Is it time to plug The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel again? Oh I think it is.

I grew up seeing knitting and crocheting and sewing and weaving as silly old lady crafty things. The idea that fiber crafts are high art is something most people would laugh at (I would have), let alone the idea that textiles should be considered one of the most important technological achievements of human history, but I am now prepared to back both of those arguments. Highly recommend this book for anybody who doesn't already look on fiber work with awe.

Abstract: Knitting turns yarn, a 1D material, into a 2D fabric that is flexible, durable, and can be patterned to adopt a wide range of 3D geometries. Like other mechanical metamaterials, the elasticity of knitted fabrics is an emergent property of the local stitch topology and pattern that cannot solely be attributed to the yarn itself. Thus, knitting can be viewed as an additive manufacturing technique that allows for stitch-by-stitch programming of elastic properties and has applications in many fields ranging from soft robotics and wearable electronics to engineered tissue and architected materials. However, predicting these mechanical properties based on the stitch type remains elusive. Here we untangle the relationship between changes in stitch topology and emergent elasticity in several types of knitted fabrics. We combine experiment and simulation to construct a constitutive model for the nonlinear bulk response of these fabrics. This model serves as a basis for composite fabrics with bespoke mechanical properties, which crucially do not depend on the constituent yarn.