"Knitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which never fails to mark that ease and superiority of manner to be found only in those who have had an enlarged experience in life, and seen much of the world. There she sits by the clear fire and clean, comfortable hearth, knitting a pair of stockings for her husband, who has gone to Dublin. She is tidily and even, for a woman of her age, tastefully dressed, but still with a sober decency that showed her good sense. Her cap is as white as snow, with which a well-fitting brown stuff gown, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the same occupation—knitting purses—and no one could have told by the quick, graceful motions of the fingers of Alice, that they moved without one guiding ray from those beautiful blue eyes, that seemed to follow all their intricacies. Neither could any one have known, by gazing on those ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... woman in France, whatever be her condition, cannot be persuaded to resign her influence with her youth; and the bourgeoise who has no pretensions to court favour or the disposal of wealthy heiresses, attaches her eleve by knitting him stockings, forcing him with bons morceaux till he has an indigestion, and frequent regales ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... went into the living-room. I had three hours before the children could possibly arrive, and I got out my knitting. I had brought along two dozen pairs of slipper soles in assorted sizes—I always send knitted slippers to the Old Ladies' Home at Christmas—and now I sorted over the wools with a grim determination not to think about the night before. But my mind was not on my work: ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money—could pay ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I will never speak to her one word, or willingly look ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... as though he knew who he was," remarked Lavina; and after a little she looked up from the tidy she was knitting. "So, Lorena Jane, that is the man you've been trying to educate yourself up to more than for anybody else—now, tell ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... he drank, and she ceased not to ply him with drink and entertain him with discourse, till he became drunken and fell asleep. Thereupon she arose without stay or delay and taking out of her bundle a budget of Taifi leather,[FN474] opened it and drew forth a pair of knitting needles, wherewith she fell to work and stinted not till she had made a beautiful zone, which she folded up in a wrapper after cleaning it and ironing it, and laid it under her pillow. Then she doffed her dress till she was mother-naked and lying down beside Nur al-Din shampoo'd ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... to sit still, doing nothing, in a sort of physical content, as the Sieur and his visitors talked; now her hands were always busy, knitting, sewing, or spinning, the steady gaze upon the work showing that her thoughts were far away. Though the Chevalier and her grandfather vaguely noted these changes, they as vaguely set them down to her growing womanhood. In any case, they held it was not for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... edge of the sidewalk and their own seats right in the carriage-way, pretending to sell half-decayed oranges and apples, toffy, Ormskirk cakes, combs and cheap jewelry, the coarsest kind of crockery, and little plates of oysters,—knitting patiently all day long, and removing their undiminished stock in trade at nightfall. All indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "Ralph Motherson," quoth Ralph, knitting his brow. Said the captain "And whither wilt thou?" Said Ralph, "On mine own errands." "Thou answerest not over freely," quoth the captain. Said Ralph, "Then is it even; for thou askest freely enough." "Well, well," said the captain, grinning in ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... close by us a little bottle of the solution of corrosive sublimate in alcohol, also a stick like a common knitting needle, and a handful or ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... see them," said the old man knitting his brow. "No, no, they must go. The bully is soon bullied. See, he has sent me a flag of truce already; a note asking if I will allow him to call on me at three o'clock to renew his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cat—truly beautiful animal—lay not far from the front door on a soft, white cushion, and played gracefully and gently with the ball of white yarn that had just fallen from the woman sitting at the window while she was eagerly engaged in knitting. This woman, in her plain and unassuming dress, seemed to be a servant of the house, but at all events a servant in whom entire confidence was reposed, as was indicated by the large bunch of keys, such as the lady of the house ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... are not all of storm and wreckage; there are many times here when the waves lap peacefully against the old stone piers, when the air is soft and delicious, and when the women at their doors, engaged in their everlasting task of knitting jerseys for their men, can chatter of the happiest subjects without dreaming of storm or shipwreck. This is the calmer mood in ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... in the kitchen, and an old woman could be seen knitting. They lifted the latch and walked in. Dropping her knitting, she rose with ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... beneath an arcade near the Maine exercising his health-giving trade in the open air. He lives, and lives bountifully, by unmaking, picking over and re-making the mattresses of the people. Good housewives, moreover, stand near him with their knitting to see that he does it well and puts back within the cover all the wool that he took out. In these backward countries the domestic mattress is remade once a year if not oftener. In our great land there is a considerable vagueness as to the period allowed to a mattress to form itself ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... I did not have it, so I left my darlings with a neighbor, got him to hist the sacks aboard for me, for says I, "I'm not Dutchy enough to lift a sack of