May 1960: Dear little matinee coat

baby2 My first project for May was a “matinee coat” for a 6-month old baby. The baby I knit it for hadn’t been born yet, but I always like to make a six-month size for a newborn. Of course it will be too big at first, but eventually the coat will fit.

Don’t you love the positioning of the baby in the photo? “I’m 6 months and almost sitting up!” means it was probably pretty difficult to get any sort of picture of the baby wearing the coat in a way that you could see it, not to mention without crying, flailing around, spitting up, etc. I have a real respect for anyone who can get a decent photograph of a small baby, especially one where you want to see what it is wearing. Sadly, there is no colour photo.

The coat is made in one piece from the top down with raglan armholes. This kind of construction was pretty rare in mid-century knitting patterns — most baby clothes, like almost all adult clothes, were meant to be made in pieces and seamed. This garment does have seams, though — after the division for the fronts/sleeves/back at the underarm, you are supposed to work each bit flat and then sew the side and sleeve seams.

I actually did just that, because the written pattern was very difficult to follow on the first few rows after the underarm divide. The raglan increases at the top are done with eyelets and make-1 increases on a each side of a bit of moss stitch, and after the underarm divide, the same type of increase is done on the fronts and back to make a flared skirt. That all makes perfect sense, but the way the pattern was written made it difficult to find the placement of the increases if making the fronts and back all in one. So I just went ahead and followed the pattern exactly. Except for the sleeves, which are supposed to be long, but I ran out of yarn.

As with many early baby things, the tension/gauge was 8 stitches to the inch — on No. 11 (3 mm) needles — much smaller than I can ever manage to get no matter how small the needles or how thin the yarn. I used Lang Merino 200 Bébé, which is wonderful, but my gauge was too big even on 2 1/2 mm needles. No matter, the coat will be a little bit bigger and hopefully fit a little while longer.

matineeblock If you are looking at the first picture and wondering what went wrong, let me assure you that it was NOT a tangled mess! As long as the sleeve stitches were on holders, there was no way to make the thing sit down flat for a photo. Kind of the same problem with the baby, if you think about it… Here’s a picture during blocking (at left) and here’s a picture of the finished garment. I am very happy with it!

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P.S. Yes, it is supposed to have long sleeves. I ran out of yarn.

April 1960: Popular neckline

Version 2 My second project for April (obviously not finished before the end of the month, seeing that I started it two days before) was this cute lace blouse with a “Popular neckline.” I do love the neckline, and the leaf pattern.

The pattern is written for wool, of course, but I made it in cotton for summer. It is very, very difficult for me to find any kind of yarn, especially cotton, that is fine enough to get the pattern gauge of 8 stitches to the inch in stockinette stitch. I can hardly even get 8 stitches to the inch on lace-weight wool on 2 mm needles! But crochet cotton thread would be too thin, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in black. So I found a cotton that gets me 7 stitches to the inch on 2 – 2 1/2 mm needles and fiddled with making the middle size and having it come out as the large size.

popneck_wip The biggest problem was making the side-seam increases. The lace pattern has a repeat of 12 stitches, but a sort of varying number of edge stitches. I honestly had no idea where to fit in the extra stitches, or how to keep them in pattern when the increases and decreases within the pattern are broadly spaced. Time to hit the Ravelry forums! I did try charting it out (the pattern has written instructions only) and at first it made it easier to “read” the knitting, but didn’t give me any fundamental technical answers. I realised I had to chart out not just the pattern itself but all of the increases and decreases, with the changes that had to be made row by row. That worked, but by then I had already made the back piece, so those increases on the sides weren’t perfect. But everything else was!

The fit is incredible. I was wary of the horizontal cap sleeves, which are really just made by casting on extra stitches instead of decreasing under the arms. I thought it would make a lot of baggy fabric under the arms, like those 1950s (or 1980s) dolman-sleeve fashions that must be extremely inconvenient to wear. But no! The armholes are snug without being too tight, and I appreciated the extra width and give in the upper chest and back, where I am quite wide.

All in all, it is wonderful and I am very happy. Here I am having fun “recreating” the original picture. The bag is from a Stitchcraft pattern, too!

April 1960: Gay Goslings

Version 2 “Cheerful goslings make gay kitchen ideas” — who could resist? There are patterns for a serving glove and a felt tea cosy, neither of which I particularly needed, but the tea-cosy pattern is just about the right size for an iPad case. So this became the modern version.

