Cowichan knitting
The distinctively patterned, heavy-knit Cowichan sweaters, popular among British Columbians and tourists, are produced using this method.
Cowichan knitting is an acculturated art form, a combination of European textile techniques and Salish spinning and weaving methods.
While Cowichan is the name of a specific First Nations group, the word Siwash is borrowed from Chinook jargon, the historic trade language of the Pacific Northwest.
[2] Before European contact the Coast Salish peoples, including the Cowichan, wove blankets, leggings, and tumplines out of mountain goat wool, dog hair, and other fibres.
The most organized instruction in knitting was provided by the Sisters of St. Ann, missionaries who came from Victoria to the Cowichan Valley in 1864 to start a school for the Indians.
[4] After learning how to make socks and mitts, Cowichan women began to knit knee-length underwear and sweaters.
Like the other garments, sweaters were and are today knit in the round with no seams, using multiple needles in the European style of the period.
Some knitters used a raised stitch similar to that of a gansey, possibly inspired by the clothing of the many British fishermen who had settled in the area.
The teaching of patterned sweater knitting is generally attributed to a settler from the Shetland Islands, Jerimina Colvin.
[4] Another origin theory is that the Sisters of St. Ann, a Roman Catholic institution founded in Quebec to promote the education of rural children, brought knitting to the West Coast.
The classic Cowichan sweater of the 20th century was knitted of white or undyed wool, in coat style, fastened at the front by buttons or a zipper, hip-length, with a shawl collar, and usually ornamented with indigenous or sporting motifs.
Garments produced from the short lofty fleece of these local breeds are characterized by their uneven texture, their warmth and their lightness relative to overall bulk.
Wool from any source must be washed in warm soapy water, rinsed a number of times, and hung on lines or spread out to dry.
[12] The version used exclusively by the Cowichan people was very large and was used for spinning two ply mountain goat wool and dog hair for weaving.
The First Nations-designed spinner heads were copied by manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand due to the renewed popularity of crafts in the 1960s.
Children often start by helping out with wool processing, and begin to knit mitts and socks around the age of ten.
[15] To produce a sweater, the knitter casts on stitches in the usual manner, evenly divided onto at least eight double pointed needles.
Some skilled knitters are able to pick up stitches all around the neckline and knit the collar all at one time by increasing and decreasing for shaping.
They have responded to market demands by making socks and mitts, and more recently tuques, tams, ponchos, slippers, and baby booties.
[20] As they now use only natural colours, the range is limited to whites, greys, browns and blacks, or a combination produced during the carding process.
[20] The popularity of Indian-patterned sweaters prompted the Mary Maxim Company, then headquartered in Sifton, Manitoba, to produce graphed commercial patterns, beginning in the 1940s.
Despite the diversity of patterns, however, experienced knitters and dealers can often identify the maker of a sweater through the particular qualities of design and knitting style that form a kind of personal signature.
At first, Mary Maxim started as a woolen mill, but the business soon expanded after McPhedrian traveled to British Columbia on a sales trip and came across a Cowichan sweater.
[23] Today, companies such as Pendleton Woolen Mills, Ralph Lauren,[24] and Aritzia all have their own version of the Cowichan sweater design.
Eventually, a compromise was made between the parties; knitters would have an opportunity to sell their sweaters at the downtown Vancouver HBC store, alongside the imitations.
