Enhanced with more than three hundred images, a comprehensive history of knitting in America includes twenty historical knitting patterns.

“Susan has placed the history of knitting within the context of American history, so we can clearly see how knitting is intertwined with such subjects as geography, migration, politics, economics, female emancipation, and evolving social mores. She has traced how a melting pot of knitting traditions found their way into American culture via vast waves of immigration, expanded opportunity for travel, and technology.” —Melanie Falick This is the history that Knitting America celebrates. Beautifully illustrated with vintage pattern booklets, posters, postcards, black-and-white historical photographs, and contemporary color photographs of knitted pieces in private collections and in museums, this book is an exquisite view of America through the handiwork of its knitters.

Highlighted by profiles of a number of artisans and farmers, this beautifully illustrated handbook presents thirty original knitting patterns, ranging in difficulty from basic to advanced and in style from traditional to contemporary. Originally published as Knitting in America. Reprint.

“Fascinating . . . What is remarkable about this book is that a history of knitting can function so well as a survey of the changes in women’s rolse over time.”—The New York Times Book Review An historian and lifelong knitter, Anne Macdonald expertly guides readers on a revealing tour of the history of knitting in America. In No Idle Hands, Macdonald considers how the necessity—and the pleasure—of knitting has shaped women’s lives. Here is the Colonial woman for whom idleness was a sin, and her Victorian counterpart, who enjoyed the pleasure of knitting while visiting with friends; the war wife eager to provide her man with warmth and comfort, and the modern woman busy creating fashionable handknits for herself and her family. Macdonald examines each phase of American history and gives us a clear and compelling look at life, then and now. And through it all, we see how knitting has played an important part in the way society has viewed women—and how women have viewed themselves. Assembled from articles in magazines, knitting brochures, newspaper clippings and other primary sources, and featuring reproductions of advertisements, illustrations, and photographs from each period, No Idle Hands capture the texture of women’s domestic lives throughout history with great wit and insight. “Colorful and revealing . . . vivid . . . This book will intrigue needlewomen and students of domestic history alike.”—The Washington Post Book World

The author "traveled thousands of miles to create this ... portrait of knitters, spinners, dyers, and breeders of fiber-producing animals." The book includes profiles of 38 people, plus more than 30 patterns for adult and child-sized garments.