As always, the pattern came from a transfer that is no longer commercially available, but since the appliqué was so simple, it wasn’t a problem. I used the good old pencil-grid-transfer method that had already worked so well with January’s leaf cushion, and it worked fine.

I had never done appliqué before, but it was really quite easy, especially with felt, so this was a great beginner project. The eyes, wings and feet are embroidered in simple satin stitch and blanket stitch. There were supposed to be yellow stem-stitch outlines around the eyes, but I tried it and it made my poor innocent gosling look kind of demonic, so I stuck with plain black dots. I made it up with a scrap of fun blue cotton print for lining (Geese… In… Space…!) and a simple closure made out of a bit of twisted yarn cord and a sparkly white button.

Everything worked great and the whole thing took only about 5 hours total to make, including sewing all the seams by hand, as I didn’t have my sewing machine on hand at the time. Definitely a change from the never-ending John’s new pullover! Now I have the gayest, warmest, best-dressed, space-age spring fever iPad that anyone could wish for and am very happy.

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March 1960: John’s new pullover

My second project for March — though it wasn’t finished by the end of the month — was a young boy’s pullover with a cute stripe-and-dot pattern.

Sadly, there is no colour photo in the magazine, the two contrasting colours look very similar in the black-and-white photo, and the little chart for the dot pattern doesn’t mention which colour should be used for which row of dots, so it’s not entirely clear what order the dot stripes go in. The main colour is “Moonstone”, the bottom stripe is stripe is “Horizon Blue” and the second stripe “Camel”, so I figured the bottom row of dots is also blue and the second row camel.

In any case, my colour scheme was different, as very light-colored garments for young active children are bound to get grubby, so I picked a sort of heathery grey-beige for the main colour. Camel as a contrast to that didn’t look so great, so I picked a nice shade of plum and a heathery blue. The yarn is plain Regia sock yarn — superwash wool with a bit of nylon for support.

I though the skeins looked great together but somehow, as I started to knit it up, the colour combination reminded me of jogging clothes from the 1980s. I don’t know why, exactly, but it’s something about that exact combination. I wholeheartedly hate 1980s fashion and am very disappointed to see it having come back in during the last few years, so I wish I had picked something different! On the other hand, nobody else is going to be bothered by it — a young kid won’t be prejudiced and the parents will probably think it amusing if they even make the connection.

The stranding is easy and the main pattern is just stockinette stitch with an extra purl ridge row (K on the right side) every 6th row.

At 7 stitches to the inch, it took a while, and I had to restart once as my gauge was too loose, but I do love the finished look and I hope the wearer will too. I reassured him that he doesn’t need to wear a button-up shirt, tie and shorts with it. Again, if anyone can explain to me why boys of bygone decades had to wear shorts until they were teenagers, no matter how cold outside or how warmly they were dressed on the top half of their bodies, I will be grateful!

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March 1960: Spring Magic

Version 2 First project for March: this charming jacket from the jacket-and-skirt set titled “Spring Magic in Judy’s trim Outfit”. What a great title! And what a great photo in the booklet. I’m glad today’s girls don’t generally get their hair tortured into curls like litte Judy’s in the picture, but she certainly looks happy enough holding hands with her gigantic teddy bear.

The pattern calls for Patons Double Knitting at a gauge of 18 stitches to 4 inches over the stitch pattern. The child I knit this for can’t wear wool, though, so I made it in wonderful, easy-care, electric red and blue acrylic Bravo Originals from Schachenmayr. It did turn out to be a bit bulkier than Patons DK, so I adapted the stitch counts to reflect a gauge of 15 stitches to 4 inches. IMG_1566 (1)

The stitch pattern looks complicated but is actually very easy — fundamentally just k1, p1 on the right side and k on the wrong side, but the k stitches on the right side are made through the purl bump of the row below, giving a sort of check pattern without stranding or slip stitches. It has stockinette-stitch hems on the cuffs and bottom edge and a row of double crochet (British terminology, i.e. single crochet for Americans) around the front and collar edges.

It knit up so fast, and the colours were so bright, and the yarn so space-age, that I bought a whole lot more of it in order to make a 1960s-style, short-sleeved, A-line minidress for myself. I can’t wait!

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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.