Knitting Now and Then

One of my favourite blogs is The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done, by Orange Swan. She reviews knitting magazines, and often excatly nails just what's wrong with a design. And occasionally she has a post collecting together photos of unusual (aka seriously weird) knitted garments. Her most recent post is one of those: Lederhosen and Tutus and Other Knitting Fables. It included this knitting pattern:

1980s vintage knitting pattern; picture knits

Sirdar leaflet 6065

Her caption is "Penelope had come up with the perfect way to get men to buy her drinks when out clubbing."

It's a super example of 1980s picture knits. I looked for the leaflet in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and found that it's one of a small collection of "Disco" knits. Here are the others:

Sirdar leaflet 6062

Sirdar leaflet 6063

Sirdar leaflet 6064

You were evidently supposed to wear your Disco sweater with skintight metallic lycra in a bright colour, and BIG hair. But a long-sleeved sweater in a thick yarn (DK) seems very impractical for a disco - you'd boil. I can see that one or two of them might also do for everyday sweaters - the giant daisy, and the hearts. Maybe even the butterfly. (It was the 80s after all, when picture sweaters were normal wear). But the lips/straw/glass combo - as Orange Swan says, that's just begging someone to buy you a drink.

I wrote a post two years ago about Double Century knitting needles, which had a metal core inside a plastic coating. The original idea was patented in 1913 by Emily Doubble, although she seemed an unlikely inventor, as she was a widow in her 70s at the time. But this week, Emily's great-granddaughter commented on my post and said "she did invent a knitting needle which her son, Theodore, patented for her. My aunt told me that she was fed up on her fine needles breaking and had the idea of putting a metal wire in them. She was a great knitter, embroidery and wood carver!"

(One of the best things about writing a blog is that sometimes people give you fascinating information in comments - sometimes several years after the post first appeared.)

Belinda's comment reminded me that at the time I wrote the post, the earliest ad I had seen for Double Century needles dated from 1945, though it was clear from the wording that the needles must have been in production before the start of World War II.

But I've since found a much earlier ad. It appeared in Needlecraft Practical Journal, and I date it to 1921. (I'll write later about dating issues of Needlecraft, because it's not at all straightforward.)

1921 ad in Needlecraft Practical Journal; vintage knitting needles

At that time, bone was a common material for making thicker sizes of knitting needle, and you could also get ivory knitting needles, though they were of course much more expensive. Double Century needles were always a cream colour, and this ad shows that it was because they were imitating the colour of bone or ivory.

In the same issue of Needlecraft, was an ad for Stratnoid knitting needles - another brand based on a patent.

This is also an earlier ad than I had found previously. The patent (to make knitting pins from duralumin, an aluminium alloy) was granted in 1919, so the manufacturers were quick to get the idea into production.

The claim is that Stratnoid knitting pins are "STRONG - FLEXIBLE - LIGHT AS BONE - STRONG AS STEEL". As with Double Century, bone was one of the materials to compete with. It's interesting that they are claimed to be flexible - the finer ones will bend a bit, but you'd need a lot of force to bend the thicker ones. And the ad doesn't mention their other big advantage over steel - they don't rust.

And with both Double Century and Stratnoid needles, you could knit faster, allegedly. I've tried both, and they are very nice to knit with, but I don't think I can knit faster than with other needles. Perhaps I should be comparing with rusty steel needles, wooden needles with splinters, or bone needles with snags, but if so, I'd rather not do the experiment - I'm convinced already.

In the previous post I showed two ads for knitting needles, from 1921. Both ads mentioned bone knitting needles, implying of course that the advertised needles were far superior. Since I wrote that post, I have found a description of how bone knitting needles were being made in the early 1920s, at a factory in Gloucestershire. (I was browsing in some historic newspapers online, looking for something else entirely.)

By the 1920s, the process was highly mechanised, though still requiring a great deal of skill, But it was also doomed - the article mentioned that a factory nearby was making casein, an early plastic. The writer thought that it "has probably affected the bone trade in no small measure, but there still remains an extensive demand for knitting needles and other like articles manufactured from bone." Not for much longer, I think.

We have a lot of bone knitting needles and crochet hooks in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and I picked out a small selection today. Here are two pairs of straight needles, one 5mm. and the other 5.5mm., and about 23cm long. The double-pointed needles are also 5mm. size - bone could not be used for fine needles.

Vintage knitting needles; vintage crochet hook; bone; 1920s

Bone knitting needles and crochet hook

The bones for knitting needles were a by-product of the meat trade, and I had assumed that they came directly from butchers. But evidently they didn't - they were collected by rag-and-bone men, largely I assume from private houses after the meat had been eaten. I remember a rag-and-bone man making regular appearances on our street, with his horse and cart, when I was very little, but he was just part of the background, and I never thought about what happened to the rags and bones. Later, if I had thought about it, I might have guessed that the bones were converted into bonemeal for fertiliser, and possibly some was, after the more useful pieces had been selected for destinations like the needle factory.

The article describes the initial preparation of the bone - which must have been a very smelly business:

The bones collected by the rag and bone merchant—or the tatter man—eventually find their way to the mills, and one section of the bones which are the result of stew are sawn off and are ready for use at once. The remainder, however, have to be thoroughly boiled. This is done in large tanks, the bones being boiled in steam-heated water for some 24 or 48 hours, as the case may require. Having been thoroughly boiled, which renders them soft and possible to handle easily, the bones pass on to the second process. This consists of sawing them into square strips—a most tricky and tedious business —and they then go to a series of machines through which the square strips are run emerging at the other side of the machine in the round. The bone is converted from the square to the round by means of a small revolving knife, through which the bone is drawn. This done the round strips are next placed in vats containing a bleaching chemical, and on being removed from this the bone, which was previously a creamy colour is perfectly white.

The bone strips were then taken upstairs to the skilled needle makers:

The bones are now in round strips about eight inches long and bleached white. They next pass to the first floor of the factory, and here the strips are finely polished. To do this the pieces arc placed in the end of a rapidly revolving spindle, one at a time, and as they revolve they are polished by means of a piece of emery paper held in the hand of the operative. The points are then made, a revolving emery wheel being used, and the knobs for the other end having been turned out by a special machine, are attached by glue, the finished needles tied together in pairs, and packed ready for the purchaser.

Knobs for bone knitting needles

A disadvantage of bone, mentioned in the Double Century ad, was that to make long needles two pieces had to be joined together by splicing. Evidently bone would only yield lengths of about 9 or 10 inches (23-26 cm.) The article explains how pieces were joined to make longer needles:

Needles of 12 inches [31cm.] or more in length have to pass through an additional process—that of splicing. Bone cannot be obtained in long enough lengths to enable needles of this size to be made in one piece, and so two short strips are taken and cut at the ends in such a manner that they may be strongly spliced together with the aid of fine string and a specially prepared cement. When the needle is complete it is almost impossible to discover the joint, so perfectly is the work finished.

I didn't know until I saw the Double Century ad that bone needles might be spliced, and I looked for some long needles today to see if I could see the join. And indeed, the double-pointed needles shown above are just under 12 inches long, and they are all spliced, if you look very carefully. The join is still almost invisible after all this time, and is perfectly smooth. (Look for the faint diagonal line in the photo below.)

