Pretty as a Picture - Mark 2

A knitting post to share with you today.  A commission piece for a repeat customer who lives across the miles, over New Zealand. 

 

The piece is a knit that I've done before, a knit very aptly named "Pretty as a Picture" from a Stitchcraft magazine published in November 1936. 

 

 

The jumper is a really neat design, slim fitting with an oversized bow.  The bow in the original, as you can see, was knitted in angora, but it wasn't possible to match the base colour to an angora, so the same wool was used throughout.
 

                         

 

When I did the first version of the jumper, it was worked in Adriafil Azzurra 4 ply in a gorgeous shade called Bordeaux.  The lady who commissioned this version wanted to go with a finer wool, more authentic to the 1930's, and opted for Fenella, by Susan Crawford.

Fenella is a wonderful wool which has been specifically designed to knit up to the 3 ply tension that is often found in vintage patterns.  It is a 100% British wool which is grown, spun, dyed and finished in Britain.  The colour range is absolutely delightful, with some great vintage inspired shades and glorious names like Porcellana and Phthalo, which is a divine shade of green.  I got a little bit distracted by all the gorgeous colours and ordered some for my stash!

For this knit, Myristica was chosen, which is a really dark chocolate brown. 

The wool comes in 25g skeins, which means you have to wind it into balls, but the wool is so gorgeous to work with that it's no chore, and it gave me the perfect excuse to buy myself a wool winder, and employ the services of Miss C to help me wind it. 

Although the pattern is by no means hard, it has a nice regular pattern repeat across 8 rows, it is a slow knit, or at least I found it to be.  Because I work my commission pieces in the evening, I struggled in the winter to see properly for any length of time, so only managed a couple of hours a night, at best.  Because it was slow going, it took about 5 months to do, but the customer was wonderfully patient and happy to wait. 

Although you can only see two buttons, the design actually fastens at the neck with three, only one is covered by the bow.  I rummaged through my stash and found the perfect buttons to go with the wool.

I had to make the jumper slightly smaller, so didn't do all the increases that were called for in the original, but other than that, it was knitted exactly as per the pattern.  

Fenella was gorgeous to work with.  It took a little getting used to as I've never worked with anything quite so fine, and because it's quite an expensive wool, I was so worried I'd make a mistake and ruin it.

Thankfully it all turned out well, and the customer was really happy with the finished item.  It was obviously worth the wait!!

Wool - Fenella by Susan Crawford in Myristica

Weight used - 10 balls

Time taken - 5 months

Size - 32" bust

If you fancy giving this neat little knit a go, the pattern is available as a PDF in my Etsy shop, which you can find here.

xx

A Crafty Christmas

So, the big day itself has been and gone, and now we're enjoying the restful gap before the New Year.  I love the few days after the craziness of the Christmas buildup.  We tend not to make many plans and spend most of the time just the four of us, going for walks, picking our favourite festive flicks from the Radio Times, and eating far too much! 

It's my birthday tomorrow so Mr Y has taken the girls shopping for a few last minute bits so I have some peace and quiet.  Rather them than me battling with the crowds of sale shoppers! 

We had a wonderful time with family this Christmas.  This year, just like last, I decided to make a homemade gift for my nearest and dearest.  And this year, again, just like last, I left things a little late, so was still finishing off the final gift on Christmas Eve.  

As well as the staple foodie makes and bakes that have to be thought about at this time of year, I decided to make Miss C a dress from a rather delightful polar bear fabric from John Lewis.  

There was a slight hiccup with the fabric, and they sent 75cms less than I'd ordered.  A few frustrating phone calls, an email and finally a PayPal complaint later, I received my correct quota of fabric, and was told to keep the original lot, which meant Miss M got a dress also. 

Miss C also took a fancy to a collar in an old Mollie Makes magazine from last year, I think.  

I had to resize it quite a lot, but Miss C loves it.  Miss M wasn't at all impressed, so no need for a second one.

