Julie C Gerow wrote:
the knit patterns were unique to the family. So if a body
washed up they knew who it was from the sweater on it.
gruesome but practical, I thought. Is there any truth in
this or is it a touristy fable?
I read an article about that once, which traced the story to
a scene in a movie -- a body had washed up and been buried,
and the clothing it had been wearing was sent to the sisters
of a missing fisherman to see whether they could identify
it. The clothes are his -- but the local store has bolts
and bolts of the fabric his shirt was made of, and
everything there is something that many other fishermen
wear, so they cling to hope that their brother is alive --
until one of the sisters examines the stockings and finds a
place where she had made a mistake in her knitting.
But the story sells sweaters!
I imagine that there really were family patterns --
girls learned to knit from their mothers, after all.
--
Joy Beeson
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
where tulips, violets, and redbuds are in full swing.
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