"Knitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more intensely possessive of the facts than 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
... done; and it remained for us on the outside to do it. There was the organization of the mouth-to-mouth propaganda; the organization, with all its ramifications, of our spy system; the establishment of our secret printing-presses; and the establishment of our underground railways, which meant the knitting together of all our myriads of places of refuge, and the formation of new refuges where links were missing in the chains we ran ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Grace "got on" with the governess, while the invalid made friends with all who visited her, and most signally with Rachel, who, ere long, esteemed her environment a good work, worthy of herself. The charity of sitting with a twaddling, muffatee-knitting old lady was indisputable, but it was perfectly within Grace's capacity; and Rachel believed herself to be far more capable of entertaining the sick Miss Williams, nor was she mistaken. When excited or interested, most people thought her oppressive; but ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a good deal about them, only to-day,' went on the widow, taking up some fleecy knitting. The mother and son were sitting in the twilight, and knitting needed no spectacles. 'It seems they are an ill-governed pack, the young people, neglected by their father, and allowed to grow up anyhow, people say. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... 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 ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... round to the back of the house; and there entered at once, and without knocking, upon Miss Redwood's premises. They were in order; nobody ever saw the parsonage kitchen otherwise; and Miss Redwood was sitting in front of the stove, knitting. ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... walked in twice a week to see him, carrying with her a basket of biscuits and other homely things dear to her son's palate. All of which the sheriff speared with knitting-needles, and tried on various domestic animals, to make certain that the Widow Newbolt did not cheat the gallows out of its due by concealing saws in pies, or introducing poison to her hopeless ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... spoken of you frequently on the journey," he replied, knitting his brows into a scowl as he smiled and returned her look. "Your illness made her very anxious. You are much better, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the heavy hay-waggons began to move across the meadows. It was drawing near supper-time and the speaker rose and briskly set aside her knitting. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... was bright and shining, Dimpled cheeks, too! ah! how funny! Bless me, now she wears a cap, My grandma does, and takes a nap every single day; Yet she danced the minuet long ago; Now she sits there rocking, rocking, Always knitting grandpa's stocking— Every girl was taught to knit long ago— But her figure is so neat, And her ways so staid and sweet, I can almost see her now, Bending to her ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... saith Master Inge, knitting his brows. "It was to Southampton my Lady went—at least ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Jewess—eh?" and a smile of sarcasm spread over his fat face. "Well, go on;" and he took the paper I handed him, knitting his brows again as his eyes fell upon the Imperial arms and ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... appreciated in England. At the time when Byron was making merry with the notion of an American poet bearing the name of Timothy (Dwight), Campbell was appropriating a line, "The hunter and the deer—a shade" from Freneau's "Indian Burying Ground," and knitting it into "O'Connor's Child," and Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion," by altering a single word, was transparently concealing his theft ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... the Will first, pausing and knitting his brows distrustfully, wherever he found blank spaces left in the manuscript to be filled in with the names of persons and the enumeration of sums bequeathed to them. Two or three minutes of reading brought him to the end of the paper. He gave it back to Mrs. Lecount ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the strongest rope and bars of iron. The Emperor said all my orders were to be carried out. The rope that was brought me was only as thick as our packing thread, and the iron bars were the length and size of a knitting-needle. I twisted three lengths of the rope together to make it stronger, and three of the iron bars in the same way. I turned up the ends of the bars to form a hook. I fixed fifty hooks to as many pieces of rope, and then I took them all down to ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... general treatment for snake-bite is to tie a ligature tightly ABOVE the wound, then suck out as much of the virus as possible. Give the patient large quantities of whisky or brandy, to induce intoxication. Incise the wound with a red-hot nail, or knitting needle. Keep the patient intoxicated till the doctor arrives. For Burns All burns are more painful when exposed to the air. For lesser burns a cloth saturated with a strong solution of bicarbonate of soda (common ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Mother (knitting in her arm-chair). Give us a song! Brackenburg sings so good a second. You used to be merry once, and I had always something to ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the night was balmy; and there was a 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 ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... her intent and preoccupied look, from the nervous twitching of her thin lips, the close peering of her near-sighted eyes, through rimless glasses which she wore attached by a gold chain to her hair, she might have found in the act of knitting a supreme consolation for the inexorable denials of destiny. "I wonder if it satisfies her, just knitting?" thought Gabriella. "Has she submitted like Arthur to chance, to the way things happen when one ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... morning, after breakfast, in a room adjoining her own bed-room, in which she daily held