Crochet
SOFT TOOLS / Pulling through
There is much speculation about where and when crochet has originated. Opposite to medieval paintings depicting knitting, there are no written nor painted sources of crochet. It gained mostly recognition under its nickname poor man’s lace, as it replaced the much more expensive real thing. Only a trained eye can distinguish the crochet lace from the bobbin lace.
The Chambers 20th Century Dictionary definition of crochet is “looping done with a small hook”. Until the 1960ies, crochet was indeed done with a small hook and mostly with the intention to look like lace. Another definition says: producing a textile using a hook which contains a single loop.
At Soft Connection Lab, we’ve created our own definition, which skips the hook: making a textile connection by pulling a single strand through a single loop. Whereas for knitting, you pull a single strand through multiple loops. What we find interesting about crochet as a pulling through-connection, is the fact that the construction can not only be used to build up a textile on itself, but also to easily assemble parts together. Moreover, it can be disassembled very quickly, making it very suitable in the context of design for disassembly.
Roots
There is much speculation about where and when crochet has originated. Crochet is frequently linked to knitting. Some assume it is even as old as knitting. Opposite to medieval paintings depicting knitting, there are no written nor painted sources of crochet.
The word crochet results from the old French name for hook, a “croc”. Ladies of the French nobility began writing on the “crochet” subject from the mid 19th century on, quickly followed by Belgian and Spanish noble women. Young ladies educated on the continent brought crochet to Britain and America.
Before 1850 crochet was not much used in England. Lace articles were much in demand for clothing and household items, but the cost of traditionally manufactured lace became exorbitant. Creating crochet lace went four times faster than bobbin or needle lace. = allemaal over UK? Why deze twee landen?
The embroidery tambour hook was used to turn the finest yarns into the most refined patterns. Only a trained eye can distinguish the crochet lace from the bobbin lace. Despite the meticulous work to make the lace imitation, crochet lace had two derogatory nicknames: poor man’s lace and nun’s lace. One can imagine that crochet lace makers did their utter best to copy as close as possible the more expensive lace.
In Ireland however, crochet as home industry was introduced somehow earlier than in England and Wales, because Irish crochet lace functioned as replacement income during the potato famine of 1845-47. During a hundred years, lace crochet remained quite traditional in the use of yarn and stitches. Only around 1960 people began to experiment with stitches, thicker yarns and needles.
Traditional applications
Crochet is more present as a textile construction as we might think.
Homecraft and handmade crochet
From its origins in the 1850ies to copy lace, the handcraft evolved to a very popular and free-in-expression-craft only in the 1970ies. There was a big market evolving around needlecraft for domestic use, such as garments, bags and interior items. Numerous were the shops and tutorial-magazines. Glossy woman magazines such as Elle had a DIY needlecraft section until the 1990ies. Today, there are very few hobbyist wool stores left, the few remaining have extended their offer with ready-made accessories and garments, as the needlecraft items do not provide enough turnover.
Very popular items in tutorials from the 1970ies were bedspreads, rugs, mesh curtains and mesh beachwear. The revival of the 1970ies crochet was not only driven by the country-style nostalgia, but also by the demand for faster handwork and results. The market offered yarns, tutorials and hooks as well for fine mesh like crochet, and for chunky rope carpets or bed sprays. Over the last forty years, young people know less and less about needlecraft. Since mixed school education systems provided a broader range of handcraft skills, for both boys and girls, there’s fewer time for needlecrafts in general and crochet in particular.
Handmade utility objects
There are still a few handmade crochet items for practical (household)use. Both items, the scouring pad and the glove, are made in very coarse yarns and have the intention to scratch the surface. The scouring pads for pots, the glove for the skin. The disappearance of these crochet household items must surely be linked to the much cheaper mass-produced alternatives on the market. Most crochet stitches to build up textile can’t be done mechanically, but only by hand, which makes them expensive.
Machine made crochet
Decorative tapes/haberdasheries
Machinal crochet in the form of a chain stitch is frequently found in haberdasheries. The tapes assembled by parallel chainstitch are meant to replace the more expensive woven haberdashery tapes. The good side of the tape is the stitch side, not the loop side.
Crochet is also used as an ingenious construction method in haberdasheries. The loose and visible chain stitches keep the curls and tassels neatly in place when on display, they are meant to be taken off once the decorative tape is in use. These chain stitches go off in a single hand movement.
Closing paper bags
Machine made chain stitches are frequently used to close paper bags, with the intention to open them up easily. It does take a bit of patience to open the bags in a single hand movement. Luckily there are tutorials showing to do it in a fluent way.
Medical tapes
Certain tapes and tubes for medical use are made by crocheting on a loom. Some technical fabrics are also made by forming crochet loops. The fabric knitting industry talks about warp and weft knitting. Warp knitting differs from weft knitting. In warp knitting each needle loops its own thread and builds a zig zag construction in a vertical way, opposite to weft knitting, where one thread crosses all the loops of one row in a horizontal direction. This is illustrated by the comparative diagram: adding a colored thread in both constructions, you see for the weft knitting a horizontal stripe, for the warp knitting a vertical stripe. We can conclude that weft knitting is simply knitting, and warp knitting is crochet. The first patent for a warp knitting machine dates from 1778. A company in the UK specialized in warp knit fabrics is John Heathcoat.