grain," and long before daylight I was beside those oxen on my way to the nearest grist mill, fifteen miles away, knitting all the way. It was tough work, but I got there. I engaged my lodging at the hotel and then went to the mill. There were a number there, but they were all men. The miller, Mr. Goodnow, said "It's take turns here, but I won't have it ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Records show an immense amount of Red Cross supplies, knitting, comfort kits, food grown and conserved in every way, money raised for Liberty Loans and Thrift Stamps, war orphans adopted, home replacement work undertaken and carried through; all these to so great an amount that the country recognized ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... come, Priscilla, if there be aught to see," continued she, throwing down the stocking which she was knitting for her father. "Truly my eyes ache with ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... was a widow; she earned her living by knitting rabbit-wool mittens and muffetees (I once bought a pair at a bazaar). She also sold herbs, and rosemary tea, and rabbit-tobacco (which ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... at once into the library, where Doctor Joyce was spelling over the "Rubbleford Mercury," while Mrs. Joyce sat opposite to him, knitting a fancy jacket for her youngest but one. He was hardly inside the door before he began to expatiate in the wildest manner on the subject of the beautiful deaf and dumb girl. If ever man was in love with a child at first sight, he was that ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... their coming, and when they did call, endured their presence as an unavoidable evil. The worthy matrons were all much older than herself and, while sitting over their cakes, stewed fruit, and hippocras, knitting, spinning or netting, talked of the hard times during the siege, of the cares of children and servants, washing and soap-making, or subjected to a rigid scrutiny the numerous incomprehensible and reprehensible acts other women were said to have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Fans of Usenet and Internet or the big commercial timesharing bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tend to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they serve a valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and users in the personal-micro world who would otherwise be unable to exchange code at all. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... away the tea-things, sat knitting till half-past six. It was prayer-meeting night, and she never missed going. Zachariah generally accompanied her, but he was not quite presentable, and stayed at home. He went on with the Corsair, and as he read his heart warmed, and he unconsciously found himself declaiming several of ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... walk slowly out of the room after her middle-aged son, in order that a love proposal might be made from one to the other with advantage, she must, I should think, have perceived the comic nature of the arrangement. She went on, however, very gravely with her knitting, and did not even make an attempt to catch her ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... remembrance of Mathilde in her scarlet robe as she stood on the Heights that momentous night of my arrest. I looked at the picture in silence. He kept gazing at it with a curious, half-quizzical smile, as if he were unconscious of my presence. At last he said, with a slight knitting of his brows: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as Mrs. Roby had gathered up her knitting, and declared, as she always did on such occasions, that she could go round the corner without having any one to look after her, Mr. Wharton began. "Emily, my dear, come here." Then she came and sat on a footstool at his feet, and looked up ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... quite dark by this time, and mother lit a candle and set it on the table to see to have tea by. Afterwards she took her knitting and sat down by the fire, and I leaned against her, nodding and half asleep. The dog lay in the corner farthest from us, between the fireplace and the wall; and I'd forgotten altogether about him, when mother looks up sudden. 'Bless me,' says she, 'how bright the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the engine, till she can get somebody—I was surprised to find him putting in oil and tightening up screws and things, when it was scarcely daylight; and I said so. He wouldn't tell me a thing. 'You just 'tend to your own knitting, Fan,' was all he said; 'perhaps you'll know some day; and then again, perhaps ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... causeway raised above the highest flood level, and secured by massive piles. Ducks were swimming in the clear mill-pond below the currents of water roaring over the wheel. As the poet came nearer he heard the clack of the mill, and saw the good-natured, homely woman of the house knitting on a garden bench, and keeping an eye upon a little one who was ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... She was knitting at the time, counting stitches on large needles, and she went placidly on with the counting until the set was finished, when she looked up pleasantly. "You think it will amuse you?" she asked, with the kind interest which she might have shown concerning ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... by restlessness, refractoriness, an irregular life, or the like. That is all antiquated superstition. True genius has no connection whatever with excesses and caprices, in fact, is impossible without the strict fulfilment of one's duty. (Knitting furiously.) Genius is ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... hesitated. The garden, the restauration—full of people: women knitting, children bawling, men reading; and all sipping coffee to a background of gossip. He remembered that it was the sacred hour of Kaffeeklatsch, and he would have escaped by a flight of steps that led down to the beach, but he was hailed. A company of a half-dozen ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... a reason for going down into the Aquarium, where the sallow blinds, the stale smell of spirits of salt, the bamboo chairs, the