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A Kit for French Knitting

June 4, 2014, 1:37 pm
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It's Hook & Needle Week at Lee Mills - we are sorting out the knitting needles (thousands of those), crochet hooks, and related tools and gadgets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  I might write  about some of the knitting needles another time - it would be very easy to get very geeky about them. 


One of the things that caught my eye is a 1950s box, originally containing a kit for French knitting. There was a bobbin, a pin and six little balls of rainbow wool.  Some of the balls of wool have been depleted, so presumably the kit has been used, and the bobbin and pin are gone, but the box lid is very evocative of the 1950s - I used to do French knitting occasionally, though never produced enough to actually make anything.    



In fact, the kit was completely unnecessary.  In those days cotton reels (the bobbins for sewing thread) were wooden, so you could easily get 4 nails hammered into the top, and have something very like the bobbin illustrated on the box.  Most yarn shops sold little balls of rainbow wool just like the ones from the box.  I can't remember what I used for a pin, but it was something easily available, not something you had to buy. But the box is nice.


Puzzle Corner: we have two objects that look like knitting needles, but with a curve at the non-pointed end.  They are probably plastic, possibly on a metal core, and the knobs are metal too. There is no brand name or inscription of any kind.  We don't know if they are anything to do with knitting, or even if they are a pair - maybe they were designed to be used individually.  Anyone have any idea what they are?  



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Yarn holders

June 6, 2014, 2:54 pm
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Today was the last day of Hook & Needle Week at Lee Mills.  There are still some knitting needles left to sort out, and a lot of crochet hooks, but it's much more organised than it was.  We are left with dozens of odd knitting needles, and a lot of pairs that are duplicates - an exercise of this kind leaves you feeling that the big advantage of crochet hooks and circular knitting needles is that they don't need pairing up.

Today we sorted out the yarn holders.  I wrote about a couple of them here, but there are lots more in the collection.  The Beehive ones made for Patons & Baldwins, whose symbol was (and still is) a beehive, are very nice indeed.  We have a lot of them, in about eight different colours (depending on how many different shades of green you choose to identify).  

 
There are several other plastic yarn holders, some older than the Beehive ones, possibly in Bakelite, and some more recent ones in a softer plastic.


And there are two made of wood, with a transfer print on each one.  I think they are Mauchline ware, a type of holiday souvenir made in the late 19th century. They would make a good souvenir - practically useful, and a reminder of the holiday at the same time.   



Last year, I was inspired by the yarn holders in the collection to buy one of the later plastic ones for myself (on eBay).  They are very useful if you are knitting on the move - in a car, on a train, on a plane - and it's a pity that they aren't made any more. 
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Save Money! Get a 'Hubby'

June 8, 2014, 3:07 am
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Fancy Work, April 1914

June 10, 2014, 8:41 am
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The Lady's World Fancy Work Book, April 1914.

The Lady's World was a monthly magazine that first appeared in 1898.  From 1906, there was a quarterly spin-off called the Fancy Work Book.  At that time, there were several magazines on 'fancy work' around - Mrs Leach's Practical Fancy Work Basket,  Ladies' Fancy-Work Magazine, Fancy Needlework Illustrated, and probably several more that I haven't found yet.   I think 'fancy work' was supposed to be inessential and decorative - something that ladies of leisure could do to amuse themselves - but it sometimes did include clothing and other practical items.

The April 1914 issue included a lot of crochet designs, especially Irish crochet, which was at the height of its popularity - a collar, a doiley, an edging for a table cloth.  The cover illustration is of a jabot with an edging of 'Irish fairy lace' around a net centre.   The preamble to the instructions says:'The vogue of the moment for very fine lace articles for neckwear has brought the dainty "Irish fairy crochet" lace into such prominence that the supply does not nearly equal the demand, hence it is confined to those who already possess it or are fortunate enough to be able to pay the high price demanded for it. It is the finest of all Irish crochet....often a small motif is sewn on the fine "filling" and stands out from it, just as if it had fallen there or been thrown there by fairy fingers.' Hmmm.   Quite apart from the 'fairy fingers', it sounds a very ambitious project, but possibly some of the magazine's readers devoted a lot of time and effort to fancy work, and reached a high standard.  


