Knitting Now and Then

In April, I wrote about a secret project that I was knitting in three colours of Rowan Felted Tweed. The pattern has now been published, in the November/December issue of Piecework magazine. It's a special issue on collections, and Angharad and I wrote an article about the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection for it. The project was to accompany the article, and now that the magazine has appeared, I can show it to you.

Tam for Piecework November/December 2017

It is a tam, with two bands of stranded knitting, and a tassel. (The magazine has a nicer photo of it - it was photographed on a model, who is much more attractive than my polystyrene head.)

Choosing a project to represent all the publications in the Guild's collection was quite tricky - I wanted something unusual, not too big or difficult to knit, and something that would look good now. Just as I was wondering what to choose, a donation arrived for the collection, of booklets and patterns from the early 1920s, including a booklet of Hats, Caps & Tams, which was just what I was looking for.

Beehive Booklet 23: Hats, Caps & Tams

I had never seen a copy of the booklet before, and I think that not many have survived. It was published in the early 1920s - after J. & J. Baldwin of Halifax had merged with Paton's of Alloa in 1920, but while they were still acting as separate companies.

The booklet has an introduction which describes the teazle wool specified for the patterns in the booklet:

TEAZLE WOOL HATS, CAPS and TAMS, in Knitting and Crochet, are a need of the times for wear with the woollen Jumper, Scarf, or Sports Coat which form part of practically every Woman's wardrobe. They can be made at home to match the other garments and at but a quarter of the cost, or less, of the ready-made article.

Moreover, at the taste of the individual, a Colour Scheme may be deliberately put together and an air of distinction given to the finished article, such as would be very difficult to obtain through Millinery channels. TEAZLE WOOL, from which the whole of the articles illustrated in this book were made, is supplied in a lovely range of shades from which to choose such a Colour Scheme.....

The facility with which the surface of fabric made from TEAZLE WOOL can be "raised," by means of the special "TEAZLE" Brush, makes it peculiarly suitable for Hats, Caps, and Tams. The process softens the colours and gives a very pleasant touch to the fabric, the freshness of which can be restored at any time, and even after washing, by a gentle application of the "Brush."

(Teazle wool was named for the heads of the teasel plant, shown in the trademark, that were used in the woollen industry to raise the nap on woven cloth.)

I didn't want to choose a pattern that was designed to be brushed, but fortunately many of the patterns in the booklet were not, and I chose this design from the front cover, which isn't brushed:

Even though I didn't intend the finished tam to be brushed, in order to imitate Teazle wool I couldn't choose a smooth yarn - it would have to be a wool that could conceivably be brushed. The pattern specified the colours, too, so I wanted to be able to match them if possible. And of course I needed to be able to match the stated gauge.

My friend Ann Kingstone suggested using Rowan Felted Tweed, which she used for her Stranded Knits book, and assured me that it would knit to the right gauge. And Rowan very kindly supplied me with Felted Tweed in Bilberry, Watery and Ginger, to stand in for Violet Blue, Jade Green and Orange Teazle Wool. The result looks very close to the illustration in the booklet, and has the 'jewelled effect' described in the pattern - I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Having chosen the pattern and the yarn, I still had to modify the pattern quite a lot. The knitted tams in the booklet were intended to be made in four or five separate sections and then sewn together. Here's a chart for one of the sections in a similar tam from the booklet - each section in the tam pattern I chose is the same shape, apart from the final decreases.

Chart for a 4-section tam

The booklet has a preamble that suggests knitting in the round as an alternative - I thought that most knitters now would prefer that.

The tam I chose was intended to be knitted in 4 sections, and I knit a trial tam (in other colours of Felted Tweed) following the pattern closely, apart from knitting it in the round.

I didn't like it - it was too square. And the decreasing in the centre of the crown didn't work well (for me anyway) - it didn't lie flat. So I changed to five sections and changed the decreasing in the middle. I also had to re-jig the bands of stranded knitting, so that they sat symmetrically within each section, and carried on smoothly from one section to the next - not a consideration in the 1920s, it seems.

The final hurdle was the tassel. All the pattern says about that is "sew together neatly, finishing with a length of chain and tassel from the centre of the crown." Some instructions would have been nice, but in the absence of any help, I had to make it up, and fortunately, I could see roughly how long the chain and tassel should be from the illustrations in the booklet. Here's the finished tam, showing the crown with the five converging sets of decreases, and the chain and tassel. I am very proud of it - my first published pattern.

I have been wondering how similar Felted Tweed is to the Teazle Wool specified for the tam pattern I adapted, as I described in my last post.

Here's a photo of a Teazle Brush being used, and a description, taken from J. & J. Baldwin's Woolcraft, published before 1920:

BRUSHING (or RAISING).—The full beauty of garments made from certain materials,—and especially those from TEAZLE WOOL, is only developed by raising the surface of the fabric by means of the special Teazle Brush, so as to produce the effect of fur.

The process should not be applied promiscuously to knitted and crocheted fabrics, but only where recommended in the particular recipe, certain precautions—such as stitch, firmness of fabric and avoidance of knots on its surface—requiring to be observed, as well as the suitability of the material from which the garment is made. TEAZLE WOOL is specially intended for finishing off with a "raised" surface, and gives most beautiful results when used according to directions.

The procedure is as follows :—Holding the Brush in the right and the fabric in the left hand, treat the material to a series of light dabs (Fig. 2A), with a very gentle lifting or pulling action at each (Fig. 2B), until a fluffy surface has been produced equally all over the garment. Heavy or careless raising may easily cause a tear, in which case the fabric will require to be darned on the inside. If the Brush be made to just lightly grip the surface, however, and the action be a gentle one and steadily applied, a beautiful effect can easily be obtained on plain fabric made from TEAZLE Wool. It is a wise precaution to make sure that the Brush is clean by using it first on a piece of waste fabric.

The TEAZLE Brush can be obtained (in the United Kingdom), at a cost of 2/- [2 shillings], wherever TEAZLE WOOL is on sale. As it may be employed, with discretion, for renewing the nap on any woven fabrics (such as Blankets and Tweeds), it is a handy tool to have available, apart from its special use in connection with TEAZLE WOOL.

I tried brushing my Felted Tweed swatch with a wire brush, and the result is just slightly furry.

I'm sure it's not as furry as brushed Teazle wool should be - but the brush I used is one I usually use for brushing suede. It is not equivalent to a Teazle brush, which was also a wire brush, but each wire had a hooked end. What's more, brushing with a wire brush, even one without hooks, didn't seem a proper way to treat Felted Tweed - the fabric did not feel robust enough to stand up to such treatment. So perhaps Teazle Wool produced a thicker fabric, or perhaps the Teazle brush did a better job of raising the nap, or perhaps I was being too tender-hearted. It's hard to tell without a sample of the original Teazle wool and a proper Teazle brush. But I suspect that getting the effect evenly applied over a sizeable garment would be difficult, even with the proper wool and brush.

