October 1961: Baby’s cardigan

There’s always somebody having a baby, and I do try to make something nice for all my friends’ and colleagues’ newborns. Sometimes I don’t manage to finish something until they are out of the newborn stage, which is why it’s nice to have patterns for larger babies! This dolman-sleeve cardigan, made in the smaller size, should fit a 22 inch chest, which should be fine for this particular eight- or nine-month old.

I wasn’t and am not convinced that dolman sleeves are good for babies or anyone else (so much fabric flappage) and originally I thought about converting the pattern to set-in sleeves, but in the end I was just too lazy, so dolman sleeves it was. I guess it does have the advantage of being wide enough no matter what, and easy to get the baby’s arms into the sleeves. Given that, I’m surprised it’s so short! If it were made longer, it would fit longer without the baby getting a cold belly.

The little leaf motifs up the front sides are quite easy and don’t require any cabling or special fuss. You just work into one stitch 5 times on one row, then work those 5 stitches in stockinette (on the reverse-stockinette background) for a few rows before closing off the leaf with decreases. The lace strips on the sides are plain yo, k2tog alternating with k2tog tbl, yo, worked on the right-side rows.

I used Jamieson’s wonderful Shetland Spindrift from a multicoloured stash that I had bought from a nice person on Ravelry. Some may say that Shetland wool is too tough for babies, but it does get softer with washing and since it won’t be worn against the skin, I think it will be fine. The colour — Buttermilk — is really beautiful, a pale yellow ever-so-slightly marled with shades of pink and winter white.

If I remember correctly, the buttons came from a Christmas fair somewhere some years ago and hadn’t found the right garment yet. I only had three and the pattern calls for five, but I preferred the buttons I had to any new ones I might find.

All in all, a quick and easy project that will hopefully keep the baby warm and make its parents happy.

October 1961: Overview

October 1961 gives us “Colour for autumn” with “special fashion features” and a great center spread with colour photos. “I always think October is a nice friendly month,” writes “editress” Patience Horne on the facing page, and I have to agree.

Bulky Big Ben wool and different kinds of textured rib stitches play a prominent role in this month’s issue, starting with the partner-look pullover and cardigan on the front cover. Both are made in the same drop-stitch rib pattern — basically 2×2 ribbing, but you drop a stitch down 3 rows every 4th row and pick it up again in the next row to make a long vertical rib. Children get twisted-rib raglan pullovers to keep their upper bodies nice and warm while their legs freeze in tiny shorts and mini-skirts, typical for the era.

Nubbly Rimple wool may be easing out of fashion, as there’s only one pattern for it in this issue: a simple, yet elegant dress with “the new horseshoe neckline.” Other women’s garments include a cabled cardigan with colour accents and matching cap, a long-line pullover with a wide collar (still in fashion) and saddle-stitching detail, and a cardigan jacket in a wonderfully ornate Florentine stitch that involves a lot of slipping, dropping and pulling stitches up and around in two colours. The finished effect is a lot like a trellis, accentuated here by posing the model in a green skirt and holding on to a plant. Autumn colours of gold, orange, and beige prevail.

There are some additions to the “Stitchcraft Layette” for the smallest member of the family, but we’ve moved on from the bramble-stitch pattern in the last few issues to a mix of cables and flower motifs. Both cardigan and blanket are pretty and useful, but I don’t like the huge dolman sleeves on the cardigan — I can see a baby getting their arm stuck inside it. The bottle cover with a fuzzy knitted kitten on it is great, though! If it were made somewhat smaller or larger, I could imagine it as a phone or tablet cover.

In the homewares and accessories department, we’ve got the usual teapot cosies (how many can one household have??), a knitted donkey named “Ned”, and a pair of “mitts for a scooter fan” — with separate thumb and first finger. There are tapestry patterns for a piano stool and a chair seat, and did you honestly think we were finished with the Zodiac theme, just because all the months had had their patterns already? Of course not! Now you can order the complete chart and embroider them all one more time on a tablecloth.