   

Another Irish crochet design in the magazine is for The Fashionable Gaiter.



 'For afternoon wear and dressy occasions the lace spat or gaiter is assured a vogue in the coming season on account of the mode of the moment in skirts.  Owing to the manner in which the ankle is  exposed it is imperative to pay a great deal of attention to the chaussure accompanying the toilette ..  The lace spat is the very latest innovation and no doubt it gives a pretty and graceful finish to smart footwear.' That is a completely daft idea, and adding a few French words doesn't make it any more sensible.  You would hope that skirts becoming shorter than floor length would be a step towards more practical clothing, and instead, women were encouraged to fill the gap with something completely impractical.  There is a gesture towards practicality  - Irish crochet is claimed to be 'the most suitable of all lace for the purpose as it is so durable and stands laundering well.' But as the reader is told to mount the lace on something like velvet or satin, the combination would not be washable I'm sure, so the lace would have to be unpicked from the backing to wash it, and it would need washing very frequently.   Altogether a crazy idea.

There are a couple of knitting patterns in the magazine, and a little bit of embroidery.  (The cover of the magazine promises all three.)   One of the knitting patterns is for a 'Lady's Sports Coat' - essentially a cardigan, and I suspect that they weren't just for sports, because there were a lot of similar patterns at the time and surely even leisured ladies didn't have that much time for sport, what with all the fancy work to be done.    The cardigan is knitted in stocking stitch, in Paton's 4-ply super fingering on size 10 needles.  There are a couple of interesting technical features: there's a neat hem to finish off the bottom , and the tops of the sleeves are shaped with short rows, rather than decreases.  


Also knitted is a 'Cosy Sports or Motor Scarf Hood' with a silk lining,  and a baby's cloak and hood - worn by a rather alarmed-looking baby.





There's a knitted vest and a pair of bootees too, but on the whole, the emphasis is on decorative crochet.  The Lady's World Fancy Work Book survived into the 1920s, but by then, most of the magazine was concerned with knitting, with many patterns for ladies' fashionable jumpers.  Crochet was no longer so important.
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A to Z of Knitting Needles

June 19, 2014, 2:07 pm
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This evening we had the monthly meeting of the Huddersfield branch of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, and we showed some of the tools and gadgets from the collection.  (It was called 'Inspect a Gadget'.  It's been explained to me.) 

Angharad decided to put together an A to Z of knitting needle brands.  She didn't quite get a complete alphabet, but most letters are represented in the collection, from Aero, Ace, Anlaby and one or two more As through to Zephyr.   Some of the trickier letters are there, including Quaker Girl and Jester, but no Xs - and no Ns or Os, which is slightly more surprising.  

Here are some of the less common brands from the collection.   First a selection of plastic needles.

Cronit, Ladybird, Peacock, Glamor, Clive, Ace, Wimberdar, Robinoid
And the J and Q:
Jester
Quaker Girl
I knew it would be easy to get nerdy about knitting needles.
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Flaming June

June 27, 2014, 2:29 pm
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June doesn't often live up to its reputation, but over last weekend and until Wednesday we were staying with friends in London, and it really was beautifully warm and sunny.  Not exactly flaming, but very pleasant.  (Today by contrast is wet and cold.) 

Sheila and I went to the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Wisley on Saturday. It was beautiful - so many different plants were at their best, especially the roses.  




There were a couple of areas of meadow, planted mainly with poppies to commemorate World War 1, but mixed with cornflowers and other annuals.   





There were two or three tulip trees in flower around the garden - I am fond of tulip trees because of their interesting leaves, but I don't think I have ever seen one in flower. 




And there were spectacular exotic plants in the glasshouse. 


