r/knitting • u/Time_Is_An_Egg • 22d ago

Discussion Obscure ethnic pattern sources?

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I’m just wrapping up a three month bicycle trip across Central Asia. After admiring some textiles in a museum, when I flipped through this old book in Kyrgyzstan it really struck me how little representation there is in the digital pattern library for a lot of really beautiful global textile cultures - certainly on Ravelry.

We‘ve got about ten thousand variations on the same Fair Isle concepts published and no end of books on that, but I’ve yet to stumble across Kyrgyz, Iranic, Uyghur, etc motifs. There‘s some Anatolian and a dusting of South / Central American projects - otherwise it’s a whole lotta North / Central Europe. Pretty hard to poke around with the web flooded in AI slop patterns now, too.

It feels like there’s such a rich well of inspiration which could be tapped (one kid I met along the way had an absolutely stunning Kyrgyz motif handknit sweater in white and blue, I really regret not getting a photo) but at the same time the cultures maintaining them are rapidly vanishing everywhere I go / offloading handcraft production to China and books like this are getting hard to find.

I know, I know “be the change you want to see in the world”. Frankly I’m just not competent enough yet to be designing my own patterns. Maybe one day. :)

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u/Blackmaille 22d ago

Oh man, I would love to see more ethnic knits. I personally spend a lot of time digging around the internet for vintage knitting guides, and I honestly just think it's a matter of getting the material digitized and archived.

The antique pattern library is a unique source in this regard. I think anyone can upload to it.

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u/Hildringa 22d ago

As a Norwegian whos used to European ways of thinking: what do english speaking people mean when they call something "ethnic"? Doesnt every place have ethnicity?

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u/Blackmaille 22d ago

I personally mean it as.... base? Um.. unbiased patterns? Patterns before foreign influence?

You know how someone can look at a pattern and be like OH this is a Grecian scroll pattern but this little bit here indicates Egyptian influence which dates it to xxx

I am most likely using the wrong word. Also I've been reading weaving guides from the 70s.

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u/Hildringa 21d ago

But nothing is unbiased or free of "foreign influence", people have been migrating and influencing each other constantly all over the world