deep debate with Griffiths, her factotum, respecting household affairs, knitting-needles, and her own little ailments and cossetings. Griffiths, luckily, was a woman of much the same tastes as her ladyship, only somewhat of a more active temperament; and they were most stedfast friends. It was such a comfort to Lady Cashel to have some one ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... of Friends that live perhaps in the opposite Sides of the County. Will. is a particular Favourite of all the young Heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a Net that he has weaved, or a Setting-dog that he has made himself: He now and then presents a Pair of Garters of his own knitting to their Mothers or Sisters; and raises a great deal of Mirth among them, by enquiring as often as he meets them how they wear? These Gentleman-like Manufactures and obliging little Humours, make Will. the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "Tommy's isn't half bad; we saw a small boy who had been taking a box 'down- along' on a sledge, and he referred us to a nice place where they took Tommy in; but you should see my lodging—it is ideal. I noticed the prettiest yellow-haired girl knitting in a doorway. 'There isn't room for me at the inn,' I said; 'could you let me sleep here?' She asked her mother, and her mother said 'Yes,' and there was never anything so romantic as my vine-embowered window. Juliet ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... time he was ready to go down, supper was waiting for him on the warm and bright hearth, and he fell upon it almost ravenously. It was twenty-four hours since he had last eaten. Phebe sat almost out of sight in the shadow of a large settle, with her knitting in her hand, and her eyes only seeking his face when any movement seemed to indicate that she could serve him in some way. But in these brief glances she noticed the color coming back to his face, and new vigor and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... passers-by in the street below. When his pipe was smoked out, he emptied its ashes in the street; as he did so, he looked down, Himmel! The ashes fell on the head of Fraeulein Baumann, who dwelt in the same house in the story below him, and who was at that time knitting a pair of stockings and also looking at the passengers in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he spied old Moodie standing in the open gateway of the court, with a light in his hand, and knitting his shaggy brows. He looked neither very drunk, nor much afraid of robbers, but trembled with rage on seeing L'Isle's mode of breaking out of the mansion. With a strong effort of self-control, L'Isle walked off without ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... troops "retire" When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood. O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... the bacilli in the nearest watch-glass quite angrily. "To ninety-nine!" he exclaimed, knitting his brows. "Cumberledge, this is disgraceful! A most disappointing ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... tools and rare woods to the little artist that he might serve his mother in his own pretty way. Then Nat took up his crutches and hopped nimbly before her to the room, where a plain, serene-faced woman lay knitting, with her best cap on, her clean handkerchief and large green fan laid out upon the coverlet. This was evidently the best room of the house; and as Sylvia sat talking to the invalid her eye discovered many traces ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the room where the poets slept when I came quietly down. The old witch sat by a table with a lamp, knitting a splendid cloak of gold and green for a king that had been dead ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... and paste and shaving powder, ladies' and gentlemen's dressing-cases, with or without fittings, in Russia leather, mahogany, rosewood and japan ware, ladies' companions and pocket-books, elegantly fitted, also knitting-boxes, envelope cases, card cases, note and cake baskets, beautiful inkstands, and an infinity of recherche articles not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... pepper-box into the middle of it! There was no end to the fun to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused himself with it the whole of the morning, while Milly went through long stories with her dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma, who sat knitting and ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... knitting of the brows and the scratching of the head, I should say that that question gave occasion to a very abstruse mathematical calculation. Gradually the look of concentrated attention gave place to an expression such as children assume when they endeavour to get a parental decision reversed ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium patients. Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour was later than that of the younger members of her household, undoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps snatched ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... study the mode of their production. I was fortunately able to watch Madame B. on one occasion while she went through this curious performance. She was seated at a table, and held in the left hand the piece of knitting at which she had been working. Her face was calm, her eyes looked into space with a certain fixity, but she was not cataleptic, for she was humming a rustic tune; her right hand wrote quickly, and, as it were, surreptitiously. I removed the paper without her noticing me, ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still sat up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead, between the pretty rippling curves ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... father tried to resume his knitting—an occupation which he had long ago been compelled to resort to in order to employ his time; but he soon put it down with a sigh, rose, and taking his soft brown felt-hat and stout stick, tapped his way along through the great hall ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... entertain him with discourse, till he became drunken and fell asleep. Thereupon she arose without stay or delay and taking out of her bundle a budget of Taifi leather,[FN474] opened it and drew forth a pair of knitting needles, wherewith she fell to