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

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

 

Such a Pretty Pair

Good morning from a very sunny Suffolk!  It’s just beautiful out there this morning; spring has definitely sprung.  I hope those of you who celebrated had a wonderful Easter.  Ours was spent at home with family where everyone (bar the vegetarians!) stuffed themselves silly on roast lamb with all the trimmings, followed by lemon cheesecake and then Easter eggs; perfick!  

Although it is still school holidays, the Mr has gone in for today to do extra work with some of the students, so my girls and I have a busy day of gardening planned, and then a trip to the cinema to see Cinderella this evening, I’ve heard great things about the costumes so can’t wait to see it!  Before I get planting, I’ve managed to grab half an hour to myself, while the girls are digging for worms, to share with you two rather pretty woollies that have found a new home overseas.

The pretty pair was commissioned by a thoroughly charming lady in New Zealand.  She chose gorgeous patterns and opted for two seriously scrumptious shades of wool and I truly enjoyed working with her to create her vintage inspired pieces.

First up is a pattern that you may have seen before on my blog as I knitted it back in 2014.  It’s a Bestway pattern from the very early 1940’s and is for a close fitting jumper with a neat little collar in a mock smock design; try saying that after you've had a tipple or two!

It was knitted in King Cole Merino Blend 4 ply in a shade called fern.  I’ve used King Cole in the past and haven’t been overly impressed with the quality, especially their big value range, but I was pleasantly surprised with the Merino Blend and it was beautiful to work with.  The colour range is great, the wool doesn’t split, and it is so super soft to the touch, and not at all itchy.

When this one is knitted, the pattern doesn’t really show.  The pieces come out really rather small and it isn’t until you block and press it that the design can be seen in all its glory. 

Wool - King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply
Weight used - 240g
Time taken - 79 days
Size - 32" bust

The second was knitted from a pattern from the Wearing History range, which I bought on Etsy.  Called Wood Violet, the pattern has been reformatted from the original and all the instructions have been retyped into 1 neat A4 page.

This one was knitted in the King Cole Merino Blend 4 ply as well, but this time in a gorgeous shade called damson.  I’m a little bit in love with this shade.  It is so divine, a real rich purple with a beautiful depth of colour.  For some reason, King Cole has apparently done away with this shade, so if you like it and see it anywhere, snap it up quickly, because you may not get another chance.  I have added a few balls to my stash for future use!!

The main body of this jumper was worked in stocking stitch, so knitted up super quickly, but the yoke was an entirely different affair!  I like to be honest when I’ve had problems with patterns, and I have to admit that this one reduced me to tears of sheer frustration! 

A fellow blogger said, when I asked for her help in working out the pattern, that the instructions were like an algebra equation!  I got in a pickle when the pattern said “p1, 0, p1…….p two 0’s together” because nowhere in the pattern did it tell me what “0” actually was!  By a process of trial and error, I got there in the end and my finished yoke looked like the picture on the pattern, so I was happy with the end result.

Unable to find vintage buttons in the exact shade of purple, I opted for original 1940’s buttons in black.

Wool - King Cole Merino Blend 4 Ply
Weight used - 220g
Time taken -
Size - 32" bust

I posted the jumpers off just 11 days ago, and by the powers of tracked and signed for delivery (it’s always worth paying the extra postage), the woollies have been safely received by their new owner who, thankfully, is over the moon with them. 

If you fancy giving either of the patterns a go yourself, they are both for sale on Etsy.  The Bestway pattern can be found in my Etsy shop here, and the Wearing History pattern can be found here.

xx