songs with knitting in them

Subject: songs with knitting in them
From: Emmie
Date: 21 Sep 13 - 07:21 PM

I'm looking for some traditional songs that relate to knitting for a special event that involves teaching people folk songs at a group knitting get together! ( kind of hard to describe) With n initial google search we've managed to find some wartime knitting songs but it would be great to find some traditional ones if possible.

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Susan of DT
Date: 21 Sep 13 - 07:38 PM

Use the lyric search. I put in knit* and got 25 hits. Wool got more than that.

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Artful Codger
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 01:33 AM

There's the Otis Redding song "Knitting on the Dock of the Bay".

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Artful Codger
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 01:34 AM

And the cowboy song "When It's Knit-Time in Nevada".
(I'll get my Stetson.)

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 03:11 AM

Bill Oddie recorded The Knitting Song and it's on YouTube here:

The Knitting Song

Enjoy!

LFF

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Tradsinger
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 04:04 AM

There's a music hall song we sing here "All the girls are busy knitting jumpers".

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: David C. Carter
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 05:50 AM

The ghost of Bell Starr,she hands down her wits
To Jezabel the nun,who violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits
At the head of The Chamber Of Commerce.


Tombstone Blues
Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,mick henry oxford
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 06:57 AM

The spinning wheel

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 07:30 AM

Sally Ironmonger - Mother's Sitting Knitting

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: MMario
Date: 22 Sep 13 - 07:32 AM

Ghost Knitters in the sky?

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 04:25 AM

trad songs about knitting - check out the related threads

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 08:14 AM

There's a song by Mike Donald called "The Terrible Knitters of Dent" (terrible meaning fearful and respected, and Dent being a village near the Settle-to-Carlisle railway). I think it's on his L.P. "Songs of the Broad Acres".

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,John Foxen
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 09:59 AM

Harry Lauder's "Wee deoch an doris" has the line:
If you can say, "It's a braw bricht moonlicht knit",
Then yer a'richt, ye ken.

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 10:58 AM

Not traditional BUT
it has all the hallmarks of the tradition.

a Shanty
Boy meets girl
tune is fairly trad.

The Knittershanty though the mp3 can be found at the bottom of the page here

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 11:02 AM

Not 'Trad' , but Mister Red has 'Knittershanty'

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 11:29 AM

echo

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 11:41 AM

Great Minds mate !!

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,Knitwit
Date: 23 Sep 13 - 08:11 PM

Jamie's On the Stormy Sea

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,CupOfTea, no cookies
Date: 24 Sep 13 - 05:25 PM

Not trad, and only one verse refers to knitting, but there's a wonderful silly song by Jan Harmon "Deepest Africa" which Hot Soup recorded on what I BELIEVE is their first album: Soup Happens. That's not the only gem - the whole album is a treat, but Deepest Africa lists a number of critters the singer has taught to do various things (sing, dance, knit, fly)
The verse in question:

I was in deepest Africa, yes I was, yes I was
I was in Deepest Africa teaching gnus to gnit.
Now each stitch that gnu gnit
He would throw a fit like a big gnit-wit
I was in deepest Africa teaching a gnu to gnit.
(Spoken: Gnit one, pearl two, Gnit one, pearl two)

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Sep 13 - 06:20 PM

Would you believe there's already a thread, started in 2001, called Lyr Req: Knitting Songs?

Here are a few songs that have already been posted, in various threads:

Knitting and Crochet

Knitting, from Arthur Askey

The Knitters, by C. Fox Smith

Ghost Knitters by the Road, (a parody)

Mother's Sitting Knitting Little Mittens for the Navy

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Emmie
Date: 28 Sep 13 - 06:11 PM

thanks everyone...will check out some of these ideas

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Sep 13 - 07:43 PM

A fiddle tune from Shetland, "Auld Swaara":

http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/89974

The title means a woollen singlet, which was always hand-knitted. I've often heard the tune played as a lament, the idea being that the distinctive pattern of the vest was used to identify the bodies of drowned fishermen.

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 05:20 AM

Knitting and Crochet

Subject: RE: songs with knitting in them
From: GUEST,Sue Allan
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 09:06 AM

The 'Terrible Knitters of Dent' mentioned above, used to sing the song Tarry Wool when they were knitting, according to an old lady in Dent who I spoke to some twenty-odd years ago.

Subject: ADD: Davy Cross (Paul Davenport)
From: Paul Davenport
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 04:15 PM

I've written three as part of a song cycle. Here's the words to the pne that's so far been recorded. The story is true by the way. Perhaps I should say that 'gansey' is a woollen sweater with a pattern knitted into it that is peculiar to a particular location, and often a particular family.

DAVY CROSS
(Paul Davenport)

The Widow Cross had but one son
And indeed he was his mother's pride and joy
So she knitted him a gansey
Cable stitched both fine and fancy
And it looked like royal robes upon the boy

Chorus:
How we knew his bright blue eyes
How we knew his golden hair
And that gansey that his mother made
Was fine beyond compare

Tall and bright was Davy Cross
With a shining face that never bore a frown
And the lasses smiled and sighed
At his strong and manly stride
On a Friday when the fishing fleet left town

Chorus:   For they knew &c

At the dance on Saturday
The lasses fairly swooned to dance with him
As he held them in his arms
How they fluttered at his charms
And their hearts beat faster at his boyish grin

Chorus:    For they knew &c

Then one dark October day
There came a storm which drove us to the lee
And our fishing fleet was tossed
Yet but one single craft was lost
Leaving Widow Cross a-gazing out to sea

Chorus:    Well she knew &c

When just ten weeks were passed and gone
They finally brought us news about the loss
Seemed a body had been found
Of a sailor lost and drowned
And in our hearts we knew 'twas Davy Cross

Chorus:    For we knew &c

Reprise:        But it wasn't sky-blue eyes
Nor that hair as pale as foam
It was the gansey that his mother made
That brought young Davy home

P. Davenport © Nov 2009
Recorded on 'Spring Tide Rising' 2011 Paul & Liz Davenport
http://www.hallamtrads.co.uk