work and stinted not till she had made a beautiful zone, which she folded up in a wrapper after cleaning it and ironing it, and laid it under her pillow. Then she doffed her dress till she was mother-naked and lying down beside Nur al-Din shampoo'd him till he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... features, like those of Mr. Wentworth. Two other gentlemen, behind him, had risen from their seats, and a little apart, near one of the windows, stood a remarkably pretty young girl. The young girl was knitting a stocking; but, while her fingers quickly moved, she looked with wide, ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Eric went to the orchard again; and again he was disappointed. He went home, determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry. Fortune favoured him, for he found Mrs. Williamson alone, sitting by the west window of her kitchen and knitting at a long gray sock. She hummed softly to herself as she knitted, and Timothy slept blackly at her feet. She looked at Eric with quiet affection in her large, candid eyes. She had liked Mr. West. But Eric had found his way into the inner chamber of her heart, by reason that his eyes were ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a track which touches on its way 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 ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... their search. Fred, who preferred rowing to strawberry-picking, undertook to take charge of Harry, who was as eager for the water as a young duck; while Mrs. Steele, taking out her knitting, sat down beside the baskets under a spreading oak, on a knoll overlooking the river, to wait until there should ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... the district, when suddenly we heard Olga's voice at the door: 'Tea is ready.' We went into the drawing-room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under him. Radilov's mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at any rate I did not notice ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... convalescence was somewhat slow, for the shock to the system had been a severe one. The long railway journey had been injurious to him, for the bandage had become somewhat loose and the broken pieces of bone had grated upon each other, and were much longer in knitting together than they would have been had he been ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... because it was a house, and how wonderful the ways of people who lived in a house seemed to him. When he and Kathleen sat together in a corner of the room and John sat reading a paper and Mrs. O'Brien knitting and reading a book at the same time, it was as astonishing a sight to him as it would be to you to see a dozen mermaids playing at the ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... its origin in disappointed affection. The curate is said to have fallen deeply in love with a young lady of the village, who failed to reciprocate his affections; and when he visited her, she was accustomed to pay much more attention to the process of knitting stockings and instructing her pupils in the art, than to the addresses of her admirer. This slight is said to have created in his mind such an aversion to knitting by hand, that he formed the determination to invent a machine that should supersede it and render it a gainless employment. For three ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... along the shore knitting, her empty basket tilted on her head. The blue Mediterranean Sea sparkled as far as the eye could reach, and broke on the pebbles of the beach in waves as clear as crystal. Soon she turned back toward the hills, following a narrow path between high ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, 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, then begins anew with fresh vigor; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... 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 ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... is vile,' cried the Priest, knitting his brows, 'and vile and evil are the pagan things God suffers to wander through His world. Accursed be the Fauns of the woodland, and accursed be the singers of the sea! I have heard them at night-time, and they ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... nearly always at work. If they are walking along driving llamas they are working as they walk winding wool into yarn or knitting some garment. With juices from plants the yarn is colored and by means of a loom which any woman among them can make they weave this yarn into a ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... gave her some ravellings from an old tidy," she hastened to assure him. "She played with them awhile and knew no better, as I told her the colours one by one. Afterward she planned all kinds of samplers and fire-screens that I might work. Her own knitting has wearied her of late, so we haven't been obliged ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close, knitting ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... finished their breakfast; the elder of the two—that is to say, Mrs. Presty—took up her knitting and eyed her silent daughter with an ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... There'll be constant competition in the subtle art of sewing. Soon the modern undergraduate, with a feather in her hat, Shall parade the streets of Cambridge, followed by her faithful cat. From Parker's Piece and Former's shall be banished bat and wicket, For crotchet work and knitting shall supplant the game of cricket, Save whene'er a match at croquet once a Term is played at Girton By the Members of "the College" and the Moralists of Merton. Then no tandems shall be driven, and no more athletic sports, Save fancy balls and dances, shall appear in "Field" reports: ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... strange," said Prudence, knitting her brows. "I was in there right after supper, and I didn't notice anything. What ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the bondsman finished trimming the ivory to a proper size, and neatly fitted it into the frame. Then he spread the papers out, and in some haste, for the winter's day was fast waning, he resumed his scribbling, varied by intervals of pen-chewing and knitting of brows. Finally he gave a sigh of relief, and taking a blank sheet he copied in a bold hand-writing