This year (1960 or 2018, take your pick) draws to a close with Stitchcraft’s “Christmas Issue”, which, as you may expect, is full of holiday-themed novelties to decorate and give.
That said, the hoodies on the cover are surprisingly modern and not “Christmas sweaters” in the sense we usually think of them at all. If I just saw a photo of them without the festive vintage backdrop, or the “DEC 1960” in the cover corner, I would be hard-pressed to say from what decade they came from. You could sell them in a regular modern store today and nobody would think they were a vintage design! I love the little tuft on the kid’s hood, too. They are made in nubbly Rimple yarn, still a hit and always featured somewhere in each issue.
There are “gay ideas” for festive party table decorations of all types: a floral tablecloth for a tea party, a merry-go-round tea cosy for the “Nursery Party” and table sets with playing cards as napkin holders for the grown-ups. “The last minute novelties” take on a fairy-tale theme, with a Red Riding Hood doll, a Noah’s Ark nightcase, a friendly draught-stopping snake and — for your holiday Dickens bedtime reading — a tea cosy that looks like a plum pudding, complete with attached crocheted plate! More pious readers can make an appliqué wall hanging of the Three Wise Men and heathens can make an embroidered wastebasket cosy with a Sagittarius theme (this month’s astrological sign).
Of course, one never has enough time in the holiday season to make everything perfectly, so if you are “really stumped for time” you can make the wall hanging “in bright, shiny papers” (instead of felt), “cutting out the shapes and sticking them down, then adding cut-out strips, etc., for the finishing touches.”
For those who have the time, or don’t go all-out for holiday decorations, there are the usual assortment of knitting projects, starting with a lovely warm dress-booties-mittens set for a baby. I do admire her elegant mitts, but I’m guessing that in real life, they don’t stay on a baby any longer than it takes to take a photo. Older kids can get a striped jumper in a fantastic, very modern colour combination.
Teenagers haven’t been forgotten either, and can enjoy these Italian-inspired colour designs with added embroidery on the young woman’s jumper. I really like both of these designs! The young man’s jumper is fun without being too flashy, and with a little tweaking, would work well on a woman’s figure, with the dark colour band starting just under the bust line. There’s even a little extra “how-to” lesson on embroidering knits, which is still perennially in fashion at this time.
Adult women, having hopefully embraced the “new length” (long) and “new sleeve style” (3/4 or 7/8) from last issue, can get ready for Paris’ “new necklines” — a high turn-down-and-rib combination or a buttoned-up turtle (polo) neck. No turn-down collars this time — are they on the way out? There’s a new yarn to go with them, Cameo Crepe, which is smooth and less “hairy” than other wools, for good stitch definition.
All this new fashion detailing can be admired in the two-colour twin set from the inside back cover, and to go under it all, why not knit yourself a lovely warm woollen vest (camisole)? I don’t mean that sarcastically — they are really the best! I made a woollen lace under-dress (slip) last year and it is heaven in a cold, damp climate.
It’s hard to decide what to make from this issue. Lots of the items are cute and fun, but nothing jumps out at me that I absolutely have to make. The plum pudding cosy is so silly that it’s cool, but I don’t use tea cosies and it would be a lot of work for a gag. The snake is cute and useful, but I don’t have odds and ends of double knitting at the moment and I do in fact already have a stuffed snake who occasionally gets put to work plugging a “leaky” window. I also have plenty of jumpers and even wollen underclothes (s. above), so don’t need more. I do have a hundred grams of very nice, hand-dyed green fingering wool in search of a project, so maybe I’ll make the baby dress.
In the meantime, Happy Holidays to all my readers! May everything you celebrate be jolly and festive.
November’s project was a little cloche hat, made out of leftover wool from July’s 
Brrrr! November 1960’s Special Bumper Issue” brings us “Colour for the Cold Days” and an extra 16-page pull-out booklet of baby woollies. Sadly, so sadly, the booklet from my copy of this issue has been pulled out long ago and is missing.
Homewares are still in a weird phase. The working woman or baby-boom mum (and those were overlapping categories, then as now) of 1960 didn’t have the time or patience to make too many elaborate Jacobean embroidery pieces or huge, detailed tapestries, especially not right before the great rush to get Christmas presents under the tree, so the focus is on quick, easy-to-make novelties for gifts. The aesthetic sense does seem to get lost a bit, though, if you ask me.
(I notice that Word Press does not recognise the word “chairback”. They have been out of fashion for too many years, I guess, having fallen victim to cheaper furniture, more frequent hair-washings and less 
I really, really liked the idea of this embroidery project. Sadly, there was no colour photo, but the design is fun and very 1960 and I imagine the colours (Plum and Magenta with Cream and Fawn shades on deep green) to be quite striking. Working with tapestry wool instead of crewel cotton was (or would have been) another first, so all in all, I was eager to try it.
