|
|
|
More "Knitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tracts of land with meagre vegetables growing in them. At the low doors, miserable looking women with dark sickly faces, wearing blue caftans and carroty wigs, washed their gray, coarse linen in buckets. The old and bent women sat on the benches, knitting blue or black wool stockings, while young sunburned girls, in dirty dresses and ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... youngest of nine children, I can remember my mother only in the days of comparative freedom from anxiety, when, the day's work over and the house quiet, she used, as she sat by the fire with her knitting, which occupied all the moments when her hands were not required for other duties,—she knit all the stockings required for the family,—to tell me incidents of her past life, mostly to show how kind ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... stopped her knitting for a few moments, leaned slightly forward, and scrutinized the features of the stranger; then recovering her former position, answered, "I have a faint, a dream-like recollection of your countenance. It seems that I have seen it before, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... walks through the streets 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. It was said that she did the honors of the establishment ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Harrison to spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a very peculiar reason for getting married. But then, of course, I am no judge of things matrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia Bryant at the gate, so I will put this blessed brown baby on his bed and get my knitting." ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Susie was perfectly happy building castles of sand and letting the rising tide flow into her moat. Nurse was indulgent enough to waste a few of her valuable minutes in making a scarlet flag and mounting it on a wooden knitting-pin, whilst Dick and Amy busily ornamented its base with fan shells. Dick was the king, with Alick for his knight—rather a top-heavy knight, with wayward legs—and Susie and Amy were the besieging army, fighting with desperate courage as long as they ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... laying aside her knitting and taking off her glasses and wiping them, "do you really ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... cried my father, 'stop a bit;' then knitting his brows into a deep frown, he added, 'surely this cannot be one of the Morrel family who lived at Marseilles, and gave us so much trouble from their violent Bonapartism—I mean about the year 1815.'—'Yes,' ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... room he found an old woman knitting. Lecoq bowed to her politely, and, displaying the silk handkerchief, exclaimed: "Madame, I have come to return this article to one ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown. "Drat the dirt! I've cleaned up. ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... should be piously preparing herself for the next world. And it doesn't take thirty long to slip into forty. And then forty merges into fifty—and there you are, a nice old lady with nervous indigestion and knitting-needles and a tendency to breathe audibly after ascending the front-stairs. No wonder, last night, it drove me to taking a volume of George Moore down from the shelf and reading his chapter on "The Woman of Thirty." But I ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the night, 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 me intrepid,' ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... dogs broke the silence of the sleepy summer afternoon. Elinor Pomeroy laid down her knitting and slowly walked around the house. The barking of the three big dogs had been on a joyous tone. A young man was racing up the long front drive, the dogs leaping and bounding ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... Jenkins was chary of candles. We had many devices to use as few as possible. In the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for two or three hours—she could do this in the dark, or by firelight—and when I asked if I might not ring for candles to finish stitching my wristbands, she told me to "keep blind man's holiday." They were usually brought in with tea; ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... glorious race for cash. The "golden age" of Arcady is gone so long—the new has come! The crooks wreathed round with flowers are changed into telegraph-posts, and Corydon is on a three-legged stool, busy with ledgers—knitting his brow as he adds up figures. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... and a happy thing it was for the little district assigned to her; it was as if an angel had descended on them. Her fingers were never tired of knitting or cutting for them, her heart of sympathizing with them. And that heart expanded and waved its drooping wings; and the glow of good and gentle deed began to spread over it; and she was rewarded in another way by being brought into more contact with Gerard, and also with his spirit. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Fitzhugh Miller: It was always a joy to meet Mr. Blackwell for there was never any picking up of broken threads of our spinning or knitting or weaving of good comradeship, which at once continued as if no absence had intervened. I felt at home with him always, he was a man after my own heart, direct, decided, accurate, devoted to high ideals, and yet ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... at Paddington, remembering the meeting when she had come up after their engagement. It was a different Karen, a Karen furred and finished and nearly elegant, who stepped from the train; but she had, as then, her little basket with the knitting and the book; and the girlish face was scarcely altered; there was even a preoccupation on it that recalled still more vividly the former meeting at Paddington. "Well, dearest, and why isn't Mrs. Talcott here, too?" ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... country for their king, were punished severely when the Congress allowed His Majesty to return to his domains. This vicious creature, known as Ferdinand VII, had spent the last four years of his life as a prisoner of Napoleon. He had improved his days by knitting garments for the statues of his favourite patron saints. He celebrated his return by re-introducing the Inquisition and the torture-chamber, both of which had been abolished by the Revolution. He was a disgusting person, despised as much ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... view of the Firth of Forth. While gathering "gowans" or other wild-flowers for her infant sister, (whom she loved more dearly than her life, during the years they lived in most tender and affectionate companionship), she frequently encountered this aged woman, with her knitting in her hand; and she would speak to the eager and intelligent child of the blessed quiet of the land, where the cattle were browsing without fear of an enemy; and then she would talk of the awful times of the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... package contained trifles of sewing and knitting materials she was going to take to Mrs. Welden, and she held out her hand for it. She knew she did not smile quite naturally as she said her good-morning to Tewson. She went out into the pale amber sunshine and stood a few moments, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... riots in which the mob nearly drowned Jacquard at Lyons for attempting to set up some of his looms were very nearly a counterpart of those which had occurred in England in connection with the introduction of spinning, weaving and knitting machinery. ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... consisting of about fifty men-of-war and a great number of transports. I then came back to my house, and gave order (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as pack-thread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle. I trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason I twisted three of the iron bars together, binding the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the northeast coast, and, putting off my coat, shoes, and stockings, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... moment the din in the room was excessive. Phil had now begun to feel the influence of liquor, as was evident from the frequent thumpings which the table received at his hand—the awful knitting of his eyebrows, as he commanded silence—and the multiplicity of 'd—n my honors,' which ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... painting the Last Supper. It is most interesting and we shall quote it: "One, in the act of drinking puts down his glass and turns his head to the speaker. Another twisting his fingers together, turns to his companion, knitting his eyebrows. Another, opening his hands and turning the palm toward the spectator, shrugs his shoulders, his mouth expressing the liveliest surprise. Another whispers in the ear of a companion, who turns to listen, ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... like that with Maw in it—say sitting up there on the veranda, knitting—she's great on knitting, Maw is!—I reckon the show hasn't hit Broadway yet that could drag me out for a single night. No-sir-ee! Not if the whole chorus had chocolate legs!" he said to the foreman, who ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... what I had seen, and he looked at the packet, his brow knitting as he tried to make ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Vnion, and Vnitie of Vnits. Which vnyting and knitting, is the workemanship of our minde: which, of distinct and discrete Vnits, maketh a Number: by vniformitie, resulting of a certaine multitude of Vnits. And so, euery number, may haue his least part, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside in the jessamine, and a humming-bird—there had always been one, year after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was the ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... him? But if they hear from Thee of themselves, they cannot say, "The Lord lieth." For what is it to hear from Thee of themselves, but to know themselves? and who knoweth and saith, "It is false," unless himself lieth? But because charity believeth all things (that is, among those whom knitting unto itself it maketh one), I also, O Lord, will in such wise confess unto Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot demonstrate whether I confess truly; yet they believe me, whose ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... everlasting knitting," said Sal, snatching the sock from Mary's hands and making the needles fly nimbly. "I'm going to be very magnanimous, and every time you'll bring your books home I'll knit for you—I beg Mrs. Grundy, that you'll not throw the ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... town undulating over the hills, dwarfed by the distance. It was when she turned to go down again that Goodwin had a full view of her face, bleak and rigid, with greying hair drawn tightly back from the temples, as formal and blank as the face of a clock. It was told of her that she would sit knitting in her chair by the mizzen fife-rail while at the break of the poop a miserable man was being trodden and beaten out of the likeness of humanity and never lift her head nor shift her attitude for all his cries and struggles. It was her presence aboard that touched the man-slaughtering Etna ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... wont get ahead of me," as he had said at the first; he set his teeth, threw off his hat, and knitting his brows with a resolute expression, prepared to take steady aim, though his heart beat fast, and his thumb trembled as he pressed it on ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... "altogether a mistake that genius is marked 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