I was in London last weekend, for the Knitting History Forum conference on Saturday at the London College of Fashion. Professor Sandy Black organises the programme, and this year's was the 10th anniversary meeting, which is quite an achievement. I have been to three of the past conferences, and there has always been a fascinating range of talks. I was there this year to talk about Wakefield Greenwood, a Huddersfield yarn company, and what I have found so far about its history.

"Wools for the World" - details from the back of a Wakefield Greenwood pattern leaflet

You can see the programme for the conference here. I felt that my talk hardly counted as history compared to some of the others, because I was talking about things that happened within living memory - other speakers were going back hundreds of years.

Maj Ringgaard from Copenhagen talked about 17th and 18th century knitted stockings in silk and wool that have been found in waterlogged excavations in Copenhagen. I was fascinated by the decorative details - many of the stockings had clocks (decoration on the outside of the ankle). Maj showed several fancy clocks in purl stitches on a stocking stitch background.

(There was also a bit of discussion about the correct terminology - apparently knitting historians aren't supposed to talk about stocking stitch, or knit and purl stitches, any more. But I know what those terms mean, and if you're a knitter, I expect you do too - although if you are American, you might have to translate stocking stitch to stockinette. I can't remember what the alternatives to knit and purl are, but the approved alternative to stocking stitch seems to be 'simple knitting', which I don't find very helpful.)

As well as clocks, the Copenhagen stockings had false seams up the back (in purl stitches, with often a bit of decoration either side). The seam was imitating the hose made out of cloth cut on the bias that the knitted stockings replaced, but Maj suggested that it might also have had a practical purpose as a marker for the leg shaping.

The following talk was also about 17th century knitwear. Helena Lundin, from Uppsala, has been looking at knitted fragments of wool and silk found in the remains of the Swedish Navy flagship Kronan that exploded in 1676 with the loss of 800 men. The fragments (when they can be identified) came from gloves, headgear, silk waistcoats and stockings, and they are mostly stocking stitch, although I was excited to hear that one fragment is in twined knitting.

Nearer to home, Lesley O'Connell Edwards has been examining 16th century stockings and sleeves knitted in wool, from the Museum of London collection. The stockings are often in very poor condition as you would expect, but sleeves don't get such hard wear. There was some discussion of how the sleeves were worn - whether as a warm under-layer, or on top of other clothes, partly to protect them. But it's astonishing that knitted wool has survived so long. I remember seeing a 16th century child's veston display in the Museum of London a few years ago - it was fascinating to examine the stitches through the glass, and try to work out how it was constructed. (It's knitted in the round.)

Matteo Molinari talked about the crochet traditions in his home village in Italy, near the Austrian border. The older generation of women still make beautiful crocheted items for their homes - mats, curtains tablecloths, and so on. There has been a tradition, too, that teenage girls should crochet a bedspread for when they get married. Matteo said he found that the value of a crochet piece was judged by the fineness of the thread and hook, and the amount of work involved in making it.

The final talk of the afternoon was from Ruth Gilbert who showed photos of some ancient pieces of textile from Egypt, which look like knitting but aren't - they were made by some kind of sewing technique, I gathered. She also presented some later pieces which she thinks might have been made by a technique something like French knitting, i.e. with something like a knitting nancy). But unless an Egyptian knitting nancy is found from the right date, it's hard to see how you could get beyond saying that a fabric like that could have been made that way.

It was a fascinating set of talks, covering a wide spread of knitting history. And afterwards, there was a drinks reception, to celebrate the 10th anniversary, which rounded off a very good day.

When we were in London a week ago, for the Knitting History Forum, I spent a happy day at the British Library, looking at magazines from 1918. I was gathering material for my blog about the First World War, One Hundred Years Ago. It's been through a very thin patch since I broke my wrists last year, and I almost decided not to add any more posts, but then I thought that I should at least post the material I had already collected, and now I'm planning to revive it and keep it going. The war won't last much longer, after all. (I'm sure that's what people hoped in 1917, too.)

So I ordered Woman's Weekly, Home Chat and Home Notes for 1918. They were all weekly magazines for women, and all survived until the 1950s - Woman's Weekly is still with us, of course. Woman's Weekly was a good read (though of course I didn't have time to properly read very much of it). There was lots of interesting material about how to train for some of the new job opportunities available to women. Mary Marryat, who still nominally wrote the advice column in the 1950s (but I'm sure wasn't the same woman - if indeed she ever existed) was issuing good advice to young women getting into relationships with men in the armed forces. (Some of it extremely practical - e.g. you can tell from his pay-book if he's already married.) And Cecile, who I think also survived as the Woman's Weekly cookery writer until the 1950s, provided recipes and meal plans for the meagre rations.

And as I was looking through the issues of the magazine, week by week, I saw a pattern I recognised.

Woman's Weekly magazine, 23rd March 1918

The 23rd March issue has an illustration of a tea cosy on the cover - and I recognised it, because there is a tea cosy made to the same pattern in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection. (Strictly speaking, it's a tea cosy cover, not a tea cosy - it wouldn't do anything to keep a pot of tea warm by itself.)

The cosy in the collection is identical to the Woman's Weekly illustration, except that our example has a decorative frill around the edge - but the pattern just says that when you have made the two halves of the cosy, you should finish off "with any little edging round the top".

I probably wouldn't recognise all the filet crochet tea cosies in the collection, but I know this one, because of its other side. I'm sure that the designer intended that both sides of the cosy should be the same, but the maker of ours used different designs. The other side has a "VICTORIOUS PEACE 1914-1919" design, and it's very familiar because I show an illustration of it in my talk on knitting & crochet in World War I.

It was surprising and exciting to recognise an image from 1918 so unexpectedly. Next time I visit the British Library, I'll look through Woman's Weekly for 1919, to see if our maker found the 'Victorious Peace' design there too.

I'm afraid that Home Chat and Home Notes were nowhere near as interesting as Woman's Weekly - Home Notes in particular was very dull. Clearly, enough readers went on buying them to keep them both going for another 40 years, but personally I'd have bought Woman's Weekly instead.

This is one of an occasional series in which I look back at a past issue of Stitchcraft. So here I'm looking back 70 years, to November 1947.