Lobster claw - Heliconia rostrata 
On another day, we went to a cemetery - part of John's long-term scheme to visit all the main 19th century cemeteries in London (and everywhere else, of course). 


  

This memorial is well-known to cemetery aficionados, but for the angel and its sculptor rather than for the person commemorated.   (He made his money in coal-mining, and that's about all anyone wants to say about him, apparently.)

The local parakeets were very noticeable during the weekend, flying overhead and screeching. They are well-established by now around Twickenham and Richmond - quite handsome birds, although considered an alien pest. 



 Our friends' springer spaniel, Duke, is now fully-grown but as energetic and lively as ever.  



As well as all these outdoors things, I spent a whole day in the British Library, reading issues of Woman's Weekly from 1914 to 1917.  Such fun!  All part of my research into knitting in the First World War (though I did get diverted by one of the romantic serials). More on that later.      

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Tour de France in Yorkshire

July 5, 2014, 5:24 am
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The Tour de France starts today, in Leeds (Yorkshire).  The first stage ends in Harrogate (also Yorkshire), and tomorrow's stage goes from York to Sheffield via Huddersfield (all Yorkshire).  Then it goes somewhere else (not Yorkshire).

People around here, in Huddersfield, are very excited.  The tour route goes past the end of our road!  And we have a house full of people for the weekend who have come to see the Tour - three of them have gone to Leeds today to see the start, although the live broadcast shows that thousands of people have had the same idea, so I don't know how much they will actually get to see.

Walking around Huddersfield town centre during the past week or so, there have been signs of the Tour all over town.  There are random yellow bikes (real ones and cutouts) everywhere.




There is  Tour de France bunting along sections of the route and elsewhere, and the hanging baskets in the town centre are planted with yellow flowers.



Many shops have done special yellow window displays, including Spun, the yarn shop in the Byram Arcade.

 
And then on Thursday, a French farm sprang up overnight in St George's Square, in front of the train station. The preparations obviously took months, but it was all kept secret until then.  There were piglets, sheep, some chickens and a cow, as well as French people pottering around ramshackle sheds, and vegetable plots set out on the paving, with some very strange veg in them.




And in St Peter's Gardens, there was a wonderful display of sculptures made of woven willow (and bikes).



And today the sun is shining.  I hope the weather stays fine for tomorrow, when we shall go to the bottom of the road to see the peloton whizz past - that stretch is downhill, so they will be gone in seconds.  It will still be thrilling, though.  

French flag, blue sky, Huddersfield stone
   
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The Tour de France in Huddersfield

July 7, 2014, 8:42 am
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Yesterday we carried our garden chairs to the nearest point of the Tour de France route and sat on the pavement (which would normally be a very odd thing to do) to wait for the race to pass by.   It was not a prime position, compared with the climbs, such as Holme Moss, so there was plenty of room for everyone.

We had quite a long wait before anything much happened (although every police motorbike or police car going past got a wave and a cheer), and then the publicity caravanne came through.


The head of the caravanne - Y for Yorkshire
And finally the cyclists arrived.  At this point, there was a small breakaway group at the front and a couple of stragglers at the back, so it took a bit longer for them to pass than it might have.


The breakaway group


The peloton

Earlier, before anything happened, I walked along the route a little way to chat to friends and neighbours and to take a photo of our historic tram shelter (now a bus shelter) which has been refurbished for the Tour.

And after the cyclists had gone, we went home and watched the live broadcast of the rest of the stage - over Holme Moss, and on to Sheffield.

After the stage was over, we went to a soiree at the house of some friends, Margaret and John, who are keen followers of the Tour de France.  They were thrilled that today's route went past the end of their road, and held the party to celebrate it.  There was French-Yorkshire fusion food (boeuf bourguignon and Yorkshire pudding), French wine and Yorkshire beer, and appropriate condiments (Dijon mustard and Henderson's Relish).




Margaret and John have a collection of Tour de France memorabilia (i.e., the freebies distributed by the publicity vehicles in the caravanne) that they have acquired over the years, and had put them on display for the occasion.



