A little history...

I cast on last night for a Baktus. Those who are Ravelry related will know exactly what that is, but for others it is a sort of scarf. It is a "kerchief" as such or a very shallow shawl used to wrap around your neck. Anyway, I am getting off topic!

While knitting the first few rows of my Baktus I started wondering about the history of knitting, when did it all start, who were the first knitters, why did they knit, how did they knit?

After a little research I found the most information on wiki and it is really interesting how knitting has evolved over time, for those who are interested you can read all about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knitting

Then I was wondering about the history of the scarf, it is the item that most knitters knit first so it had to have an interesting history and found an article here (mmm, death by yarn, worse ways to go I guess)
  http://dresslikeme.co.uk/scarf.php


Of course then my enquiring mind went further and searched on the history of shawls, wiki again had a good write up about them, and I found it particularly interesting that back in the day they were worn by men and woman!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawl

I think though out of all the research I did, the article in knitty.com really encompasses it all. http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEAThistory101.html

Wow - what a great history for such a great craft.

And just to make the post a little prettier - here's a picture of my latest knit for my niece.