tables with ash-trays, the revolving fish, the attendant knitting behind six or seven chocolate boxes (often she was quite alone with the fish for hours at a time) remained in the mind as part of the monster shark, he himself being only a flabby yellow receptacle, like an empty Gladstone bag in a tank. No one had ever been cheered by the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... then, this November afternoon, the whole family were assembled. The place was as nice as a pin, and as neat as if no work were ever done there. All the work of the day, indeed, was over; and even Miss Charity had come to sit down with the rest, knitting in hand. They had all changed their dresses and put off their big aprons, and looked unexceptionably nice and proper; only, it is needless to say, with no attempt at a fashionable appearance. Their gowns were calico; collars and cuffs of plain linen; and the white aprons ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... not know where he is? No one has seen him—the young English lieutenant who was to meet me here?" said the General, knitting his white eyebrows. "That is strange; but never mind"—and he drew out his watch—"it still wants four minutes ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... than cure," is the motto of these Centres. I went to one of the largest in London. It has about 600 entries in the year. There were perhaps 40 babies and children and perhaps 30 mothers there. About 20 of these mothers were learning sewing or knitting. Five of them were sitting round a nurse who was bathing a three-weeks-old baby. The young mother who can wash a baby to the taste and benefit of the baby by the light of nature must clearly be something of a phenomenon. In a room downstairs were certain little stoics whose ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... the kitten had found a good hiding-place, and the little girls searched everywhere in vain for a long while. At last Maisie thought of lifting the silk cover on the top of Miss Mervyn's work-basket, and there, snugly coiled in the midst of wools, knitting, and fancy work, lay the white kitten fast asleep! This was not the worst, for it had evidently amused itself first by a game of play. All the skeins of wool were twisted up in a tangle, and a quantity of silk was ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... alone—many and many a day without even salt—how well may it be understood that they have not means to buy proper clothing. In fact, their only hope for this, is on "the woman," as they express, whose sole dependance has been on eggs from her few hens—knitting stockings, in some localities, in others, spinning. But the numerous calls for family necessities swallow up these little means; and it may with truth be said, that except a single blanket, or a coarse rug, there is rarely to be found ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... shining, Dimpled cheeks, too! ah! how funny! Bless me, now she wears a cap, My grandma does, and takes a nap every single day; Yet she danced the minuet long ago; Now she sits there rocking, rocking, Always knitting grandpa's stocking— Every girl was taught to knit long ago— But her figure is so neat, And her ways so staid and sweet, I can almost see her now, Bending to her partner's bow, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... of Beaulieu had had one effect in knitting all the friends of the Marquise de Langrune in closer bonds of friendship. Prior to that event Etienne Rambert had scarcely known the Baronne de Vibray; now the two were intimate friends. The Baronne had not desisted ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... stiff outer vane of each quill overlaps the more flexible inner vane of its successor, like the leaves of certain kinds of fans, thus presenting an unbroken surface to the air. As to the structure of these plumes, they combine firmness, lightness, and mobility, the barbs and barbules knitting the more flexible parts together, so that they do not separate, but only expand, when ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... says:—"By degrees they might be brought to attend divine worship; and if in the parish of a pious clergyman he would probably embrace the opportunity of teaching them. Much might be done by a pious schoolmaster and schoolmistress, by whom the girls might be taught different kinds of work, knitting, sewing, &c. Should these suggestions be deemed worthy of your insertion, they might, perhaps, awaken the attention of some benevolent persons, whose superior talents and experience in the ways of beneficence would enable them to perfect and carry into execution a plan for the effectual benefit ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... not left the party at the cottage unscathed, as the acute observer would have immediately seen on penetrating into the pretty shady garden, with its formal rose walks, and its delightful misshapen yew trees. Madame Valtesi, for instance, was knitting, a thing she had scarcely ever been noticed to do within the memory of man. Mrs. Windsor was going about in garden gloves, with a spud and a pair of clippers, damaging the flower-beds, with an air of duty and almost sacred responsibility. Mr. Amarinth ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... expectation—and when you do come on, make a little more of it. You ought to be very pale indeed—even to enter with a slight totter, done moderately, of course; and before you say a single word, you ought to stand shaking and with your brows knitting, looking almost terrible. Of course, I do not expect or desire to make a melodramatic actress of you, but still I think you capable of any effect, provided it is not ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the parish of St Teath, in the county of Cornwall, in 1626. Being the daughter of a poor man, she resided as servant in the house of the narrator's father, and waited upon the narrator himself, in his childhood. As she was knitting stockings in an arbour of the garden, "six small people, all in green clothes," came suddenly over the garden wall; at the sight of whom, being much frightened, she was seized with convulsions, and continued so long sick, that she became as a changeling, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... there at her