No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting: Amazon.ca: Anne Macdonald: Books

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6 Reviews

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4.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books, Dec 16 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (Paperback)

Reading the reviews, I can understand why a non-knitter would not be charmed by this book. This book is by, for and about knitters. Whenever I'm bogged down with my knitting, I pick this book up again, seeking inspiration from 200 years of American knitters. The book is delightfully written, with lots of original source quotations, and allows us to peek into the day-to-day lives of colonial knitters, revolutionary war knitters, civil war knitters, depression era knitters, etc. It gives one a strong sense of women's role in American society at different times, reminds us (often amusingly) about fads and trends, and shows how wars shape lives beyond the battlefields. It's a wonderful book. My only regret is that it doesn't have more photographs of knitters and old knit garments.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars More quaint knitting lore than social history, May 27 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (Paperback)

I would have given this book two and a half stars if I could have. It's not bad, but it's of much more interest to knitters than anyone who is looking for social history. For one thing, it fairly often goes into details about knitting that a nonknitter or even a beginning knitter wouldn't get. For another, the author often seems more interested in quaint period detail than in history.

For the most part, this book just enumerates what women knitted in each period of history. It gets repetitive, especially when it comes to the wartime knitting. The story is pretty much the same during each war: Women got together in societies and knit tons and tons of socks.

She obviously did quite a bit of research, but doesn't draw many conclusions or put the information together in a compelling way. She piles on a lot of repetitive detail long after her point is made.

I can see why some people thought this was a good read. Her writing style is conversational and informal, gossipy at times. But I found it tiresome. She likes to "overuse" "quotes." She also writes almost entirely in loooonnnng sentences with a million clauses so that by the end of the sentence you forget what she was trying to say. Sometimes she even forgets to end the sentence.

I'm looking forward to reading The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Her work also includes a lot of repetitive detail and tends to be dry, but she usually unearths some interesting facts and draws noteworthy conculsions.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars You are part of a looooong tradition..., July 5 2001

By

L. Swanson (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (Paperback)

if you are a knitter. This book was a pleasure to read and really gave me a sense of being connected to generations and generations of women making warm things for the ones they loved. I was surprised to read about all the socks that were patriotically hand-knitted for soldiers during war years, right up through what we would consider to be more 'modern' times. Can you imagine the government asking women to knit socks for soldiers nowadays?! I now feel a compulsion to learn to knit socks - if the kids and old men could do it then, I can certainly learn to do it now!

If you are a fan of 'real life' history - not about politics and empires, but about individuals and how they lived their lives - you will enjoy this book. And you will enjoy it even more if you knit.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Women-Unsung Heroes with their Needles
I originally borrowed the above book from my knitting teacher and thought to myself I would love to have this in my collection of craft books etc. Read more

Published on Feb 2 2003 by Mary Young

5.0 out of 5 stars Knitting has always been an important social responsibility
This book is a wonderful examination of the social history of knitting. Knitting for family has always been a requirement of any woman. Read more

Published on Mar 22 2002 by Penny L. Teem