Charting Fair Isle Patterns
Our love affair with the vintage fair isle look continues, and while knitting from the original instructions may seem straightforward, I sometimes get questions from concerned fair isle pattern buyers about whether the instructions are written or charted – this blogpost is intended to encourage those nervous souls to dive in and chart your own! It’s pretty common for vintage fair isle patterns to be written with no chart representation and being a lazy moo myself I always appreciate the appeal of charted patterns for ease and speed, but there’s also something rather satisfying about deciphering the written instructions, like revealing a secret code, so here are some tips for how to do it.
I’ll use this 1940s jumper with fair isle yoke that I’m working on at the moment as an example – as you can see you’ll obviously have a visual clue from the pattern picture so you’re not exactly working in the dark. It’s also fairly common for patterns from this era to suggest which colours you should use, although don’t feel you have to stick to their suggestions. This particular pattern suggests natural, black, blue and red which I’ve decided to stick to. (more…)
1949 Vogue Blouse
Well hang out the bunting and slice the cake, it’s a Skiff blogpost … just catching up with some pictures from finished projects and thought I’d share this one. I know what you’re thinking – I’m looking pretty pleased with myself right? In my defence I earned that smug look … this blouse caused me a fair amount of grief as I was suffering from knitter’s elbow throughout the knitwork. This sounds like a ridiculously mild complaint in the bigger scheme of things (and it is), but is a common knitter’s problem along the lines of tennis elbow (I’ve never been near a racket in my life). I now wear a bizarre strap thingy on my arm when I knit and can be regularly seen doing strange arm exercises to prevent a comeback.
The classic combination of 2-ply and 3.25mm needles was taken from Vogue Knitting No.35 (1949) and knitted up to a tension of 14 rows to the inch in a tiny moss-stitch … let’s just say it’s not the quickest thing I’ve ever knitted (although it still beats my 14-year-long pimped Vogue shirt), but it’s here in the world and I’m making the most of it.
My friend Sibilla took the picture round the back of a local ancient church where we then proceeded to have a crafty cig and a couple of miniatures before the vicar caught us.
Smug? Damn right.
Another Lesson Learned …
I’ve been knitting from vintage patterns for a few years now, but I never stop learning. Case in point is this wonderful pattern for a Sports Jumper with fabric trim from a 1935 edition of The Needlewoman.
In theory it looks pretty straightforward – the bottom half is knitted from left to right in a horizontal ridge (knit row, purl row, purl row, knit row), the back and front yokes are knitted vertically with increases on the front yokes to fit around the, fake (as I thought) pockets. I always do an initial sketch based on the measurements, tension and instructions from the original pattern, and from that I re-size it if necessary and create a new sketch … I followed my usual procedure in this case, but just couldn’t get my head around the top front yokes: the instructions show that a 3″ stretch on one side of both pieces is knitted in stocking stitch and I couldn’t work out from the picture where that should fit.
Writing it out now, it seems so obvious but I spent ages agonising over it, and was on the verge of writing this off as a pattern mistake and over-ruling it, creating my own version. Then I remembered one of my own rules – never forget to THOROUGHLY comb the ‘make-up’ instructions. I’d made the fatal mistake of assuming I’d find out all I needed to know about the anatomy of this jumper just by looking at the picture which meant I just quickly gone over the most vital part of how to actually put it together. Are you one step ahead of me? Yes my friends, the pockets weren’t fake, the stocking stitch edges in the top yokes were the pocket backs.
I’m feeling pretty stupid now I’m writing this as it seems so obvious, but it stands as a valuable lesson to other vintage knitters … don’t get complacent and make assumptions about the designs you’re knitting from, vintage patterns constantly amaze me with their little details and surprises. Read the pattern once, then turn down the music/TV/dog and re-read it without any distractions, make sure you’ve got a complete understanding of how the garment is put together.
Here’s another tip for free: don’t try and work it out at 9 o’clock at night, half a bottle of wine down, with Queens of the Stone Age shouting at you in the background (I mean on the iPod, they weren’t actually in the kitchen arguing with me). I’m writing this in the morning with a bit of Tom Waits & Crystal Gayle playing quietly and a clear head, and it seems blatantly and embarrassingly obvious now (heh, sheepish sigh).
Vintage Hat Love
As I uploaded a P&B Cap & Bolero pattern yesterday I had a nagging feeling I’d seen it before somewhere – then I remembered that I’d knitted the cap from it a couple of years ago.