father's bedside and shook hands with him and said, "How do you do, Lloyd? Have you kept your health?" as quietly as she would have greeted any neighbor. After he had spoken to her father and the children she sat before him with her knitting, a very gentle, self-contained Desdemona, and listened while he told the minister stories of California, mentioning the trees and fruits of the Bible with a freedom and familiarity that savored just enough of heresy to ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... a good housewife, took no pains to teach her only daughter the domestic arts. She only petted and coddled her and sent her out to play. But my mother was as ambitious about housework as about books. She coaxed the housemaid to let her mix the bread. She learned knitting from watching her playmates. She was healthy and active, quick at everything, and restless with unspent energy. Therefore she was quite willing, at the age of ten, to go into her father's business as ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... to them than was necessary, for fear that the ladies, especially Octavia, who was well known, might be recognized. All the Romans had not gone to the Circus, some were sitting in the eating- places, and women were knitting in the doorways. Fortunately, it was getting toward evening, but that would be a signal for the thousands to leave the amphitheatre and scatter ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... her yet in our tiny Welsh cottage, her foot on a wooden cradle rocking a baby, my baby brother, her hands busy with her knitting, her voice lifted in jubilant song for hours at a time. And all her songs ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... when thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair; Listen for dear honor's sake, Goddess of the silver ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... library knitting when the butler, Jennings, announced us. We were admitted at once, for Aunt Josephine had never quite understood what was the trouble between Elaine and Craig, and had a high regard ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... cares twopence about, under such circumstances; all that is exchanged is a certain set of common-places and platitudes which people keep for parties, just as they do their kid gloves and finery. Now there are our neighbors, the Browns. When they drop in of an evening, she knitting, and he with the last article in the paper, she really comes out with a great deal of fresh, lively, earnest, original talk. We have a good time, and I like her so much that it quite verges on loving; but see her in a party, when she manifests herself over five or six flounces of pink ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... sat alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium patients. Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour was later than that of the younger members of her household, undoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... temper, dear James," and she laid down her knitting to replace the hassock he had kicked away under the painful irritation of a disease that a stoic could not stand with patience, and, as they would say in Ireland, would fully justify a Quaker if "he ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... in Guiana are not shot from a bow, but blown through a tube. They are made of the hard substance of the cokarito tree, and are about a foot long, and the size of a knitting-needle. One end is sharply pointed, and dipped in the poison of worraia, the other is adjusted to the cavity of the reed, from which it is to be blown by a roll of cotton. The reed is several feet in length. A single breath carries the arrow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... for Mariners coloured in Stamel, whereof if ample bent may be found, it would turne to an infinite commoditie of the common poore people by knitting. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... knitting of brows over this, and some chuckling. Comedy is the Art of the Chuckle; but it is very seldom that one of the persons in the play can practise that which delights us. Sanchia was such a person. She could detach herself from herself, see her own floutings and thwackings, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... of four; they have only 3s. a-week to live upon. Another is a family of three; they have 6s. a-week from a club, but they pay me 2s. a- week. for rent out of that. . . . . I am very much troubled with my eyes; my sight is failing fast. If I drop a stitch when I'm knitting, I can't see to take it up again. If I could buy a pair of spectacles, they would help me a good dale; but I cannot afford till times are better." I could not help thinking how many kind souls there are in the world who would be glad to give the ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... Kinealy, also of the children's shoes, would rock away an evening in that halo of lamplight, her hair illuminated to copper and her hands shuttling in and out at the business of knitting. There were frank personal discussions, no wider in diameter than the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... to do is to get some common glass-cloth, tolerably fine, with cross-bars of red or blue, and some red or navy blue knitting-cotton, which you can buy either by the pound or ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... but true words seemed to rebuke the three listeners for wasted lives, and for a moment there was no sound but the crackle of the fire, the brisk click of the old lady's knitting needles, and Ruth's voice singing overhead as she made ready ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... though I cannot whole it. Let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as till advice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deeds while all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the peril is past. If we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we still knitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our web[60] be framed with rotten hurdles, when our loom is welny done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens I pray you if they be not citizens; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... family went merrily into