Splice in a bone knitting needle

The factory described in the article also made crochet hooks (or crotchet hooks, as they are called throughout):

The first stages of the manufacture of crotchet hooks is identical with that of knitting needles. On arriving at the finishing department, however, the pieces of bone are polished and then one end is slightly tapered. This accomplished, both ends are rounded and the hook made. The making of the hook is an operation which needs no little skill on the part of the operative, for the slightest mistake as the bone is placed against the revolving disc which performs the operation would immediately destroy the piece of bone on which the hook is being made. The hook is polished once again, and is then ready for packing.
The better class hooks are decorated on the handle, and this is done by a specially constructed machine, and also requires great skill on the part of the worker.

The crochet hook shown above is one of the 'better class', and is beautifully decorated.

Decoration on bone crochet hook

I'm really pleased to have found out how bone needles and hooks were made, at the tail-end of the history of working with bone. It had been a raw material for making tools and decorative objects such as sewing needles and combs for hundreds of years. By the 1920s, perfect knitting needles and crochet hooks made of bone could be mass-produced - and then bone was completely superseded by new materials like anodised aluminium and plastics. I don't know when the factory described in the article closed down, but I think it must have been within a few years.

I wrote in February (here) about small collection of a dozen booklets and leaflets from the 1920s, that I had just been sent for the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection. Most of them were completely new to me. They deserve to be shown in more detail, so here are a few of them, designed by Marjory Tillotson.

She designed the earliest pattern booklets that were published in this country, for J. & J. Baldwin & Partners, of Halifax. The first 'Beehive Knitting Booklets' appeared in about 1910, and Marjory Tillotson stopped working for the company in 1920 when she married. But some of the booklets she designed evidently stayed in print for several years, or were reissued in a 'New & Enlarged Edition'. All the ones I am showing here date from the 1920s, by which time the company was part of Patons & Baldwins Limited.

Beehive Booklet no. 13

The first booklet (no. 13) has a dozen designs for babies' garments - although it's called a Beehive Knitting Booklet, they are all crochet patterns. An impressive array of bonnets, caps, coats, and bootees, all trimmed with satin ribbon bows, even those for boys.

The second booklet (no. 14) has a range of sports sweaters, for women and men, girls and boys.

Beehive Booklet no. 14

The cover shows a woman wearing her sports sweater to play tennis, but I think that sports sweaters were often worn as casual wear and not just for sports. (As sports wear is now, in fact.)

From Beehive Booklet no. 14

The booklet includes sweaters for Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, and says that both are the regulation pattern. 'Each Girl Guide should knit one of these sweaters. It is of the regulation pattern, easy to make and neat, warm and durable in wear.' (Boy Scouts were not, of course, expected to knit their sweaters.)

Booklet 16 has patterns for nine 'House Wraps' - a range of garments to wear at home, including bed-jackets.

1920s vintage knitting & crochet pattern

Beehive Booklet no. 16

The cover design, 'Florence', is a knitted nightingale - a type of bed wrap invented by Florence Nightingale. They were designed to be very easy to make from a length of woollen fabric (see here), and many nightingales were made for the sick and wounded during the First World War. Marjory Tillotson replicated the design in knitting. The booklet describes its construction: 'The graceful "FLORENCE" Wrap is made in one length (in a fancy knitted pattern) like a shawl, the collar being formed by turning back the two corners of a slit-like opening in one of the long sides.' The making up instructions say:'For the cuffs, turn back the corners of the long side opposite the collar, folding them over and fastening at the folded points while leaving sufficient room through which to pass the hands. Finish off with dainty bows.'

Another design I'm quite taken with is Cicely - mainly because it's called a Breakfast Jacket, and it seems such a ridiculous idea to have a special garment to have breakfast in.

From Beehive Booklet no. 16

It's also completely impractical - the sleeves are very loose with big frilly cuffs, and they would trail in your Weetabix or bacon and eggs. But perhaps you could eat a light breakfast of tea and toast (if someone else buttered it for you) without getting in a terrible mess.

Finally, there is a booklet of vests, plain and ribbed. There are patterns for women, men and children, from size 22in. chest upwards. Not very exciting designs, but the illustration in the front cover is charming.

\Beehive Booklet no. 25

Although Marjory Tillotson could not work for Patons and Baldwins after she married, she did continue to design knitting patterns for other companies, until well after the Second World War. She also wrote books on knitting, including The Complete Knitting Book. It's wonderful to have these very early booklets, with her name prominently displayed on the cover - I think they are now very scarce, and it's amazing that these copies have survived in such good condition.

J. & J. Baldwin's trade mark, from Beehive Booklet no. 25

I was sorting out some miscellaneous Weldon's publications in the Guild collection this week. Several of them had lost their front covers, or probably had them removed - the covers generally just had a summary of the contents, and the rest was ads, so they were often discarded. But it makes life difficult for a cataloguer, because sometimes, as with the Practical Needlework series, the number in the series is only printed on the cover. But eventually, with not too much cursing, I got most of them into the right place. In the process, I found one of earliest issues in the Practical Needlework series, from volume 1, dated by Richard Rutt to 1886.

Weldon's Practical Needlework No. 2

It's number 2 of Weldon's Practical Needlework, and also number 2 of the Weldon's Practical Knitter subseries. I have to admit that that's a bit confusing. But never mind - it has some interesting things in it. Here are a few that caught my attention.

First is a pattern for a knitted quilt square in Foxglove pattern, described as 'exceedingly pretty'.

I recognised the image immediately, because I had seen one very like it when I was trying to find the pattern used for a 19th century bedspread - I found the image in an Australian newspaper, the Australian Town and Country Journal, published in Sydney, also in 1886. And now that I compare the two, the images are exactly the same - the Australian newspaper lifted both the text and the image from Weldon's Practical Needlework, in a cut-and-paste job. And I can't see any acknowledgement to Weldon's. To a former academic, that's really shocking behaviour - blatant plagiarism. On the other hand, much of the wording of the pattern is taken in turn from an earlier book, Needlework for Ladies for Pleasure and Profit by 'Dorinda', though Dorinda didn't illustrate it. So Weldon's aren't entirely innocent of plagiarism themselves. Victorian morals weren't quite as pure as some people claim.

Another pattern in the magazine is my favourite lace pattern. I started out thinking of it as Print o' the Wave, but I now think that that is only its Shetland name - in Victorian knitting books, it seems to have been called Leaf and Trellis (if it was given a name at all).

The description says: ' This is a very favourite old pattern for window curtains, cotton antimacassars, bread-tray cloths, and other articles. It is here rearranged and improved, and the veining of the leaves is carried symmetrically upwards." (Following a tradition beginning with Mrs Gaugain, the sample is shown upside down, with the cast-on edge at the top - I suppose because it looks more like a pattern of leaves that way.) The claim of symmetry in the pattern is because some of the decreases are right-leaning (knit 2 together) and some are left-leaning (slip 1, knit 1, pass the slipped stitch over) so that in the 'leaves' you get a line of successive decreases, all leaning the same way, and then a line leaning the other way. In earlier versions of the pattern (Jane Gaugain's, for instance), all the decreases are done by knitting 2 together.