what was written on the paper he had last toiled over. Then picking up the miniature, he touched it to his lips. "She was sent to give me faith again in women," he said, as he ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the raft were several houses. The houses were made of boards, and were of the plainest and simplest construction. Around the doors of these houses several women were sitting wherever they could find shady places. Some were knitting and some were sewing. There were several children there too, amusing themselves in various ways. One was skipping a rope. Rudolf conducted Rollo up to one of these families, and told the women that he was an American boy, who was travelling ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... kitchen, busy over a heap of more or less woolly garments belonging to himself. Jimsie was at afternoon school; Jeannie sat in the little parlour knitting as though life ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... means of amusing her are more varied and more congenial perhaps. In addition to reading aloud and playing games, there is the vast realm of "fancy work," where most women feel at home. It is a pity, so few women nowadays know anything about knitting, crochetting or tatting,—many do not even know which is which. A lady asked me very innocently, not long ago, how I could tell the difference between knitting and crochetting! Since Irish crochet has returned to favor, however, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... "Um-m-m," mused Drake, knitting brows. "You don't say? But, see here, kid, didn't you say that this Dagget's mother was only Major Calvert's half-sister? How about that, eh? Then her name would be different from his. How about that? How do you know Loring mightn't fit it? ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... Bedient saw the sources of his own heritage! From another aspect he viewed the deathlessness of time, the beauty of physical death, the radiance of the future, the immortality of love. It was revealed how all the agony of the world arises from the knitting together of soul and flesh, the evolving of soul through flesh. Spirit is given birth in flesh—and birth is pain. Death is the ecstasy of the grown spirit. Spirit prospers alone through giving, and greatly through the giving of love. Spirit shines star-like in the giving of woman—in the fineness ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... quarters," said the wife, knitting her fingers about her husband's elbow and drawing ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the living-room. I had three hours before the children could possibly arrive, and I got out my knitting. I had brought along two dozen pairs of slipper soles in assorted sizes—I always send knitted slippers to the Old Ladies' Home at Christmas—and now I sorted over the wools with a grim determination ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a circle of ladies who were sewing and knitting for the soldiers; and after some talk about the difficulty she had found in learning to knit socks, and how fashionable it was for everybody to knit now, she rose ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... my eyes deceive me? or do I really see my dear brother safe and sound in limb and body?" she exclaimed, sticking her knitting-needles and balls of cotton into one of her ample pockets, ready for the affectionate embrace she was ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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, all with ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... in the White House, hard at work Signing State papers (Rutherford was there, Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell Upon my paper. I looked up and saw An angel, holding in his hand a rod Wherewith he struck me. Smarting with the blow I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired: "Wherefore this chastisement?" The angel said: ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... she echoed indignantly, making her knitting needles click, a movement which displayed her pretty, miniature hands, half hidden in lace ruffles. "As if they hadn't gone through enough, in flesh and blood, poor creatures! Some of them may have been my countrymen, captured on the seas by ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to her household duties and helped the minister. She fell now into the habit of spending the early part of the afternoon with Mrs. Middleton, going over to the library just before four. Doctor Fenwick having suggested knitting as a soothing indoor occupation, his patient sent for an immense quantity of wool—enough to keep half a dozen pairs of hands busy all winter—and began to make red-white-and-blue afghans for the Labrador Mission. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... I realised how blissfully unconscious they were of my fate. The most vivid and alluring visions of home, of my parents, and brothers, and sisters, flitted tantalisingly before me. I saw them all sitting on their accustomary seats, in the parlour, my father smoking his meerschaum, my mother knitting, my eldest sister describing an opera she had been to that afternoon, my youngest sister listening to her with mouth half open and absorbing interest in her blue eyes, my brother examining the works of a clockwork engine which he ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... society that their families of ten or twelve sons and daughters might keep under the sixpences and shillings of the circulating library; but they soon became jealous of new books, although they often returned them uncut and unread; and so far from knitting the bonds of acquaintance, we at last thought our plan served to estrange the members, by affording the little aristocracy frequent opportunities for venting their splenetic pride; the books were like disjunctive conjunctions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various