the garden under the apple-tree, and seated themselves in a circle. The mother and Miss Hanenwinkel and the girls were armed with sewing and knitting work. Little Hunne also had a queer-looking bit of stuff in his hand upon which he was trying to work with some red worsted. He said he wanted to embroider a horse-blanket for Jule. Jule had brought a book at his mother's request, to ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... the Bible, of the doctrine and discipline of the Salvation Army and the rules and regulations governing the labours of its Social Officers. In addition, these Cadets attend practical classes where they learn needlework, the scientific cutting out of garments, knitting, laundry work, first medical aid, nursing, and so forth. The course at this Institution takes ten months to complete, after which those Cadets who have passed the examinations are appointed to various centres ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... and gave the groom orders about exercising him regularly. The man took her instructions with a respectful air: she was evidently mistress of the place, and the centurion in the Gospel had not his servants better under his command than had she. It was a quaint sight to see the child knitting her brows over some complaint of Robinson's against McGill the gardener: she settled it promptly with but half a dozen words. She had energy enough and to spare for her duties, but she had nothing of that eager bubbling up of light thoughts and bright hopes which other children ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... where dwelt the Widow Carter looked unusually snug and cozy. It was autumn, and as the evenings were rather cool a cheerful wood fire was blazing on the hearth. Before it stood a tasteful little workstand, near which were seated Lenora and her mother, the one industriously knitting, and the other occasionally touching the strings of her guitar, which was suspended from her neck by a crimson ribbon. On the sideboard stood a fruit dish loaded with red and golden apples, and near it a basket filled with the rich ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... summer days went on, Old Pipes's mother grew feebler and feebler. One day when her son was away, for he now frequently went into the woods to hunt or fish, or down into the valley to work, she arose from her knitting to prepare the simple dinner. But she felt so weak and tired that she was not able to do the work to which she had been so long accustomed. "Alas! alas!" she said, "the time has come when I am too old to work. My son will ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... wrong again?" asked Code anxiously, his brows knitting. "That stuff on the trawl wasn't ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... in a narrower show case, were piled up large balls of green wool, white cards of black buttons, boxes of all colours and sizes, hair nets ornamented with steel beads, spread over rounds of bluish paper, fasces of knitting needles, tapestry patterns, bobbins of ribbon, along with a heap of soiled and faded articles, which doubtless had been lying in the same place for five or six years. All the tints had turned dirty grey in this cupboard, rotting with dust ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... a short silence. Brian's fingers played idly with the coins, but he was not thinking about them; his dreamy eyes revealed that his thoughts were very far away. Padre Cristoforo was biting his forefinger and knitting his brows—two signs of unusual perturbation of mind with him. Presently, however, his brow cleared; he smoothed his gown over his knees two or three times, coughed once or twice, and then addressed himself to Brian with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... good thing, for we might get too personal," interposed Chatty. "I think we've been over the margin of politeness as it is. Suppose we change the subject. Do you know, the honey dew is dropping from this lime tree overhead and making my knitting ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made of scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip of a paper-knife—a bit of delicate Swiss wood—in it, next came in my way. I tried ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... factories employing more than 50 persons. More weavers were still engaged with hand-looms than with power-looms, and the latter was so little developed that the hand-loom could still hold its own in many articles. Knitting, lace-making, and other minor textile industries are still in the main home industries.—(Social Peace, p. 113.) "While in England in 1885 each spinning or weaving mill had an average of 191 operatives, each ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... is very close!" said Mrs. R., settling herself down to her knitting, which her nephew had furtively unravelled. "Open the window, TOM, and let out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... clearly understood by the following example of a person learning music; and when we recollect the variety of mechanic arts, which are performed by associated trains of muscular actions catenated with the effects they produce, as in knitting, netting, weaving; and the greater variety of associated trains of ideas caused or catenated by volitions or sensations, as in our hourly modes of reasoning, or imagining, or recollecting, we shall gain some idea of the innumerable ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... camps, to judge of their needs with her own eyes, and travelled from town to town in New England, arousing the women to new effort. These might be seen, young and old, rich and poor, bearing bundles of blue flannel through the streets, and unaccustomed fingers knitting the coarse yarn, while the heart throbbed with anxiety for the dear ones gone to the war. A noble band of nurses volunteered their services, and the strife was as to which should go soonest and do the hardest work. Hannah E. Stevenson, Helen Stetson, and many another name became as dear ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... the same shadow that once before darkened the girl's charming face gave way to a mischievous knitting of her brows as ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... of Lady Latimer's selection, whose