So it may be that, as claimed, this is an innovation, and the first version of the pattern to have symmetrical decreases. Or it could be that the magazine has 'borrowed' the improvement from an earlier publication - I'm reserving judgement.

And the other pattern that I particularly noticed was for a Balaclava cap, 'a most comfortable cap for gentlemen travelling or for shooting excursions.'

It's knitted in navy blue Berlin wool (merino), with red stripes, on No. 10 bone needles. I would like to believe that the pattern was written for this magazine, but the image seems very familiar - I'm sure I've seen it before, but can't remember where. Maybe I have seen it in a later publication, but I'm not very confident - this might be another case of 'borrowing'.

It's been a busy week, so I am only just getting around to writing about the Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention which was in Birmingham last weekend. The Convention is an annual event, though Birmingham is a new venue.

On view was the Guild's display for this year's shows, on the theme of 'Passing on the Passion'.

It features a few items from the Guild collection, including a Kaffe Fassett 'Foolish Virgins' jacket, a crocheted top from C&A, and a knitted crown.

That's one of the very few photos I took at the Convention - I was too busy knitting most of the time. (I bought some Rowan Felted Tweed in John Lewis, and started knitting a Heidi Kirrmaier cardigan, but that's another story.) I also spent some time looking around the centre of Birmingham - it's not a city I know well. The hotel was in the Chinese Quarter, with the Bull Ring markets nearby. Around the corner are the National Trust Back-to-backs, which are fascinating. Several of us who arrived a day early for the Convention went on a tour.

And I spent a lot of time in the Museum and Art Gallery. It has wonderful collections, including a new display of the Staffordshire Hoard, which is amazing (and very difficult to photograph through the glass cases - I tried).

At the Convention, as well as the Guild's AGM, we had three very good talks. Betsan Corkhill, of Stitchlinks, talked about the role of knitting in healthcare. The second talk was by Emma Price of In the Woolshed, which produces natural dyed yarns. She talked about her career to date, initially alternating between accountancy and spending time in India with people practising traditional crafts, before starting In the Woolshed. She now also leads textile journeys to India. And finally, Denise Musk, a life member of the Guild, brought along some of her machine knitted garments in amazingly complex fabrics, and talked about how they developed from her initial ideas.

As well as the talks, there were two workshop sessions led by Guild members, with six topics on offer in each session. But I skipped one session in favour of the Staffordshire Hoard and Pre-raphaelite paintings, and so only did one workshop. It was on Moebius Knitting, with Fiona Morris. Fiona brought along some very inspiring samples, and taught us how to cast on - a surprisingly quick technique. I didn't get very far past casting on in the workshop, though I did finish one round and I've subsequently done a few more.

It's very satisfying for anyone with a mathematical background that it is a genuine Moebius strip, with one edge and one surface. But my sample isn't very tidy and I'd like to do more practice and then try one of the very nice cowls that Fiona showed us.

I contributed to the Convention, too. There was a 'show-and-tell' session on Saturday evening, when members could show something they made during the past year. I took the summer scarf, started in April, which is now finished - I'll write about that later. And Maureen and I did a short presentation on 'How to do a Trunk Show'. I had brought two items that haven't previously featured in trunk shows and talked about them - but those are two more stories for the future.

I mentioned in my last post that at the show-and-tell session at the Guild Convention 2 weeks ago, I showed the summer scarf knitted in Rowan Linen Drape that I started in April (described here). I finished it just before the Convention.

Here it is. It does drape very well (as it should, given the name of the yarn). I like the fact that even the stocking stitch stripes are slightly translucent. And as I planned, it's an open pattern but not too fussy.

If I've got time (hah!) I'll write out a chart for the pattern and add it to this post. And I'll try to take another photo with a better colour - the blue is less grey than in this photo.

I haven't actually worn it yet - it's been too warm to want to wear a scarf. But today is cold and damp - a raincoat and a scarf are needed, and it will get its first wearing.

Anyone who was at the Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention in Birmingham earlier this month might have seen a pair of 19th century knitted lace stockings that I showed, to illustrate the kind of object that we have in the Guild collection. Here's one of the pair. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

They were knitted from the top down, in the round, with a band of double rib to start and then a deep band of stocking stitch, before starting the lace part. The lace is a stitch that in Shetland lace knitting is called Print o' the Wave, but in 19th century knitting books I have seen it called Leaf and Trellis. Here it is as it appears on the stockings. They are knitted in very fine cotton, so that it takes 5 pattern repeats to go round the ankle - there is a huge amount of work in these stockings.

On the way to Birmingham, I found an early version of the pattern, in Miss Lambert's My Knitting Book. The 7th edition, published in 1844, is available online from the Winchester School of Art library, here. I think that Jane Gaugain published the pattern earlier, in 1842 (see my earlier post here), but Miss Lambert might have been the first to call the pattern Leaf and Trellis.

In Birmingham, I knitted a swatch of Leaf and Trellis to compare with the stockings. I used DK cotton for the swatch rather than anything finer, mainly to be easier for me. But I wanted it to be visible to an audience, too, and didn't in any case have any cotton thread anywhere near as fine as that used for the stockings, or the tiny needles to go with it (around 1mm thickness or less, at a guess.)

Here's my swatch, with the cast-on edge at the bottom, because that seems more natural to me. (I actually used the instructions in the 12th edition of Miss Lambert's book, from 1845, also available from the Winchester School of Art library.)

Like the stitch pattern in the stockings and other early versions of the pattern, all the decreases are done by knit 2 together, so they are all right-leaning. Later versions, and present-day Print o' the Wave patterns, use both left- and right-leaning decreases to make the pattern symmetrical. As I wrote here, the Leaf and Trellis pattern published in Weldon's Practical Needlework in 1886 claimed the credit for introducing this variation.

The lace stockings must have been very precious to the woman who wore them - either because she had knitted them herself, or because they had been bought and must then have been very expensive. We can see that she valued them, because they have been darned in several places. The heels wore through, as you would expect, and there are also darns on the back of the calf - perhaps she sometimes wore them with boots? And there are more darns in the stocking stitch sections at the top of the stockings. I would have guessed that they would have been kept up by garters, though that seems a bit precarious. But I really don't know anything about how Victorian ladies wore their stockings, and perhaps they were attached to the corset? I don't know.

Here's one of the feet, showing the darn in the heel. I'm not a sock knitter, so I don't know whether there is anything unusual in the heel shaping. The toe shaping on the other hand does look rather peculiar - it looks as though it's designed for an anatomically strange, very pointed toe.

But clearly the stockings did fit someone, who wore them a lot and looked after them. And then eventually they were put away and kept carefully, until the end of the 20th century, when they were acquired for the Guild collection. And we can admire the skill that went into making them, and marvel at the amount of time they must have taken.

I love old magazines, so when I saw a 1963 copy of Flair magazine in an Oxfam bookshop, I bought it. Flair was a monthly fashion magazine launched in 1960, and I remember reading it occasionally as a teenager. (Sadly it died in 1970, merged into Woman's Journal).