October and November are really the best months for knitting. The weather has gotten cold enough that you really want to wear and make warm, woolly things, and there’s the nice “surprise” of packing the winter clothes out of storage, and so remembering what nice hand-knitted pieces you made in other years. At least, that’s my experience.
September’s issue had a fantastic design of blackwork fish on a cushion. Blackwork is a type of embroidery combining counted-thread patterns (the fillings) with regular crewel embroidery stitches for outlines and details. I loved the way it looked but had never tried it before, so this was another Stitchcraft Sixties debut.
The pillow was easy to make up, as I didn’t use piping (I thought the design was bold enough that a plain edge would be nicer.) All in all, I love the look of blackwork but don’t like the effort. I guess it’s easier on a looser-weave fabric where you can really see the holes in the weave to count them. It was made as a gift for a friend who I think will really like and appreciate it, and I feel happy giving it to her, as I am quite satisfied with the final result.
September 1960 is supposedly a “Special Number” of autumn knitting fashions. I’m not sure what exactly makes it so special, since it doesn’t seem to have any more, or particularly different, projects than the average issue. I guess it’s special in that September is finally a bit cooler weather-wise, so you can start to make some nice wool garments for the colder months — very appropriate in 2018, where we had the summer to end all summers. Things have cooled down a bit now, so I’m looking forward to wearing my (still unfinished) projects from July and August soon.
I loved this twinset at first sight. I loved the short raglan sleeves on the pullover, the cable-and-mesh panel on the front and the very original mock-turtleneck-meets-peter-pan collar. It’s one of the reasons I started this whole long-term Stitchcraft blog project, so I’m thrilled to have it come to life.
The cables have an interesting twist — literally. You put four stitches on the cable needle, knit the other four and then give the cable needle an extra 360 degree clockwise twist before knitting the stitches off of it. This gives them a cool extra definition. I forgot to do it once and it was almost unnoticeable — almost — but I didn’t want to rip back that far, so when everything was done I looped a little tiny thread around one of the cable stitches and just pulled it over more to the side and tacked it down by tying the thread ends in a knot on the wrong side. Look at the close-up picture above — can you tell which cable it was? I can’t on the finished garment. Good to know.
The cardigan is somewhat more plain, as it doesn’t have the cables, but it makes such a lovely set with the pullover — not to mention it’s an excellent “everyday” cardigan to go with lots of other outfits. The sleeves came out a bit long — I was obviously over-compensating for my long arms and the fact that I always have to lengthen the arms a bit — but it looks just as good with the cuffs turned back, and I can turn them down for extra warmth under a coat and gloves. I hadn’t expected the raglan sleeves to have so much armhole depth. I thought about adding facing ribbon to the button bands, but it turned out to not be necessary, as the cardigan fits fine whether buttoned or unbuttoned. In short, I am thrilled with my new twin-set and it will surely get a lot of use this winter.
This “charming and unusual design for larger sizes” (37-38 or 39-41 inch bust) features narrow dolman sleeves, crochet insertions, and horizontal bust darts.
I was interested to see how it worked out with the dolman sleeves. When I think of “dolman sleeves”, I think of those 1950s, or worse, 1980s garments with a huge triangle of fabric under the arm, which must have been very uncomfortable and inconvenient to wear. But after my April 1960 blouse with the horizontal cap sleeves worked out so well, I was willing to give this one a try. And it turned out great! There is no more extra fabric under the arms than there would be with set-in sleeves, and the horizontal construction gives plenty of room in the upper chest/back area, where I am quite wide. I guess the secret lies with the number of stitches cast on for the sleeves per row — this one had 2×8 rows and then 10×16 rows, making the sleeves narrow and more horizontal, thus less triangle-like.
The knitting was slow-going at 7 stitches to the inch, but of course once the body was done, so were the sleeves. Seaming was a nightmare, as the yarn (Herriot Fine from 
What took longer than expected was the whole crocheted edging-collar-button-band extravaganza. The crochet bands are extremely fiddly — they are crocheted onto each other as you go, it’s difficult to make them all exactly the same size, and each one needs its own, new piece of yarn. There are a total of 50 elements, so that’s 100 yarn ends to weave in right there. Then there’s the “inner” collar, the “outer” collar and the button bands, all of which are made separately and sewn on, and somehow need to end up symmetrical and fit properly on both sides. Of course, I sewed the collar on backwards the first time, forgot to switch the right and wrong sides at the collar fold, etc, etc. It all worked out in the end, though.
