Next Generation

Hello!

So I have been watching a lot of Star Trek: Next Generation.  This show has great memories for me.  First, I remember watching it with my husband when we were first married and lived in St. Louis, Missouri while he was in Med. School.  Also, my brother is a huge Star Trek fan, and when I am down visiting him, we always watch some episode of one of the many off shoots.

Anyway, why am I talking about this show in my knit/crochet blog?  other than I have been watching it while knitting and crocheting....

Because there was an episode with... KNITWEAR!

So here is the show's set up:

The Enterprise comes upon a distress beacon that is using a code that hasn't been used in centuries.  They figure out it is from a ship called the Mariposa, by looking at its cargo manifest.  It's the only record they can find of the ship.  As the Captain (Piccard) reads down the manifest curiously, he notes that they had spinning wheels on board.  Data (the android and my favorite character) gets a funny look on his face (his "I'm checking what this is in my computer memory" look) then starts reciting what a "spinning wheel" is. 

"a device used for spinning yarn or thread... Perhaps they were planning for the worst, Sir."  They were a ship of Utopians, trying to live close to nature.  They have no power source on the planet, and seem to have been cut off for 300 years.  They have to get them off the planet and bring them on the ship to save them.

They beam the first group on board and they bring farm animals including chickens, pigs, and a sheep!

 
The women are wearing some interesting shawls,

My favorite piece of knitwear was the cabled crop top worn by the main female Irish character:

She also wears a beautiful top of what looks a bit like Irish Clones lace covered by a triangular shawl.

I could never quite get a screen shot of that shawl. 

There is also a couple of spinning wheels in the show. In the screen shot above, you can just see one of them.  I think the set dressers had no idea what to do with the wheels, because look at how they have the fiber draped on one of them in this screen shot:

And what the heck is Piccard doing?

It's always fun to spot interesting knitwear in a show I love.  It was especially fun for this show since they mostly wear polyester!

Live long and prosper!
f1bercat
shaping the universe with wool