Can’t remember what yarn I knitted it with (stupidly didn’t record it on Ravelry), but I think it was a straightforward angora, and used about 75g. It was pretty quick to knit too, although those bobbles can be a bit fiddly. Haven’t aired it in public yet – you need the right hairstyle for this and I haven’t got round to perfecting the whole look.
The bolero’s rather lovely too – fancy a go? You can buy the pattern here …
Knit Me Some Time
Devil in a pink blouse
Is that a cobweb I see in the browser window corner? And a big dustpile at the bottom? Hmm, I haven’t been very active on the blog front lately have I? Got myself absorbed in helping to organise a food festival and it’s all I can do to keep up with sending the patterns out, but the size 12s are still clacking away in the evenings.
So here’s a little catch-up and a tiny bit of catharsis for me too – if you’re not interested, tune out now. I’ve managed to finish my pink Vogue blouse which has taken *drum roll* a year to complete *cymbal smash*. Mind you I haven’t sewn the buttons on yet and even that seemingly tiny task has been known to delay projects by months, so who knows.
In the meantime I have a mountain of patterns languishing in my vintage vault which I haven’t had time to upload, and my site has decided it can’t quite cope with the visitors it’s receiving so I’ve added an efficient cache plug-in which, wouldn’t you know it, clashes with the shopping cart. Moan moan moan – you don’t want to hear about my problems right? Well I did warn you.
Meanwhile I’m busy eyeing and sizing up my next project and am considering a fair isle number, which sadly will need to be sized up as I’ve (ahem) sized up myself a little in recent months.
I also need to have a word with myself about the size of my ‘I can’t possibly part with that’ pile – the picture above is the most recent candidate. I meant to sell it, I really did, but have you seen it? Such a daring colour combo, such detail … nope, you’re not having it, it’s all mine.
Catharsis complete, thanks for listening. Has anyone ever told you you’re a great listener? Hey, come back …
Pimp My Vogue Blouse
Welcome to the June edition of Skiff’s ‘Pimp My Vintage Knit’ feature … don’t hold your breath for the next one, this one took me about 14 years to finish – yes, that’s 14 years. Excuse the blurry pics, but if I wait to get around to taking another one it’ll take me another 14 years to write this blog post.
This blouse project has moved around with me in a half-finished state from house to house, country to country, sadly neglected and rejected until I delved into the bottom of a long-forgotten stash box a couple of months ago.
The Original Vogue Blouse
The pattern’s from Vogue Knitting No.48 (1956) and I seem to remember I originally had the horrible idea of attaching a white fake fur collar to it but never got around to it (some things are best left unpimped) so shoved it in a bag … procrastination has always been my middle name.
So here it is 14 years down the road, and the night after I rediscovered it I had a weird dream about red wool stitching around the collar, sleeve edges and button band and a fake pocket … et voila.
Obviously I can’t remember what wool I used although I’d never heard of Jamieson & Smith at the time so it’s pretty safe to say I probably used a bog-standard baby 3-ply. Chances are I bought it from a wonderful wool shop which used to take up a large space in Bloomsbury Way down the road from the British Museum (I lived in an attic not far from there with a delightful cockroach problem in the kitchen) and is now inevitably some hideous coffee shop.
Ah memories …
20th Century Blues: 1930s Swagger Scarf
Pretty vacant
Okay so it’s finally Spring, but the British weather being what it is I always like to be prepared. Anyway, when a vintage love affair begins it doesn’t heed the seasons and this one with my swagger scarf happened accidentally like all the best romances.
So there I was writing a blog post about Stitchcraft magazine when I came across a brief article written by a knitting detractor who used vintage pattern images to illustrate their disapproval, including this 1930s Patons & Baldwins advert for a knitted scarf and I fell in love – so bold, so brave, so ’30s. I ignored the scornful comments and dove in.
The original swagger scarf
I had a search around and posted a few requests on Ravelry but couldn’t find the original anywhere so I’ve knocked up a quick pattern for anyone else who shares my crazy love. It’s really straightforward, all in garter stitch – don’t be put off by the mitred points.
I used Jamieson & Smith jumper-weight yarn as their shades matched the original exactly which was handy. In hindsight I think I’d have made it a little wider – it’s 71sts wide but I think 85 sts would have given it that extra bit of fullness you see in the original. Apart from that it came out pretty well.