The mantelpiece arrangement featured the highly-prized green foam hands (acquired 2008), handed out by PMU, sponsors of the green jersey.


(Click to enlarge)
Another gem of the collection is a model of the Astra satellite, from 2002.




A hat from Champion supermarkets was acquired in 2008 - at that time Champion were sponsors of the polka dot jersey.  They have since been taken over by Carrefour, who now sponsor it. 


  
Credit Lyonnais sponsor the yellow jersey; the musette, or cloth lunch bag, is also from 2008.

It is a unique collection, of incalculable value I am sure, and was displayed to very high standards (says my household museum curator). 

So that's the end of a really good weekend:  the weather was kind, the Tour was exciting, and the Yorkshire countryside looked wonderful.  And there had been such a lot of effort put into arranging other events and displays before and during the Tour - it was all worthwhile and made it even more special.  
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Les Maillots Jaunes

July 8, 2014, 8:09 am
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Two of our weekend visitors who went to Leeds on Saturday for the Tour de France Grand Depart brought back photos of knitting and crochet they had seen.  The lass in the yellow woolly is one of eight nymphs in Leeds City Square, holding lamps.  There are two different models, Morn and Even, (that's poetic for Morning and Evening, I suppose).  I think this one is Even, because some of the others look a bit more awake.  They often seem a bit chilly and under-dressed for the weather, and so she looks as though a warm jersey would be welcome, though frankly, the rest of her needs a bit of covering up too.




The Black Prince is also in City Square in Leeds (though I have no idea what connection he had with Leeds, if any).



And finally:  I know that there was a lot of knitted bunting in Harrogate, in the shape of little Tour de France jerseys, but there was also at least one stretch of it in Huddersfield too.

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Visible Mending

July 14, 2014, 6:52 am
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It was the Knitting & Crochet Guild's annual convention in Derby this past weekend (about which I shall have lots to say, if I ever get around to saying it), and I took with me a beautiful Shetland cardigan, made in Fair Isle.   Not long ago, it wasn't beautiful at all, because it had a truly horrible injury to one sleeve.  We don't know what had happened to it:  the cardigan looks as though it has never been worn, but the injury was as though something corrosive had been spilt on it and burnt through the wool. 

Some weeks ago we were looking at the cardigan sadly and Angharad, the Guild's Textile Archivist, thought of Tom of Holland's Visible Mending project.   She contacted him to ask whether the cardigan would be a suitable project.  He agreed to take it on and the Guild commissioned him to do it.  The mended cardigan arrived last week, in time to take it to the convention - my role was to act as courier.  

I'll show you the cardigan as it now is.  Remember that the mend is supposed to be visible - though in fact it isn't obvious at first glance. 


Visibly mended cardigan 
Then the cardigan before it was mended. 




And here are some close-ups of the left sleeve after mending, and before.  



     

Tom deliberately did not match the colours of the original, but he did choose the colours very carefully:  his intention was that in a black-and-white photo, the mend would be hardly detectable, and he has achieved that. 

 And as you can see, it is a wonderful piece of work.  The missing stitches have been replaced so exactly that if it weren't for the change in colour you would not be able to see the mend at all. 

Everyone who saw the mended cardigan at Derby was amazed at the workmanship, and we all thought that it had been a really worthwhile project.  You can find all the details of how the mending was planned and carried out on Tom's blog here.

It's wonderful that what was a very sad, maimed thing, that we wouldn't want to show to anyone, has been transformed into something that we can be proud of, and a showcase for the work of two very skilled craftspeople: the original knitter, and now Tom.    