For their actual handmade Christmas gifts, I opted for a cot quilts.  Back in the summer I made a start on a quilt for Miss M's bed using hexies.  Seriously slow going, I knew it wouldn't be done in time for Christmas, so went for a quicker, smaller, machine worked version for her baby boy doll.

Having never tackled quilting before, I didn't know what to expect.  I used a mix if vintage, vintage design reproduction cottons and scraps of dress fabrics they'd had over the years.  I used 2" squares, and learnt as I went along.  

The binding was a pain in the behind.  The binding wasn't bias binding so there was no give or stretch.  The corners are poorly done, but the girls didn't notice and were over the moon with them.

My dad is never an easy option for makes, and it has to either be edible or knitted.  I went for the knitted option and picked what I thought was a relatively easy Fair-isle.  

I cheated and made the back plain, and that knitted up really quickly, but the front was somewhat different.  I prefer to work Fair-isle from a chart, so where there isn't one, I make one.  The first pattern was a simple one but the second just wasn't turning out right.  I sought help from a friend who was an absolute wonder.  She not only found out what the problem was, she charted the whole pattern for me! 

Once the pattern problem had been fixed, I was able to start the serious work of knitting.

My most favourite gift to make, by far, was a bag for my amazing mum. Ever since I saw this picture on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to replicate it.

I dug through my felt stash and found some beautifully thick 4mm wool felt yardage.  I drafted the bag and flower shapes by hand and set about picking the right colour felt to match a piece if 1940's rayon silk that I had chosen for the lining.  

I stayed up very late on the 23rd of December to get as much done as I could.

It was finished on Christmas Eve, and 100 hand cut flowers and 150 beads later, this was the result.

I love it so much, that I may just have to make one for myself!!

All the gifts were well received, which made all the hard work worth it.  

I hope you had a fabulous Christmas, however you celebrated xx

A Stripey Affair!

Well, it's been a while.  As we approach the last few weeks of 2015, I figured that if I didn't dip my toe back into the world of blog, I never would!!  So, here I am, and what better post to bring you than a neat little knitted number.  

Many months back, a fabulous customer of mine asked me to knit her a cardigan.  To my joy, it wasn't just any cardigan, it was one of the most pretty patterns I've seen in a long while, a pattern that had been on my rather long "to knit" list.

The pattern came from a Needlework Illustrated magazine from the 1930's. 

Pretty neat, don't you think?!  It was love at first sight.  The colours, the style, those sweet little buttons, I knew I had to knit it.  

The customer wanted it to be as close in colour to the original as I could make it. Luckily, Adriafil Azzura had nigh on the exact same shades, and a little colour test later, and we were sold on the design.  

When you look at the cover photo, it clearly shows that there are four base colours in wide stripes, with thin black rows and slightly thicker white, in between.  However, when I came to work from the pattern, it wasn't turning out the same.  In the pattern, the four strong colours were worked in equal thickness to the white, and the result just didn't have the same wow factor.

 

As the customer had seen the cover image with the thinner white stripe, I had to rework the pattern slightly, tweaking the thickness of the black and white rows and making it just a little bit longer in the body, for comfort.

The pattern isn't difficult, as the entire cardi is worked in rib, but the constant colour changing slowed the work down a lot.  That, and the fact that a made a mistake halfway up the back and had to re-knit it meant this one took nearly 4 months of on and off work. 

 

Thankfully the customer was unbelievably patient, which I always appreciate. 

 

Making up the jumper was a bit quicker, but oh so many ends to sew in.....

 

And the construction was different to anything I've sewn up before.  The top of the sleeve becomes the yoke, and there are two pleats in the sleeve, which take out some of the fullness and give it a neat finish.   

 

 

Crochet isn't one of my strong points, but the buttons were pretty simple to work.  Double and treble crochet worked round little button forms, they finish it off perfectly, I think.