Stitchcraft magazine, November 1947

Although the war had been over for two years, there were still severe shortages of many things, apparently, and clothes rationing was still in force. But perhaps it was easing up a little - earlier issues of Stitchcraft suggested ways to recycle wool unravelled from old jumpers, but this issue expects you to buy new wool.

Christmas was coming, of course, so the front cover has an angora bolero to wear "For a Winter Party". (I must show the heading for its exuberant use of three different fonts in four words:)

And the back cover of the magazine has a nice twinset in a complicated stitch pattern, knitted in 2-ply. You only needed 10 oz. (285 gm.) for both the cardigan and the short-sleeved jumper - they weren't being extravagant with their clothing coupons.

From Stitchcraft magazine, November 1947

Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:

There are two more sweaters for women, and a charming little twin-set for a small child.

For men, there are patterns for gloves and a smart pair of socks.

From Stitchcraft magazine, November 1947

And, with Christmas presents in mind, there are two patterns for soft toys. They are called, I have no idea why, the Despondent Tiger and the Poetical Bull. (Each toy requires nearly as much wool as the twinset, so the pattern does suggest using unravelled wool here.)

Earlier issues of Stitchcraft, such as this one from December 1941, had a cookery column. That seems to have been abandoned by 1947. And although there was usually quite a lot of sewing, embroidery, and other needlecrafts apart from knitting and crochet, both before and after the war, the November 1947 issue has only one item that isn't knitted - a cushion cover in applique and cross stitch.

But for a knitter, there is a lot to appeal. I might even try the sock pattern.

Members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild can download a pdf of this issue of Stitchcraft from the members' section of the Guild website.

A recent donation of knitting patterns to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection included a pattern for an "All-over Fair Isle Jumper and Beret", which looks to me like a 1930s pattern.

It was by a company called T.P.G. who produced "Pure Shetland Wool" for knitting. Presumably, the company was based on Shetland, but there is no address on the leaflet. And I can't guess what "T.P.G." stands for.

It's good to see an authentic Fair Isle pattern from the 1930s (if that is what it is). Here's what the design looks like, very approximately - I've chosen the colours based only on their names in the pattern, so they may be a long way from accurate.

I read the instructions to see if the jumper is to be knitted in the round. It is - but only up to the armholes. Then the back and front are knitted flat. The stitches for the sleeves are picked up around the armholes (after the shoulders have been grafted), and the sleeves are knitted in the round. So - no steeks.

I knew that I had seen other T.P.G.patterns in the collection, and today I found them. The girl's cardigan below is knitted in fawn and dark blue, with peach, white, pale blue, moorit and yellow.

The materials required include a set of four long needles (15 inch), but I'm not sure how they are to be used. The instructions imply that the back and front are knitted flat in one piece up to the armholes, and you begin by casting on 235 stitches onto two size 10 (3.25 mm.) needles. But probably four long needles are needed to knit such a wide piece flat - the instructions don't say. (Now we would use a circular needle.) Again, the back and fronts are knitted separately from the armholes upwards, and the sleeves are knitted in the round, working downwards from the armholes.

Another T.P.G. leaflet is in a different Shetland knitting tradition - it has panels of a pretty lace stitch on a cardigan and jumper. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

I found these T.P.G. patterns alongside some other knitting patterns from Shetland. I think these are later - maybe late 1940s?

The leaflets leave no doubt that these are Shetland patterns "Designed in Shetland by Shetland Knitters" - the company is called "Shetland Wools", with an address in Lerwick. Both the lady's jumper and the gent's slipover are knitted flat - back and front separately. Even the sleeves of the jumper are knitted flat, from the cuff upwards - the only knitting in the round is for the yoke. And the ribs around the neck and armholes of the slipover are knitted flat, too, with seams in the rib, under the arms and on the shoulders. (I find that rather shocking). The company must have decided that knitters outside Shetland just couldn't cope with knitting in the round.

It would be nice to know more about these two companies, and in particular what T.P.G. stands for. So if you have any information. please let me know.

On Thursday evening, we had the December meeting of the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild branch. Our theme for 2017 has been Yarn, in all sorts of forms. To finish the year we had a workshop from one of our members, Sarah Alderson of Aldersign Designs. The workshop was on thrumming - a traditional technique from Canada for making very warm mittens and such like by knitting extra bits of unspun wool into them to make a fleecy lining. (Search for 'thrummed mittens' to find some YouTube videos and articles - here's one by the Yarn Harlot.)

Sarah provided us with undyed wool tops to make the thrums - short lengths of roving folded into figure-of-eight loops. And she had designed a pattern for thrummed slippers / bootees - the design is called 'Fluffier on the Inside'. The sole of the slipper is thrummed, and there is another band of thrumming around the ankle. Sarah's prototype was in dark blue, and looks a little bit like Doctor Who's Tardis (which of course is bigger on the inside).

We started with a slipper sole, and I finished mine on Thursday evening. The photos show the outside, with a neat pattern like the lice in Norwegian knitting:

and the inside, which looks like an explosion in a wool warehouse:

Sarah says that after the slippers have been worn for a while, the thrums felt together into an even, very warm layer.

The next step in making the slippers is to pick up stitches around the edge of the sole to knit the upper (which isn't thrummed). Before doing that, I think I should knit the sole again - the size needs some adjustment. And before that, I need to finish off some Christmas knitting - there's not much time left, but it may just be done by Christmas morning. But I shall definitely finish the slippers - they will be so cosy.

I don't usually knit Christmas presents - I know from past experience that it's just creating an extra source of stress in getting them finished in time. And I have not been much of a sock knitter, either, though for Christmas 2011 I did knit 3 pairs (of which 2 and a half were finished in time). But this year, I needed a small portable project and decided to try sock knitting again, and to knit a pair for my daughter for Christmas - knitting one pair of socks seemed perfectly manageable. I bought a skein of lovely Lichen and Lace sock yarn from my friend Sarah Alderson, and her sock pattern, The Chain. (Sarah designed the thrummed slippers pattern that featured in my previous post.)

The socks were finished well before Christmas. They have turned out very well, and the yarn is beautifully soft.

But meanwhile, my daughter said that what she really needed was a replacement for a scarf that she had lost i.e. she wanted me to knit a plum-coloured infinity scarf, as soon as possible. So I decided that the scarf would have to be for Christmas, too.

It took a while to find some wool of the right colour - King Cole Merino Blend 4-ply in Damson. By this time it was well into December, and we decided that the scarf had to be about 46 in. (117 cm.) in circumference, and quite deep. I did get it done - I finished it at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve (knitted, ends sewn in, and pressed). Cutting it a bit fine, I know, but on Christmas Day it was all wrapped up, under the Christmas tree.