Flair magazine, June 1963

It's fascinating, especially the ads. We think of 1960s fashion as revolutionary - the era of miniskirts, Mary Quant, Vidal Sassoon hair cuts, shift dresses, skinny rib jumpers,... But really that was the later 60s, and it had barely started in 1963.

Many of the clothes shown look very formal, like the suit worn with long gloves, an organdie scarf and a big hat (modelled by Grace Coddington?)

Admittedly that's from an article How to Stand Out in a Crowd and deals with "important social events" such as weddings, race meeting, regattas and committee meetings. (Committee meetings?? No committee I've ever been on had meetings that were important social events.) But elsewhere in the magazine, too, the clothes look rather stiff by today's standards, and although the possibility of wearing 'slacks' is mentioned occasionally, none are actually shown.

A feature "Underneath it all" suggests one reason why the clothes look more stiff and formal than we are used to - you were supposed to wear a corset. And perhaps they were more comfortable than earlier corsets, because "in these days of miraculous man-made fibres, a featherweight corselette or pantie girdle will exert real control for all figure types". Even under slacks - the feature shows a "pantie girdle that gives a really smooth line under slacks", reaching to just above the knee. And they were made for slim women as well as "the most ample figure" (size 40 in. bust, that is).

There are several ads for different brands of corset in the magazine, including the famous Silhouette ads, showing corsets worn over a kind of black body stocking.

As the suspenders attached to the Silhouette corsets show, women still wore stockings, not tights.

The magazine has a surprising number of ads for perfumes and perfumed products like talcum powder. (What happened to talcum powder?) Some of the French perfume brands still exist, and there's an ad for Chanel No. 5, already 40 years old in 1963. But other names like Morny have gone, I think.

I was too young to be affected by most of this, though I did wear stockings for a short while . (Hated them.) Women's clothes are so much freer and more comfortable now than in 1963 - a huge improvement.

And... knitting. There is a knitting pattern in the magazine, although perhaps you shouldn't really expect much woolly knitwear in a June issue. It's a collarless cardigan knitted in two colours.

It's really not too bad - it wouldn't look too extraordinary if someone wore it now. The yarn is Lee Target Gaelic Floss, so I imagine something like a Shetland wool. It's knitted mainly on 4.5mm needles, so possibly a DK weight. For me, it's the most forward-looking thing in the magazine. (But then, I'm a knitter.)

We are gradually recording and cataloguing the pattern leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, of which there are a lot. (I may have mentioned that before.) Recording (i.e. listing the numbers) is nearly finished, cataloguing is only just starting. We are focusing on the earlier ones, particularly the 1930s, and many of the designs could be adapted to wear now. But some garments have gone out of use completely - including the hand-knitted shorts for little boys in this Bairns-wear booklet. (I call them shorts, but actually the leaflet calls them knickers. Times change.)

Bairns-wear Booklet Number 16

The booklet has several designs for jerseys and jersey suits (jersey + shorts) for boys aged 18 months to 3 years. They are very pretty, and feature embroidery. The designs are named after characters in children's books and comics, though the names seem to be randomly assigned - a design doesn't show the character it is named after. For instance, the cover design is called "Mickey Mouse", but doesn't seem to have any connection to the cartoon beyond its name.

Two other designs are named after Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit.

"Brer Fox" suit

"Brer Rabbit" suit

The "Brer Fox" suit is embroidered with little flowers above the pockets on the jersey. "Brer Rabbit" does have a family of rabbits embroidered above the welt , but they are Mr Rabbit, Mrs Rabbit and Master Rabbit, according to the booklet. And not very realistic rabbits, especially as the embroidery on the sample has "blue rabbits with pink eyes and tongues".

There are two other jersey patterns in the booklet, without matching shorts. Tiger Tim was a cartoon character in the Daily Mirror.

"Tiger Tim" jersey

The embroidery on the jersey, disappointingly, is a rather crude dog, and not a tiger. It's described as a "ferocious animal", but saying it's ferocious doesn't make it look ferocious.

"Teddy Tail" jersey

Teddy Tail was a cartoon mouse, from a comic strip in the Daily Mail. Again, the jersey design doesn't feature a mouse, though it is a rather nice design with a zigzag pattern in garter stitch at the neck and hem, and a few embroidered crosses and dots.

Although the booklet is illustrated with black-and-white photos, the instructions specify the colours to use. And some of the colours are surprising. The Mickey Mouse design is to be knitted in sky blue and Tiger Tim should be mauve. But Brer Fox and Teddy Tail are to be pink - pink is now so associated with girls that I doubt if anyone would knit something in pink for a boy. And the Brer Rabbit suit is white - so impractical for an active toddler.

The jerseys, by themselves and without the unnecessary embroidery, are nicely designed - I like the ones with square necks particularly. In a stronger, more practical colour they could work very well. And I know that if I say that no-one nowadays would want to knit shorts for a little boy, some knitter out there will already be planning to do just that. So I will only say that if you are a member of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, you can have a copy of the booklet.

We are in the process of scanning the covers of the patterns in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, focusing for now on the earliest leaflets, from before 1950. Many of them are very attractive, and here's a batch of patterns from the 1940s that I particularly noticed. They are unusual, because instead of relying on the cover illustration to sell the design, there is a bit of description inside telling knitters why this was up-to-the-minute and fitted in with the fashions of the day. I find that helpful, because it's hard to judge the designs otherwise except by modern standards.

The designs are all knitted in 3-ply wool, to a tension of around 32 stitches and 42 rows to 10 cm. in stocking stitch. That's typical of 1940s clothes rationing, when a little knitting wool had to go a long way.

The first design is a neat blouse with bands of lace.

Lee Target 585

"In perfect accord with present-day simplicity, this model is knitted in wide bands of stocking web and lattice lace. The welts and borders are in twisted ribbing and a lace collar adds softness to the neckline."

The next design could be knitted with long sleeves, instead of the short sleeves shown, if you had enough wool. The pattern also suggests the colours to use.

Lee Target 572

"Diagonal lines are very much the vogue now and this little model is a happy example. It is knitted mainly in stocking web in a Dusky Pink with Wine-coloured diagonal stripes on yoke and sleeves, a rib welt and narrow rib roll at neck. It fastens on the shoulders. The stripes are simple to knit, a long strand being used for each with only one ball of main colour at a time."

The diagonal lines on the yoke and sleeves are really eye-catching, and quite simple to achieve. All these patterns give quite detailed instructions, and so knitting the diagonal stripes is described very clearly:

"Each diagonal stripe is 2 sts. wide and moves over 1 st. every row from the centre to the sides, right and left. A separate strand of W [Wine] wool about a yard long is used for each stripe and the P [Pink] and W [Wine] wools are twisted round one another once at each change of colour to avoid gaps. The long ends of W [Wine] wool are easy to draw out when they become entangled and a fresh length can be joined on as needed."

I'm not sure I believe that the lengths of Wine wool could be easily untangled, but maybe it's true.

We associate the 1940s with broad shoulders emphasised by shoulder pads, and here's a waistcoat designed to be worn with that style.