... aftah the woe," his daughter put in. "The knitting has not stopped yet in some places. Have you been much ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said Mrs Brand, looking up from her knitting, with a little sigh. Mrs Brand usually followed up all her remarks with a little sigh. Sometimes the sigh was very little. It depended a good deal on the nature of her remark whether the sigh was of the little, less, ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... kindly," murmured the old lady, and she resumed her knitting upon a phantom tam-o'-shanter, which she was making as a Christmas surprise for ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... Presently she commenced to make a strange noise, and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits." When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another star, then half-recalling ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... song,—she still had an instrument of music in her hands, and was striking a few idle notes. The other two had been acting as audience. They were attired in the fantastic apparel which the women who are found in such places generally wear. An old woman was sitting knitting in a corner, whom I took to be the inevitable patronne. With the exception of these four the place ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... passage: the sense of utter deadness and emptiness, and frustrate fall in the leaves; of dormant life in the human body,—the fire, and heroism, and strength of it, lulled under the dead brown heap, as embers under ashes, and the knitting of interchanged and close strength of living boughs above. But there is not the smallest apparent sense of there being beauty elsewhere than in the human being. The wreathed wood is admired simply as being a perfect roof for it; the fallen leaves only as being a perfect bed for it; and there ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... least a few of those colonial dames who are popularly supposed to have stayed at home and "tended their knitting" were interested in and enthusiastically conversed about some rather classic authors and rather deep questions. Mrs. Grant has told us of the aunt of General Philip Schuyler, a woman of great force of character and magnetic ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and none heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles were idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look in it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no sound, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... troglodytic fun of being born within earshot and eyeshot of people such as Granville Boo, General Udby, Ex-President Sumplethock, Senator Mills-Tweeper and Harriet Beecher Stowe; and places such as Mount Knitting, Mudlake West, Pigeon Park and Appleblossom Villa. These influential factors combined were undoubtedly the foundations of the enormous mathematical ability which became apparent long before the boy attained the age of three, but unfortunately for the level development ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... her sister by a special messenger, whom she had captured by the way, and was soon after in the train, knitting and pondering. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only just for a moment," replied the Angel, knitting her brows, and standing in such a position that she excluded all light from falling ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... or appeared conscious of the other's presence. Old Mrs. Garstin, wrapped in a woollen shawl, sat knitting: Anthony dozed ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... were, sitting round the tea-table just as at Tryland—Kirstie and Jean embroidering and knitting, and the other two reading new catalogues of ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... 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, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... a low stool, she found Patty sitting, knitting furiously away at a grey worsted stocking, and muttering to herself ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... knitting her black eyebrows till they almost met in her anxiety to express herself clearly; "she was telling you to have a good influence over me. She always begins like that with the new governesses. She has an interview with them the morning after they arrive. They are ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... responsible and have sent an ambassador," explained John Ronackstone, anxiously knitting his brows, "to inform us that not a horse of the pack-train from Blue Lick Station shall pass down to Charlestown till we indemnify them for ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... fishing-village on the sands we met a fishwife brave in her short skirt and eight petticoats, the basket with its two hundred pound weight on her head, and the auld wife herself knitting placidly as she walked along. They look superbly strong, these women; but, to be sure, the 'weak anes dee,' as one of them ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 chasing the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... came over him as he arrived in sight of the gate, where the red-haired girl sat on a camp stool, yawning and knitting a silk necktie—for eventualities, perhaps; perhaps for herself, Lord knows. She lifted her grey eyes as he came swinging up—deep, clear, grey eyes that met his and presently seemed ready to answer his. So his eyes asked; and, after a long interval, ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company. However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve—knitting his brows —clenching his teeth, like one prepared to "do or die," he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode through the room, like the personified genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the old ladies in the vicinity, whose tasteful drapery benefitted but ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... to your female subjects except tobacco? Nothing, except embroidery, knitting, and sewing, pitiful resources, which are more and more restricted by that barbarous ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... sentence for illicit trading in spirits, was a squat little country woman with bulging eyes and kindly face. She was the mother of the boy who was playing with the old woman, and of another seven-year-old girl, both of whom were in jail with her, because they had no one else to take care of them. Knitting a stocking, she was looking through the window and disapprovingly frowned and closed her eyes at the language used by the passing prisoners. The girl who stood near the red-haired woman, with only a shirt on her back, and clinging with one hand to the woman's skirt, attentively ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... wore the riband of the order of Saint Anna about his neck, and was reported to have been recommended also for the star. For the rest, he was large and good-natured, and had a habit of amusing himself with occasional spells of knitting. Next, Chichikov repaired to the Vice-Governor's, and thence to the house of the Public Prosecutor, to that of the President of the Local Council, to that of the Chief of Police, to that of the Commissioner of Taxes, and to that of the local Director of State Factories. True, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Charteris,' said Wych Hazel, knitting her brows a little. 'And it is you who must live with himnot your father and mother. Could you do ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... 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
... perspectives, were coming into leaf, and through their screens could be seen everywhere children shouting as they played at ball and top, and both kinds of nurses, and scores of perambulators and mothers, and a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men reading papers, and old women knitting and relating anecdotes or entire histories. And nobody was curious beyond his own group. The people were perfectly at home in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and roar of motor-buses ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... fond of green corn, but he never cared for potatoes," Mrs. Boynton said, vaguely, taking up her knitting. "I always had great pride in my cooking, but I could never get your father ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her name was, kept house for a priest at——. One evening, while on a visit there, I found her knitting as I passed the kitchen door, and bidding her the time of day, I discovered from a remark she made that she had in former days filled more important posts. She soon settled down when she found me an ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... smiled at the enraptured audience, and in a far corner of the tent sat a placid-looking woman knitting a shawl. This was the mother of the two girls, but she took little interest in the visitors, and except for an occasional glance at them, devoted herself to ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... to see," said Aunt M'riar, replying to a question of Mrs. Burr's. "The old lady was awake and knitting, last time. First time she'd the paper on her knee, open. Next time she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... warm affection. Maria, whose life was certainly not crowded with amusements, dreaded 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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
... on the flanks rode the vedettes, halting at every rise, and peering backwards with their hands shading their eyes. In the distance their spears and rifles seemed to stick out of them, straight and thin, like needles in knitting. ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought such a proposal when first made was like a Pisgah peep at Paradise, I cannot help being a little afraid of changing the habits of a long life all of a sudden and for ever. You ladies have always your work-basket and stocking-knitting to wreak an hour of tediousness upon. The routine of business serves, I suspect, for the same purpose to us male wretches; it is seldom a burden to the mind, but a something which must be done, and is done almost mechanically; and though ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... she needed one, being very well able to look after herself, but because it sounded and looked respectable. Miss Stably, who filled this necessary office, was a dull old lady who dressed excessively badly, and devoted her life to knitting shawls. What she did with these when completed no one ever knew: but she was always to be found with two large wooden pins rapidly weaving the fabric for some unknown back. She talked very little, and when she did speak, it was to agree with her sharp ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... hints and shrugged shoulders, every time the Dutch Winklers or 'Forty-niner' is spoke of. I wish to goodness that man'd come home and clear his name, or give me a chance to do it. He no more stole that knitting-woman's money than I did." ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... and love and discipline, and bore fruits of love and joy and peace. Who or what was it? An influence from on high? Yes: but it seemed more intimate, more personal than any mere "influence," more indissolubly one with them, knitting them into a fellowship in which they were united with the Father and the Son. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." The Spirit which bore such fruits in them, which brought them into so intimate a fellowship with GOD in Christ, they recognized as ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... credulity wrung a laugh from Moffatt. "Gee! How'd they expect her fair young life to pass? Playing 'Holy City' on the melodeon, and knitting ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... dear mother, will tell us one of your sweet stories of real life, it will be both a pleasant and profitable way of passing the evening. We have all employment for our fingers, and can work while we listen; George and I with our pencils, and you ladies with your sewing and knitting." ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... unceasing. She could hardly have explained her disinclination. Was it that his company had grown so stimulating and interesting to her, that it made her think too much of other things than the war?—and so it seemed to separate her from George? Her own quiet occupations—the needlework and knitting that she did for a neighbouring war workroom, the gathering and drying of the sphagnum moss, the visiting of a few convalescent soldiers, a daily portion of Wordsworth, and some books about him—these things were within her compass George knew all about them, for she chronicled them ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... up, from hole to hole, ready to fire, to protect the King's route from the sleeping cat. It was all very grand and imposing. An ugly old woman sat in a chair, also asleep, with her knitting on her knee. ...
