Knitting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has just released 400,000 images into the public domain so I have done what any knitter would do - gone to look at the knitting images, below are a few of my favourite finds.

Shepherdess Knitting by Jean-François Millet (1862) - similar to the pictures of Shetland women knitting while going about their work.

German knitted rug (1751) - according to Richard Rutt's History of Handknitting these were sometimes made as 'masterpieces' as part of qualifying for craft guilds and sometimes for customers.  I cannot imagine knitting anything so intricate!

Sampler, German (nineteenth century) There are more here, incredibly beautiful items.  The V&A in London has a good collection of them too

Sweater, American (1895) I could see something like this working today, a very dramatic silhouette

There is vastly more to look through, so much detail of the history of knitting

Sheep!

Of course, an important part of our visit to the farm was seeing the lambs while they were still little and we took endless photos.  At the start of the week the lambs were still very much at the tottering stage but by the time we left they were venturing further from their mothers and beginning to career around the field, jump and play.  Not much more to say, but here's a selection of photos, you can see the full set here on flickr.






I love how their tails wag when they feed.







Lastly not the greatest picture, but I feel it is very expressive.