age of 103.

On my own personal knitting front, I'm kind of in project limbo right now. I'm still plugging away on the piano bench. I recently purchased some books that should show up soon, and I've also got some yarn together for a blanket project for the in-laws. But nothing to show right now. Hence the detour into film and knitting history.