February 1960: Chic cap and mitts

February’s project was pretty simple: a crocheted cap and “mitts” with a cute bobble pattern. I couldn’t decide on the colour (lavender or purple) and didn’t have quite enough of either to make both cap and mitts, so I ended up making the cap twice and using up leftovers of both colours plus a little extra of a different purple yarn to finish the mittens.

Apropos “mitts” and “mittens”… Stitchcraft calls them mitts, though I guess these days most people would call them mittens. What we now call mitts, i.e. fingerless gloves, were not in fashion in the mid-20th century.

The cap is made in the round from the top down with double crochet and bobbles, then stranded with fringe around the crown, which in turn is held down by a plait (braid). The crocheting was easy even for a non-crocheter like me, but the fringe was really difficult to hold in place with the proper tension.

The mitt(ens) have a really interesting construction — back and palm done separately from the middle out. You make a chain and work on both sides of it, back and forth and back and forth until it is wide enough. The thumb is a sort of loop of chain stitch added on and worked in double crochet with the rest of the palm, then sewn up.

I used contrasting dark purple wool for the wrist and the making-up (the lavender was used up) and crocheted palm and back together on the right side for a decorative effect.

Here are the finished caps — both slightly different, both fairly imperfect, but I think the intended wearer will like them. Modeled photo to come when she receives them!

January 1960: Leaf cushion

leafcushion_issuefoto My second project from January 1960 was a sewn and embroidered cushion featuring “black and white leaves on bright red fabric”. One is encouraged to “keep to the black and white embroidery but choose background linen to match your room” and I chose a medium green. (The fact that it matches the houndstooth jumper is just a happy coincidence.)

Finding appropriate fabric was not easy, as I’m not experienced with embroidery or needlepoint and can’t always “translate” the brands and fabric types called for into something I can buy now. This pattern, like many in Stitchcraft, calls for “Glenshee Embroidery Fabric 212” which does not seem to exist (anymore?) as a specific brand, but this very useful website told me that “Glenshee” is a general name for a certain kind of evenweave linen available in “various counts”. That description matches my fabric pretty well, which is an evenly woven linen-viscose mix that seems to have a similar texture to the fabric shown in the picture.

The biggest challenge, of course, was getting the design onto the fabric. At the time, one ordered a transfer from Stitchcraft for a small sum, which was then sent by post. Sometimes an issue contained a free transfer, and these days, vintage Stitchcraft transfers are sometimes available on Ebay, but good luck finding one for a specific project at the time you want to make it! There are surely computer programs for embroidery transfer design these days, but I did it the old-fashioned way:

First I made a paper pattern by taping pieces of ordinary white paper together to the correct size, then marked both a photocopy of the booklet pattern and my paper pattern with a grid to get the correct placement of the leaves:

I made a little leaf stencil out of cardboard, measured the proper placements for the leaves and pencilled around the stencil to get the shapes, then traced them in thick black marker:

I used the paper pattern to cut out the green fabric and the inner cushion fabric (plain white cotton-polyester decorating material), then taped the paper pattern to a window, taped the green fabric over it, and traced the leaves with dressmaker’s chalk — luckily, it was a sunny day, as the green fabric is not naturally very transparent. Then I added the inner details freehand:

And it worked! A washable marker would have been better, but I didn’t have one.

The embroidery itself is stem-stitch with a couple of loop-stitch and satin-stitch details, which was within my limited ability. Still, it was difficult to get the stitches even and the shapes symmetrical. Here are two photos from the work-in-progress — the leaves in the bottom row are quite wobbly, and the double leaves are very uneven, but I am happy with the spotted leaf in the next row up from that.

After the embroidery was finished, it was time to make the piping! Stitchcraft didn’t give specific instructions how to do that, just to “make up piping using extra fabric.” Luckily, I have this wonderful book that I borrowed from a friend, which not only helped me with the embroidery, but has a page on making up piping. You have to make a long bias strip and sew it around the cord… not as complicated as I thought.

And that was it! I made a simple cushion of cheap cotton/polyester fabric stuffed with fluffy stuff and made up the cover with the piping and a zipper.

Seeing that this was my first time really embroidering, first time making piping, and even the first time making a cushion, I am very happy with the results.

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January 1960: Green check jumper

greencheck_issuefoto2 My knitting project from this issue was a houndstooth-check jumper, made in double knitting wool in two shades of green. Large checked patterns of this type were popular this year, which is presumably why Stitchcraft categorized this jumper as “fashion knitting” rather than “casual knitting”.

I love the big green collar and the interplay of the two colours. What I didn’t like as much was the pattern itself. It looked fine in the photos but in a swatch, I found it looked too much like plusses or crosses and not like what I think of as houndstooth. Also, the straight vertical placement of the stitches made the fabric pucker. I experimented with a couple of other houndstooth variations and decided on the second one (lower swatch in photo.) greencheck_2swatches

My only other intended modifications were minimal: knitting it in the round with invisible fake “side seams” instead of in pieces with real seams, as I don’t like purling in two colours, and making the sleeves full-length instead of the 3/4 or 7/8 shown in the photos. However, once the body and upper back were finished, it looked as though the upper back would not be wide enough. I suppose the average Stitchcraft reader of 1960 was not particularly athletic, by modern standards… The shoulder width was fine, so the solution was to simply space the decreases from the beginning of the armhole farther apart (at each end of every 4th row instead of every other row). I did the same on the upper fronts and increased the total stitch count on the upper arms by 4 stitches, making the decreases more gradual on the sleeve caps as well.

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The pattern calls for Patons Double Quick Knitting. I got a good gauge (6 sts to an inch in pattern) and a fantastic colour match with Patons Diploma Gold DK, a wool-acrylic-nylon blend. I had plenty of it on hand from a frogged project, but the work in progress was nubbly. I thought it would get smooth again with blocking, but alas, the original project was probably blocked “too well” and the finished product is not quite smooth. Since it’s the same all over, though, I decided to think of it as a design feature.

The fit is excellent, everything worked out wonderfully and I am very satisfied with the final result.