Do you remember the little wooden doll from your childhood that helped you learn to knit? You would loop a string of yarn around four posts on the top and then use your fingers or a wooden pin to loop the yarn around and over the posts to make stitches. From the base of the doll a long rope of knitting would appear. We always made them into floor rugs for our doll houses by coiling the loop and sewing the edges together to make a thick flat coaster shape. I think other people were more creative!
But I have very fond memories of these Knitting Nancys, as we called them. When I recently mentioned to my friend Nad in Germany that I couldn't find a nice wooden Knitting Nancy she said, "Oh! A Knitting Liesel! I've seen them over here - let me look for one for you!" Now, something you should know about my friend Nad is that she doesn't let anything stop her! If she has a problem to solve, she just goes to it and finds a solution - so, before the day was over, we had organized a great swap and she had located not one, but several vintage and new Knitting Liesels for me!
Here is my new and wonderful collection (in no particular order because I love them all so much!):
Here are the Knitting Toadstools -
a new one, with it's nifty knitting pin included (you can see the little round red top of the pin), a beautiful vintage one - it's stump is painted white, just like a real Amanita Muscaria, and the large one lying on its side is a handmade darning egg made by an 86-year-old elder who makes things for Nad's local farm fair!!!
another picture of the lovely Toadstools:
And here is the Knitting Angel - her wings are really intact, one is just a little off-center in the photo but it is really there! She also has her original knitting pin.
Next up is something amazing - a complete vintage kit! This company offered three versions, all pictured on the cover: a jaunty mushroom-man, a cheeky ladybug, and a traditional knitting doll - this time a man doll. I was so lucky because Nad found the Ladybug which is much sought-after and hard to find! I do love him! and the direction booklet is in German and English and other languages, so I am able to refresh my memory...lol
Here is a closeup of my lovely bug:
and lastly, this most marvelous find - a very vintage Strickliesel from the GDR!:
Such lovelies!! Aren't I lucky to have such friends who send me treasures from around the world? I really am and I love my friends so dearly! They are greater treasures than anything they could send me.
In other news, I am about to adopt two feral kittens, whom I will name Holmes and Watson, and so I warn you that there will be kitten picspam on this blog in the future!
So lovely!
ReplyDeleteI must start looking for Liesels, myself. Yours are so lovely. In Danish they are called Strikkeliser.
ReplyDeleteI have just found your blog and I am very happy to have found another knitting spool collector. I am an Aussie - I currently manage Yahoo Spoolknitter and Flickr Spool Knitter and I also have a blog - http://spoolknitter.blogspot.com - which is entirely devoted to these charming knitting nancies/spoolknitters (I will be posting on it again soon, it has been a little neglected due to looking after the Yahoo group). I hope you will stop by and check them out. On Yahoo you can find lots of links, ideas, etc. and we even have competitions. ... Happy Spooling, cheers, Maz
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