It's designed to loop around the neck twice. I don't have a photo of my daughter wearing it, but here it is on our newel post.

I knitted it in the round, with a chevron pattern of eyelets and decreases in the middle and garter stitch borders top and bottom. Basically, a very wide, short tube.

It turned out that she hadn't lost the original scarf after all, but as it's cotton jersey, a hand-knitted wool scarf is much nicer, and much warmer for the winter. She's very pleased with both the socks and the scarf. And I'm going to knit more socks - this time for me. And maybe a Moebius scarf too.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, and Guild members are being encouraged to make something to recall 1978 - maybe something from a 1978 pattern, or adapting a 1970s trend. And to wear the result at the Guild's Convention in July. (I still have a sweater that I knitted in the late 1970s - my Cream of the Crop sweater from a book of Patricia Roberts knitting patterns published in 1975. So in theory, that's me sorted - though as it's very warm, it won't be wearable in July.)

By 1978, Patons pattern leaflets had copyright dates, and we have permission to copy them for Guild members, so I have made a catalogue of the Patons leaflets published that year. (Available to Guild members from the KCG website.)

Quite a few of the designs are not distinctively 1970s - basic sweaters, cardigans, scarves and so on. But some features recur several times that wouldn't be so usual now. There are a number of big, loose tops in simple T shapes - described as oversweaters or overtops. They typically have wide sleeves, dropped shoulders and slash necks.

Patons 1536

Most of Patons 1978 designs are knitted, but there are crochet patterns too.

Patons 1518

And many are designed for all the family. (The slanting pockets in Patons 1575 are another recurring feature.)

Patons 1575

Patons 1505 has the loose, dropped-shoulder, over-sweater style translated into a jacket. The combination of colours in the sample doesn't work well, it seems to me, but with a different choice it could look good.

Patons 1505

There are some lighter styles too - like this lacy sweater with a big frilly collar. (Note the draw-string hem, also a feature of Patons 1518 and several others.)

Patons 1617

There are a couple of waistcoat patterns which would be practical for a cool July day (and most July days in England seem to be cool).

Patons 1581

There's one pattern that stands out, though - Patons 1595, for a unisex 'Fair Isle' waistcoat and pullover. I think it was a very popular design at the time - we have two waistcoats and a pullover knitted from it in the KCG collection (see this post for a photo), and two more pullovers appeared in the Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood exhibition in 2015. And it's proving very popular now - since I put the catalogue on the KCG website, it's been asked for more than any of the others.

Patons 1595

It would be easy to make something quite wearable from one of the Patons 1978 patterns - there are none of the worst 1970s horrors. No knitted trousers (no knitted patchwork trousers, even worse), no knitted shorts, no leg warmers.... (We do have such patterns in the collection, if anyone feels tempted.)

So if you're a Guild member - happy knitting! I look forward to seeing the results in July.

I was browsing some online newspapers today, looking for something else, when I found an account from May 1919 of someone opening a wool shop. The woman concerned had been in uniform during the war, and wanted to carry on being financially independent. Employment for women was scarce, with all the men returning from the war, so setting up her own business was a way round that.

It seems from the article below that wool shops had not been flourishing before the war, though the huge effort in knitting comforts for the troops must have helped the trade. In 1919 a new 'knitting craze' was foreseen - correctly, as it turned out, with knitwear becoming very fashionable in the 1920s. So it must have seemed an auspicious time to start a wool shop.

I was particularly interested in this account, because the Wakefield Greenwood company started out in just the same way: in June 1919, Clara Greenwood and Harold Wakefield (who were engaged to be married at the time) set up a shop in Huddersfield, selling knitting and crochet yarns, and all kinds of needlework supplies. This could almost have been their story too:

MY WOOL SHOP.

A BIT OUT OF CRANFORD SUCCESSFULLY REVISED.

Somehow talking about wool shops seems to suggest "Cranford" and Jane Austen, and those early Victorian days of terrible gentility when one of the few things that a poor woman could do for a living was to keep a shop for the sale of Berlin wools and crewel silks. Those times have changed, however. At the outbreak of war period it required some searching to find a shop where such commodities were the principal feature. Wool and fancy workshops "went out" at the beginning of the century, but the war has helped to bring them back again.
At least, they are on the way. There is, I think, a decided opening for them in many parts of the country. I happen to know, because I have just received the experience of a woman who has established one. Her home is in a little country market town not very far from London, a fairly busy place and popular with holiday makers.

The Business Rest Cure.

"When I came out of khaki," she told me, "my doctor advised me to stay at home and take things quietly for a while, and in answer to my protests at enforced idleness, he said jokingly: 'You'd better take that empty shop in the High-street and turn it into a wool repository, like it used to be when I was a boy! The papers say that there is a wool craze ahead, and that women will soon be knitting all their own clothes, so you ought to do well!'
"It was meant as a joke, but it seemed to supply just what I had been trying to find—an idea for 'something different' from my pre-war work, something that would give me some independence and which would not demand a terrifically large initial outlay. So I did it.
"The empty shop which had been a Berlin wool shop in my grandmother's young days became mine for a moderate rental: it was painted and cleaned and made to look pretty, and one bright morning it was opened with some wools and fancy work goods arranged artistically in the window and myself behind the counter. Since then it has been opened continually, and now there are two 'young ladies' in the shop as well as myself, and things are more promising and prosperous than I ever dreamed.

On the Wave of Fashion.

"No doubt the recent and present craze for woollen garments and trimmings has had something to do with it; all sorts of wools can be bought at my shop. Embroidery silks, too, either for working cushions or frocks, besides all sorts of fringes, bead trimmings, braided work, and various made-up passementeries, for which there is a greater demand now than there has been for a quarter of a century or so. Lately I have added some pillow and various English cottage laces to my stock, also lace-making equipment, and the results already have been very encouraging.
"One of my assistants is a good embroideress, and I have some 'outside workers,' who will do work to order, so that it is possible for me to take orders for work to be done—in particular, I find many women are glad to give orders for special dress trimmings of an everyday order, also for hat bands, children's clothes, and such like.

Lessons in Knitting.

"To a lesser extent, too, unfinished work is completed; some orders are taken for knitted garments in special colourings, etc.; while the demand for lessons in knitting, lace-making, and embroidery of all sorts, is far greater than the outsider would imagine. It is so great. indeed, that I am seriously thinking of taking a clever friend into my business who will confine herself to teaching.
"It is an old idea which was dead and has been resuscitated, but it is worth reviving. My wool shop is a flourishing concern: so is one on exactly similar lines which is run by another woman friend in a London suburb. And one hears people who drop in saying: 'How I wish someone would open a shop like this where I live.'"