“Free and easy” is this month’s motto. Summer is here and nobody really feels like handling warm wool, so the emphasis is on “travel knits” (lightweight), “casual knits” (not too complicated) and “stroller styles” (loose and oversized). There is more embroidery and needlework than knitwear, and some easy sewing projects. Shall we relax and take a look?
I have to take a moment here to quote one of my favourite Roald Dahl stories, “The Boy Who Talked With Animals.” It’s about a little boy who saves a giant tortoise from the soup kettle, and Dahl’s description of the tourists waiting on the beach for the caught tortoise to be hauled in has, for some reason, stayed with me through the years:
You can also embroider a tablecloth, make tea-towels in huckaback, or attempt this fabulous tea cosy and/or evening bag in faux eighteenth-century tapestry. I so, so want to make this evening bag! I would love it and use it all the time. But I am too overwhelmed by the idea of trying to make a chart based solely on the photos — the design is fairly intricate — and having never before attempted tapestry work, I fear it would just be too much for a rank beginner. I will definitely file it away for future days when I know how to approach it better.
To be honest, the June 1960 issue didn’t really have any designs that enticed me. The little summer tops were nice, but I still hadn’t finished the little summer top I started 
This was my first time working in counted cross-stitch and I thought it would be easy. You just have to count the squares and thread the embroidery cotton through the holes in an x, right? I was so, so wrong. First of all, I didn’t know what “gauge” fabric to buy, so I chose one that seemed medium-sized to me, where I could see the holes pretty clearly. I should have chosen a size bigger, since the holes were still absolutely tiny to my (perfectly good) eyes. Counting the holes was much more difficult than I expected, since they all looked the same and seemed to move around when I tried to count them.
The embroidery itself was slow-going and not totally accurate, i.e. I do not think I always got the right number of threads (2×2 for each cross). Even when I did, the stitches were uneven and raggedy. (I did make sure that the stitches are all going in the same direction and the same top-bottom stitch pairing.) Also, it was just plain no fun to work. What a pity — the idea was so good!
After I finished the birds, I embroidered the initials of the happy couple underneath in simple block letters (not that it was simple to get the right stitch count and center it) and framed it in an embroidery hoop with the help of 
June, the month of leisure! Or at least, leisure knits — “Fashions for Sun and Sea.” Stitchcraft’s “editress”, Patience Horne, reminds us that it’s important to have something to knit or sew while on holiday, as “it helps us to relax”, and points out that “A lot of knitting and embroidery is done in the deck-chair by busy housewives who never get time at home, and find it difficult to ease off suddenly.”
1950s and 1960s… meaning the housewife/mother of the family had to shop, cook and keep the tent or living space tidy just as she did at home, but in worse conditions (rain, mud, no proper grocery stores, camp stove, having to fetch water for cooking and washing up). Doesn’t sound much like leisure time to me! Of course, if you were rich enough to stay in a nice hotel and eat out for meals you might well have some time for handcrafts, but that wasn’t a possibility for all families, and Stitchcraft‘s target audience was more working-to-middle-class.
This is definitely a “cosy of unusual charm”! (Despite the ripped corner on the back cover photo.) It features appliqué and embroidery with different designs on each side and instructions to make it up into either a regular cosy to put over the teapot, or a “nest” to put the teapot into.
bit of herringbone and the tiny straight stitches in the strawberries. Still, it was more ambitious than any embroidery I have tried up until now. It doesn’t look quite like the picture and I did take a little bit of licence, but on the whole I was pretty satisfied… except for the legs. Oh dear, oh my, oh no, the legs. I did them three times and they still look weird. Either the angle is wrong, or the thickness, or I don’t know what, but I figured doing it again would only chew up the fabric more, so it is what it is.
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.
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.
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!
Is it already May? Nothing makes time fly like writing monthly blog posts! May 1960 is a “Roundabout of Holiday Knitting” (complete with a little circus-fair logo that fills up any little dead space in the page formatting, how cute) where in “today’s story”, “no one thinks of going away without 2 or 3 brand-new woollies packed away in their luggage.” So let’s get started…
I am quite sure no small child wants to swim in hand-knitted wool trunks with a belt these days, but I imagine the sun-suit on the opposite page would be fun and practical for beach wear if made in cotton. The baby and older girls of the family get pretty cardigans or a tunic “to wear with her jeans.” I’m glad to see activewear for girls, since generally one is assumed to make pretty, decorative stuff for girls and strong, “manly” stuff for boys — sexism that is not surprising in 1960, but which always depresses me to see in today’s knitwear patterns for children.
The Stitchcraft Sixties 