— Perez the Mouse • Luis Coloma
... 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 my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... some rough outline of the extent and power of this intricate and far-reaching organization. Hitherto the word "International" had with him been associated with the ridiculous fiasco at Geneva; but here was something, not calling itself international, which aimed at nothing less than knitting together the multitudes of the nations, not only in Europe, but in the English and French and German speaking territories beyond the seas, in a solemn league—a league for self-protection and mutual understanding, for the preservation of international peace, the spread of knowledge, the outbraving ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... eagerly in detail; correspondence with dear ones over the seas was quickened with new interest; and everyone, even in such a little place as Muktiarbad, found plenty to do to help in the common cause. War-work parties were organised, at which the ladies engaged in knitting woollen comforts for the troops, and in making up parcels to be dispatched to the front and to prisoners in Germany; and every member had some bit of war news to discuss with the others at the Club as they rested from their games ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... mineralogy; for promoting the ingenious arts of drawing, engraving, casting, painting, statuary, and sculpture; for the improvement of manufactures and machines, in the various articles of hats, crapes, druggets, mills, marbled-paper, ship-blocks, spinning-wheels, toys, yarn, knitting, and weaving. They likewise allotted sums for the advantage of the British colonies in America, and bestowed premiums on those settlers who should excel in curing cochineal, planting logwood-trees, cultivating olive-trees, producing myrtle-wax, making potash, preserving raisins, curing saffiour, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... through my mind when my eye fell upon my guide. She was seated against the south wall of the tower, on a stool, I thought, or small table. While I was wandering about the church she had taken her stocking and wires out of her pocket, and was now knitting busily. How her needles did go! Her eyes never regarded them, however, but, fixed on the slabs that paved the tower at a yard or two from her feet, seemed to be gazing far out to sea, for they had an infinite objectless outlook. To ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... break the pace. Uneven walking is not so agreeable to the body, and it distracts and irritates the mind. Whereas, when once you have fallen into an equable stride, it requires no conscious thought from you to keep it up, and yet it prevents you from thinking earnestly of anything else. Like knitting, like the work of a copying clerk, it gradually neutralises and sets to sleep the serious activity of the mind. We can think of this or that, lightly and laughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning doze; we can make puns or puzzle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into a chair, and from the chair to the table, and then pushing the basket along nearer and nearer to the edge of the table, she at last made it fall over, and all the sewing and knitting work, and the balls, and needles, and spools, fell out upon the floor. Sligo then jumped down and pushed the basket along toward the clock. She finally got it under the clock, crept into it, curled herself round into the form of a semicircle inside, so as just to fill the ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... or hedgehogs, would be highly serviceable in places infested with mice. An effectual mousetrap may be made in the following manner. Take a plain four square trencher, and put into the two contrary corners of it a large pin, or piece of knitting needle. Then take two sticks about a yard long, and lay them on the dresser, with a notch cut at each end of the sticks, placing the two pins on the notches, so that one corner of the trencher may lie about an inch on the dresser ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... a shower, and a mighty sudden one," said Emily. She thrust her knitting-work in her pocket, donned her sun-bonnet, and departed with other chance occupants of the doorsteps. And Grandma, too, admitted the prospect of foul weather by throwing a handkerchief over her head and going out to ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... without the slightest misgiving, and he was led into the farmhouse kitchen, where Mrs. Green sat knitting over the fire, and one of her daughters was laying ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... it gave her a rest. She smiled as she said this though her legs were swollen and bruised. What upset her the most was that she couldn't do her work while tied to the bed. She could watch the children though, and even did some knitting, so as not to ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... conversation. Then tea-things go, and a portion of Scripture comes instead; and old Grimes expounds; very good it is, doubtless, though he is a layman. He's a good old soul; but no one in the room can stand it; even Mrs. Grimes nods over her knitting, and some of the dear brothers breathe very audibly. Mr. Grimes, however, hears nothing but himself. At length he stops; his hearers wake up, and the hassocks begin. Then we go; and Mr. Grimes and the St. Mark's man call it a profitable evening. I can't make out ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... things to her. He weeps, she weeps. They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He loves her. He calls her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation. She was barefooted; he gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might make stockings. And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with enormous nails. He teaches her verses that are easy to understand. He is afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... surpass, if possible, their former magnificence. Brocaded silk is at present made in a loom worked by one man only, in lieu of two, which the manufacture of that article hitherto demanded. Another new invention is a knitting-loom, by means of which 400 threads are interwoven with the greatest exactness, by ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... depths of a big chair, where she sat busily knitting a little stocking whose proportions suggested Miss Moppet, "I wish you would stop that devil's march. Believe me, you had much better come and talk to me, and so drive away the vapors, rather than stand there and worry over the whereabouts ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... world and his soul, too. But 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 ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... stockings and night-caps as the highest products of our artistic energies, and declare that they are all the soundest hand-work—for in our "daily bread" economy we shall have long forgotten how to work such devil's tools as the modern knitting-machine—then people will reply to us: in the first place we don't want night-caps, and if we did we can supply them for one-tenth of the cost; and our cotton goods will be sent back to ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... 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 ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... stockings, and a red wig and cocked hat, which gave him a sort of military appearance. He usually traveled in a sulky, but sometimes in a chaise, or on horseback.... Mr. Martin also contrived to employ himself in knitting coarse yarn stockings while driving or rather jogging along the road, or when seated on his saddle-bags on horseback. He certainly did not ride post, according to the present [1821] ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... into the yard and lay down in the grass to sleep. Ingmar Ingmarsson slept, too, but he was lying in a broad bed in the chamber off the living-room. The only person not asleep was the old mistress, who sat in the big room, knitting. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... said Louis, laughing; "the little squaw has been brought up in the knowledge and practice of such matters from her babyhood; perhaps if we were to set her to knitting, and spinning, and milking of cows, and house-work, and learning to read, I doubt if she would prove half as quick as ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... the cook, and Mary Farina, the housemaid, and Solomon, the cat. However, before he had time to make any inquiries of the Goblin, his grandmother came dropping down through the air in her rocking-chair. She was quietly knitting, and her chair was gently rocking as she went by. Next came Mrs. Frump, with her apron quite full of kettles and pots, and then Mary Farina, sitting on a step-ladder with the coal-scuttle in her lap. Solomon was ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... 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 to ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... not one art practised by ladies which is more deservedly popular than Knitting. It is so easy, requires so little eyesight, and is susceptible of so much ornament, that it merits the attention of every lady; and in giving instructions for acquiring it, we add, also, such admirable diagrams of the various ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... down the side of the basin, and entered the little cottage. Nurse was seated on a chair by the wall, with her usual knitting, a stocking, in one hand; but her hands were motionless, and her eyes wide open and fixed. I knew that the neighbours stood rather in awe of her, on the ground that she had the second sight; but, although she ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... played with Florrie up and down stairs; she got on my knee at meal-times, or evenings when my wife and I were together. Fine tricks she played me, I must own. She spilled my tea for me, broke cups and saucers, scattered my Patience cards, caught poor Mary's knitting wool and rolled it about the room. The cunning little creature knew that I dared not scold her or make any kind of fuss. She used to beseech me for forgiveness occasionally when I looked very glum, and would touch my cheek to make me look at her imploring eyes, and keep me looking at her ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... willingly enough, and repeated his question. This time he got an answer that surprised him. "It's this way," said the old lady, taking up her knitting, "for some time ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... and bethink herself of the short answers which she had given her aunt. Mme. de Listomere, with the gracious tact characteristic of a bygone age, had respected her niece's mood. When Mme. d'Aiglemont became conscious of her shortcomings, the dowager sat knitting, though as a matter of fact she had several times left the room to superintend preparations in the Green Chamber, whither the Countess' luggage had been transported; now, however, she had returned to her great armchair, and stole a glance ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... conversation. Olive resumed her own knitting, seeing it but indistinctly. Her husband did not continue his newspaper reading. Instead he rose and, saying something about cal'latin' he would go for a little walk before turning in, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... you're knitting woolly things— They're meant for me for choice; There's rain outside, the kettle sings In sobs and frolics till it brings Whispers ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... toward her, while she waited for Lydia's return, Mrs. Penfold fell to knitting, while the inner chatter