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Knitting Mag February
A pretty impressive ‘Knitting’ magazine this month (February’s edition) it’s gone all vintage, using the land girls as its inspiration and including an article by vintage knitting champion Susan Crawford (one of her lovely patterns also features).
Patterns include a great 40s-inspired fair isle tank top, a gents military-style cardigan (which Mr Skiff has got his eye on) and cool satchel-style bag. Must admit, not many knitting magazines inspire me to pick up my needles but this one’s making my fingers itch …
Crikey it’s opening night down at the old Skiff Vintage Knitting Club … the martinis are flowing, the piano player’s in full flow and your investigative reporter (that’s me) is grabbing the moment and chatting to any happy souls who happen to pass through and spend a few moments reclining on the red velvet chaise. I’m fascinated by what drives other vintage knitters on, and I’ll be inviting inspirational ladies (and gents) to join me in Skiff’s exclusive basement club … the company’s scintillating, the answers are fascinating and every Q&A will tell a personal story, not just about vintage knitting, but what makes knitters tick in general.
First to join me is the lovely (and prolific) Susan Crawford, knitwear designer, lecturer, co-author of ‘A Stitch in Time, Vintage Knitting and Crochet Patterns 1921-1949′ and the editor of Knit On The Net … did I mention she was prolific? Step inside and help yourself to some canapés …
Lee Target's 1960s Knitted Hats
Autumn has very definitely arrived, blustering and swearing, and winter is slouching round the corner having a crafty cig, so I’ve got some rather lovely winter patterns lined up for my long dark nights trying to keep out of their way. As well as a pair of 1940s fair isle mittens (more of which later), I’ve got my eye on some fantastic hats, including a knitted Patons ‘Svengali’ trilby.
Knitting hats and mittens is a great way of breaking up the larger, more complex and intricate pieces and I feel like I can return to a particular jumper I’m working on at the moment (14 rows to the inch, ouch) with renewed vigour. Okay there’s an element of truth in that last statement but really I’m fooling no-one - I’m procrastinating again. Problem is if I see a cute pattern I can’t resist I have to get going on it right away so, with one mitten down and one to go, I’m eyeing up wool for hats.
I really love the cheeky Lee Target pattern pictured above, such a great slice of late ’50s/early ’60s imagery. So if you need a new titfer and a bit of a knitting diversion while you stay out of Winter’s way, check out Skiff’s vintage hat patterns - anyone who manages to re-create the scene of the Lee Target one, please send pictures and you’ll get a free pattern!
Fair Isles - they’re all the rage! Following my last post, I’m harbouring fair isle desires … seems that if you’re sporting a natty little fair isle tank top around town you can put a big tick in the vintage fashion box. Okay, time to confess, my fair isle technique is not the best in the world (resembles a plate of spaghetti on the reverse side and the pattern starts to look more Picasso cubist than Renoir, sigh) so I do have to work on it, but I’ve got the incentive now, I’m hooked. With that in mind I’ve gathered my favourite fair isle patterns into their own collection. Go on, have a peek for some inspiration, you know you want to. Meanwhile, here’s a short history lesson kids …
Duke of Windsor (and friend)
Fair Isle is the most remote inhabited island in the UK, lying halfway between Shetland and the Orkney Islands. The knitting style gained a considerable popularity when the impeccably-dressed Duke of Windsor (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public in 1921.
Strictly speaking, traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular colour (you can find more about the Fair Isle history on the Scottish Textiles Heritage site). Nowadays we tend to refer to “Fair Isle” as any colourwork knitting where stitches are knit alternately in various colors, with the unused colours stranded across the back of the work. So I’m using a bit of free licence and applying the more liberal sense of the term (although there are some traditional patterns in my collection too).
Emu Wool Ad 1954
Or ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Vintage Knitting’. Planning a vintage knitting project can be a bit like a detective novel … a bit of investigative work will stand you in good stead before you pick up the needles. One of the first parts of the case to solve (and the one most likely to deter would-be vintage knitters from starting in the first place) is which yarn to use.
A fantastic place to kick-off is Kristen Rengren’s all-encompassing guide to vintage knitting; her section on choosing yarn puts you on the right path … tension (or gauge), texture, type of stitch pattern, fibre content and yardage all need to be taken into consideration before you make your choice. She advises us to scrutinise the pattern picture and do a bit of research into the original yarn used, even look through the wool adverts of vintage knitting publications.