Made in Fair Isle
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Shetland Lace Workshop

July 15, 2014, 2:19 pm
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Tari in progress
On Saturday afternoon, at the Knitting & Crochet Guild convention in Derby, I did a Shetland lace workshop led by Sarah Alderson of Wessenden Woollies.  We started knitting a shawl that she has designed, Tari.  I had brought a skein of laceweight yarn for the workshop, but after struggling with it for a while, decided that it was too fine for me - I found it hard to knit with and kept making mistakes.  So mid-workshop, I dashed off to the stash-busting table where Guild members had put surplus yarn to sell, and bought a cone of wool in a lovely emerald green (£2).  It's not a colour I would normally choose, probably, but I'm glad I was pushed into it (it was the only laceweight I could find on the table).  I don't know anything about the yarn except that it's wool and fine enough to knit the shawl pattern with 3mm needles, but not too fine for me to knit. 

I had barely got started with the green yarn by the end of the workshop, but I have now finished two pattern repeats - enough to show the lace patterns emerging.  This is one end of the final shawl - the garter stitch section on the right gets wider, and then narrower again.  I think it's going to turn out very well.  

It will need blocking (when it's all finished) to show the lace design properly - here's a section of Sarah's own shawl to show what the lace looks like when it's blocked. 



There were four other workshops running at the same time as ours - an Irish crochet workshop led by Sally Magill was in the same (big) room as ours, so I saw what they were making too.  They had produced some very nice motifs in two hours - shamrocks, roses, scrolls.      


Marie's blue shamrock
Rose and scroll
Sally's sampler of Irish crochet motifs 
The other three workshops seem to have been equally successful - all led by Guild members.  
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The Trunk Show in Blackpool

July 27, 2014, 3:07 pm
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I had no internet access for most of last week - it's very disconcerting when that happens unexpectedly.  So I'm very behindhand with writing about a couple of things that happened the week before, including a trip to Blackpool on the 17th.  Angharad and I took our Trunk Show to the Westcliffe Hotel where Paula Chew, the owner, specialises in providing knitting holidays.  Paula had asked us to do a two-hour session showing some of the highlights of the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection to her guests.

We had packed a selection of knitted & crocheted items, tools & gadgets, and publications.   Several of the things we chose have featured in this blog, including the Shetland cardigan visibly mended by Tom of Holland - that was an obvious choice, because it has so recently been mended that it feels like a new and exciting acquisition.    But we had lots of other things to show, too.


Waistcoat donated by Kaffe Fassett


Angharad showing a Shetland lace stole
It was a beautiful day and after our trunk show session and lunch, we walked to the promenade (a 2 minute walk) to see the sea.  You can't go to the seaside without seeing the sea, after all.  We might even have walked on the beach, but it was high tide so we couldn't.  And then we got the train back home.



It was a good day - Paula's guests enjoyed seeing and handling the items from the collection, and we enjoyed showing them to an appreciative audience. We have another booking for the Trunk Show from Paula for September, but that will be in Scarborough, when she takes her guests on a tour of the Yorkshire coast.  
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It looks different!

July 28, 2014, 10:23 am
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I've got bored with the way this blog looks - or looked until 5 minutes ago.  I started the blog in January 2010, and it's looked the same way for most of the time since then (mostly because I forgot how I customised it).  But there are changes afoot - I'm starting a new blog in parallel with this one, so I'm giving them the same layout and design.  More on the new blog in a few days when it's ready to launch.

And then I'm going to change the title of this one.  I'd do it now, but I thought that a change of design and title at the same time would be too much - regular readers might think that they had come to the wrong blog.  So I'll give you a little while to get used to the new look.  And then a change of title, but still with 'knitting' in, I promise.
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WIPaholics Anonymous

July 30, 2014, 1:18 pm
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Still catching up with the week before last....

On the 17th, after we got back from Blackpool, I went to the Huddersfield branch meeting of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  The them this month was unfinished projects - we all brought along an unfinished project that for some reason we were having trouble finishing, and talked about it.  Hence, the title of the meeting, WIPaholics Anonymous  (WIP = Work In Progress).  Marie, the convener, acted as a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous facilitator, and had even compiled a 12-step plan for us to work towards completing, or otherwise dealing with, our problem projects.  The stories of the unfinished projects were often very funny, and occasionally sad.