The back cover illustration shows two hand-made rugs using different techniques: flat crossed stitches for a woven effect, or stitching combined with pile knotting (latch hook), which was apparently the latest thing in Sweden at the time.

The highlight of the home art section, for me, is this sequinned, glittered appliqué wall hanging of some of Great Britain’s famous kings and queens. I don’t think I would hang it in my own home, but what a wild idea and the appliqué and embroidery work is certainly stunning. Look the detail on Queen Elizabeth (I)’s face! And they definitely found a wall with the perfect wallpaper to hang the sample piece on.

The “Readers Pages” have the usual ads, kiddy comic (Sally in Sampler Land), a preview of the next issue, and some easy counted-stitch ideas for borders on towels, pillowcases, etc. I love this ad for the latest Coats crochet booklet — it has flower-arranging lessons in addition to the crochet patterns.

That’s all for now! My October project will be the baby cardigan (with modified sleeves) and maybe some kind of phone-cover version of the kitten bottle cover.

September 1961: Circular Rug to Crochet

September’s project (finished only one day late) was this extremely 1960s crocheted green rug with black, white and orange embroidered spots (they “add a modern touch”) and fringe. Loved it!

Before I could start, I had to figure out what kind of wool to use. Rug wool, such as the Patons Turkey Rug Wool in the pattern, was available in the 1960s in large skeins by weight and rugs could be made using tapestry stitches on canvas, crocheting, tufting or using the latch-hook method. Latch-hook rug makers had to cut the wool themselves and there were ingenious little tools to help them do that, like this Patwin rug-wool cutter or this “strip slitter” from Bliss. Later in the decade, “cut packs” were introduced for latch-hook use and it is now very difficult to find rug wool in skeins.

Felting wool, like rug wool, is bulky, mostly unprocessed, coarse and strong, so that was my first thought… but would it felt with use or washing? I decided to take the chance, since it’s easy to find, inexpensive and there happened to be some in the perfect colour at my local yarn shop. It’s the exact same shade of green as the embroidered cushion from 1960 that I made last year! It even possibly matches the original colour from the pattern, “Green Haze”.

I had to order more wool than they had in the store. To figure out how much wool I needed, I asked a better mathematician than me if he could work it out using the diameter of the swatch, finished diameter of the rug (29 inches without fringe) and the amount of wool per skein. Then I calculated it myself based on the number of stitches in one skein’s worth of wool and the total number of stitches in the rug. We were both a bit off — he thought I would need 11 skeins (65 grams) and I thought I would need 9, when in fact I only needed 8. Then again, the 8 skeins made a slightly smaller rug when done by the pattern, so I kept on for a few more rounds and used one more skein to get the proper size.

The crochet part was easy — just rounds of double crochet with regular increases — and went very quickly. You can see that the wool I ordered was from a different dye lot than the first skeins from the store, but I don’t mind. The embroidery was a bit tedious and the fringe posed a new problem: this type of old-fashioned cotton sew-on fringe is very much not in fashion and hard to find in stores these days. I hate buying things on the Internet, so I asked my friendly wool-shop owner from the store where I bought the wool what she thought, or if it could be ordered through the store. She suggested hand-knotting the fringe with cotton yarn in a similar colour to the rug. (the fringe in the original seems to be white or a lighter colour). I was eager to get the thing done and not wait for more elements to arrive, so I did it. I like the result! It’s stringier than the original, of course, but it makes the rug look like a sort of friendly amoeba. I like that.

Wash-blocking it gently in cold water worked well and did not felt the wool. Also, it is going to live under my coffee table where it won’t get much foot traffic, so I’m not worried.

A good friend saw it and said, “Wow, it’s so ugly, I love it!” Which stung a bit, but I know what they meant. It’s really 1960s! But it also really goes well with my retro/vintage living room decor and I don’t think it’s ugly at all, just goofy. I’m very happy with the way it turned out.