Lee Target 573

"Designed for added warmth over the new wing-sleeved models, this Cardigan is knitted in stocking web, with double epaulettes slightly flaring round the upper sections of the deep armholes. Single ribbing is used for welts and border. The lower sections of the armholes are neatly faced for strength."

And finally, another blouse, knitted sideways in narrow stripes.

Lee Target 565

"A cleverly designed model reflecting the mode of the moment is knitted with a raised red pin-stripe on a white ground. The entire garment is knitted sideways with a firm welt on smaller needles, and a neckline which can be buttoned high or worn with open revers. It is easy fitting, snug, and will make a delightful Summer as well as cooler weather blouse."

Lee Target pattern leaflets at that time often specified carefully how to make up the garment once you had knitted it. The instructions for the striped blouse say: "It is an excellent plan to tape the shoulder seams and back neck to prevent stretching."- another reminder of clothes rationing. Clothes had to last a long time, so it was worthwhile putting extra effort into the making up, if it would help them to last longer.

I'm not tempted to knit any of these designs (and not just because 3 ply wool is so fine). But it's fascinating to see how they fitted into 1940s fashion, as well as being so economical with wool.

Last weekend, we were in Kent, staying with friends. The weather was perfect - hot (but not too hot) and sunny. The men of the party went to the Military Odyssey, a multi-period re-enactment show - a fun day, allegedly. Sue and I went instead to Sissinghurst instead. It's one of my favourite gardens, but I have not been there for many years, so it was good to re-visit it. And the following day we went to Knole, where Vita Sackville-West grew up.

Another day we went to a small book fair in Tenterden, a very pretty little town I bought a couple of old magazines there, including an issue of Britannia & Eve from December 1930.

Britannia & Eve, December 1930

As the cover says, it was "A Monthly Magazine for Men & Women". The contents are an odd mixture. There is a lot of fiction, and some non-fiction articles: on the early life of Prince Albert, the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, "The Psychology of Dress", and several more.

There are two articles on Hollywood and the current films - it seems that the "Talkies" were just taking over from silent films, and so this is commented on in a couple of places. There is a page of stills in a new film in which "Miss Evelyn Laye makes her talking debut". (According to Wikipedia, Evelyn Laye was British and had appeared in plays and musical comedies. In the new film, she plays a flower-seller in a cafe in Hungary, and also a famous singer who she agrees to impersonate, and a captive in a nobleman's castle. It was a Samuel Goldwyn film and, says Wikipedia, a huge flop.) Elsewhere, one of the magazine's writers speculates, "I am not sure that we are not altering our voices and that the Talkies are not responsible for new intonations, new phrases".

There are are also several articles on fashion, and others on Christmas decor and cookery, that you would think would be aimed more at woman readers than men.

Because it's a Christmas issue, the fashion pages present evening gowns (though there is another article on what to wear for a winter sports holiday in Switzerland). The fashions are all illustrated with drawings rather than photos, and women were evidently supposed to be tall, slim and willowy.

From Britannia & Eve magazine, December 1930

A Lovely Gown in which to Celebrate Christmas Festivities

This gown is in black velvet with a band of net above the hem, and a short jacket of net too.

Of course, no real woman looks like the drawings - it would be grotesque if she did. Elsewhere in the magazine is an article on women's golf, illustrated with several photos of real women looking far from slim and willowy - in fact, rather frumpy.

Women always wore a hat when out of doors, and a close-fitting beret was popular for golfers. An ad shows another style of hat favoured by some of the golfers, and that it could look attractive (but not if you sit slumped like a sack of potatoes, like one or two of the women in the photo above).

"An attractive small felt for all weathers"

The ads are fascinating, as usual in old magazines. I was fascinated to see the range of electrical goods you could buy for your hoe, even in 1930s - a toaster, a vacuum cleaner, an iron, an electric kettle, a coffee percolator,...

Electrical Christmas Gifts

Another ad shows a range of radios and gramophones (and a combination 'graphophone').

Columbia Radios and Gramophones

I was astonished at the prices - the cheapest 'radio table model' in the ad is 20 gns. (A guinea was £1 1s, so 20 guineas was £21). The equivalent today, from the Bank of England's historic inflation calculator, is over £1200. That's partly because it's designed to be a smart piece of furniture, in a wooden cabinet, but even so, that's huge amount of money for a radio. (And there weren't many programmes to listen to, anyway.)

There are several car ads in the magazine, and the cheapest is the Austin 7 at £122 10s. - only 6 times the cost of a radio.

"The New Austin 7"

But my favourite ad is this one for Dolcis shoes. I love the Art Deco styling, and the shoes are very stylish - though the evening shoes in crepe de chine and velvet wouldn't last long.

"For Day or Evening - Dolcis"

Unfortunately, although the magazine is 170 pages long, there are some missing at the end, as I found when I tried reading one of the stories. So now I shall never know the ending of 'Shane of the Sorrowful Islands', by Beatrice Grimshaw, a 'drama of mutiny in the Solomons'. Very disappointing.

I'm very behindhand with writing posts - since my last post at the beginning of the month, we have been on holiday in Spain and Portugal, and I've done two knitting & crochet trunk shows. As well as all the usual business of life. I'm trying to catch up a bit before September runs out on me.

Here is a very small selection of the things we saw on our holiday - a tour of Roman Lusitania with Andante Travels. The Roman province of Lusitania was mostly within present-day Portugal, but part of it is now Spain, including its capital, Merida. So we flew to Lisbon, but spent a lot of the holiday in Spain.

We saw, of course, lots of Roman sites, including the theatres at Merida and Medellin, Roman country villas and town houses, and a fish processing site at Troia. And two Roman dams (built to supply Merida with water) that are still functioning, although the aqueducts themselves are now ruined. The aqueduct is still very impressive, though, as it crosses a valley on high arches.

The Museum of Roman Art in Merida houses a wonderful collection from the local area. Here's the gravestone of a woman, Sentia Amarantis, who presumably kept a tavern. It appears to show someone filling a jug from a barrel, and presumably the barrel contained beer and not wine.

/
There were some wonderful mosaics in the museum. One huge mosaic featured two winning chariot-racing teams - here's a detail.

Another one that I liked very much had a geometric design in black and white. Here's the central motif.

We visited prehistoric sites too. The Cromeleque dos Almendres is collection of nearly 100 standing stones, arranged in two concentric ellipses, and an older circle. The stones are huge rounded granite boulders - very characterful. Some of them allegedly have shallow carvings on them, but the light wasn't right to see them, and I think the smooth stones are beautiful without any additions.

The countryside around there has many cork oaks, which we had not seen before. The number 1 on this tree signifies that the bark was removed in 2011 (and it will be ready to strip again in 2020).

Here's a tree that was stripped much more recently (this year I think) showing the red/orange layer underneath.

We also saw many reminders of the Moorish occupation of the area in the Middle Ages, including several cisterns - this one is under the museum in Caceres.

And a couple of aqueducts built long after the Romans (and the Moors) had gone. This one is at Elvas (just on the Portuguese side of the border). It was begun in 1498, and still carries water. We couldn't understand why it took such a zigzag route - from left to right over the road, and then from right to left back again. (Surely easier to re-route the road?)

