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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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).

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 …

Excelana 4-ply

Choosing the right yarn to knit up your vintage pattern takes time and effort and most of the enquiries I get are about which wool to use, so I got geekily excited when I heard that vintage knit queen, designer and author Susan Crawford was about to launch her own brand of wool to accompany her Stitch In Time series of books. I caught up with her at its grand unveiling at Unravel in Farnham – she’d only received the first batch that week and was thrilled with the result. Me too when I got it home … I knitted up a sample to find that it combines softness with strength beautifully and lives up to its description: soft handling, great stretch and excellent stitch definition.

Excelana is produced in conjunction with Devon-based John Arbon of Fibre Harvest and is 100% British wool, spun from the fleece of the North Devon Exmoor Blueface and the Blue Faced Leicester (I love sheep names). At present only the 4-ply is available, but DK, Aran and a unique 3-ply are also in the pipeline, with the promise of more shades to accompany the existing vintage-inspired palette of eight colours.

You can read more about it and place an order through through the Excelana website or through Susan Crawford’s Vintage site.

Holstgarn Supersoft 2-ply

I came across Holstgarn Supersoft, a rather interesting-looking and reasonably-priced Danish 100% wool 2-ply, so I sent off for the shade cards and it turns out they’re rather lovely, excellent vintage shades extremely suitable for vintage knitting. Can’t remember how I discovered it but it might possibly be something to do with my ridiculous obsession with Danish crime thriller Forbrydelsen – I’m not alone in my fascination with the heroine’s minimalist approach to her wardrobe, ie: one beautiful Faroese woollen jumper. Anyway, the Holstgarn looks rather promising so I’m planning to experiment with it at some point in the future.

I’m thinking a trip to Copenhagen might be an essential part of my wool research too, you know, just to see it in the flesh before I sample it. Any excuse for a holiday eh?

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 …

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)

Claudia's Cardigan

A lovely lady got in touch recently to let me know she’d successfully knit up one of the free patterns offered by Skiff – and what a great result!

Sounds like it all went smoothly: using Patons Merino she found she didn’t find the need to adapt the pattern in any way. Says Claudia “I think the tension squares are key when doing vintage patterns, and this wool and needle combo seemed to work.” Here here.

With vintage buttons from her gran’s sewing box to finish off, the finished article looks stunning, and I love that shade of red (my fave colour).

Fancy giving it a go yourself? You can find the pattern over on the Free Vintage Knitting Patterns page – please send in more pictures of any items you finish using a Skiff pattern (bought or free), I love seeing the fledglings hatch …

Stitchcraft July 1946

If you wander over to the Stitchcraft aisle (second floor, next to the perfume and knitted underwear) you’ll see I’ve gone Stitchcraft mad recently.  My personal collection was recently augmented by a bound folder of issues from 1935 which I wouldn’t part with for love nor money, and the gorgeous patterns got me intrigued – it’s a quality magazine which often gets overlooked in the scrabble to buy vintage Vogue Knitting magazines which, incidentally, are getting harder and harder to come by.

The way it steers its obvious target audience towards all things domestic doesn’t always sit comfortably with the post-feminist view we have of ourselves but that’s fairly representative of many women’s publications of its time. An article over at Fulltable is of the opinion that it ‘forbids energy, passion or the consequences of ideas‘, which I can kind of see in the context of women’s position in class and society at the time, but for me the accompanying pictures to the post defy that statement – inventive, creative garments, gorgeously crafted. Of course that was all about to change in wartime Britain as women took on more challenging roles … and yet still found time to create gorgeous clothes, nowt wrong with that.

It started out in October 1932, a Patons & Baldwins publication published in a large magazine format and, as the title would suggest, it’s not just a knitting magazine but gives directions for sewing and embroidery, tapestry etc, often including free transfers and the odd adventurous project for a wooden box or wood-framed bathmat. This makes it all the more interesting for me, you can get a real flavour of the times, right or wrong.

By 1942 times were tough and rationing meant that it halved in size, as most knitting patterns did, although it still managed to produce some fantastic fair-isle and gents’ one-offs. It didn’t size up until 1949 (although even then it was a smaller version of its pre-war days), by which time it had blossomed into a gorgeous curvy creation which strutted its stuff through the 1950s, but by the ’60s it was starting to feel its age and was happier with its feet up by the fire rather than go-go dancing down Carnaby Street. A prematurely aged Stitchcraft limped into the ’70s and by the ’80s P&B decided to do the humane thing and put it out of its misery.

Having said that I do have some early 1960s editions which still contain some cracking patterns, but knowing the purists you all are I’ve left them off the site.

Fancy a new collection? Get shopping!

n.b. The Fulltable link courtesy of Work4IdleHands who also has a fuller version of the Stitchcraft history