Knitting Around the World

I’ve always been fascinated by history and anthropology.  After I came across a blog post about headgear from Harvard’s Peabody Museum that included a knit mask, I found myself browsing Peabody’s collection for interesting knit artifacts.  The Peabody collection has a lot of interesting images, although not much text to go along with them.  The basic information provided (place and occasionally a date) makes me imagine these items are even more exotic or historically significant than they probably are.  Here are some of the interesting items I found:

Gloves from Northwestern Siberia

A lacy hat found near Lake Titicaca in Peru

Hats from Algeria

Hopi Leggings from Arizona

Decorative Siberian socks

It is interesting how knitting is a common thread (excuse the pun) across continents, but each culture definitely has a unique spin based upon their needs.  To see more knit garments, search for “knit” on the Peabody keyword search page.  For more information about any of the items above, just click on the picture.