Hand-knitting in Modern Japan

Shifts in Practice and Discourse

Abstract

Based on an examination of books on hand-knitting published during the first half of the twentieth century, the authors observed three major trends.First, the repertoire of items that Japanese people knitted by hand, such as accessories and innerwear, gradually expanded to include various types of garments. Moreover, in the 1920s, there was an increase in the types of tools and in the variety of imported and domestic yarns used for knitting.Secondly, the authors determined that there were two periods when hand-knitting flourished: the first phase dates from the latter half of the 1880s to the early 1900s, and the second phase dates from the 1920s to the early 1930s.Third, the discourse on hand-knitting shifted over time. From the 1900s, hand-knitting was appreciated from a practical and economical viewpoint, and then from the 1910s to 1920s it was also regarded from an aesthetic and technical point of view. After the 1920s movement to ‘make good use of leisure time’ and ‘create an artistic home,’ hand-knitting came to be seen as one of the duties women should engage in.Throughout the mid-twentieth century, connections between hand-knitting and femininity were strengthened by this discourse.