Single Needle Knitting: Video and Information

The beautiful pair of Coptic socks, dated to 400-500 AD, are the centre of this experimental archaeology project at the Petrie Museum. This is our goal; the recreate a pair using ancient techniques.


To start off the single needle knitting – thread a needle with approximately a metre of wool and make a loop.

To make the first stitches pull the needle through the centre of the loop; this is one stitch. Repeat this step until you have the required number of stitches.
Then depending on whether you are knitting backwards and forwards or in the round wither straighten this foundation row into a straight line, or pull the short end until the stitches are in a tight circle.
Then pull the needle through each stitch creating a loop in the palm of your hand – the needle should go on top of the yarn creating something similar to a blanket stitch.

Continue doing this in the round until the knitting is long enough or if you are going back and forth knit to the end of your stitches and then turn the work and knit the other way.

Charlotte Booth

Snow and Starting to Knit

Despite the snowy weather, a large number of the U3A group managed to make it into the Petrie Museum for the first session after the Christmas break. Charlotte Booth also came along to go through the main steps in Coptic knitting according to her research . . . watch this space for the first steps guide. In the mean time, this is a short (albeit blurry) film of Barbara doing it:



Over the break many members of the group had been busy knitting their own socks using 'normal' knitting techniques, as well as spinning their carded wool:

Working from home, Sybil sent some charts she had been working on of stitches for the Egyptian sock:


We had a brief distraction by examining Rosemary's crochet snow shoes, which she made to beat the icy weather. The crocheted top is fastened onto oven mesh as a base and then tied with a shoe lace over a pair of crocs and a kitchen bag with a bin liner over the top for aesthetic purposes. Rosemary says they are warm, keep out the wet and sturdy on the ice. They can then just be washed after use: