Month: September 2025

Out of Order: Fair Isle Country Cardigan, January 1967

The September 1967 issue of Stitchcraft had three fantastic projects in it that were all too time- and labor-intensive to finish (or possibly even start…) in September, so I concentrated on finishing up this cardigan from the January 1967 issue.

This was one of the projects that I had been looking forward to for years, since I have a 1960s vintage dress from my grandmother that would match it perfectly in colour and style as pictured in the magazine. But for some reason, this project was cursed.

It started with the wool — I wanted to be authentically Fair Isle and make in in Shetland wool, and Jamieson’s of Shetland has a DK wool in a perfectly matching shade of turquoise. There’s a yarn store in a nearby city to me that carries Jamieson’s, so I wrote them an email to order… only to get a phone call saying that the wool couldn’t be ordered at the moment due to international customs negotiations (Damn you, Brexit!). So I thanked them and asked them to cancel the order, ordered some Rauma 3-ply from a different supplier instead, which was fine, and started with that. I chose a more rust-orange instead of “Red Hackle” for the stranded yoke, along with natural white and anthracite.

The cardigan is meant to be knitted in pieces from the bottom up and has a very interesting sleeve and shoulder construction: set-in sleeves but with a round yoke over only the yoke part of the front and back (not a true round yoke as one would find on a “real” Shetland-style garment.) Interestingly, the men’s pullover version of the same design has a traditional round yoke. In any case, I started with the sleeves, to check how the tension and pliability (Rauma 3-ply is sturdy, but can be rather stiff) would work out. It seemed fine.

Then it was time for the fronts and back, which I made in one piece back-and-forth (no steeks, since the only stranding is on the yoke.) I was concerned that the straight-up-and-down, oversized style would look dumpy on me, so made it a size smaller than indicated for my bust measurement and added in some waist shaping. Also, I made the button bands along with the fronts even though they are supposed to be made on a smaller needle, since I hate making vertical button bands and sewing them on afterwards.

It was very boring knitting and mostly sat around in the cabinet while I worked on more exciting projects. (On that note, please excuse the wall of text — I never though to take photos of the work in progress, since nothing interesting happened.) Then, somewhere around this time, I got a call from the yarn shop in the nearby city. “Your order of Jamieson’s DK has arrived!” What? I thought it wasn’t possible to order it? It turned out there was a misunderstanding and they hadn’t cancelled my order, just put it on “pending” until whatever regulations were changed. Well, you can never have too much yarn, I guess…

Back to the cardigan… It seemed fine while knitting, but it was hard to check for fit, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the wool, although pleasantly lightweight, seemed to stretch more and more width-wise the longer the body got. The real problem came with the yoke. Because of the weird set-in-sleeve-plus-stranded-yoke construction, the stranded work starts a few inches in from the shoulder seam. The seam is unavoidably a bit bulky (DK wool…) and the way the stranded work starts resulted in a weird tension difference that made the shoulder seam stand out in an ugly way and also made the sleeves “balloon” at the top for an almost Victorian leg-o-mutton look. Not a good look for me! Not at all! Also, the stranded part is too long and the neckline very high, making the shoulders too wide. And the rest of the fit wasn’t good either — it continued to stretch width-wise and even having made a smaller size, it was all just huge and baggy. Even the sleeves were too long. To top it all off, in spite of making the button bands along with the body, I didn’t get the spacing right. (I did find nice buttons, at least.)

I tried blocking it into shape, but there was only so much that that could accomplish, and now I don’t really know what to do with it. I thought about removing the sleeves and re-positioning the shoulder seam as one would with a sewn garment, and just cutting down the sides and sewing side-seams, then getting rid of the excess fabric. That would be pretty brutal, and also a lot of work, and I don’t like machine-sewing and cutting hand-knitted garments. I thought about giving it to a friend who has wider shoulders and a larger size than me. I thought about wearing it in the winter and just living with the oversized style, even though it is not my style. I made a matching tam while I was contemplating all of this, and even the tam turned out too big. I considered putting the tam through the washing machine and/or dryer to see what happened (would it felt too much, or just get smaller) and if successful, doing the same with the cardigan.

As of this post, I have still not decided what to do, but if it fits my friend, I think I will give it to her and knit myself another version from the Jamieson’s wool. Perhaps with pink instead of rust for the contrast yoke colour, and not following the pattern, but just making it in a size that fits me the way I want it to fit, and with a traditional round yoke. We’ll see! I do still love the design.

September 1967: Overview

It’s time for a “Fashion Switch” over at Stitchcraft! 1967 is the year where knitted dresses really start to feature, and as far as I can tell, the “switch” part means you can either make a dress or a skirt combo and mix and match. The cover designs fit in well with the trend: high necks, short skirts, deep raglan armholes, A-line shaping and big patch pockets. Note, too, the huge hats — they will only get bigger in the months to come.

The centrefold photo shows a slinky variation on the theme with a dress and/or skirt combo featuring a pretty beaded and textured design. Like the chevron dress from April 1967, the designs pick up some elements of 1920s and 30s fashion, while keeping a distinctly late-60s shape.

Other women’s knits include a bouclet blouse for the fuller figure with a very neat and pretty “soft-roll” neckline, a casually elegant afternoon suit with cable trims, a striped skirt combo in “colour brilliance” (tangerine and violet!), and a “Golden Glow” bright yellow pullover.

“Colour brilliance” applies to men’s fashions too, for once, and this green and yellow slip-stitch cardigan is a masterpiece. The model looks a bit like a colleague of mine — should I knit it for him? The other men’s garment, a chunky but streamlined pullover, echoes some of the design features of the women’s “fashion switch” combos. like the big patch pocket and contrasting-pattern sleeves. The photo is black-and-white, but the suggested colour is “Curry”, which I assume will be some kind of dark gold-brown-orange (so 60s). For children, there are two nice, sturdy, basic raglan pullovers in a more classic colour scheme — dark charcoal with red trim for the boy’s and “Cloud-dust Pink” with “Aztec Gold” trim for the girl’s.

There are some fun homewares for all styles and abilities, starting with some very easy sewn and embroidered aprons with whimsical kitchen designs. I’m not interested in the aprons, but I love the top that the “teatime” model is wearing! You can make a tapestry panel of an Irish homestead in Rosguill, Donegal or a cushion or chair-back in a gorgeous traditional-inspired design updated “for a modern setting”. Both are done in tapestry wool on furnishing linen.

It’s not too early to start on little gifts for Christmas, and here’s a little bag “for a friend” and a knitted tortoise toy “for a toddler.” Baby gets a thick, squishy pram cover in fluffy “Ariel” wool and a raised cable trellis design.

Or you can make a Florentine-pattern workbag or cushion for yourself. The colours — gold, green, and yellow — will match nicely with a lot of the knitted designs from this month.

In the “Readers Pages”, we finall have a new comic: Sue and Samuel Squirrel run the Woodland Wool Shop. Their adventures start when Sue finds a loose thread of yarn in the woods and winds it up — only to find that she has unraveled an elephant’s vest and needs to knit it all up again! Poor Sue. The only full-page advert is for Bri-Nylon. I imagine the dress in the photo is quite hot and impractical, especially if knitted in synthetic nylon wool, but what a lovely photo.

That’s it for this month! There are so many great projects that it’s hard to choose, especially since the ones that call to me are all big projects and I just finished the chevron dress from April 1967. I love the orange cover dress and the men’s slip-stitch cardigan, particularly, as well as the fancy embroidery design, which I think would look lovely going around the hem of a full black skirt. Or maybe even the Florentine needlepoint? I don’t have much time in September to knit, though, and even less to adapt an embroidery or tapestry pattern. We’ll see!