Knitting In Literature

"What she piqued herself upon, as arts in which she excelled, was making candle lighters, or "spills" (as she preferred calling them), of coloured paper, cut so as to resemble feathers and knitting garters in a variety stitches. I had once said, on receiving a present of an elaborate pair, that I should feel quite tempted to drop one of them in the street, in order to have it admired; but I found this little joke (and it was a little one) was such a distress to her sense of propriety, and was taken with such anxious, earnest alarm, lest the temptation might some day prove too strong for me, that I quite regretted having ventured upon it. A present of these delicately wrought garters, a bunch of gay "spills", or a set of cards on which sewing-silk was wound in a mystical manner,were the well-known tokens of Miss Matty's favour."

--Elizabeth C. Gaskell, Cranford