The popularity of hand knitting lasted until after World War 2, and beyond. When I learned to knit as a child, there seemed to be little wool shops everywhere. In Huddersfield, Greenwoods closed long ago, when Miss Greenwood (aka Mrs Wakefield) retired in the 1960s - until then it flourished and expanded into the wholesale yarn business, run by Mr Wakefield. It would be good to think that the woman in the article did well with her shop, too.

On Thursday, we had the January meeting of the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild branch. As last January, we had a quiz set by Marie and Sarah - all the questions were on knitting & crochet, of course. It was a lot of fun - especially as my team won this time. (It was a lot of fun for me last year, too, even though my team came 3rd out of four, so it's not just enjoyable for the winners.)

Here's my prize, in a tiny carrier bag made by Marie - a set of heart-shaped buttons from Sarah, a set of stitch markers, a 10g. ball of Opal sock wool, and a bracelet that you can use for counting rows. The bracelet has nine beads in each of two colours, that you can slide from one end to the other through a loop in the middle, and so count up to 99.

Ann Kingstone was in my team, which helped a lot. One set of picture questions was about some of the very popular patterns in Ravelry - patterns that have generated thousands of projects. We had to give the name of the pattern and the name of the designer. I did recognise the Hitchhiker shawl/scarf (over 28,000 projects), because I looked at it when I was choosing a pattern for a similar scarf in Louisa Harding's Amitola, but couldn't remember the name Hitchhiker, and had no idea of the designer. And I recognised the Color Affection shawl (15,750 projects) because I have knitted that one myself, and knew that the designer is Finnish and her name begins with 'V', but couldn't remember 'Veera Välimäki'. So I would have done very badly on that section - but Ann knew most of the answers there. I did much better on dating designs from different decades. And as Ann said, if I didn't know where Beehive yarn was first produced, I ought to lose my job. (Halifax, by J. & J.Baldwin & Partners). (And as someone else said, I haven't actually got a job as such - I'm a volunteer.) There were other sections where the other members of the team stepped in - one on references to sheep, knitting, needles, etc. in popular culture, including Game of Thrones and Zootopia. I was annoyed that I couldn't remember the author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, even though I have read it (Kate Jacobs) - I am very bad at remembering authors of books. And Ann and I were hopeless at remembering the early branch meetings, even though we were both there. We couldn't even remember the topic of the first workshop that we had, so it was a bit shaming to find out that it was on feather-and-fan - taught by Ann herself, and I wrote about it here.

It was a really good sociable evening - thanks very much to Marie and Sarah for compiling the questions and providing the prizes.

Whatever happened to January? It doesn't feel like we've had 31 days since the New Year, and yet here we are, past the end of January and galloping through February. Anyhow....

Last week we were busy at Lee Mills having a big clear up (or Big Clear Up) - things that had been sorted once but not quite finished, things that had got into a bit of a mess,... Mostly I spent the week sorting out knitting needles (more later). And in a drawer that probably hasn't been opened for years, we found a long-forgotten cache of 1950s knitting wool.

It's Patons Lucelle Fine Ply, and as you can see I found some Lucelle pattern leaflets elsewhere in the Guild collection.

Each ball has a ticket buried in the middle:

It is very fine - we should probably call it lace weight now, I think. The earliest leaflet I found (from 1954) is for a 'Shetland-pattern jumper' and is knitted on 16s and 17s. I can't find a knitting needle conversion chart that goes below a 14 (2mm), but from a British wire gauge conversion chart, it seems that a 16 is 1.6mm, and a 17 is 1.4mm. Or to put it another way, the tension specified in the pattern, for stocking stitch on size 16 needles is 54 stitches and 78 rows to 4 inches/10cm. Here's the illustration, should you feel inspired to have a go. (It only takes 4oz. (about 100 g.) of yarn, so at least it should be a thrifty knit.)

It has three vertical panels of a lacy pattern on the front, but unfortunately the leaflet illustration doesn't show the lace clearly - you would have to knit a swatch to see what it looks like.

As the ticket with each ball says, Lucelle was a blend of wool, angora and nylon. It was intended as a luxury yarn, in imitation of cashmere. It seems to have been introduced in the early 1950s: I found an ad from November 1952, for "PATONS LUCELLE WOOL -- The New Cashmere Wool". It was priced at 2/6 per ball. 2/6 is directly equivalent to 12½p, so now that seems remarkably cheap, but the same ad gave the prices for 'Purple Heather Wool', 3-ply and 4-ply as 1/5 per ounce (7p) and 'Patons Super Fingering, 2-ply and 3-ply, as 2/- per ounce (10p). Since Lucelle was sold in ½ ounce balls, it cost 2½ times as much as Super Fingering, weight for weight.

Later Lucelle patterns, like Patons 114, were knitted to a looser tension, on 13s and/or 14s.

And even men were allowed the luxury of Lucelle: you could knit the pullover or long-sleeved sweater in Patons 124 below either in 3-ply or in one strand of 2-ply and one strand of Lucelle. The leaflet says "Lucelle and 2-ply knitted together make a fabric of the utmost affluence -- but there's also a down-to-earth version in 3-ply." (Though a hand-knitted long-sleeved sweater in 3-ply seems very luxurious to me, and not at all 'down-to-earth'.)

James Norbury, who was the chief designer for Patons throughout the 1950s, used Lucelle in The Penguin Knitting Book (published 1957) for two evening jumpers. Here's the nicer one.

Lady's Evening Jumper in Lucelle, from The Penguin Knitting Book, by James Norbury

It has a chevron band around the low neckline, with a small cluster of pearls and sequins on each point - very elegant. I am sure that James Norbury had a team of knitters at his disposal, so he would have had no qualms about designing a jumper that requires a tension of 42 stitches and 52 rows to 4inches/10cm. on size 13 needles.

The latest Lucelle leaflets I have found so far are from 1960. Patons leaflet 1054 is for 'Two Lucelle Lovelies':

I think that by 1960, there were fewer knitters with the patience to knit sweaters with very fine yarns - a new generation of knitters had not had the experience of clothes rationing, when you had to make a very little wool go a long way. So even 3-ply knitting was beginning to seem like hard work, and I suspect that Lucelle disappeared not long after 1960. Now we would knit lacy scarves and shawls with such a fine yarn, on much larger needles -- much less work per square inch.

As part of the Big Clear Up at Lee Mills last week, we did a lot of work sorting out knitting needles. They were left over from Hook and Needle Week in 2014, when we did a lot of sorting out of not just crochet hooks and knitting needles, but all kinds of tools and gadgets, such as yarn holders.