\Here's the same aqueduct from the other side. It's about 30m. high at this point - and all that vast quantity of stone is to carry a small channel at the very top.

We saw storks' nests everywhere on telephone poles, on electricity pylons, and on top of all kinds of buildings. There are several on top of the Aqueduct at Merida. The young birds have fledged and left the nest by now, but some of the nests had a stork on them - perhaps thinking ahead to next spring? Here's one of the churches in Medellin, with a stork on its nest on the tower.

And evidently the storks don't mind being very close to their neighbours - another church tower in Medellin had four storks' nests, two right next to each other.

I didn't take any knitting with me (too busy) but we did see some yarn-bombed trees in Evora. (Though it's crochet, not knitting.

I was fascinated by the different styles of chimney that we saw. Usually they are built like a little house, with a pitched roof.

The street lamps were also very varied and stylish.

As you can see from the photos, it was generally sunny, and it was very hot too. We were very well fed, in between visiting archaeological sites. (Delicious cheeses, in particular. Pork and ham, too - I came home a few pounds heavier.) And wine was plentiful. It was a great holiday.

Last weekend, and the one before, I went to Harrogate with another of the volunteers who work on the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection. We had with us a suitcase full of items from the collection to show them to two groups of knitters who were on a Yorkshire knitting holiday organised by Susan Wolcott of Trips for Knitters. Julia Marsh, who was with me at the first trunk show, has posted photos of all the items on her Hand Knitted Things blog, here. So I don't need to do that, but instead I'm just going to write about a few of them in more detail.

We started with some 19th century knitted items. First, a charming little pence jug (photographed with a scale, so maybe you can see that it is only a few inches high).

Victorian pence jug

For such a small piece, it has a lot of different colours: two greens, two shades of teal, and three reds/pinks. Presumably it was knitted to a published pattern - there are many patterns for pence jugs in 19th century knitting books and magazines. But we haven't matched this one to a pattern yet, and if anyone recognises it, I'd love to know.

I took along the pence jug I knitted from an 1840s pattern, that I wrote about here, and also some Victorian pennies (so much larger than modern pennies).

I could demonstrate on my little jug that it's perfectly possible to get even Victorian pennies through its neck, because it's ribbed and stretches. I guess that's true of our original jug too, but we don't want to try.

Next, I showed a lacy doiley that I think is also 19th century (though I haven't really any evidence for that.) At the second Harrogate show, I had another doiley for comparison, in a very similar pattern, but knitted in a thicker cotton.

Victorian knitted doileys

The thicker cotton makes the doiley a bit larger and of course a lot thicker, and I suppose that's more practical if you want it to protect a surface, but it does not show the lace pattern well. Both doileys have a central roundel knitted working outwards from the middle. The roundel is the same design in both doileys, but the edgings are different. Each edging is knitted separately, as a strip to fit the circumference of the roundel, and then sewn on and the ends joined together.

I'm not a big fan of doileys, in general, but I like the lacier version of this one. Here's a larger photo.

The central spiral star is a motif I have seen before in knitted doileys. In this one, the triangular gaps between the points of the star are filled with my favourite Leaf and Trellis pattern (aka Print o' the Wave).

Again, if you know the pattern for these doileys, please let me know.

Moving on chronologically, we showed some Irish crochet and the First World War 'Welcome Home' tablecloth. And then we reached the 1920s, and what Richard Rutt (in his History of Hand Knitting) called 'the jumper craze'. Artificial silk, or 'art. silk', i.e. rayon, was very popular and we have several knitted and/or crocheted jumpers in rayon in the collection. As well as being a favourite yarn at the time, it doesn't get moth-eaten and doesn't shrink, so has lasted very well.

At Harrogate, I showed a jumper in apricot rayon that is partly knitted and partly crocheted.

$\Vintage knitted and crocheted jumper in rayon, 1920s$

1920s jumper in 'artificial silk'

I think it dates from the early 1920s. It has the typical straight up and down lines of a 20s jumper - although there is a drawstring belt, it probably wasn't at waist level, and the waist would not have been emphasised. One of the knitters in Harrogate loved this jumper so much that she would like to make one. We have many patterns for rayon jumpers from the 1920s, in magazines like Fancy Needlework Illustrated, but I have not yet found this one - I'm on the look-out for it.

And from the 1920s, we went on to the 1930s, represented by a child's Fair Isle cardigan, a child's gansey from around 1948, some 1950s knitting and 1960s crochet, and eventually a Kaffe Fassett piece from the 1990s. I'll say more about one of the 1950s knits in another post, but for now you can see photos of all of them in Julia's blog.

I have been working on dating issues of Fancy Needlework Illustrated magazine, which was published from about 1906 until the Second World War. We have copies of most numbers in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and it would be useful to know when each one was published - information that you might have thought that the publishers would have provided. But they didn't. Even so, I have managed to find enough evidence to date almost all of them - a post on that will follow shortly.

One of the quirks of Fancy Needlework Illustrated is that many of the jumper designs in the 1920s numbers are named after British towns - like the Bexhill jumper, on the cover of no. 75, published in September 1925. (The Bexhill jumper is the one worn by the lady on the right, sitting under the tree).

Fancy Needlework Illustrated No. 75

As far as I can see, the names were assigned at random - there's nothing about the Bexhill jumper, for instance, that suggests a seaside town on the south coast. But a columnist on the local newspaper, the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer, felt that the design somehow represented the town and that the women of Bexhill might want to make the jumper for themselves:

A compliment, which is also an advertisement, and is all the more welcome because it is unsolicited, has been paid Bexhill from an unexpected quarter. That is the naming of a new pattern for a ladies' jumper, in knitting and crochet, as the Bexhill jumper. It looks exceedingly nice as worn by a young lady whose photograph appears in "Fancy Needlework Illustrated," published by the Northern School of Art Needlework, Ltd., of Manchester. For the benefit of lady readers, who will naturally want to make Bexhill jumpers for themselves and lead the local fashion, I may state that the garment is made in light sky blue, and is composed of strips of knitting, joined together with crochet. A deep crochet belt completes the bottom, and the same pattern is worked for sleeve bands. ... For further instructions how to make the Bexhill jumper I must refer my knitting readers to Mrs. Harris, Western-road, who has kindly drawn my attention to this latest distinction that has been conferred on Bexhill.

The Bexhill jumper from Fancy Needlework Illustrated no. 75

It is rather pretty, combining lacy knitting with open-work crochet. The loose fit, too, would make it cool to wear on a hot day.

The Bexhill jumper is very similar in construction to the apricot rayon top I showed in my last post: the deep crochet band below a draw-string belt, alternating strips of knitting and crochet and a square neckline are the same in both. And the other young woman on the front cover of no. 75 is also wearing a T-shaped jumper with square neck and a deep bands of crochet below the waist and around the sleeves. This was a very common style for jumpers in rayon and cotton at the time. Other styles were also popular in the 1920s, of course - "Fair Isle" jumpers, for instance, But they didn't appear in Fancy Needlework Illustrated, because it only published patterns suitable for cotton. I'll discuss why later.