So what was my unfinished project?  It featured in this blog in 2011 here, and it had already been unfinished for more than 25 years (!) at that point.


I had kept it for all that time - the piece I had already knitted, and the rest of the yarn.  When I wrote the previous post, I couldn't find the pattern, and thought that I had lost it, but I've since looked harder and found it.   So in theory, it could be completed.

Patricia Roberts' Dolly Blue design
But the previous blog post was right in explaining why I didn't go any further with it all those years ago - the back turned out far too small, and there's also a problem with the cables:  when the white and yellow cables diverge from each other, they pull a hole in the background fabric, and I can't see how to avoid that.

I have had this project hanging around for a serious chunk of time, but I think it had just become one of the fixtures in my life - I rarely thought about it, and never thought about it hard enough.  But it was an obvious project to take to the meeting (and would have won the prize for the oldest WIP, if there had been one).  And in listening to other people talking about their unfinished projects, I got to thinking properly about mine.

The photo doesn't show the design very clearly because of the jacket over the top (it's a sweater with a collar and a buttoned front opening).  I can see why it appealed to me at the time, and I still like it.  I love the colours that I chose, too, though I don't wear black as much as I used to.  I showed everyone the pattern, and what I have knitted so far, and there were lots of helpful suggestions for completing it, and general encouragement to do that.

However.  If I wanted to finish the sweater, I would have to start again, and rip out what I have done so far, and I hate doing that.  I'd have to figure out why it turned out so small the first time, and fix that - maybe adjust the pattern.  And there would still be the problem with the cables dragging holes in the fabric.  And most of all, I now realise that it just feels totally stale.  I don't even want to use the yarn for anything else - it would just remind me all the time that it should have been this sweater.

So I am abandoning it.  I left what I've knitted so far with someone else at the meeting who wants to try felting it, and I'm going to give the rest of the yarn away.  And I think I feel better for having made that decision.  For me, it was a very helpful evening.

Of course, I've got a few other unfinished projects too.....

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My First World War Blog

August 4, 2014, 9:45 am
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Today being the centenary of the start of the First World War (as far as Britain was concerned), I am launching a new blog to commemorate it, One Hundred Years Ago.  I had the idea for a new blog while researching knitting and crochet in the First World War, which I've been doing for the past year or so.  It was mainly out of personal interest, but I have also put together a talk on the subject, "Useful Work for Anxious Fingers".   (The title is taken from the ad below).  The talk had its first outing in July at the Knitting & Crochet Guild convention.


While looking through newspapers and magazines for pieces about knitting comforts for the troops, I started to collect other material that I found interesting or illuminating.  Many of these other articles are about the lives of women during the war (though not so much at the very beginning of the war, when the newspapers were full of stories of mobilisation and recruitment).  This blog will be a repository for all those snippets - the pieces about knitting and crochet, and the other things too.

Some rules I have set for myself:  all posts will be from British sources.  There was a lot of knitting for the troops going on elsewhere in the Empire, and women in the United States were very busy knitting, especially after the U.S. entered the war, but you have to draw a line somewhere.  There will be nothing about battles, or the big events like Zeppelin raids - they will be adequately covered elsewhere.  I don't think there will be anything about casualties.  Mostly, the posts will have something directly to do with the war - but not always:  there's a piece about a Charlie Chaplin film showing at the cinema in Holmfirth, which amused me, so it's going in.  (I make the rules, so I can change them if I like.)

I'll add explanatory notes or comments sometimes, in square brackets:  [...]

As far as possible, pieces will be posted on this blog exactly one hundred years after they first appeared.  I aim to keep going until the end of the war, though probably less frequently later on.  We'll see how it goes....
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Holiday in Herefordshire

August 7, 2014, 1:25 pm
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I'm still a bit behind with this blog, but I'm catching up.....