We must have had thousands of knitting needles at Lee Mills before Hook and Needle week, donated over the years. Many weren't paired up, so a lot of the work in 2014 was putting pairs together and identifying the odd ones. Quite a lot of different makes of knitting needles were extracted for he collection at that stage. At the end of Hook and Needle Week, I think everyone was tired of sorting knitting needles, and so the rest got put aside.

Last week, we returned to them and sorted through a crate of mostly grey needles - mostly enamelled metal, some plastic. A lot were the very common Aero and Milward needles, but occasionally there were other brands in the crate, so we were picking those out. We are disposing of all the duplicates, but we found several dozen pairs that should go in the collection.

Some of them were branded with the names of spinners that I know from pattern leaflets - Copley, Vyella, Don Maid, Jester, Cronit. They are mostly represented by just one pair of needles, but a couple are more common: Robin (and Robinoid), and Beehive Brand (Patons & Baldwins).

Robin knitting needles

There are a lot more brands that I never heard of before - and to be honest, they are are pretty similar grey enamelled metal needles, with only the brand name to distinguish them: Bienna, Ibex, Fearnside, Poppy, Pixilite, Bouquet, ....

Poppy knitting needles

One name I knew already is Stratnoid: in the 1920s, Stratnoid needles were made of duralumin, an aluminium/manganese alloy. They are very nice to knit with - light and strong. And shiny, a pleasant change from grey. But last week, I found needles of a much later Stratnoid design, which are the usual grey enamel, sadly.

Stratnoid knitting needles

But at least this design is different from most of the others because I can approximately date it, from an ad in 1968.

We have now worked through all the assorted metal needles. A lot (the duplicates) will be re-homed, and we have expanded the knitting needle collection with the rest.

All week, I was hoping to find a knitting needle brand not listed in Susan Webster's mammoth list of knitting needle brands, that you'll find here. But whenever I looked in her list for some strange name I had never heard of, I found that Susan was there before me. With just two possible exceptions: AKE and Vulcan. But I quite expect to find that they are just variations of brands that she already knows....

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I haven't written for quite a while about what I've been knitting, but I have finished two things in January and February, so it's time to present them.

I haven't knitted many pairs of socks so far, but decided a while ago that maybe I should knit more of them, and I made a pair for my daughter for Christmas. I also decided that I ought to try wearing hand-knit socks myself, instead of knitting them just for other people. (Can't say yet how that's going to turn out.)

So I bought some sock yarn in November from Loop, in Camden Passage, for a pair of socks for me. It's Lang Jawoll Sock Yarn, in Caramel. The pattern is from Cat Bordhi's book, Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles (although actually I knitted my socks on one circular needle, using the magic loop method). The pattern I chose has a design of Bavarian twisted stitches - I went to a workshop on Bavarian twisted stitches two years ago and have been looking for a suitable project to do more.

This was I think my 6th pair of socks (apart from a heelless spiral pair), and the previous pairs were knitted toe-up. But this pair were knitted top-down. That is the traditional way to knit socks, so I'm perhaps a bit backwards to start knitting top-down at this stage. The heel shaping is also, I'm told, a traditional method, with a heel-flap, and a sort of triangular base to the heel. I don't much like it, to be honest - the triangular piece doesn't seem very natural. It's also the first time I have grafted the toes of socks. They are very nice socks, but I think I'll go back to knitting socks toe-up in future.

The other thing I have made since Christmas is a Moebius cowl. I went to a workshop at the Guild Convention last July, led by Fiona Morris, and I've been intending to knit a Moebius cowl ever since. I bought the yarn at the Knitting & Stitching Show last November - a discontinued Debbie Bliss super chunky yarn called Winter Garden, which is a surprising mix of llama, wool, silk and linen. The colour is called Copper.

A Moebius strip is a surface with only one side and one edge. You can make one from a strip of paper, and joining the two ends after putting a half-twist into the strip. And you can knit a Moebius cowl in the same way - knit a rectangle, twist it and join the ends e.g. by grafting. But it's much more satisfying to a knit a Moebius strip directly, with one side and one edge, and you can do that. The cast on becomes embedded in the middle of the knitting, and isn't an edge - the only edge is created by the cast off.

(I've posed it on an up-turned mixing bowl, in case you're wondering.)

Fiona suggested a diagonal rib as a possible stitch pattern that would work well. It's a bit mind-boggling that if you keep knitting a diagonal rib, always going in the same direction, you get a cowl with a chevron pattern.

To repeat: the cast on is in the middle, between the ribs going in the opposite directions, and the cast-off edge is at the top and bottom, but is actually just one edge. Best not to think about it too much.

In 2014, I wrote a blog post about a mysterious pair of knitting needles in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

The following year, crazyhaberdasher from Australia added a comment on the post, and said that she had seen an ad for the needles in a Weldon's magazine from the 1920s. Here's the ad, with her permission, taken from her blog post:

So it definitely is a pair of knitting needles (I originally wondered if they might have some other purpose entirely). Here's the text of the ad.:

THE "BENBOW" KNITTING PIN.

A 9-inch "Benbow" holds as much as a 12-inch ordinary.

A 12-inch "Benbow" holds as much as a 15-inch ordinary.

The illustration shows 212 stitches, 106 being in the curve.

THIS PIN is specially designed to take the place of the 15-inch KNITTING PIN, and is advantageous in many respects. For instance, when the worker is ready to commence the sleeves and shoulders, no matter how wide the garment may be, she can allow one-half of the stitches to retire into the CURVE, thus preventing any complication, and when inclined to put her work aside, can draw the whole of the width down to the CURVE, and will find no fallen stitches on resuming same. Made in UNTARNISHABLE ALLOY, ERINOID, VULCANITE, and CELLULOID.

Ours are some sort of plastic, so Erinoid or celluloid. (I imagine that an expert in early plastics would be able to identify the material. Not me.)

The registration number, 700,735, dates the design to 1923, and I've recently found a description of the needles in a 1923 newspaper (The Sheffield Independent of 15th December), The article is headed "Novelties for the Knitter", the Benbow Knitting Pin being one of the novelties:

The knitting pin, with curved top, is specially designed to take the place of the 15-inch knitting pin. A 9-inch model has 12-inch capacity, and a 12-inch one 15-inch capacity. The idea is that by having a semi-circular curve at the end of the pin, 106 stitches can be compressed into this space and afford the knitter of a garment the comfort and convenience of a shorter pin.

