Sunday, November 18, 2007

Chores

Egmond aan Zee "In Egmond little girls were taught to knit when they were very young. As soon as their small fingers were limber enough they began by knitting socks. To inspire enthusiasm for the work, their mothers would conceal pennies in the ball of sajet*. Since sajet was sold in skeins which had to be wound into balls before knitting, it was not difficult to hide a few pennies in the ball. The little girl was allowed buy candy with her pennies as soon as she had finished knitting the ball of yarn. To get their rewards as quickly as possible the girls would stand and knit on their front stoops before going to school in the morning."

* Sajet - "The wool of a sheep bread for meat, such as the Dutch Texelaar, from the island of Texel, is short and fairly rough. To spin good yarn from it, it must be tightly twisted. The technical term, in Dutch, for this firm twist is sajet."

Henriette van der Klift-Tellegen

And we just want them to make their bed and rinse the dishes. Not to mention the number of Adults who are afraid of sock knitting.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is not fair to make fun of those of us with sockphobia. As a neophyte to knitting the thought of making socks is terrifying, although if something fun were in the middles of the yarn ball, I too might knit socks.