A couple of weeks ago, we had a week's holiday in Herefordshire, staying near Kington. We rented a house for the week - Great Quebb.   Although it doesn't look especially old from the outside, it is timber-framed, and the oldest part is late mediaeval.  We found it very exciting to be staying in such an old house.  It was also very comfortable - the kitchen and bathrooms were very up-to-date.  (A late mediaeval kitchen might be picturesque, but not very convenient.  A late mediaeval bathroom??)  

Great Quebb
Ancient timbers in the sitting room



The back garden had an avenue of hollyhocks which seed themselves into the path from the back door.  I was give a tray of seedlings to bring home, and I hope that I can provide them with a suitably sunny and dry environment in my garden.

The weather was beautiful all week, and the Herefordshire countryside is lovely.  One day, we walked from Kington up to Hergest Ridge, following part of the Offa's Dike path, and visited  Hergest Croft garden  afterwards.  We had a day in Hereford itself, and an afternoon in Hay-on-Wye (infested with bookshops - who knew?)  Apart from Hereford cathedral, and All Saints church in Hereford (where you can get a very good lunch and then examine the misericords afterwards), we visited several other churches.   Several Herefordshire churches are Norman, with fantastically decorated carved stonework. The south doorway at Kilpeck is a gem, and very well-preserved, and Eardisley (the nearest village to Great Quebb) has a font covered in very lively scenes.    


Kilpeck

Eardisley
During the week, we sampled quite a lot of Dunkertons cider (made not far from Eardisley), and brought a dozen bottles home with us.  We went out for dinner on a couple of evenings to nearby pubs (the Tram in Eardisley and the Stagg in Titley), and had excellent meals in both.  It was a very good week altogether- I think we'll be  back.  
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A Victory Traycloth

August 9, 2014, 5:21 am
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While we were on holiday in Herefordshire, we went to the museum in Hereford, which currently has an excellent exhibition about the First World War and how it affected local people.   There were lots of interesting things on display, but one that caught my eye was an embroidered tray-cloth, made to celebrate the end of the war.  I noticed it particularly because I thought I had seen the design before - I've since checked up and I was right.


The design appeared Weldon's Ladies' Journal ( a monthly magazine) in January 1919.  The front cover advertises "An Embroidery Design symbolical of PEACE".


The magazine gives instructions for transferring the design to a piece of cloth, and suggests colours for the embroidery.  The tray-cloth in Hereford, however,  doesn't use the colours suggested, but is all done in white on black linen.   (I couldn't get a good photo of it because of the reflections in the glass of the case.)

Black seems an unusual colour to choose for a tray-cloth.  I wonder if  the person who embroidered it had lost someone dear to them in the war - though in that case, I cannot imagine that a Victory embroidery would be of much comfort.  
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For Instructing Children in Knitting

August 13, 2014, 3:20 pm
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I can't recall ever seeing a mention of knitting in a church before - certainly not carved in stone.  But there is one in Abbey Dore church in Herefordshire.  In the church there is a stone slab inscribed with "A list of the Benefactions left to poor House keepers in this Parish to be annually paid out of the Estate under mentioned".  The slab was commissioned by the Church wardens in 1793, and lists bequests made between 1610 and 1720.  

One of the items on the list reads:  "1718. Rev. William Watts a School house & Garden with 5L. P. Ann.  now payable from Upper Cefen Bach for instruction of Children in Reading & Writing or sewing knitting & spinning the Teacher to reside in the said House the Church wardens & Overseers of the poor are to visit the said School & see that it be not neglected."


I think this means that Rev. Watts bequeathed the property at Upper Cefen Bach (a farm, perhaps) from which the sum of £5 could be raised annually, as well as the school building with its garden, and that the £5 was sufficient to pay the teacher's annual salary.   Reading & writing as an alternative to sewing, knitting & spinning is odd - perhaps reading & writing was for the boys, and sewing etc. was for the girls?  I assume it was intended to be a vocational curriculum, teaching children skills that would be practically useful to them, though it seems a bit strange to leave out arithmetic.   But it's interesting to see knitting listed as a school subject in the 18th century.   And was the teacher a man or a woman?
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Seed stitch and Stocking stitch

August 17, 2014, 3:13 pm
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Seed stitch is what I and other British knitters call moss stitch, but in this post I'll be quoting an American writer, so for the duration of the post, I'll refer to it as seed stitch.  (I'm not going to be consistent, though - I cannot bring myself to call stocking stitch 'stockinette', so I won't.)