This is clearly the Benbow knitting pin, even though it's not named. I guess that the author didn't want to stray into advertising by giving the name, but as it is, I don't think the description would help anyone wanting to buy a pair. It seems to have been a very shortlived novelty anyway. Awkward to manage, I imagine - you would have a lot of weight on the end of the needles, where the curve is, and if you like to knit with the right needle under your arm, like me, it would be a bit uncomfortable to have all that bulk there.

(I'm slightly curious about the name "Laughton B Lilley", too - Laughton was the name of the company that made Stratnoid knitting needles, and Harry Lilley was the patentee of the original duralumin Stratnoid needles. But Laughton B. Lilley sounds made-up to me.)

The other 'novelty for the knitter' in the 1923 article is "a winder with a knitting-pin gauge":

The wool or silk winder is made in the form of a maltese cross, of two strips of thin material, and can be closed when not in use, to save space; but the most important part of the patent is the gauge holes to measure knitting pins. When anyone is engaged in knitting an article they naturally settle on the thickness of the pin they wish to use for that purpose, but having a number of pins of various sizes to hand it is a very simple mistake—lacking a measure to test the size of the needle—to use a needle of the wrong gauge as the work proceeds, and thus possibly spoiling an otherwise perfect garment.

We don't have anything like that in the Guild collection, but we do have cross-shaped holders designed for winding artificial silk on to, like these:

I wrote here about the need for something like these for winding art silk, or rayon yarn, because it is so slippery. And I have seen something like the 'novelty' described in 1923, illustrated by Susan Webster. Susan's winder has two cross pieces, pivoted in the middle, which open out to a shape like the two winders shown above, except with squared-off ends to the arms. And two of the ends have holes in, to measure knitting needles. Susan dates the winder to World War 2, but if it is the one described in the article, it's much earlier.

Two years ago, I knitted a pair of fingerless mittens in a Mystery Knit Along, run by my friends Sarah Alderson and Ann Kingstone. You can see my (almost) finished mittens here. (I did finish them, and posted some photos here, but the colours in that post look a bit murky - they are in fact much nicer than that.) Now, Sarah and Ann are running another MKAL (Mystery Knit ALong) - this time a pair of socks. I signed up for it, and looked for some suitable sock yarn. I haven't found an actual bricks-and-mortar shop near here that sells sock yarn, except the stall in Huddersfield Market Hall, which has some in very basic, utilitarian colours like dark grey. And a lot of sock yarn is self-striping, which won't do for this project. But I have now got some very lovely yarn online from Eden Cottage Yarns.

It's their Titus yarn, in a mottled brown called Compost. (I'm new to hand-knitted socks, and almost all my everyday, shop-bought socks are black. Occasionally black with stripes of another colour on the toes and ankles. A few thick pairs in grey or fawn. So I can't suddenly start knitting brightly-coloured socks and expect to feel comfortable wearing them. Baby steps.)

The MKAL has several stages (five?) and two options at each stage. (One designed by Sarah, the other by Ann, but we don't know which is which.) The first stage (last week) was the toe, with a choice of two unusual construction methods. I chose the spiral toe, which has four evenly-spaced sets of increases spiralling out from the starting point.

We were told at the outset that there would be colour-work options, but that it would be possible to knit the socks all in one colour. I do have another colour available, but I haven't decided yet whether to use it. We are currently on stage 2 (the foot part), and yes, one of the options uses stranded knitting with two or three colours, but I've chosen the other option, which is a lace and cables pattern. I think there will still be a possibility of using two colours for the ankle, but I'll wait and see what the options are before deciding.

There's still quite a bit more of the foot to do, but it should be finished by next Friday when the instructions for stage 3 will be published.

In February, I wrote about finding several balls of Patons Lucelle in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and showed several pattern leaflets for little jumpers knitted in Lucelle on very fine needles. I thought at the time that the best way to show what the yarn is like would be to knit a swatch, and when we had a lot of snow a couple of weeks ago, and I mainly stayed at home, I decided to do it.

I also wanted to try out the lace pattern in one of the jumper patterns. The leaflet calls it a "Shetland-pattern jumper" and it has three lace panels on the front and one around the bottom of each sleeve.

Patons 994

As I said in my earlier post, the main part of the jumper was intended to be knitted on size 16 needles (1.6mm.), with the rib on size 17s (1.4mm.). The smallest needles I have are 14s (2mm.) but I decided for a swatch it wouldn't matter. Knitting an entire garment on size 16s would be a daunting prospect, even though it has short sleeves, is only designed for a smallish size (34-36in. bust) and is quite short (19¾ in., or 50cm.).

I had assumed that, apart from the lace panels, the jumper was knitted in stocking stitch, but got an unpleasant surprise on reading the instructions - the background is a lace mesh stitch pattern. Barbara Walker calls it 'Star rib mesh' in her book A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. It's a 4-row repeat, and on alternate rows you just purl, so it's relatively simple. Even so, it's a lot harder than stocking stitch. I certainly wouldn't ever be able to knit it without watching what I was doing, as I can with stocking stitch.

The main lace stitch, in the panels, is much more complicated. It's a 40-row repeat, for one thing - though again, on wrong side rows you just purl. (I might have given up otherwise.) What's more, the number of stitches changes constantly. You start with 23 stitches, but sometimes you have as many as 31 stitches, and other times it goes down to 17 stitches. Which is pretty crazy.

After I had done the first pattern repeat, plus a few more rows, I was a bit puzzled about what it was supposed to look like. (I made a small mistake half way up - it's supposed to be completely symmetrical. But apart from that, I followed the instructions correctly, I assure you.) There are some things that might be intended to look like leaves, and some smaller shapes that might be petals? or smaller leaves? Altogether it doesn't make much sense to me.

So I went back to the pattern leaflet and had a closer look.

I thought that in some places, the photo seemed to show two leaves, a four-petalled flower, and some smaller leaves either side. Hard to tell. It looked as though there perhaps should be a central disc in the middle of the four 'petals' - like a sort of daisy. So for the second pattern repeat, I changed one row of the pattern to make it look more flower-like.

I don't know. It's quite pretty, I suppose, but I'd like it to look a bit less random. And it is much too much work to want to repeat it.

Here's my complete swatch. I do at least now have something to demonstrate what Lucelle is like when it's knitted up. I do wonder, though, whether anyone ever knitted this jumper, apart from the sample knitter. Who was, I hope, paid more than the usual rate for it.

It's now week 3 of the On The Other Foot Mystery Knit ALong run by Ann Kingstone & Sarah Alderson. I'm up to date (though only with the first sock) so I've finished the toe, foot and heel stages. Here's the sock so far.

