Row counter (hand knitting)
The first commercially produced one appeared on the market in the 1920s after the general public started regularly knitting from unfamiliar printed and complex patterns.
For lace knitting and complicated increases, a knitter could write five-bar gate tally marks around the margins of a printed pattern.
[1][5] The earliest on-needle row counters seem to have appeared in the UK between 1920 and 1939, when complicated printed patterns increased in popularity among the working population.
The front was flat and shaped like a figure-8, but was heavier than the back so that the unit hung downward from the needle, making the numbered face difficult to read.
[a] Around the 1980s to 1990s, Woman's Weekly magazine gave away a plastic on-needle knitting row counter of unusual design.
The assemblage consisted of a double rotating inner barrel and an outer fixed and slotted skin which was pinned to the central spring.
This design and most of the barrel-shaped on-needle counters which followed it had a white or cream central barrel and a decoratively coloured outer skin.
These counters were not precisely engineered, so depended on polygonal barrels and outer skin to provide sufficient friction to control unnecessary movement while knitting.
[1] The Compact rotary row counter was manufactured in England in the 1950s to 1960s under a pending patent application, although the general design was similar in principle to the early I.X.
The basic Compact, however, had a central knurled grip-band, which made the gadget easier to hold and to turn quickly and precisely.
[d] The luxury version of the Compact was presented in a gift box, it was priced at a guinea and became a contemporary collector's item, tending to be little-used due to impracticality.
[e] On this luxury version the tape-measure assembly caused the centre of the gadget to rotate independently, making it difficult for adult fingers to grip the remaining part of the stable outer skin to turn the main assemblage for use as a row counter.
[f] Around the 1960s to 1970s Woman's Weekly magazine gave away a soft plastic on-needle knitting row counter of unusual but simple design.
[g] In the 1980s the knitting accessories company Aero produced its own rotary on-needle counter which had a distinctive red inner barrel with thick knurled ends, and a grey outer skin.
In the 1990s Wrights Boyle and Prym began to produce a similar design with white inner barrels and coloured outer skin which continued to be sold in different sizes until at least 2010.
In the 21st century until at least 2010, the manufacturers Pony, Whitecroft and Wrights each made a new version of the 1970s octagonal counter for sale in Europe, the UK and the United States.
[1] In the 1960s, The Aero Needles Group Plc of Redditch, England produced the Knitters Companion, a pocket version of the complex counter, consisting of a pierced bar of black plastic containing seven knurled, white, rotary, numbered discs whose numbers would appear through the piercings in the bar.
It was supplied with a soft plastic case which was intended to maintain memory of the count by preventing accidental movement of the discs.
In 1972, UK magazine Woman's Weekly gave away its own card variation of this, with the numbers on dials with rotary paper pointers to record rows, increases or decreases, and times.
The numerals represented rows, increase or decrease, and times, as in previous complex counters; it also had a needle gauge and five-inch measure.
[11][12] However, there is a similar design with a lock manufactured by KA in pink plastic for sale in the United States in the early 21st century, at least until 2010.
On this type of gadget it has been possible for the manufacturer to make the numbers larger and therefore easier to read than on the on-needle counter, which needs to be small.
Because there is no memory facility, the counter must be left turned on if the count is to be maintained; however the gadget's instructions say that the battery will last for over seven months.