Just one mystery remains – any of you fashion history bods out there tell me why it’s called the swagger scarf? I gather that the swagger coat was a popular style from the early 1900s onwards and the name suggests a freedom of movement, but how does that apply to the scarf? Answers on a faded vintage postcard to Skiff … actually an email will do.
Download Skiff’s 1930′s Swagger Scarf pattern (pdf)
Raaaargh!
Bodyguarding the plants - watch out snails
Well here’s one thing I managed to finish on holiday – Skiff Jnr is dinosaur crazy (no really, he’s obsessed like I’ve never seen obsession before), and I was given instructions of what kind of dinosaur he wanted and what colours. Really he wanted a Spinosaurus but I compromised when I found this great amigurami crochet pattern and ended up with a T-Rex/Stegosaurus hybrid.
Not strictly vintage but could be in the sense that dinosaurs are ancient. Pretty fearsome eh?
The Riddle of the Miss Marple Vintage Scarf
Miss Marple Vintage Scarf - Skiff stylee
It all started with an email through the website from a lovely lady looking for a pattern for a keyhole scarf she’d seen on an episode of Miss Marple. I sympathised – I’ve been known to grab the camera and take snaps of the TV screen myself when something knitted takes my fancy, and what do you know, here was another TV-knitting-snapper.
I thought the pattern had to be out there so did a search on the web but with no luck – what would Elizabeth Zimmerman do in these circumstances (assuming she was a Miss Marple fan)? Grab her needles and some graph paper – and a pen to write down witty, bone-dry comments – and make up her own, so in the spirit of Zimmerman I did the same (minus the witty comments). I ordered some fine yarn (UK Alpaca Super Fine DK in ‘Fawn’), did some tension swatches and off I went. Okay, a scarf’s not the most difficult of things to create, but after a false start I was steaming ahead and feeling pretty chuffed, especially when the keyhole segment worked like a dream.
I typed up the instructions, hit the .pdf creation button … then inevitably found the pattern by chance (through Ravelry of course). My version doesn’t differ that much: the stitch is a little finer, it’s a bit fuller (and bigger overall from what I can see) and the approach to the keyhole section differs where I went off-road and did a simple graft onto the original body of the knitting. Either way, it’s a sweet scarf … I’m planning another one in black with some white crocheted edging for a dressier version.
Skiff’s Miss Marple Vintage Scarf instructions
Original vintage scarf instructions
Selbu Style Mittens
Selbu 'Sport' Mittens - not to be used for wrestling
Let it snow let it snow let it snow … mainly because I’ve finished my extremely warm graphic Selbu fair isle mittens, and just in time as it happens because there are some brass monkeys out there looking rather cross.
They were nice and quick to knit up and despite the fact that the original pattern calls for generic Germantown wool and there was no tension guide, they weren’t too hard to adapt. Germantown wool is an American term for a specific yarn from Pennsylvania often used in Navajo weaving – something like DK from what I can fathom but correct me if I’m wrong. I went for something I thought would be soft and thick but fine enough to give a clear fair isle outline, so I decided on good old King Cole Merino DK. As for the tension, after a couple of false starts I ended up with 3mm dpns, and they fit perfectly. They look enormous due to the extra long cuff – keeps out the snow don’t you know.
I’d vaguely heard of the Selbu tradition but hadn’t really delved any further. Then I came across a 1920s or ’30s vintage American booklet ‘Ann Orr’s Spreads & Doilies’ which strangely had two patterns for what Ms Orr called ‘sports’ mittens and gloves in the middle of all the patterns for lacy bits and bobs – by ‘sports’ I presume she means skiing and not wrestling. I fell in love with the bold graphic designs and that was that.
As ever I couldn’t just knit the things I needed to get all academic and wax lyrical about the history behind them so I delved around a bit … pay attention you at the back, I’ll be asking questions afterwards …
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Our love affair with the vintage fair isle look continues, and while knitting from the original instructions may seem straightforward, I sometimes get questions from concerned fair isle pattern buyers about whether the instructions are written or charted – this blogpost is intended to encourage those nervous souls to dive in and chart your own! It’s pretty common for vintage fair isle patterns to be written with no chart representation and being a lazy moo myself I always appreciate the appeal of charted patterns for ease and speed, but there’s also something rather satisfying about deciphering the written instructions, like revealing a secret code, so here are some tips for how to do it.