of the mind went as fast as her needles—concerned chiefly with two matters of absorbing interest: Lydia's twenty pounds, and a piece of news about Lydia, recently learnt ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... being done with the arms more than with the legs, and consisting of slow, graceful gesticulations such as a dreamy poet might use when he soliloquizes to the stars. There is nothing sensuous or suggestive in them. The movements are no more immodest than knitting or quilting a comfortable—and are just about as exciting. Each dance is supposed to be a poem expressed by gesture and posturing—the poetry of motion—a sentimental pantomime, and imaginative Hindus claim to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Madeline, with delicate decision, laying down the silk necktie she was knitting for Roscoe. "What beautiful manners ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... within it succeeded in conveying certain mystic symbols of osculation, that told the story of undying fidelity without paying the postman for the letter that was left in his hands. The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New York spent three days on the trip, and put in his time knitting stockings. John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach from Boston to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day, took his seat in the cold, dark coach, and listened to the creaking of the wheels on the snow ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... her knitting again. Her eyes were fixed upon the sky-line. Twice she opened her lips, but ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... just to see you—ma wants a new strainer, and Bugsey needs boots, and Mary has to have another hank of yarn to finish the sweater she's knitting—these are all very urgent, and I'll get them attended to first, ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... burglary,' cried the senior partner, knitting his brows in wonder and astonishment, and observing for the first time the bolt-upright figure of the Raven, who promptly saluted. 'Do you mean to say this boy ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... the clambering Ivie grew Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold, Least that the Poplar happely should rew Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold With her lythe twigs till they the top survew, And paint with pallid ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... mallet and chisel in hand; there were at work in the shed and on the scaffold about half a dozen men and two women, blouse-clad like the carles, while a very pretty woman who was not in the work but was dressed in an elegant suit of blue linen came sauntering up to us with her knitting in her hand. She welcomed us and said, smiling: "So you are come up from the water to see the Obstinate Refusers: where are you ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... in the basket as the knitting women clicked their needles and cried "Two!" Henriette, with a physical retch at the sight, fell back half-fainting on Maurice. Roughly the ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... in his power to discuss intelligently the new financial conditions into which the country was passing. Helen would smile to herself as she watched the two men absorbed in questions she little understood, and observed her mother nodding drowsily over her knitting. The scene was so peaceful, so cheery, so hopeful against the dark background of the past, that she could not refrain from gratitude. Her heart no longer ached with despairing sorrow, and the anxious, troubled expression had faded out of ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... did her best to comprehend. She stopped her knitting for a moment, put her knitting-pin to her lips, and answered very ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... work them in ribs, four in each row, knitting two stitches; and purling two; both sides must be alike. Continue this till you come to the beginning of the lightest shade; then begin to decrease one stitch at the beginning of every row, till only one stitch remains in the middle; fasten this off, break ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... a world, and wins general compassion, if not shelter in unsuspected and unlicenced places. There is perpetually the inducement to act the hypocrite before the hypocrite world, unless a woman submits to be the humbly knitting housewife, unquestioningly worshipful of her lord; for the world is ever gracious to an hypocrisy that pays homage to the mask of virtue by copying it; the world is hostile to the face of an innocence not conventionally simpering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... return you the plates, with which I am highly pleased. I would humbly propose, instead of the younker knitting stockings, to put a stock and horn into his hands. A friend of mine, who is positively the ablest judge on the subject I have ever met with, and though an unknown, is yet a superior artist with the burin, is quite charmed with Allan's manner. I got him a peep of the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... down his head, and remained silent. From the knitting of his young brows, it was plain he was making a violent effort of memory. "Yes," cried he suddenly, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... millions from brooding over the wrongs of the past and the difficulties of the present, so that all their energies may be bent toward a cheerful striving and cooperation with their white neighbors toward a larger, juster, and fuller future. That one wise method of doing this lies in the closer knitting of the Negro to the great industrial possibilities of the South is a great truth. And this the common schools and the manual training and trade schools are working to accomplish. But these alone are not enough. The foundations ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... placed in Jane's hands a small package, and a letter, for Harry. The last we do not think ourselves privileged to open; but the little box we know to have contained a purse of her own knitting, and a lock of hair, which was sent at the special request of Harry, as he intended to have it placed in a ring by a Paris jeweller. Jane's baggage contained, moreover, in addition to her own paraphernalia, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Rosmershoelm, with a stove, flower-stand, windows, ancient and modern ancestors, doors, and everything handsome about it, REBECCA WEST is sitting knitting a large antimacassar which is nearly finished. Now and then she looks out of a window, and smiles and nods expectantly to someone outside. Madam HELSETH is laying the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... resting on the bank. He was pacing to and fro, with rapid, nervous steps, crushing the dry twigs under his shoes, pressing his hands together behind his back, knitting and unknitting ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... sail-cloth, cordage, copper wire hanging from the joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged along the wall, or a few pieces of cloth upon the shelves. Enter. A neat girl, glowing with youth, wearing a white kerchief, her arms red and bare, drops her knitting and calls her father or her mother, one of whom comes forward and sells you what you want, phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly, according to his or her individual character, whether it be a matter of two sous' or twenty thousand francs' ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... smilingly said: "And how can this separation be combined, where the parties them selues do liue in such disiunctions?" "You say true, madame," saide Alerane, "for the perfection of vnitie consisteth in the knitting of that which is separated. Wherfore madame (sayd he to Adelasia) I humbly besech you, aswel for your comfort as my rest, not to suffer this diuision to be to long, sith the outward bound shall combine the same so inwardly, as very death shall not bee able hereafter to deface ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... school boys and girls sat together indiscriminately, according to the naive custom of those days. They learned, or might learn, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, National History, Psalmody, Sewing, Knitting, and Religion. These were the order of the day, but if anyone distinguished himself by a show of talent, diligence or good behavior, that one received special instruction in versification, an art in ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... supper table was set, and with its snow-white tablecloth and shining furniture, looked very comfortable indeed. But the only person there was an old woman, sitting by the side of the fire, with her back towards Ellen. She seemed to be knitting, but did not move nor look round. Ellen had come a step or two into the room, and there she stood, unable to speak or to go any further. "Can that be Aunt Fortune?" she thought; "she can't be as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... all sat down and made themselves quiet with their books, and the children were as still as mice till an early bed time when all retired. When Sunday evening came the women got out their work—their sewing and their knitting, and the children romped and played and made as much noise as they could, seeming as anxious to break the Sabbath as they had been to have a pious Saturday night. I had never seen that way before ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... flood of secret joy in Doris's veins which gave her a charm, a beguilement Arthur had never seen in her before. She was more woman, and therefore more divine! He could hardly recall her as the careful housewife, harassed by lack of pence, knitting her brows over her butcher's books, mending endless socks, and trying to keep the nose of a lazy husband to the grindstone. All that seemed to have vanished. This white sylph was pure romance—pure joy. He saw her anew; he ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... been washed or dissolved, and whose walls, still to a certain extent permeable, had been hardened and petrified by the constant percolation of water charged with carbonate of lime. From the roof innumerable stalactites, perfectly white, often several yards long and coming down to the delicacy of knitting-needles, hung in clusters; and wherever there was any continuous crack in the roof or wall, a graceful, soft-looking curtain of white stalactite fell, and often ended, much to our surprise. Deep in the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... were all open, 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 on ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... beyond the water mark, by the usual dashing of the waves. We were sitting yesterday after dinner, the two ladies and myself, very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such intrusion in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding worsted, when to our unspeakable surprise a mob appeared before the window; a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys halloo'd, and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... any one to whom dress mattered so little," Aunt Marcia said, as she folded up her silk knitting. "But Mrs. Edgar insists upon her four fittings like any Shylock haggling for his pound of flesh; it is written ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... these dinners in the great houses, because of their uniforms, who would never have been permitted even to come to the front door in other days, for all are potential heroes. Every woman carries her knitting, and it is seldom that you hear a croaker even among the most luxurious class. Well, the dinner is over by half past ten, and I go home to an hour and a half's work, which has been sent from the office, and fall at last into a more or less troubled ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... cold water. If it hardened just right she knew the sorghum had boiled long enough. Then it was poured into buttered plates to cool. Often to add an extra flavor the taffy was sprinkled with walnut kernels. The task of picking out the kernels with Granny's knitting needles usually fell to the younger folks. There on the hearth was a round hole worn into the stone where countless walnuts had been cracked year ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... small Juliette, who is dark, with a comfortable little face constructed almost entirely of dimples, and, at the age of eight, has been discovered knitting stockings at a prodigious pace while she looked the other way. I am afraid Juliette is being held up as an example to other children of the neighbourhood, but I think her great popularity may well survive even that. And there is Louis, who is a marvel ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... Henry Rayne was much weakened by the effort and refused to speak or take any nourishment for the rest of the afternoon. He dozed lazily and languidly until nine o'clock, and then waking somewhat refreshed, he turned towards Jean d'Alberg, who sat knitting by his ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... parasol was hers too, the coral beads, the muff and tippet! All sorts of delightful possibilities whirled through her brain, as she tossed and tumbled the parcels in the chest out on to the floor. More bundles of pieces, some knitting-needles, an old-fashioned pair of bellows (Mell did not know what these were), a book or two, a package of snuff, which flew up into her face and made her sneeze. Then an overcoat and some men's clothes ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... standing perfectly still, entirely engrossed, when he came silently up behind him, and paused to look over his shoulder. They were alone in the vast and chilly room save for one attendant who dozed over some knitting in a corner near the door. Away into the distance stretched the other rooms, bound one to the other like links in a chain. From the third of these came the penetrating voices of the American ladies, descanting unhesitatingly upon the pictures; while in the second the two artists could be seen flitting ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of their number was a hod carrier. He earned $2.50 a day, knowing that would not accumulate fast enough, he was strong and thrifty. After he had worked hard all day, he would spend his evenings putting new bottoms in chairs, and knitting gloves for anyone who wanted that kind of work. In the summer he made a garden, sold his vegetables. He worked very hard, day and night, and was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... in Mrs. Wright, whose hands were busily employed knitting a sweater for one of her girls while her eyes were glancing from person to person. Her foot tapped constantly while her knitting needles flew. One felt that she was doing some kind of work ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... 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 ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... latter case, it is merely the sensuous facts of immediate succession that we know about, as (Gravitation, Newton, Apple.) (Dives, Lazarus, Abraham, Bosom.) (Pipe, Tobacco.) (Michaelmas, Goose.) (Columbus, America.) (Bartholomew Diaz, Cape of Good Hope.) (Grandmother, Knitting.) (Socrates, Hemlock.) (Bruce, Spider.) (Nelson, Trafalgar.) (Demosthenes, Seashore, Stammering, Pebbles.) (Job, Patience.) (Wedding, Slippers, Cake.) (Wellington, Bonaparte, Waterloo.) (Depression, Fall ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... my mind when my eye fell upon my guide. She was seated against the south wall of the tower, on a stool, I thought, or small table. While I was wandering about the church she had taken her stocking and wires out of her pocket, and was now knitting busily. How her needles did go! Her eyes never regarded them, however, but, fixed on the slabs that paved the tower at a yard or two from her feet, seemed to be gazing far out to sea, for they had an infinite objectless outlook. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... borders of (the territory of) Tauris there is a monastery called after Saint Barsamo, a most devout Saint. There is an Abbot, with many Monks, who wear a habit like that of the Carmelites, and these to avoid idleness are continually knitting woollen girdles. These they place upon the altar of St. Barsamo during the service, and when they go begging about the province (like the Brethren of the Holy Spirit) they present them to their friends and to the gentlefolks, for they are excellent things to remove bodily ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... like that; but time hangs heavy on my hands now. That's why I've taken to knitting." She held out a gray yarn muffler. "I had an operation a year ago, and since then Mrs. Vanderbridge has had another maid—a French one—to sit up for her at night and undress her. She is always so fearful of overtaxing us, though ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fellow stared at Dad with his gimlet grey eyes, looking him through and through, knitting his brows, and sniffing and snorting at ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... what had happened until, on taking out his watch, he found it fused into one mass. Instances might be cited where a portion of the shoe was carried away without serious injury to the wearer, and where knitting-needles, scissors and other household implements have been struck, sometimes conducting the current to the person with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... seemed to make her happy. Her face lighted. She sat knitting for an hour, silent and serene, ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... was too small to engage my attention. But while I failed to see anything calculated to shake my confidence in the conclusions I had come to, I saw but little to confirm them. This was not strange; for, apart from a few toilet articles and some knitting-work on a shelf, she appeared to have no belongings; everything else in sight being manifestly the property of Miss Althorpe. Even the bureau drawers were empty, and her bag, found under a small table, had not so much in it as a hair-pin, though I searched it inside and out for her rings, ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... the vicolo, dark of wall and dank of pavement, with petticoats and shirts dangling from numerous windows and fluttering like gibbeted wretches in the air; with frowzy women sewing or knitting in the sombre doorways and squalid urchins screaming everywhere; with humble vegetables and cheap wines exposed for sale in dirty windows; with usually a carriage or two undergoing a washing at some stable-door; and with almost always an amorous Romeo or two from some brighter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Irene, knitting her black eyebrows till they almost met in her anxiety to express herself clearly; "she was telling you to have a good influence over me. She always begins like that with the new governesses. She has an interview with them the morning after ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... to the back parlor, where she at first caught up a half-finished stocking, and began knitting at it with nervous and irregular jerks; but quickly finding herself at odds with the stitches, she threw it aside, and walked hurriedly about the room. At length she paused before the portrait of the stern old Puritan, her ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... from exercise, than of any superstitious awe I felt. Mr. Blake seemed to labor under no such impressions. Riding up to the front door he knocked without dismounting, on its dismal panels with his riding whip. No response was heard. Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch: the door was locked. Hastily running his eye over the face of the building, he drew rein and proceeded to ride around the house, which he could easily do owing to the absence of every obstruction ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... store had on its shelves, colored calico, a small amount of flannel, some broadcloth, and a small parcel of silk valued at one pound. There was also thread in brown and other colors, knitting-needles, pins, horn-combs, combs made of ivory and knives of various descriptions. For trimming garments, there was guimpe, colored tape, Holland tape and Hamburg, the latter an embroidered edging, buttons, some silk covered. Other items included skeins of twine, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... The young belles and beaux whispered and tittered, and passed the original jokes and witticisms common in such cases, while the old ladies soberly took the matter in hand when they went out with their knitting to make afternoon visits, considering how much money Uncle Jaw had, how much his son would have, and what all together would come to, and whether Joseph would be a "smart man," and Susan a good housekeeper, with all the "ifs, ands, and buts" ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of each boat was an awning of straw or matting, under which the fisherman's family could be seen at work upon their morning meal of rice and fish, flipping it into their mouths with long knitting-needles, which Herrick said were the famous Chinese "chopsticks." They hardly took the trouble to look round at the steamer as she passed, seeming to care very little whether she happened to ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to spend the day, are not bound by rules of etiquette but by the rules of their own and their hostess' personal preference. They take off their hats or not as they choose, and they bring their sewing or knitting and sit all day, or they go out and play games, and in other ways behave as house-guests rather than visitors at luncheon. The only rule about such an informal gathering as this is, that no one should ever go and spend the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... "Distinguished in mien, graceful in manner. In the house of his patron, he dared look up to that nobleman's daughter, Diane de Poitiers. A dream; a youthful dream! Enter Monsieur de Breze, grand seneschal of Normandy. Shall I tell you the rest? How Caillette stares, moody, knitting his brows at his cups! Of what is ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Saturday afternoon. Elsie was sitting on her sofa, quietly working, while her nurse sat on the other side of the room, knitting busily, ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... comprehend this, but the mystery was soon revealed. It was that they were all intent and engrossed with the same object; all were, as they passed, calculating and reflecting; this produced a similar contraction of the brow, knitting of the eye-brows, and compression of the lips—a similarity of feeling had produced a similarity of expression, from the same muscles being called into action. Even their hurried walk assisted the error; it is a saying in the United ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... trembled with excitement while he raised his eyes to heaven as if asking for inspiration that would enable his voice to do justice to his writing. So grand it was, said Janet, that her stocking would slip from her fingers as he read—and Janet's stockings, that she was always knitting when not otherwise engaged, did not slip from her hands readily. After her death he was heard by his neighbours reciting the poem to himself, generally with his door locked. He is said to have declaimed part of it one still evening from the top of the commonty