... are spoiling the playing," said Judy suddenly. She started up, knitting her black brows and glaring angrily ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... said, reaching out one great hand in the direction of the Cove. "An' that school gal 'way down at Abercrombie, learning her knitting, an' letters, an' crying her dandy eyes out for the mother who had to leave her there when she passed over to you? Say, Les, you best go on. Jest go right on an' I'll say my ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... day the young wife, her eyes swollen with weeping, was knitting socks for her husband. He told her he could buy them cheaper ready-made. She burst into tears. What was she to do? The maid did all the work of the house, there was not enough work in the kitchen for two. She always dusted the rooms. Did he want her ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... of Sganarelle and Ariste, who were either to marry them or dispose of them in marriage. Sganarelle chose Isabelle, but insisted on her dressing in serge, going to bed early, keeping at home, looking after the house, mending the linen, knitting socks, and never flirting with any one. The consequence was, she duped her guardian, and cajoled him into giving his signature to her marriage with ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Thumb, both proceeding in the Egyptian Hall, were dramatically depicted. Another, and still more remarkable, contrast of Mr. Reed's was that in which the terrible tricoteuses of the French Revolution, knitting with quite tragic joviality before the guillotine, are compared with the modern Society ladies in court enjoying a criminal's sensational trial, so that the spectator hardly knows which are the more repellent. It may be stated, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... simple words to me seemed a message from God, and it would have been impossible to resist him. It was indeed a sacrifice; but I made it without hesitation. I glanced at my sons, who had their eyes cast down; but I saw Fritz knitting his brows. "I shall stay with you, father," said I, "happy if I can assist you in fulfilling your ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... Lee, or plain Aunt Lucy, for in her present abode she had small use for her last name, was a benevolent-looking old lady, who both in dress and manners was distinguished from her companions. She rose from her knitting, and kindly took Paul by the hand. Children are instinctive readers of character, and Paul, after one glance at her benevolent face, seated ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... and, after some screwing of the mouth and knitting of the brows, Rose actually did do it, and felt like Wellington after Waterloo. Then, at Peggy's instigation, she tackled the actual lesson, and, steered by Professor Peggy, went through it triumphantly. Then she turned on ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... attack of industry, which has lasted much longer than I thought possible; for, to tell you the truth without stint or varnish, she certainly was the most sluggish piece of flesh I ever undertook to manage. Study she would not, keep house she could not, sewing gave her the headache, and knitting made her cross-eyed; but, behold! she has suddenly found out that her pretty little pink palms were made for something better than propping her peach-bloom cheeks. A few days ago I accidentally discovered that she was sitting up until long after midnight, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting; 'Well, I think of it. Yes, I don't know, Mr. Philip; but only it feels to me strangely,— Like to the high new bridge they used to build at, below there, Over the burn and glen, on the road. You won't understand me..... ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... it often is in life. Whilst a man is looking up into the sky so as to see the big things and dodge 'em, he goes to work and stubs his toe over a knitting-needle." ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a half dollars' worth of worsted; so that fifty cents were left in my pocket when I quitted the store. I then went to the office of a German newspaper, where I paid twenty-five cents for advertising for girls who understood all kinds of knitting. When my sister came home at night, the worsted was all sorted on the table in parcels for the girls who would come the next morning, while I was busily engaged in the experiment of making little worsted tassels. I had never been skilful in knitting; but in this I succeeded so well, that I could ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... generation was inclined to scout at quilt-making, and needlework heresy was rampant in the neighbourhood. Tatting, crocheting, and knitting were on the wane. An "advanced" woman who had once spent a Summer in the village had spread abroad the delights of Battenberg and raised embroidery. At all of these, Miss Hitty ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... a flagged walk under a glazed pergola running along part of the southern wall of the house. Here Pamela was sitting waiting, with a basket of knitting on her knee which she put out of sight as soon as she heard her father's step. She had taken off her hat, and her plentiful brown hair was drawn in a soft wave across her forehead, and thickly coiled behind a shapely head. She was very young, and very pretty. Perhaps the ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... audible satisfaction. An old custom, an old compound, brought from Germany many years ago, binding, in its petty immortality, distant times, places, beings. He saw that his mother was noticeably less able than she had been the week before; her hands fumbled at her knitting, shook holding the glass. Her lined face quivered as she said good night. He bent and kissed a hot, dry brow, conscious of the blanched skull under her fading colour, her ebbing warmth. He had done this, too—hastened her death; she must have suffered inordinately in her ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... their merchandise; of a wagon and machine company from which the Mormon farmers purchase their vehicles and implements; of life-insurance and fire-insurance companies, of banking institutions, of a railroad, of a knitting company, of newspapers, which the Mormon people are required by their Church to patronize, and through which they are exploited, commercially and financially, for the sole profit of the sovereign of Utah and his ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly to John—all through August—and many of the letters ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... meditated over her knitting by the firelight—she had put out her candles—it would be hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: there are souls to look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing down from the verge of one of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... attraction of the execution close by. The man who had just left the square proceeded slowly, attentively reading all the inscriptions on the doors. He stopped at Number 75, where on the threshold of a shop sat a stout woman busily knitting, over whom one read in big yellow letters, "Widow Masson." He saluted the woman, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a lot of people who sat and did nothing irritated him. Mavorovitch irritated him, too. He did not like a man to be so quiet; the faint click, click of Mavorovitch's skates on the ice was like a lady knitting. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... 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 ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... dear? Phoebe, sweep up the hearth. Hang that curtain straight. Give me that letter,—no, not that,—the large letter. There! now put it into my knitting-basket. Make haste down, Phoebe, to be ready to open the door for Mrs Rowland. Don't keep her waiting a ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... her,' he said, and I could scarce hear him. His face was all drawn like, but I felt that silly and stupid that I could say nothing, and just went upstairs." Mrs. Bentley put her knitting down, and throwing her apron over ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... he spoke: "It is Citoyen Droulde!" whispered the bloodthirsty Amazons, who sat knitting in ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... spring, which may be supposed sometimes to be at a considerable distance. They have however a small bag, about the size of a moderate cabbage-net, which is made by laying threads loop within loop, somewhat in the manner of knitting used by our ladies to make purses. This bag the man carries loose upon his back by a small string which passes over his head; it generally contains a lump or two of paint and resin, some fish-books and lines, a shell or two, out of which their hooks are made, a few points ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... how I do," replied Jones slowly, rubbing his head and knitting his brows as though deeply ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... with a "now-or-never" feeling she began, "Ethel, dear, wait," but Ethel was too impetuous to attend. "I'll be back in a twinkling," she called out, and down she flew, in her speed whisking away, without seeing it, the basket with Margaret's knitting and all her notes and papers, which lay scattered on the floor far out of reach, vexing Margaret at first, and then making her grieve ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... that have been accidentally deposited in some hollow 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. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... pretty plan that I got into a fever of impatience. Drawing off a stocking and picking out the end of the yarn, I began to unravel the knitting for dear life, until the whole lay, a heap of thread, on the floor. I then serv'd the other in the same way: and at the end had two lines, each pretty near four hundred yards in length: which now I divided into eight lines of ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a shining smoothness. "Just the front?" he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick steel knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver quarter. The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... danced in their den of iniquity than to execute these modern gyrations in my home," had responded Harriet's mother, Mrs. Sproul, as she finished the hundredth round on the shawl she was knitting. Harriet's report of the conversation had been received with great hilarity that evening at dinner ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to his cousin, and, seating himself at the table, took up a book, and began reading it the wrong side upwards; then he threw down a ball of silk, then he cracked a knitting-needle, and then with a husky sort of voice and a half blush, and altogether an air of infinite confusion, he said, 'This has been an odd affair, May, of the Duke of St. James and Sir ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles that rose ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... inspiration. Paddy remembered how his mother used to try to help with her knitting. He saw girls at spinning wheels or looms working full eight hours a day and earning only $1.25 to $1.50 a week. So with permission of the society, Paddy had two long tables placed in the entertainment hall, and along the edges of the tables he ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... heard their reply, Her heart blazed up like fire before the wind. She raised her voice in anger against them, Her face flushed, but she cast down her eyes. After a time, grief and anger mingled in her countenance, And knitting her brows with passion, she exclaimed: "O unadvised and worthless counsellors, It was not becoming in me to ask your advice! Were my eye dazzled by a star, How could it rejoice to gaze even upon the moon? He who is formed of worthless clay will not regard the rose, Although the rose is in nature ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... furnished not only flowers but vegetables. And in one corner stood a table and chairs for afternoon tea with cakes or beer with cheese. Here the ever-busy sewing and knitting mainly went on in summer, and a forgotten book, half read, was usually left by some one of the young folks. There was a drowsy, old-fashioned air about the premises that recalled illustrations in some of the editions of ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... distress or want—S. and S.F.A. offices existed in every town and representatives in every village and any difficulty or trouble could be brought to them. The whole of this work is done voluntarily. In some cases workrooms were started from which sewing and knitting for soldiers and sailors were given to the dependents and paid for. It was not only the money and practical help that was of great service—the S. and S.F.A. visitor to the soldier's wife and mother brought sympathy and help ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... the different towns and communities who are desirous of forming establishments for giving employment to the Poor, are