Back in 2010, not long after I started knitting again, I came across a quote from The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt:  "Seed stitch is 30 percent shorter than Stockinette, and 18 percent wider."  As well as introducing me to that wonderful book, the quote was an amazing revelation.  I knew that rib is used for welts because it's stretchier than stocking stitch, but apart from that, it had never occurred to me that different stitch patterns behave differently - I thought that the choice of stitch pattern was all about what the resulting fabric looks like.  I knew that seed stitch is slow to knit, because of the constant switching from knit to purl, but I hadn't really understood that it's also because it takes more rows to the inch than stocking stitch.   (Yes, I know I should have.)

Since I came across her quote about seed stitch, I have read June Hemmons Hiatt 's book, and bought my own copy of the revised second edition.  And I have generally been much more aware of the characteristics of different stitch patterns.

Just recently, I have been thinking about various stitch patterns, and decided to do some experiments of my own.  I knitted swatches of different stitches, all using the same yarn, same number of stitches, same needles, same length of yarn.  Here are two of the swatches, in seed stitch and stocking stitch.
  
Seed stitch

Stocking stitch
I have pressed the stocking stitch swatch very lightly, just to stop it curling up a lot, but otherwise they are straight off the needles.  You can see from the ruler that both swatches are about 13 cm. wide.  So for me, seed stitch is not wider than stocking stitch, although it is definitely shorter. The stocking stitch swatch is about 30 rows to 10 cm., whereas seed stitch is taking about 38.  (That's near enough 30% extra.)

It's easy to understand why seed stitch takes more rows per cm. than stocking stitch - it produces a thicker fabric.  I can't really see why it should be wider (but then as it isn't, for me, I'm not well placed to understand it).   So I don't know why there is such a discrepancy between my swatches and the account in Principles of Knitting.    Perhaps different knitting methods affect the width (i.e. yarn in right hand v. yarn in left hand, picking v. throwing, or whatever you want to call them).  Or perhaps it's just that different people knit differently.  It's intriguing.

I knit with the yarn in my right hand, the throwing method (aka English style).  If any reader knits seed stitch that is wider than stocking stitch, please tell me what knitting method you use - I'd love to know.
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The Knitter article on the Guild

August 22, 2014, 2:15 pm
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I've just been reading the latest issue of The Knitter magazine (no 75) - it has an article on the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  The writer, Juliet Bernard, visited the Guild's collection at Lee Mills a few months ago, and I showed her around.  It is fascinating to see in the article how the collection appeared to someone who had never seen it before.

Juliet was especially interested in the patterns that we have from the First World War, and the article focusses on those.  She has also written a shorter piece (here) for the Huffington Post, based on her visit.

During Juliet's visit, she asked what my favourite items in the collection are - a tall order to choose from the 50,000 pattern leaflets, as well as magazines, books, knitted and crocheted items, and everything else.  But as we were talking about the First World War, I picked a leaflet of coats and hats for little girls, Patons 'Helps to Knitters' X.  As Juliet describes, a pattern from the leaflet has been recreated for the Tell Them of Us film -  a gallery of photos of the costumes that have been knitted for the film can be found on the film's website here, under 'WW1 gallery'.  


There are lots of good things elsewhere in this issue of The Knitter, too - some very enticing patterns, including the sweater by Emma Vining that appears on the cover.  I met Emma at the Knitting & Stitching show last November, and admired a Japanese-style jacket she had designed that appeared on the UK Hand Knitting Association stall.  I've been waiting since then for the pattern to be published, and she tells me that an updated version will appear in The Knitter shortly - I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

Emma Vining's Kagome cardigan
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