like one addressing a multitude, ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... and the horseshoe at the forge, to build the boat or the cart in the shop, to hew store or cut timber for building or firewood, to erect a mill for sawing lumber or grinding grain. Similarly the woman used her spare time in knitting and mending, and if time and strength permitted added to her duties ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... other side, 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 ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... four broomsticks in a sandy court; and it was there, the first day during recess, that the innocent Leon burst into cries of terror when he saw the school-mistress, forced by some accident to interrupt her knitting, stick one of her great knitting-needles in her capacious head-dress. A "senior," who was more familiar with her head-dress, explained the phenomenon in vain to Leon and Norine, for the boy, none the less, preserved ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... hard to say," he replied, knitting his brows. "I hardly know. I think it depends on you.... But if you did do such work wouldn't you ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... plumes, in opal, ruby, pale green, and other hues, are also constructed of these threads, and are wonderfully pretty. The chief obstacle yet to surmount seems to lie in the manipulation of these threads, which are so fine that a bunch containing 250 is not so thick as an average sized knitting needle, and which do not possess the tractability of threads ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... this way," he began, knitting his brows, and marshalling the thoughts and phrases with which his mind had been busy. "This is the question. You were saying that you weren't asked to join my Board. You explained in that way how I could do things for Plowden, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... know Hannah Smith had gone to work for the widow Orville?" inquired Mrs. Fleetfoot, looking up from the blue yarn sock she was knitting, which was destined, no doubt, to convert some half-naked Burman boy from the errors of paganism. "La, I heard of it a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of the child, and so it ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... and how she may best accomplish it, is worthy our earnest counsel one with another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm among Northern women; but, when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country, she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint, and making jellies, the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bacilli in the nearest watch-glass quite angrily. "To ninety-nine!" he exclaimed, knitting his brows. "Cumberledge, this is disgraceful! A most disappointing case! ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the coasts of Norway, of the British Isles, of France, of Portugal, of Spain, of Italy, of Greece. Picture from this immense arc of communication branch lines longer still, diverging to America, to Africa, to India, knitting the ports of the world together in one vast railway system. That railroad system, with its engines and rolling stock, its stations and junctions, its fuel stores and offices, over which run daily and nightly the wagon loads, of food, munitions, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... infancy and childhood." Notwithstanding her devotion to public matters her private duties were never neglected. Many of our readers will no doubt remember Mrs. Mott at Anti-slavery meetings, her mind intently fixed upon the proceedings, while her hands were as busily engaged in useful sewing or knitting. It is not our place to inquire too closely into this social circle, but we may say that Mrs. Mott's history is a living proof that the highest public duties may be reconciled with perfect fidelity to private responsibilities. It is so with ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and none heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles were idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look in it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no sound, for I was the nearest person ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Sir,—I return you the plates, with which I am highly pleased. I would humbly propose, instead of the younker knitting stockings, to put a stock and horn into his hands. A friend of mine, who is positively the ablest judge on the subject I have ever met with, and though an unknown, is yet a superior artist with the burin, is quite charmed with Allan's manner. I got him a peep of the "Gentle Shepherd", and he ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... looks up from her knitting, and smiles as she says, "Tut, tut, daughter! Our Amy isn't any worse than a little girl I knew ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... was his parlour, you know, and I had kept nothing from him while he was alive; that is to say, he always knew what I was thinking of, and I like to fancy that he knows still. In the evenings he used to sit in the arm-chair by the fire, and I sat talking or knitting at his feet, and if I ceased to do anything except sit still, looking straight before me, he knew I was thinking the morbid thoughts that had troubled me in the old days at Double Dykes. Without knowing it I sometimes shuddered at those times, and he was distressed. ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... out knitting, with the woodbine and syringa in the basket for the parlour. I made the basket ... I and ... but myself chiefly, for ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... down in its grooves of beauty, and its very loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside in the jessamine, and a humming-bird—there had always been one, year after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was the same bird—hovered on his invisible perch and ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... invitations to the whole family, which I concluded would not be advisable: there are so many of them, and as they would not be acquainted with the rest of the company, it seemed best not to have any of them. I thought, too, of old Mrs. Joyce, who sometimes does quilting and knitting for me, but she has a large family of grandchildren, some of whom she always drags with her when she goes to where there is any thing good to eat; and it would never do to have them poking their fingers into the refreshments. So it struck me that perhaps you might oblige me. You don't appear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Polly gave me a towel, and we both wiped with all our might and main, and 'most as quick as you can say Jack Robinson, we had them piled in shining rows on the kitchen dresser. Then I did twelve and a half rows on the suspenders I was knitting for Pa's birthday, while Polly finished the rest of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... that that was why his mother had liked it. She could sit with her knitting and watch the passers-by. She had always "infused" the tea when she heard the click of the gate as he ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... up Angela and gazed over her head as she considered. She had a way of using Angela as most women do knitting or embroidery: as something to have in her hands ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... downstairs, she found her brother reading some letters which had been received during his absence. She went and softly shut the door of communication between the parlour and the kitchen; and then, fetching a grey worsted stocking which she was knitting, sat down near him, her eyes not looking at her work but fixed on the fire; while the eternal rapid click of the knitting-needles broke the silence of the room, with a sound as monotonous and incessant as the noise of a hand-loom. She expected him to speak, but he did not. She enjoyed ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... being called the procondyle, the middle the condyle, and the upper the metacondyle. He passes briefly over as lines of little import, the via combusta and the Cingulus Orionis, but lays some stress on the character of the nails and the knitting together of the hand, declaring that hands which can be bent easily backward denote effeminacy or a rapacious spirit. He teaches that lines are most abundant in the hands of children, on account of the tenderness of the skin, and of old men on account ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... "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, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the inmost recesses of his tiny soul. He stared stupidly after the sheep for half a minute, then gave the order, "Wully, fetch them in." After this mental effort he sat down, lit his pipe, and taking out his knitting began ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... explained the Doctor-in-Law, "a knitting machine. I was persuaded to buy it on the understanding that I was to have constant work all the year round, and be paid so much per pair for knitting socks with it. It's a most interesting and ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... given me a reason. I rejoice in being reasonable. I lent him a bit of knitting-work that I happened to have brought with me, with which he kept down his locks, else astray, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... only appropriate comparison I can find for her is, to liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her home; but yet, without effort and without thought, knitting for her children. Now stockings are good and comfortable things, and the children will undoubtedly be much the better for them; but surely it would be short-sighted, to say the least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother as a mere stocking-machine—a ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Then,—had her eye in sorrow wept, A thousand warriors forth had leapt, A thousand swords had sheathless shone, And made her quarrel all their own.