 

 

 

 

If you fancy giving it a go, the pattern is available for sale in my Etsy shop, which she can find here. It's not a complicated pattern, it could certainly be tackled by a beginner knitter, but it does take a lot of patience running in all the ends, but it's worth it!

xx

Beautiful Bluebells - 1940's Jumper

Hello! It's been a while, I do apologise.  

Things have been a bit busy round here.  There's been the normal end of term shenanigans of frantic marking and box ticking; so glad school has finished for the summer.  I've been sewing some blouses, making lots of 2.5" hexies for my first ever quilt and doing plenty of knitting.  We've had family visiting us and then we travelled West to stay with the Mr's family for a couple of weeks.  I'm quite worn out!  

We're home now, returning to a boiler that wouldn't light.  The boiler repair man has been and gone and given our ancient old boiler a new lease of life, for now, and the Mr has just taken the girls to the local computer shop to see whether they can recover the data from the hard drive of his less than two year old laptop!  

So I have about an hour to myself, and what better way to spend it than showing you one of my top five favourite woollies.

This recent jumper is a commission piece knitted for the lovely Kitty Lou.  An Australian pattern from the 1940's, you can find the pattern here, the wool chosen was a gorgeous dull gold colour by Patons, part of their Diploma Gold 4 ply range.  

The pattern repeat is worked over 36 rows, and although the design looks quite complicated, there is a logic to the pattern.  However, for ease of working, I did type up the 36 pattern repeats into a word document which helped keep me on track.

 

Unlike the other bluebell one I did, which you can see here, the yoke on this one was nice and simple, so no pattern matching up and over the shoulders.  

Back and front knitted up well, albeit slowly, but the sleeves were a right pain in the rear end.  The shaping from the underarms simply didn't work out.  I tried and ripped them back 3 times before disparing and writing my own shaping instructions.  I won't lie, tears were shed.  Tears of sheer furry!  :)  I think there was an error in the pattern.  My mother in law mooted something along the lines of a bad workman blaiming his tools, but I don't think so.  

Following the picture on the front of the pattern book, I still managed to achieve the same look.  The boxy sleeves turned out really well, and the knitted shoulder pads finish the look off perfectly.

Although there was the slipup with the sleeves, this was one of my favourite jumpers to work on.  I'm really impressed with the quality of Paton's Diploma.  It's heavier than some of other 4 ply brands, so the jumper weighs in at just under 1lb, but the beautiful quality of the wool shows off the intricate detail perfectly. 

Wool - Patons Diploma 4 ply in Gold

Weight used - 9 balls

Time taken - 100+ hours

 

A Capital Day Out

A few weeks ago, we took a much anticipated family trip to London.  Preferring to catch an early train to beat the crowds, my family of four plus my parents, headed off bright and early, arriving in Liverpool Street just after 8am!

We try to avoid the underground when travelling with the girls and so took to our feet and walked; Liverpool Street to Lambeth Road is quite a stomp!  Thankfully, the weather was glorious, one of those bright May days, and there is always plenty to see on the South Bank, so there was no complaining, not even from little legs Miss M. 

My mum and dad in their normal attire!  CC41 overcoat for my dad, and a 1940's teddy bear coat for my mum!

It’s never a chore to walk in the beautiful parts of the city.  There are plenty of eateries to stop off at.  Breakfast was had just by St Pauls Cathedral.  Certainly beats my normal morning view.

The reason for our jolly jaunt was a much anticipated visit to IWM London.

 

I first visited the museum when I was in high school, back in the mid 1990’s.  I found it utterly fascinating, and the books I took home as gifts for my parents were what sparked their initial interest in the Second World War.  I remember waxing lyrical about the hanging aircraft in the atrium and the spectacular Britain in the Blitz exhibition.  Times move on and exhibitions change, so when we heard that the site was closed for refurbishment, we had high hopes for something even more spectacular than before.  When the Fashion on the Ration exhibition was opened, it seemed like the perfect time to make the long awaited trip.    

If you don’t know already, Fashion on the Ration is an exhibition that has been put together to show how men and women found new ways to dress in the dark days of clothes rationing. 