chief tendency was towards grammar, physical geography, and advanced arithmetic, which told well in the inspector's report. Miss Buff was strong also in the matter of needle, work and knitting—she would even have had the boys knit—but here ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... fireplace, and there were my wife's great, ample sofa and work-table on the other; there I wrote my articles for the "North American;" and there she turned and ripped and altered her dresses; and there lay crochet and knitting and embroidery side by side with a weekly basket of family mending, and in neighborly contiguity with the last book of the season, which my wife turned over as she took her after-dinner lounge on the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries always singing, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... take her siesta; Nan made a small carbonaro of herself by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of penance for past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in which she soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping every third stitch, and seaming ad libitum. If John bad been a gentlemanly creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his feet and made a nuisance of himself by indulging ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred, and when he was half killed—not by the tiger, but by the fright. And as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse? He was quite surprised and delighted at ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cried angrily, knitting his brows, whereby he stretched the scar to half its usual width, "what's ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... said to have fallen deeply in love with a young lady of the village, who failed to reciprocate his affections; and when he visited her, she was accustomed to pay much more attention to the process of knitting stockings and instructing her pupils in the art, than to the addresses of her admirer. This slight is said to have created in his mind such an aversion to knitting by hand, that he formed the determination to invent a machine that should supersede it and render it a gainless employment. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... of Washington, wearing a high black silk hat perched on the back of his head, and a suit of black broadcloth, much too large for him, but made in obedience to his orders, that he might be comfortable. Mrs. Taylor used to sit patiently all day in her room, plying her knitting-needles, and occasionally, it was said, smoking her pipe. Mrs. Bliss was an excellent housekeeper, and the introduction of gas into the Executive Mansion, with new furniture and carpets, enabled her to give it a more creditable appearance. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... all," the Captain said reflectively, reaching for his knitting, "what notions dumb critters get. We had a black man and a black dog with us aboard the fo'master Sally S. Stern when I was master, out o' Baltimore for Chilean ports. Bill was the blackest negro, I b'lieve, I ever see. You couldn't see him in the ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... his eyes the student is still there; the old woman has had her nap and is knitting. A large-eyed greyhound sits at her side. Floyd has half a mind to break in upon the scholar's sanctity, but remembering that he is now a part and parcel of civilization, refrains and resumes his journey; and now it is of Cecil he thinks. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... in the early part of '45,—I think in April,—when we were all gathered together, discussing, as usual, the possibility of leading a life in accordance with Nature. Abel Mallory was there, and Hollins, and Miss Ringtop, and Faith Levis, with her knitting,—and also Eunice Hazleton, a lady whom you have never seen, but you may take ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... ancient Goettingen resort, where the fellows sat on wooden benches in front of a long bar and drank till they felt like fighting cocks. By the way, it is a bit strange that Otto had such amazing capacity; for he was as thin as a knitting needle. ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... door I now betook myself. She was seated on the threshold, and employed in knitting. She was dressed in white, and had a cap on her head, from which depended a couple of ribbons, one on each side. As I drew near she looked up. She had a full, round, smooth face, and her complexion was brown, or rather olive, a hue which ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, is a fine specimen of the queen conch from the Florida reef, with a fine head cut into the outer surface, showing how it is done. The tools of the worker in cameos are of the most delicate description. Fine files, knitting-needle like implements, triangular-shaped steel cutters, are arranged in a seemingly endless confusion before the worker. The shell or piece of shell to be cut is either lashed or glued to a heavy block or held ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... Baghdad, to come upon new facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite of The Daily Mail) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... table-cloths, mantel borders, and curtain brackets, knitting bags, handkerchief cases, and as a trimming to evening dresses. In all cases it requires a silk lining, and should be worked with a muslin lining beneath it. Embroidering Breton handkerchiefs is not a new description of fancy work, but it ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... in her. All the Plummers have kept diaries," Aunt Olivia mused, knitting stolidly on while the child stooped painfully to her self-imposed task. The quaint resemblance to herself at her own diary-writing did not escape her, and she smiled a little in the Aunt Olivia way that scarcely ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... made me call at his residence. He played at ossicles with Sporus, leaning with his left arm on a table of agate. He turned round, and, knitting his fair brows: 'Why are you not afraid of me?' he asked. 