invited to send persons properly qualified to the house of industry at Munich, where they may be taught, gratis, spinning, in its various branches; knitting; sewing, etc. in order to qualify them to become instructors to the Poor on their return home. And even instructors already formed, and possessing all the requisite qualifications for such an office, are offered to be furnished by the house of industry in Munich to such communities ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... playwright, having rashly obliged a friend, becomes (very much in the same way in which Mr. Nicodemus Easy killed several persons on the coast of Sicily) responsible for the breach, not merely of a left-handed yet comparatively harmless liaison, but of a formal marriage, the knitting of a costly and disreputable amour, a duel, an imprisonment for debt, and—for himself—the abiding reputation of having corrupted, half ruined, and driven into enlistment for Africa a guileless scientific student. It is good and clean ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... them into that brilliant pattern, which scarcely shows all its loveliness of combination and color before the weavers begin to work in the subdued tints of Lent. How delightful it is to see this knitting and unraveling of the social fabric year after year! and how untiring are the senders of the shuttles, the dyers, the hatchelers, the spinners, the ever-busy makers and destroyers of the intricate web we call society! After one campaign, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... was she so quiet? He had never seen her hands that way before: those hands were always busy—knitting, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... 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
... regions, with their wares on the edge of the sidewalk and 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Vaughn took her knitting to the fire, and before she began to ply the needles, looked thoughtfully at her hands. They had been soft and shapely before the days of toil. A frail but comely woman she was, with pale face, and dark ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... a definite air, and rolled her knitting up into her handkerchief. Gaites made a merit to himself of rising abruptly and closing his paper with a clash, as if he had been trying to read and had not been able for the talking near him. The ladies looked round ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... 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 packthread, 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 ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... 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 man who was her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... but it was upon her nose. Being a friendly and capable sort of wart, it held her steel-bowed spectacles at the proper angle for reading or knitting. During conversation, she peered over her spectacles, and sometimes, to the discomfort of a sensitive observer, the steel frame appeared to divide her ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... forget the big plate o' potatoes and gravy and mate she gave the dog, and the cake she threw in the fire to get red of it," said Mary, who was knitting a ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... in the old-fashioned way. It stood just at the end of that long green walk, and at the corner of the field; so that anyone sitting in the bower might see through the lattice-work and foliage of the honeysuckles into the field, and hear all that was said. There good Mrs. Howard sat knitting (for she prepared stockings for most of the poor children in the neighbourhood), whilst her little visitors played in the garden and in the field, and Betty came to and fro with ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... school (Sloeyd system) and a night school of industrial drawing in the same city, and professional schools for girls in Santiago and Valparaiso, where the pupils are taught millinery, dress-making, knitting, embroidery and fancy needlework. The government also maintains schools for the blind and for the deaf and dumb. The public primary schools numbered 1961 in 1903, with 3608 teachers, 166,928 pupils ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... have been a man of his own kidney and complexion: "he was handsome, of consummate assurance, having rather the airs of a bravo than a sculptor; above all, his fierce gestures and his sonorous voice, with a peculiar manner of knitting his brows, were enough to frighten everyone that saw him; and he was continually talking of his valiant feats among those bears of Englishmen." The story of Torrigiani's death in Spain is worth repeating. A grandee employed ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... by the use of egg-cosies—appurtenances of the breakfast table that stirred me to the very depths of delight when I first set eyes on them as a child. It was at a mothers' meeting, where I was the only male present. Thousands of women sat round me, sewing and knitting things for a church bazaar. Much might be written about egg-cosies. Much might be said for and much against. They would be effective, however only if it were regarded as a point of honour not to look under the cosy before choosing the egg. And the sense of honour, they say, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... seized the occasion to partake of the table d'hote supper of the inn, at the door of which the diligence was drawn up. Around the long, and not over-scrupulously clean table, sat the usual assemblage of a German "Eilwagen"—smoking, dressing salad, knitting, and occasionally picking their teeth with their forks, until the soup should make its appearance. Taking my place amid this motley assemblage of mustachioed shopkeepers and voluminously-petticoated frows, I sat calculating how long human patience could endure such companionship, when my ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... new adjustment of life's machinery; how difficult the realization that nature is accustomed to settle these matters in her own time and way, and invariably does so! Yet here was Esmay suddenly returned to herself, moving about, alert and eager, knitting her brows over the one important problem of the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... this wall, to let the light in, just at the height of a person's head, who was sitting near the chimney. The rays of the morning sun now came through it, shining across the face of the old woman, as she sat knitting: Lord Colambre thought he had seldom seen a more agreeable countenance, intelligent eyes, benevolent smile, a natural expression of cheerfulness, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... silently formed 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