[417] Now,—what is she? and what are they? 160 Can she command, or these obey? All silent and unheeding now, With downcast eyes and knitting brow, And folded arms, and freezing air, And lips that scarce their scorn forbear, Her knights, her dames, her court—is there: And he—the chosen one, whose lance Had yet been couched before her glance, Who—were his arm a moment free— Had died or gained ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... Mrs. Jolliffe and tell her of the danger which threatened him, she might refuse permission to fight at all, or, at the very least, she would see that he had proper assistance. So into the house he went, and the first person he found was Hazel, who was knitting her pretty forehead over the Latin exercise which had been given her as ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... subscriptions of foreign residents. The school contained twenty-nine pupils, of whom three were Moslem children, and one a Druse, and no opposition was made to it. Religious instruction was given, of course, and the scholars made good progress in reading, sewing, knitting, and behavior. The whole number in the schools exceeded a hundred. Mr. Abbott, the early and valued friend of the mission, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... distance. It was when she turned to go down again that Goodwin had a full view of her face, bleak and rigid, with greying hair drawn tightly back from the temples, as formal and blank as the face of a clock. It was told of her that she would sit knitting in her chair by the mizzen fife-rail while at the break of the poop a miserable man was being trodden and beaten out of the likeness of humanity and never lift her head nor shift her attitude for all his cries and struggles. It ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Brown, Up rose the Doctor's "winsome marrow;" The lady lay her knitting down, Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a Continental duchess aboard, whom I pitied. She was oldish and homely, and couldn't forget her rank. She had a woman companion, an honorable lady, a maid, and a courier, but she sat all day knitting or reading poor novels. She had nothing to do with the other passengers, eating with her companion at an aloof table, and sitting before her own cabin, apart from others. The courier and I talked several times, and once he said that her Highness ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... liked to talk as much as grandpa liked to keep silent; and always, to the running accompaniment of her tongue, she kept her hands busied, whether "puttering about" in her house or flower-garden, or crocheting "tidies," or knitting little mittens, or creating the multi-coloured paper-flowers which helped ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... explaining to him. Her rebellious hair is all over her eyes, much vexing the pale, energetic mother who sits on the opposite side of the fire, cumbered with much service, letting no instant of time escape the inevitable click of the knitting-needles. The father is already proud of the astonishing and growing intelligence of his little girl. An old-fashioned child, already living in a world of her own imagination, impressible to her finger-tips, and ready to give her views ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... letters, speaking of having chartered the Casco, "I can't but be glad, for his heart has so long been set upon it, it must surely be good for his health to have such a desire granted." Louis warned his mother years before she had a nomad for a son, but she had never objected, and sat knitting on deck, well content not to be "in turret pent," but to go forth with the bright sword she had forged. "She adapted herself," her brother says, "to her strange surroundings, went about barefoot, found no ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... well that whatever Hagar might once have thought to do, there was no danger to be apprehended from her now, and the next day found her as usual on her way to the cottage. Bounding into the room where the old woman sat at her knitting, she exclaimed: "I know what it is! ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... with a stained-glass oriel in a mediaeval cathedral. There is no doubt which is the prettier of the two. The question is, do you want pretty colour or do you want clear daylight?" He paused, but neither of his listeners spoke. Lady Atherley was counting the stitches of her knitting; I was too tired; so he resumed: "For my part, I prefer the daylight and the glass, without any daubing. What does science discover in the universe? Precision, accuracy, reliability—any amount of it; but as to pity, mercy, love! The fact is, that famous simile of the angel playing at chess ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... autographs were put into pregnant English at a subsequent date by the elder Weller. He professed to have received at second-hand from the charity-boy, set to con the alphabet, what the retired stage-driver applied to matrimony—to wit, that it was not worth while to go through so much to get so little. Knitting delighted not ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... she shifted the needles in her knitting, and, smoothing down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the Deacon which signified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... small hole in it, moving it in front of the light so as to throw the latter only upon the portions needing the extra printing. Still another modification is where a portion only needs holding back. Here we use a small piece of paper or cardboard stuck on a knitting needle, moving the latter so that it will not intercept the light too ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... 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
... a scarlet waistcoat, leathern small-clothes, blue yarn stockings, and a red wig and cocked hat, which gave him a sort of military appearance. He usually traveled in a sulky, but sometimes in a chaise, or on horseback.... Mr. Martin also contrived to employ himself in knitting coarse yarn stockings while driving or rather jogging along the road, or when seated on his saddle-bags on horseback. He certainly did not ride post, according to the present [1821] meaning ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... week later. My sister sat in the garden, knitting. I was walking up and down, reading. My gun leant up against the wall of the house; for, since the advent of that strange thing in the gardens, I had deemed it wise to take precautions. Yet, through the whole week, there had been nothing ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... must ship her off, so that she may never return," observed the Buccaneer, with a fierce knitting of his brows. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... dim and distant here, on this parching road, among southern fields. I was beginning to be lost in a muse as to what these boreal flies might do with themselves during the long winter months while all the old women of the place are knitting Shetland underwear when, suddenly, a little tune came into my ears—a wistful intermezzo of Brahms. It seemed to spring out of the hot earth. Such a natural song, elvishly coaxing! Would I ever play it again? Neither that, nor ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... disposition of the coat should have been. The china vases would a little improve the appearance of my parlors; but how many pleasant feelings and hours and days of comfort, would the old coat have given to Mr. Bryan. I said no more. Aunt Rachel went on with her knitting, and I took the vases down into the parlors and placed them on the mantles—one in each room. But they looked small, and seemed quite solitary. So I put one on each end of a single mantle. This did better; still, I was disappointed in the appearance they ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... them, before any travellers passed. It was rarely indeed that a sick person had to wait a minute for her appearance. There she sat, in her shed when it rained, and under a tree when it was fine, sewing or knitting very diligently when no customers appeared, and now and then casting a glance over the Levels to the spot where her husband's mill rose in the midst of the green fields, and where she almost fancied sometimes ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... o'clock when at last Mother Meraut took the basket on her arm and gave Pierrette her knitting to carry, and the three ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... of satirical, heretical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up near the beginning some singular epithet, which serves as a refrain when his song is full, or with which as with a knitting-needle he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced now and then to let fall a row. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd; he sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the streets 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. It was said that she did the honors of the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... promised mother to be good and to do the things you thought would please her. Come on and meet Aunt Trudy—we'll all go, you and I and Shirley," wheedled Rosemary, beginning to roll up her knitting. ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... of Mr. Sanborn's school would go there to play whist, make poker-sketches, and talk with the ladies; while Mrs. Alcott, who had played with the famous automaton in her younger days, would have a quiet game of chess with some older person in a corner. Louisa usually sat by the fire-place, knitting rapidly with an open book in her lap, and if required to make up a table would come forward with a quiet look of resignation and some such remark as "You know I am not a Sarah Battles." Then after a while her love of fun would break forth, and her bright flashes of wit would ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... a rest. She smiled as she said this though her legs were swollen and bruised. What upset her the most was that she couldn't do her work while tied to the bed. She could watch the children though, and even did some knitting, so as not to entirely ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... When I speak of knitting together breaks in the trail, I mean simply that the passage of the supporting party from that point where the trail was broken by the movement of the ice to the point where the trail went on again, some distance either to the east or west, would itself renew the broken ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... not believe. Then the rector had come up to town to hear the trial, and on the day preceding it had asked his nephew as to the truth of the rumour which had reached him. "It is true," said the young lord, knitting his brow, "but it had better not be ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... this whole passage: the sense of utter deadness and emptiness, and frustrate fall in the leaves; of dormant life in the human body,—the fire, and heroism, and strength of it, lulled under the dead brown heap, as embers under ashes, and the knitting of interchanged and close strength of living boughs above. But there is not the smallest apparent sense of there being beauty elsewhere than in the human being. The wreathed wood is admired simply as being a perfect ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... whenever we caught a glimpse of them. He was one of those drivers who know everybody; he passed the time of day with all the men we met, and he had a joking compliment for all the women, who gladdened at sight of him from the thresholds where they sat sewing or knitting: such a driver as brings a gay world to home-keeping souls and leaves them with the feeling of having been in it. I would have given much more than I gave the beggars in Toledo to know just in what terms ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... round the tea-table just as at Tryland—Kirstie and Jean embroidering and knitting, and the other two reading new catalogues of ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... the house. Neither of us said anything for a bit. Mother was sitting in her old chair by the fire knitting. Many a good pair of woollen socks she'd sent us, and many's the time we'd had call to bless her and her knitting—as we sat our horses, night after night, in a perishing frost, or when the rain set in that run of wet winters we had, when we'd hardly a dry stitch on us by the week together, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees. Mary's knitting lay in one of the chairs. She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while Rowcliffe talked and she listened. The act of knitting disposed her to long silences. It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... amused to look over Joseph's case of books?" handing her the key, and then sitting down with her knitting, contented in having finished her duty. "After a while thee'll have a pleasant time,"—smiling consciously. "Richard'll be awake. Richard's our boy, thee knows? I wish he was awake, but it is his mornin' nap, an' I never disturb ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... these would-be reformers are simply notoriety-seekers. I believe in manual training, but Latin and mathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these faddists advocate—heaven knows what they do want—knitting, I suppose, and classes in wiggling ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... blanket she had spread on the lawn in her front yard, knitting a pair of booties for the PTA bazaar. Occasionally she glanced at her son in the play pen, who was getting his daily dose of sunshine. He was gurgling happily, examining a ball, a cheese grater and a linen baby book, ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... more of the nursery party till later in the afternoon. The creaking wheels of two small wheelbarrows made Jan look up from the letters she was writing at the knee-hole table that stood in the nursery window, and she beheld little Fay and Tony, followed by Meg knitting busily, as they came through the yew archway on ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... en bloc was its idleness. I never saw one of them with a piece of knitting or any other work in her hands during all the weeks we were there. In fine weather they loitered and basked in the garden, gossiping or amusing themselves with novelettes cut from the penny papers and passed from one to the other in turn. The front door stood almost always open, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... 