'Because the God who made you terrible has made ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... you're on the right track, and, if when you die and go up there where those things shine,"—and he pointed through the pines to the starlit sky—"you meet a little, sweet old lady with white hair and a gray dress knitting a pair of socks, tell her that her Jamie never forgot her and would give the best hand he ever had to feel her kiss once more and hear her say good-night. Tell her—listen, boy!—tell her it was the cards that ruined Jamie, but he's ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... draperies, no black cat. On a table, in the centre, under a heavy and hideous chandelier with bronze gas jets, was a green velvet cushion. On this nestled an innocent ball of crystal. Beside it lay the ivory knitting needle with which Vera pointed out, in the hand of the visitor, those lines that showed he would be twice married, was of an ambitious temperament, and would make a success upon the stage. In a corner stood a wooden cabinet that resembled a sentry ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... the center of gravity of humanity, by lifting which he would lift the world. Had he come as a pampered child of wealth he would never have got hold of the great heart of humanity; but he came as one of the people, knitting himself into humble relations, growing up among plain folk of the countryside and toiling as a common workingman. And so when he began to preach the common ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... gazed at him in surprise; but he recovered himself and asked, with a serious and determined knitting of the brows, if the policeman had seen the old gentleman. The policeman replied he had not; the gentleman was nowhere to be seen when he was called in. The keeper saw him only once; when he returned that way again, in about a quarter of an hour, ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... elderly lady sat on an armchair by the fire, engaged in knitting; and a man, also elderly, and whose dress proclaimed him an ecclesiastic, sat at the opposite corner, with a large Angora cat on ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sat wrapped in shawls, her face haggard and transparently pale, and in her eyes the lazily relishing glance of the convalescent, who likes to let his eyes rest a long time upon objects. On the other grass-plot Lisa was lying in her reclining chair, and Madame Bonnechose sat beside her, knitting a red child's stocking. Countess Betty and Marion never stopped running along between the rows of dahlias to and from the house and the grass-plots. Count Hamilcar was taking his afternoon stroll. He walked slowly down the garden-path, leaning heavily on his cane; from time to time he stopped, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... through a rank flowering period of bloody and aimless revolutions, of silly and ferocious warfare against their neighbors, and of degrading alliance with the foreigner. From these and a hundred other woes the West no less than the East was saved by the knitting together of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... one bright spring morning as she sat by the kitchen fire. All the funny little wrinkles in her dear old face, which were generally only telegraph lines for smiles to run over, were sobered by some weighty consideration. Her knitting-work lay idle in her lap; and she did not even notice that little Tillie had pulled two of the needles out, nor that mischievous Nick was sawing away on the back of her chair with his antiquated pocket-knife. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... eye to the distribution of the parish coals. Of mothers' meetings and other cheerful parochial entertainments, she became the life and soul. Giving up her mathematics and classical reading, she took to knitting babies' vests and socks instead; indeed, the number of articles which her nimble fingers turned out in a fortnight was a pleasant surprise for the cold toes of the babies. And, as Mr. Fraser had prophesied, she found that her labour was of a sort which ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... said with some astonishment, looking up. She stopped her knitting. For a second she glanced behind her. Something had suddenly changed in the room, and it made her feel wide awake, though before she had been almost dozing. Her husband's voice and manner had introduced this new ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... adviser:—watchfulness, or starting from sleep with a cry of alarm; prolonged screaming without any obvious cause; moaning and drowsiness; rolling the head from side to side on the nurse's arm, or thrusting it back against the pillow; knitting the brows and aversion from light, with heat of head, and constant carrying the little hand up to it; half closing the eyelids, and ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... though the men employed served their customers with breast and back pieces buckled on, and their arms close at hand, so that they could run to the walls at once to take part in their defence did the Spaniards attempt an assault upon them. The women stood knitting at their doors, Frau Menyn looked as sharply after her maids as ever, and washing and scouring went ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... her that her little girl had knitted every stitch of them for her. There were a great many stitches in the wristlets, and before the first pair was finished Ruby had grown very tired of knitting; but she was willing to persevere when she thought of the pleasure it would be to give them to her mother as her very own Christmas gift ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... less on England than on Europe. His expedition had had in his own eyes a European rather than an English aim, and in his acceptance of the crown he had been moved not so much by personal ambition as by the prospect which offered itself of firmly knitting together England and Holland, the two great Protestant powers whose fleets held the mastery of the sea. But the advance from such a union to the formation of the European alliance against France on which he was bent was a step that still had to be made. Already indeed his action in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... gloriously before them; butternuts and chestnuts were tasted, and a large dish of rosy Spitzenbergs passed around; and while Fabens and Frisbie kept up a running talk, Mrs. Fabens and Fanny enjoyed the hour, as one sat knitting fringe-mittens in the corner, and the other plied her dexterous needle piecing a bed-quilt in snow-balls by the stand; and seeming to contend with the walnut fire, which should give forth the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... the opera, and the Hungarian sat in the kitchen knitting a stocking. The reception room was warm from the day's fire, and in order. All the pins and scraps of the day had been swept up, and the portieres that made fitting-rooms of the corners were pushed back. Peter saw only a big room with empty corners, and that at a glance. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... made by knitting cylinders of cotton or of other fiber and soaking these in a solution of the nitrates of cerium and thorium. One end of the cylinder is then sewed together with asbestos thread, which also provides the loop for supporting ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... from the couch and came and stood before her, knitting his fingers together behind his back, compelling himself to smile. His pallor made the hastily applied cosmetics ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... be glad to tell me the story. About forty years ago he had been an unsuccessful speculator in Merino sheep, and his wife strained every nerve to help her family. On going one day to the country store for a supply of knitting, she expressed so much disappointment on being told that there was none for her, that a tailor in the establishment asked her if she would cover some buttons for him. She soon found that certain kinds of buttons were in steady demand. They were then made wholly by hand. She provided ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the outfit of the worker often includes wooden needles and occasionally utensils made of wood, but covered with evidences of love and tender regard for those who were destined to use them. The knitter seems to have been peculiarly fortunate, for knitting sticks and sheaths afforded the amateur carver ample opportunities of showing his skill; and, like the carved lovespoons, of which there is such a famous collection in the Cardiff Museum, the knitting sheaths and sticks seem to indicate that in a similar way the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... leaving the door ajar. From her seat, Mrs. Sutton had a distinct view of him in an opposite mirror—a circumstance of which she was not aware for several minutes. Happening, then, to look up from her knitting she saw that he was writing, and half an hour afterward that he was leaning back in his chair, looking at something in the hollow of his hand, a mingling of such love and sadness in his countenance that she felt it would be unlawful prying into his most sacred feelings for ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... was seated upon the couch in the little, pathetically bright front room, and he was knitting his eyebrows over Val's beautifully regular handwriting,—pages and pages of it, so that there seemed no end to the task,—and was trying to give his mind to what he was reading instead of to the author, sitting near ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... observed Mrs. Clay in her sharp voice, looking up from a pair of yarn socks she was knitting for the doctor; "you know I'm fond of you, but when you begin to talk of the claims of love driving a girl to break with her family, I feel ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... mounts from his cabin-roof in the early morning and lives in the air throughout the day. A third stilt forms a seat, and makes of his silhouette a ludicrous and majestic tripod. This genius's chief amusement is startlingly domestic: it is knitting stockings; and engaged in this peaceful art he sits with dignity and whiles away the hours. How he manoeuvres when he accidentally drops a needle, I have not been ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... and the high-chief's tattooing, all one side and much of the other being of an even blue. Further acquaintance increased our opinion of his sense. He viewed the Casco in a manner then quite new to us, examining her lines and the running of the gear; to a piece of knitting on which one of the party was engaged, he must have devoted ten minutes' patient study; nor did he desist before he had divined the principles; and he was interested even to excitement by a type-writer, which he learned to work. When he departed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... urged her to assent; he saw Roderick was in the vein and would probably do something eminently original. She gave her promise, at last, after many soft, inarticulate protests and a frightened petition that she might be allowed to keep her knitting. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Various nail and corn instruments, razors, razor strops and paste and shaving powder, ladies' and gentlemen's dressing-cases, with or without fittings, in Russia leather, mahogany, rosewood and japan ware, ladies' companions and pocket-books, elegantly fitted, also knitting-boxes, envelope cases, card cases, note and cake baskets, beautiful inkstands, and an infinity of recherche ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... quiet," said Rendel, half indicating Rachel, who was lying back in a garden chair, some knitting in her hands. ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... old habits and adopt the customs of the pale faces. In order to accomplish this we propose that a big teaching wigwam should be built at Garden River where our sons may be taught to carpenter and make boots and other such things as are useful, and where our daughters may learn needlework and knitting and spinning. This is the desire of my heart, this is the cause for which I have come to plead. We Indians are too poor to help ourselves, and so we look to you white people who now occupy our hunting grounds to help us. We know that our great Mother Queen Victoria, loves ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... machine, substantially as described, for effecting the several operations of notching, slotting, boring, and burring a knitting machine needle blank, in the order ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various |