I chose the option that has a cable and lace pattern on the instep, to go with the cable and lace pattern I had already knitted for the foot. (Though in theory you can choose either option at any stage. Some people made the other choice following a cable and lace foot, and it looks fine. So does the colourwork foot with a cable and lace instep.)

Part of the point of Ann and Sarah's MKALs is that you learn new techniques, and they provide tutorials to help. The heel with the option I chose is very neat, and completely unlike any heel I have knitted before (in my limited experience of knitting socks).

I'm really pleased with the result, and it was very straightforward to knit - just following the instructions. It uses German short rows, which I've never tried before - I've only done wrap-and-turn short rows before. There was an easy-to-follow tutorial with clear diagrams with the pattern, which I found quite sufficient, though I think that Ann or Sarah may have done a video tutorial as well.

Finally, here's a photo of the instep pattern, which doesn't show up well in the first photo because my ankle was bent. (Taking photos of your own foot in mid-air to show the detail of your socks is not easy.)

I'm looking forward to seeing what part 4 brings. I'm still undecided about introducing another colour, though on reflection it might have been nice to do the toe and heel in a contrast colour. But I couldn't tell until I had done it, and it wasn't clear at the outset whether you could do just the heel in a different colour with this option. Another time, another pair, maybe.

Since I last wrote, we have been on holiday in Spain - visiting Seville, Cordoba and Granada, and several other smaller places too. We had a very good holiday, saw lots of historic sites (Roman and Moorish, mainly), ate lots of delicious food,... But I had a few days of not feeling very well after we got back, so stayed in mostly, not eating much. The weather was awful, so staying in wasn't much of a problem, and I did get quite a lot of knitting done. The final part of the On the Other Foot socks Mystery Knit Along was published just before we went away, so I had the first sock to finish, and hadn't started the second sock. And now they are finished.

I am very pleased with them - they fit very well and are the most luxurious socks I have ever worn (wool and silk!). Though I should maybe take a better photo on a lighter background.

I did make a couple of modifications to the pattern. The cables and lace option I chose for the ankle part had a few bobbles in it, but I have a strong aversion to knitting bobbles, and didn't like the idea of bobbles on my socks, so I left them off. (Sorry, Ann and Sarah, but they are my socks.) And the options for the cuff sounded interesting, but were quite narrow. I like a deeper stretchy cuff, so I knitted mine in a twisted rib instead. (My socks.)

I guessed that the lace and cables options I had chosen were those designed by Sarah, mainly because the socks I knitted for Susie for Christmas (described here) to Sarah's pattern The Chain featured one of the stitch patterns used in On the Other Foot. But I saw Ann at the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild meeting last week, and she told me that I had actually chosen the options that she designed - the colour work options were those designed by Sarah. You can see two pairs of socks, one using Ann's options and the other using Sarah's, on Ann's blog here. The colour work socks look very good, too - and several of the projects on Ravelry have mixed the cables & lace options with the colour work options, and that also works well.

And just to prove that we have been to Spain, here's a photo of me looking in the window of a yarn shop in Seville. (I didn't go in, though.)

My copy of Susan Crawford's mammoth new book, The Vintage Shetland Project, arrived last month. It was a lovely surprise - I ordered it at the end of 2015, I think, but publication was delayed because Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer and then going through some horrible treatment. I had had updates saying that it was about to be published, but actually I had forgotten all about it by the time it was delivered. It is huge - nearly 500 pages. There are 27 knitting patterns in the book, based on vintage pieces from the Shetland Museum. They are gorgeous - mostly Fair Isles, but some lace too. And there is a lot of background information on the original pieces and the history of Shetland knitting through the 20th century. A lot to read (and a lot to knit) - I have only dipped in so far.

One chapter that has caught my attention so far is on Pattern Appropriation - the 'borrowing' of Shetland designs by commercial companies, especially in the 1950s. One of her examples is a shawl that Kate Davies wrote about in The Book of Haps: it appeared in a Patons & Baldwins pattern leaflet, number 893, published in 1951 or 1952. According to the leaflet, the shawl was 'designed by Mrs A. Hunter of Unst'. The original shawl was bought from Mrs Hunter by James Norbury, chief designer for Patons & Baldwins, and is now in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

Patons & Baldwins leaflet 893

It proved a very popular pattern, and the leaflet was reissued several times over succeeding decades.

Another example of appropriation illustrated in The Vintage Shetland Project is a pattern leaflet, also by James Norbury, that was free to readers of the Daily Herald newspaper.

Man's Fair Isle Pullover, from the Daily Herald

The leaflet was offered to readers in September 1952, and the article describing it makes clear that the pattern was copied from a Shetland original: "To find fresh ideas for his designs, Norbury, the Herald and T.V. knitter, makes regular trips to knitting centres here and on the Continent. His latest discovery is [this] authentic Fair Isle pattern... This design has been knitted in the Shetland Islands for over 100 years. Norbury first saw it when he judged the famous annual Shetland knitting competition in Lerwick recently. He brought the pattern back to London and worked out an easy-to-follow pattern chart. It is a challenge to all knitters who know the feeling of achievement to be had from making a garment in Fair Isle." The model for the pullover is named as Michael Howard (no, not that one) - apparently a famous radio comedian at the time.

As with Mrs. Hunter's shawl, the pattern was based on a pullover that Norbury bought on Shetland, and the original pullover is now in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

Original pullover from Shetland

The card with the pullover reads "Shetland Man's Pullover. This is a modern design incorporating the 'Seed of Life' and 'Star of Glory' patterns." At some time between James Norbury's purchase of the pullover, and its arrival in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, it was put on display with this label.

It's clear from comparing the pullover with the Daily Herald leaflet that Norbury shortened the pullover, to be more in line with 1950s men's fashions. He also modified the construction method - the original Shetland pullover is knitted in the round, but in the leaflet the front and back are to be knitted separately, with seams at the sides. But the colours of the original are copied exactly: five natural fleece colours, from white to dark brown, with navy, dark green, yellow, carrot and ruby. I suppose that Norbury might have argued that the designs in the pullover were traditional, and so could be used by anyone, though I think any Shetland knitter might have disagreed - but copying the colours too, for a commercial publication, seems to me questionable.

A Teazle Wool Tam

Teazle Wool Again

Knitting History Forum

Spending a Day in 1918

November 1947

Shetland Knitting Patterns

Fluffier on the inside

Christmas Presents

1978

A New Yarn Shop in 1919

Quiz

Patons Lucelle

More Knitting Needles

A Cowl and a Pair of Socks

The Benbow Knitting Pin

On The Other Foot

Difficult Knitting

On the Other Foot (2)

On the other foot (3)

The Vintage Shetland Project