So you’ve got to the bottom of the original yarn … what’s a suitable replacement? You’ve got the needle size and with the help of Kristen’s guide you’ll have worked out the tension and yardage so you can pretty much start anywhere, the modern yarn world is your oyster for 4-ply and DK. 2 and 3-ply can be harder to source, and the plot thickens when you want to match the old shades and textures; sometimes the modern yarns can be too bright or the texture too rough when you want the vintage look.
I’ve been on the look-out for some smaller manufacturers for vintage yarn replacements in the UK, this the story so far …
Authentic Oilcloth
A nice article on how to create your own oilcloth instead of buying in the PVC stuff, using refined lindseed oil. Apart from the benefits of using your own fabric or even creating your own design, using lindseed oil makes the fabric bio-degradable unlike it’s ready-made alternative. The results look pretty good, I feel an experiment coming on …
Toy Car Launcher
Yes that’s right, it launches cars. Go on, the weekend’s not over yet, this would really make you feel like you’d done something cool with your time instead of wasting it spending time outdoors having fun with your family and friends, building happy memories. All that stuff’s over-rated.
You know you want to … instructions to make one here.
Robson & Mason's basket of needles
Browsing through the wonderful Made in England site on a recommendation from Mr W (being geeky and admiring the animated icon) and came across a link to a great haberdashery site I’d forgotten about - Robson & Mason. Great site, easy to use, lovely trimmings missus.
Check out the vintage basket needles & threader.
How to Knit
Okay, it wasn’t a figment of my imagination, my ridiculous imaginary project I’d dreamed up to keep me company instead of doing any real work … here it is! No really, it’s a book about How To Knit (did you guess from the title?). And you can download it from this site, lucky you. It includes a cool 1940s dress trimming pattern as an easy first project, hopefully to tempt you further down the road into those wonderful vintage suits and blouses.
Tell your friends and watch out for the next one, coming soon … well … this year sometime, hopefully, erm … did I mention it’s the first in a series?
Knit & Run Stash
This Knit & Tonic article made me grin and rang a few bells … I get so obsessed with one particular craft it almost becomes stressful and I have to take up another craft to relieve the pressure. Admittedly it’s not a professional day job and I’m not writing a book, but you get the gist.
Reminded me too of an article in this month’s Yarn Forward magazine which encourages you to take up weaving if ‘you find yourself in a SABLE position - Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). The picture on the left is a very small part of my own amorphous and ever-growing Stash - I have to agree with one of the comments on the Knit & Tonic article … I have this horrible feeling that if I took up weaving I’d find I didn’t have the right shades I was after and just end up adding to it. I almost expect to come home and find bits of it trickling out of the door, growing up the side of the house like vines. A knitting horror movie? Now there’s a thought.
The Make Lounge
I know from my Sadler’s Wells days that Islington’s a bit of a craft mecca … the Craft Council, Loop, the Contemporary Art & Design Fair, I could go on but won’t. So I wasn’t surprised to see a piece in the paper the other day about The Make Lounge, a cool craft place “where you can ‘meet people and make stuff,’ through evening and weekend contemporary craft workshops”. According to the founder, Jennifer Tirtle, she needed more tactile experiences after hours of being glued to her computer in her day job as a journalist so started The Make Lounge. The idea behind the concept is a series of short craft courses for people who don’t want to spend a fortune on lengthy evening or day courses.
The courses sound great and interesting, titles such as ‘Survival Sewing’ and ‘Knockout Knickers’ kick the dull and dusty out of craft, but also have a practical use. They do parties too - sadly, that would be my preferred kind of hen party and I’d be sending any affianced acquaintances scurrying to the website, but most of my mates are married nowadays.
Cool website too, nice and clear, inventive header fonts …
I don’t get up to town too often at the moment but this would be worth the trip. They do gift vouchers (*HEAVY HINT*).
Laura's Left Hook
There aren’t many things that make me want to pick up a hooked needle, but this is one of them - what a cool way to crochet. I’d like to experiment with these, doing them in different fonts, maybe even some joined up handwriting, but then I am a rotten geek.