Over 150 numbers of the Fancy Needlework Illustrated magazine were published before the Second World War. The Knitting & Crochet Guild collection has about 75% of them, including the very first number (though it's a bit tatty).

Fancy Needlework Illustrated no. 1

I've been assigning a date to each number - they don't have publication dates on them, but fortunately there is enough other evidence to work out when they were published. (And if you want to get straight to the dates, there's a table at the bottom of this post.)

One helpful clue is that the magazine ran regular needlework competitions, and many of our copies still have an entry coupon inside. The closing date for entries to the competition gives a rough idea of when the coupon (and so the magazine) was printed. That was all the information I had for a long time. But then I noticed that the early numbers have a "To Our Readers" introductory piece that sometimes said when the next number would be published. (Yes, I do occasionally read some of the publications in the collection, as well as sorting and listing them.)

From these introductions, I found that no. 3 was published on February 1st 1907 and no. 5 on February 1st 1908. I don't know definitely when numbers 1 and 2 were published, but I guess that they both appeared in 1906.

From 1908, the magazine was published quarterly, on February 1st, June 1st, September 1st and December 1st. It seems that the first few numbers were published less frequently, to test the market, but they must have sold well enough to commit to publishing more often.

Although the first number listed knitting as one of the crafts covered by Fancy Needlework Illustrated, the early numbers focus mainly on embroidery and crochet, with very little knitting. But fashions were changing, with sports coats for women becoming popular around 1910. Fancy Needlework Illustrated followed the trend, and showed a sports coat on the cover of number 24 in December 1912.

Fancy Needlework lllustrated no. 24

In the 1920s, jumpers for women became very fashionable, and the covers of the magazine often showed several jumper designs, like number 59, published in September 1921.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated no. 59

One of the cover jumpers from no. 59 appeared in a newspaper ad the following month (so confirming the date). The ad promoted the competition run by the magazine: "Every needlewoman in the country should put her skill to the test by entering for this Great Competition. It is open to all, and has appeal for those practically minded as well as for those of more artistic ideas. For your Jumper, or for your Embroidery, you may receive a prize of £20." The ad was apparently placed by Ardern's, a cotton spinning company that seems to have been one of the backers of Fancy Needlework Illustrated.

In 1923, colour was introduced for the cover of the magazine. The first colour number was either 65 (which we don't have) or 66.

The colour covers are very attractive - they show an idealised view of some of the designs featured inside. The patterns themselves are illustrated with black-and-white photographs, so the models are real women and not the attenuated creatures on the cover. (As with the Bexhill jumper from no. 75.)

From 1929, the magazine was published 6 times a year, in January, March, May, July, September and November. The new dates in fact began with no. 88, which was published on 1st November 1928, rather than 1st December.

In the 1930s, the magazine focused much more on embroidery, with little crochet and less knitting, so the contents are less interesting for the Guild, and quite a few of the numbers are missing from the collection. No. 134 (from July 1936) is unusual for that period in having knitted and crocheted garments pictured on the cover, below. Fancy Needlework Illustrated was still backed by cotton spinning companies, and so the 1930s fashion for knitted woollies was passing it by. No. 134 is headed "Smart Designs for Knitted & Crocheted Summer Garments" - clearly cotton is more suited to summer than winter clothes.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated No. 134

The restriction to cotton changed shortly afterwards when Weldon's took over the magazine. They changed the design of the cover and started to include designs for other fibres, particularly wool. No. 139 (below) is a Weldon's number, published in May 1937 at the time of George VI's coronation.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated no. 139

After the end of 1939, the title of the magazine changed to Needlework Illustrated. Numbers continued to appear 6 times a year, and the numbering continued too: no. 154 of Fancy Needlework Illustrated appeared in November 1939, and no. 155 of Needlework Illustrated in January 1940. I've found another blogger who has dated the issues of Needlework Illustratedhere, so I don't need to do that.

So now, if you have a copy of Fancy Needlework Illustrated, you can date it exactly - except for numbers 1, 2 and 4 where I'm sure of the year of publication but not the month. The table below lists the numbers published in each year. You're welcome.

1906	1,2	1923	65-68
1907	3,4	1924	69-72
1908	5-8	1925	73-76
1909	9-12	1926	77-80
1910	13-16	1927	81-84
1911	17-20	1928	85-88
1912	21-24	1929	89-94
1913	25-28	1930	95-100
1914	29-32	1931	101-106
1915	33-36	1932	107-112
1916	37-40	1933	113-118
1917	41-44	1934	119-125
1918	45-48	1935	126-130
1919	49-52	1936	131-136
1920	53-56	1937	137-142
1921	57-60	1938	143-148
1922	61-64	1939	149-154

Before other plastics were developed and came into common use, one of the materials used for knitting needles was vulcanite, a hardened rubber. A haberdashery catalogue from 1918-19 lists steel, wood, bone, ivory and vulcanite knitting needles. So I've known about vulcanite knitting needles for several years, but I didn't think that we had any in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

But then recently I saw that we had some black double-pointed needles, that I thought might be vulcanite. Another name for vulcanite is ebonite, and it was used to make jewellery and other decorative pieces in imitation of ebony or jet - black is its 'natural' colour.

The needles that I thought might be vulcanite are size 14 (2mm.) and some are in a set of four with a paper band around them, though it's not very informative - it just says 14 W.G. (presumably for 'Wire Gauge') and Made in England.

You can test whether a knitting needle is vulcanite by rubbing it gently to warm it - it should smell of rubber. I've done that and they do smell of rubber - at least to me. I've asked several other people to test them, without mentioning rubber. No-one else said that they smelt of rubber, and you would be amazed at the range of things that various people thought they could smell. (Strawberries?!!)

So I'm relying on my own nose. Also, they are surprisingly sharp, which makes me think that they are not made of one of the usual plastics.

And this week we have been given some more knitting needles, including a pair of black straight needles, 12 in. (30.5 cm.) long and size 7 (4.5 mm.) They don't have any label or markings on them, not even the size.

Again, they are sharper than most plastic needles. And to me, they smell of rubber. So I'm convinced they are vulcanite, and I'm not asking anyone else to smell them for me.

It seems that vulcanite was not used for knitting needles after the start of the Second World War. So if I'm right, these really are vintage knitting needles.

I've been researching the history of Wakefield Greenwood, a knitting yarn business based in Huddersfield in the 1950s and 1960s - I'm giving a talk on the company at the Knitting History Forum meeting next month. The Wakefield Greenwood company grew out of Greenwoods, a needlework shop in Huddersfield that advertised in Vogue Knitting in the 1930s and 1940s.

I'm still finding bits of information about the company and the shop. This week, I found some Bestway patterns from the late 1940s for Greenwoods Wools.

Bestway 1416

Bestway patterns often specified generic yarn, such as 3-ply wool, but otherwise, they had a company logo on the front and the pattern was written for that company's yarns. So for instance, in the late 1940s, many Bestway patterns had Sirdar or Emu logos on the front. It must have been good for the yarn company, as an extra way of advertising their yarns. I think, too, that Bestway patterns were sold more widely than other knitting patterns, in newsagents as well as yarn shops.