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 upon ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... salesman were well informed, that the high price was due to the manufacture of airplanes! The explanation is that the wire stays used in the manufacture of airplanes are made of steel wire from which machine knitting needles are also made. In the early part of the war all of the available wire of this kind was taken for airplanes, thus limiting the supply of knitting needles and consequently ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... the mingling of classes—girls of education and refinement working quite happily with those of a much humbler type—runs without friction under the influence of a common spirit. This common spirit was well expressed by a girl who before she came to the factory was working a knitting-machine. "I like this better—because there's a purpose in it." A sweet-faced woman who was turning copper bands for shell, said to me: "I never worked a machine before the war. I have done 912 in ten hours, but that tired me very much. I can do ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in more jelly, keep turning and add by degrees more jelly; continue this process until the jelly has formed a complete lining inside of form; lay the pegs of apples and pears in slanting rows onto a napkin and cut them all the same length; then take each one separately onto a larding or knitting needle and dip into cold jelly; first lay a row of red on the side of form, then a row of white in an opposite direction; continue until the form is covered, pour over some thick jelly and when firm fill the inside with apple bavarois made as follows:—Prepare 1 pint apple sauce, press ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... deeply significant in her gaze, something that was brave, and appealed, and winced at the same time. She went on slowly with her knitting. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... divine striker of the senses; thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish without remembering, memory being the only treasure of knowledge, those words which are fittest for memory, are likewise most convenient for knowledge. Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the memory, the reason is manifest: the words, besides their delight, which hath a great affinity to memory, being so set as one cannot be lost, but the whole work fails: which accusing itself, calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most strongly ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... went, and as the lecture was delivered before one of the benevolent societies of the city, the subject was the broad and strong one, "Christian Giving." Tode came home with some new and startling ideas. He burst into the little kitchen where the mother sat placidly knitting her stockings, and the daughter sat knitting her brows over her arithmetic lesson, and ...
— Three People • Pansy
... only blind, but it was evident that smallpox had been the cause of her loss of vision. Her eyes were bound with a bandage, her features were entirely swollen, scarred and distorted by the horrible effects of the malady. She had been knitting in a corner when we entered, and was wrapped in a very dirty bedgown. Her voice to me was quite different to that in which she addressed her husband. She spoke to Haggarty in broad Irish: she addressed me in that most odious of all languages—Irish-English, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and was a person of weight in the councils of the Primrose League, went calmly on with her knitting. ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 man. As an artist, as ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... management of a clothing club, in itself a maddening thing to ordinary mortals, and had an 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 ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... then, being the unmerited disparagement of the Byzantine government, and so great the ingratitude of later Christendom to that sheltering power under which themselves enjoyed the leisure of a thousand years for knitting and expanding into strong nations; on the other hand, what is to be thought of the Saracen revolutionists? Every where it has passed for a lawful postulate, that the Saracen conquests prevailed, half by the feebleness of the Roman government at Constantinople, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... possession of the Duke of Newcastle, who cleared away almost the whole of the ancient structure and built a house upon the site. The city was noted for its manufactures as early as the reign of King John, and the hand-knitting of stockings was introduced in the sixteenth century. Previously to that time hosiery had been cut out of cloth, with the seams sewed up the same as outer clothing. As early as 1589 a machine for weaving was invented, but failing to reap a profit from it, the inventor, a clergyman, took it ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... English ladies certainly do carry practical industry farther than I ever saw it in America. Every body knows that an anniversary meeting is something of a siege, and I observed many good ladies below had made regular provision therefor, by bringing knitting work, sewing, crochet, or embroidery. I thought it was an improvement, and mean to recommend it when I get home. I am sure many of our Marthas in America will be very grateful ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Her mother's scanty income did not enable them to hire servants; and the work of the house devolved upon Elinor, who was too dutiful a child to suffer her ailing mother to assist her in these domestic labors. The lighter employments of sewing and knitting, her mother shared; and they were glad to increase their slender means by taking in plain work; which so completely occupied the young girl's time, that she was rarely seen abroad, excepting on Sundays, when she accompanied her mother to ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... a great problem to me,' she declared at length, knitting her brows with a hint of humorous exaggeration. 'I wonder whether he believes ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... if it wasn't for the fact that Petway does the knitting act so well that he is a perfect lady. We never could equal him," answered Tony, with jolly good humor to save our feelings ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... my winter stockings. I got knitting needles and cards my own mother had and used. I got use for them. I wears clothes on my body in cold weather. One reason you young folks ain't no 'count you don't wear enough clothes when it is cold. I wear flannel clothes if I can get holt ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... afternoon; but was it duty? or, indeed, putting that question aside, was it quite right to compound matters with his own heart's desire and the work he was engaged in, in this undeniable fashion? The young priest crossed the street very slowly, swinging his cane and knitting his brows as he debated the question. If it had been one of the bargemen bringing his sweetheart, walking with her along the side of the canal to which Spring and sweet Easter coming on, and Love, perhaps, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... but no one offered him anything. Close by was a stall of splendid purple grapes, but the old woman that kept it was busy knitting. She only called to him to ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... first glimpse he'd had of Bedford Forrest—the officer sitting his big gray charger in the midst of a battle, whirling his standard to attract a broken rabble of men, knitting out of them, by sheer force of personality, a refreshed, striking force. Now Drew found himself facing quite a different person—a big, quiet, soft-spoken man who eyed the scout ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... delightful!" said Ruth, knitting the fingers of both hands over one knee and listening to him with a child-like abandon ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... take his overcoat and hat and cane, and place them as carefully in the clothes press as if they had been the robe, crown, and sceptre of a king. Then she would sit in her little chair, and take her sewing, or knitting, or embroidery, and pretend to be all absorbed in it, while she was listening eagerly to every word that Marcus addressed to her father, and occasionally looked up at the face of their guest, and thought how noble it was, and how proud she should be ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... necessity of knitting these committees into a national unity. The national convention which nominated Clay in 1831 appointed a "Central State Corresponding Committee" in each State where none existed, and it recommended "to the several States to organize subordinate corresponding committees ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... toads, and working each one into one of the wonderful legends which he had heard from the old German gardener across the way. He saw his father, too, pacing those paths of summer evenings, when the hollyhocks nodded their pink heads, and glancing up, from time to time, at his mother as she sat knitting at that very window. And, last of all in the line, yet first in his mind, he saw his wife tripping out in the fresh morning, to smile on the flowers she loved, to linger lovingly over the beds of verbena, and to pick the little nosegay that stood by the side of the tall coffee-urn ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... gentle Love, who was knitting "double mittens" in the corner; "that isn't a sure sign at all. I dare say he went away because he was unhappy. How would you like to live with people that don't trust you? Why, Seth, you ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of these rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the princess' ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... tree on the lawn knitting, when the children clustered around with the old request, "Please, grandmamma, tell us ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... 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
... at the corner of a market-place or 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 into lumps and ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... and the girls sat still and watched the men across the level sands, and the boats hurrying out to the fishing grounds. Then they went back to the cottage, and found that Mistress Binnie had taken her knitting and gone to chat with a crony who lived ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