... scarcely walked about our dungeon before the jailer's daughters were at the door with their autograph albums. In a few days we were playing draughts and reading Bulwer, while the girls, without, were preparing our food and knitting for us warm new stockings. Notwithstanding all these attentions, we were ungratefully discontented. At the end of the first week we were joined by seven enlisted men, Ohio boys, who like ourselves had been found at large in the mountains. From ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Barker. For five weary years he kept on trying one builder after another to take up his idea without avail, and then took it beyond the seas. Which reminds us of the Rev. William Lee, the inventor of the stocking-knitting frame in the time of Queen Elizabeth, whose countrymen "despised him and discouraged his invention. * * * Being soon after invited over to France, with promises of reward, privileges and honor by Henry IV * * * he went, with nine workmen and as many frames, ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... messenger to Lu to inquire of Confucius concerning this strange behaviour. "This bird is a shang yang" said Confucius; "its appearance is a sign of rain. In former times the children used to amuse themselves by hopping on one foot, knitting their eyebrows, and saying: 'It will rain, because the shang yang is disporting himself.' Since this bird has gone to Ch'i, heavy rain will fall, and the people should be told to dig channels and repair the dykes, for the whole country will be inundated." ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... quietly knitting. The Squire had gathered himself up into a heap in his easy chair, denoting a contracted state of mind; after that curious fashion which bodily attitudes have, of repeating the mental. Eleanor took the newspaper ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds'; there are the pastures where 'the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams comfort,' where sat the young shepherdess knitting, whose 'voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices musick,' a country where the scattered houses made 'a shew, as it were, of an accompanable solitarines, and of a civil wildnes,' where lastly—si sic omnia!—was the 'shepheards boy piping, as though he should ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... was that many delightful hours were spent in the cozy, cheerful living-room of the little house perched high upon the hill. In one shadowy corner Jane Gray usually sat, busy with her endless knitting of bibs for babies. Close beside her the maids, Pine Tree and Maple Leaf, looked up from their seats upon the floor, intent on every movement of her flying fingers that they too might quickly learn and help to "bib" the small citizens ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... asked Mr. Slocum, knitting his forehead into what would have been a scowl if his mild pinkish eyebrows had ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... on a pair of slippers that had a faded splendor about them, and went up to her bedroom. Here she hesitated for some time between the sewing-machine and her knitting-needles, but finally settled upon the latter, and a pair of socks for her husband which she had begun a year ago. But she presently despaired of finishing them before he returned, three hours hence, and so applied herself to the sewing-machine. For a little while its ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... in a careless tone, asked a woman who was sitting knitting at her door nearly opposite the entrance. "I ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... knitting-work and went up into the gallery," said Mrs. Partington, the day after visiting one of the city courts; "I went up into the gallery, and after I had adjusted my specs, I looked down into the room, but I couldn't see any courting going on. An old gentleman ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... ago, there was a little old woman that lived away off in the woods. She lived all by herself, in a little cottage with only two rooms in it, and she made her living by knitting blue ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... is in a quiet way; she has given over reading and working, and even her knitting, as useless; and she now sits all day long at the chimney corner twiddling her thumbs, and waiting, as she says, for the millennium. Poor thing! she is very foolish with her ideas upon this matter, but as usual I let her have her own way in everything, copying ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... beautiful evening at the close of August. The father and son had been all day in the meadows, mowing the second crop of grass; Mrs Warner was darning stockings in the porch, with her two daughters knitting on the bench beside her; Amy being then fourteen, and Orphy about twelve. Chloe was absent, having been borrowed by a relation, about five miles off, to do the general work of the house, while the family were engaged in ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair, knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... deceit. She came freely into the house and 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 ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... with flour were all their clothes,—paper-cap and white apron scarcely to be distinguished from the rest of the dress, as far as color and dustiness went. Here, too, when her father drove out the cart every afternoon, sitting in front of the counter with her sewing or her knitting, Dely German, the baker's pretty daughter, dealt out the cakes and rattled the pennies in her apron-pocket with so good a grace, that not a young farmer came into Hanerford with grain or potatoes or live stock, who did not cast a glance in at the shop-door, going toward town, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... the 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 |