During World War 2, Greenwoods shop started to sell their own brand of knitting and crochet yarns - the shop had had a mail-order service for several years, supplying knitting wools and other needlework supplies all over the country, and advertised the service in Vogue Knitting. But they hadn't yet started producing their own knitting pattern leaflets to support their yarns. The Bestway leaflets would have been a way to test the market, and also to get the name known more widely.

In fact I recognised one of the Bestway designs straightway.

Bestway 1446

I had already seen an illustration of the jumper in a Greenwoods ad in a 1946 Vogue Knitting magazine..

Ad in Vogue Knitting 28

The ad says "Write to-day for LEAFLET 1446, 4d post free from us or from any Wool Shop." I did wonder how Greenwoods managed to have a leaflet numbered 1446, without any previous leaflets, but now I know - it was Bestway 1446.

I don't recall any other yarn company advertising a Bestway leaflet, but Greenwoods (and later Wakefield Greenwood) were very good at seizing any advertising opportunity.

I have found two other leaflets for Greenwoods Wools. One is an underwear set - a (very long) vest and (very long) knickers.

Bestway 1448

The yarn is Silbro, described as Underwear Silk, and it may indeed have been real silk.

And finally, there's a little jumper knitted in mercerised cotton yarn, "knitted in stocking stitch with lacy yoke and front panel". It has a neat little collar and a buttoned opening at the back neck - very pretty, if you like 1940s vintage knitwear.

Bestway 1449

I haven't found any other Greenwoods Wools leaflets published by Bestway in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, though there may have been some. But shortly after these were published, Greenwoods started to produce their own pattern leaflets, so perhaps they didn't need the Bestway support any more.

The clocks went back an hour this morning and many of the 'clocks' around the house updated themselves automatically - radios, computers, mobile phones. But a hundred years ago, when 'daylight saving' was a very new idea, putting the clocks back was a cumbersome business, and one that had to be explained to the public. I just today came across this timely article warning the people of Leeds about the end of Summer Time in 1917. It appeared in the Yorkshire Evening Post on the 10th September (summer time ended earlier in 1917 than it does now).

SUMMER TIME ENDS THIS WEEK.

CHANGING CLOCKS IN LEEDS.

Daylight saving, at all events for this year, comes to an end this week. The Home Secretary gives notice that summer time will cease and normal time will be restored at 3 a.m. (summer time) on the morning of Monday next, Sept. 17, when the clock will be put back to 2 a.m. The hour 2-3 a.m. summer time will thus be followed by the hour 2-3 a.m. Greenwich time.

The act of putting back the clock will, in the average household, be performed by paterfamilias before retiring to bed on Sunday night. None but the most particular stickler for order will sit up till 3 o'clock for the purpose of restoring clocks and watches to Greenwich mean time.

Even in regard to the Leeds Town Hall clock, which gives the accepted time to all the work-shops and factories of the city, not to mention the public houses, there will be no need to go to all the trouble of setting back the clock at the hour named. It might have been necessary if the clock had continued to give forth its chimes and show its face at nights, but as the possibilities of air raids have stopped all that, the demands of the times are such that the clock man need only stop the 4 cwt. pendulum for an hour. He may do that precisely at 3 o'clock, or he may study his own convenience in stopping the clock any time during the hours of darkness and nobody will be the wiser.

Actually the putting back of the clock will impose no hardship on anyone. On the contrary, those who retire on Sunday night at the usual time will have the comfortable feeling that they are granted an hour's extra sleep for the sixty minutes which the Government took from the people in April last. The only people who will need to "get busy'' through the change are those who have to do with the regulation of clocks in public places, railway stations, post offices and Government establishments.

One Leeds firm, besides holding up the "works" of the Town Hall clock, has to restore Greenwich time to nearly a score of tramway traffic clocks, to a dozen churches in Leeds and to sixty or seventy other clocks in public places, including those on hotels and in the arcades.

In regard to the ways of manipulating the clock, the public are cautioned that the hands of ordinary striking clocks should not be moved backwards; the change of time should be made by putting forward the hands eleven hours and allowing the clock to strike fully at each hour, half hour, and quarter hour, as the case may be. The hands should not be moved while the clock is striking. An alternative method in the case of pendulum clocks, is to stop the pendulum for an hour.

So if you had a striking clock with no pendulum (the sort my grandparents had on their mantelpiece) that chimed every quarter hour, you had to let it chime 44 times in order to put the clock back an hour. I think I would rather have had it an hour wrong until the following April.

A friend sent me a package of pattern booklets and leaflets this week, a donation for the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection. She lives in Scotland and had found them in her local charity shop - several of them do in fact have a Scottish flavour. There are several 1950s pattern booklets that were given away free with The People's Friend magazine (published in Dundee).

There were several late 1940s pattern leaflets in the package too, including this lacy blouse pattern with crocheted buttons. (I'd call it a blouse, or else a short-sleeved cardigan. The leaflet calls it a 'jackette'.)

The most intriguing item was a copy of the Scotch Wool & Hosiery Stores'Hand Book of Knitting and Crocheting. which was similar to Patons & Baldwins'Woolcraft. It gave a lot of useful basic patterns, with an emphasis on underwear.

I think this edition dates from the First World War - it has several patterns for balaclava helmets, steering gloves, puttees, and similar garments that would be useful for soldiers and sailors. But the intriguing thing is not the booklet itself, but its cover - the original cover (above) is falling apart, and a new cover has been made from the outside of a school exercise book. (To confirm that, it has the address on the back: Corporation Printing and Stationery Department, 197 Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow, S.1. )

And on the front is advice to children on how to cross the road safely.

DANGER ! DANGER ! DANGER !

Do your best to avoid street accidents by observing the following rules:-
1. ALWAYS stop at the kerb, before crossing the street.
2. ALWAYS look right and left before stepping into the street.
3. ALWAYS keep looking RIGHT till you come to the middle, then keep looking LEFT.
4. ALWAYS look out from behind a car or bus before stepping out into the street.
5. NEVER climb upon a moving vehicle, or hang on to it.
6. NEVER follow a ball, hoop or playmate into the street while there is traffic about.
7. NEVER play games on the street.

BETTER A MOMENT AT THE KERB
THAN A MONTH IN HOSPITAL

What I want to know is: when did children last play with hoops? (i.e. hoops for rolling along the street, not new-fangled things like hula-hoops). Long before my time, I'm sure. There's a long article on hoop rolling in Wikipedia, which shows that it has a very long history, but it doesn't say when it stopped being a common street activity for children.

The cover should clearly stay with the booklet - even though it's nothing to do with knitting or crochet, it's now part of the booklet's history.

Disco Sweaters

Advertising Knitting Needles

Making Bone Knitting Needles

Designs by Marjory Tillotson

Practical Knitting in 1886

Guild Convention in Birmingham

My Linen Drape Scarf

'Leaf and Trellis' Stockings

1963

Jersey Suits for Little Boys

1940 Knitting Fashions

December 1930

Roman Lusitania

Trunk Shows in Harrogate

The Bexhill Jumper

Dating Fancy Needlework Illustrated

Vulcanite Knitting Needles

Greenwoods Wools

Summer Time Ends

Donation from Scotland