There is a brilliant book, "Fashion on the Ration", by Julie Summers, that accompanies the exhibition.

 

The exhibition has been beautifully put together.  You aren’t allowed to take photographs in there, although many people were blatantly doing so when we visited, but a quick Google search should bring up plenty of photos of some of the beauties on display. 

Many of the clothing examples are breath-taking, and the layout of the exhibition works really well as there is lots of space so you can stand back and really appreciate the exhibits.  There are plenty of high end examples of clothing, novelty prints, and an especially delightful two piece with a rather fetching ball of wool and knitting needles print.  There are films running on various walls, which give a great atmosphere to the whole thing, but I think they could have covered a bit more. 

For an exhibition covering how hard it was to clothe yourself during rationing, there is very little in the way of what is often seen as mundane, everyday clothing.  Yes, there is a patchwork dress and underwear made out of silk maps.  There is also a clip showing you how to cut down the old man’s trilby so you can re-fashion it into a little topper for yourself, but these barely touch the surface of what it was really like to make do with what you had.  I feel it is more tailored towards the high fashion clothing than the standing in the grocery queue fashions which so often get overlooked.  There aren’t enough knitteds for my liking, but being knitting obsessed I would think that!  The uniforms that are on display are a nice touch, and I could happily have taken home the bright floral smocks and overcoat with CC41 buttons.  

There is a phenomenal display of Jacqmar propaganda scarves, and they are probably my favourite thing in the whole exhibition.  Framed and displayed as a collection, they are so cheerful and bright.  These scarves are incredibly rare; we have a rayon silk London Wall and RAF Happy Landings one in our collection, but I’ve never seen any others for sale.  I shall keep looking though.

Although it might seem like I’m being a miserable sod, I’m honestly not.  I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition, and if you’re into the fashions of the forties, then it certainly is worth seeing, but it is smaller than I expected and therefore I think the £10 entry is a little steep.   

Once we’d looked round the exhibition, we wandered around the rest of the museum, and although we had high hopes of a fabulous time, I’m truly sad to say that we were a little underwhelmed by the whole experience. 

 

Disappointingly, we all left feeling that parts of the museum were a little bit pants!  The Holocaust exhibition was informative and emotive, and I’m pleased I saw it through to the end, but the exhibitions around the atrium were sterile and poorly placed, there seemed to be no flow to it, no chronology.  The section on the wartime family is very good, although the WVRS badge on a supposedly wartime WVS uniform is disappointing.

 

 

We are used to the splendour of IWM Duxford, very much a family favourite, and hoped the London would be the same, but it just lacked something.  All four adults felt it, although no-one really wanted to admit to it first because I’d been so excited to take everyone down there.  We spent less than 2 hours in the museum and that just doesn’t seem right.  We thought that maybe we’d taken a wrong turn and missed an entire section, but we hadn’t, there just wasn’t that much to see. 

We had lunch in the sunshine in the gardens outside the museum, and rested our aching feet for a while before heading back along the South Bank towards the station.

The walk back to the station was not as fabulous as the morning walk had been.  By Victoria Gardens, just by the fair rides, a delightful light fingered member of society managed to relieve the Mr of his wallet!  Although we’d seen all the signs and posters, and were super careful, we didn’t think it would happen to us; we still don’t quite know how it did.  Luckily, he was reunited with his wallet, the offender having slung it into the gardens, but safe to say it came back minus all the money, but thankfully all his cards, driving licence, rail travel card etc, were untouched. 

It didn’t spoil the day, but it certainly put a damper on it and knocked the wind out of his sails.  The calm in the storm, my parents kindly treated us to dinner before we climbed wearily onto the train home. 

My dad hates London.  Apparently, he always has.  He worked there in the 1980s and thinks it’s a dirty, smelly place.  This experience hasn’t made him think any more favourably about the city, and I don’t think he’ll be joining us on further visits any time soon!

xx