March 1963: Overview

Cover photo, Stitchcraft magazine, March 1963

Start your engines and give that propeller a whirl! The theme of this month’s issue is “Fashion On The Go” and the photo team really outdid themselves in showcasing adventurous and enjoyable modes of transportation. “With the wonderful opportunities for travel”, writes “editress” Patience Horne, “you need clothes that are easy to wear and will carry you through the day without a lot of care and pressing.”

Travel opportunities definitely took off (pun intended) in the early 1960s. Passenger air travel, though still a luxury, became increasingly possible and affordable with the advent of jet aircraft. Ocean liners, challenged by the rise of air travel, revamped into cruise ships. The Eurail train pass was introduced in 1959. Huge improvements in automobile technology and design made the freedom of the open road more tempting and accessible than ever. Yearly sales of Vespa scooters doubled from 1956 to 1960. Of course there was very little, if any, concern for environmental factors, and the oil crises of the 1970s were far in the future. There was no better time to travel.

On the race-car track, our cover model is wearing her “Paris Flash Slimline Blazer” — a simple but elegant jacket in moss stitch — and her colleague is sporting a “Double Quick shirt waister” that promises to be “the perfect travelling dress”. In a lovely juxtaposition of modernity and history, the model in the photo next to her is posed in front of what looks like an old-fashioned, horse-drawn stage coach! Her twin-set is made in finer 4-ply wool and though you can’t see it in the photo, the jumper is made in normal stocking stitch and the cardigan in reversed stocking stitch. In a separate photo, you see her posed in front of a horse box — no doubt one of the horses who pull the coach. Train travel is covered with a beautiful photo of this tweedy green travelling coat. It looks very cosy, but as it is made from 60 ounces (!! 3 3/4 pounds or 1700 grams !!) of extra-bulky, extra-heavy Big Ben wool and unlined, I can only imagine how it will stretch and sag with time and wearing.

The centerfold photo showcases more glamorous nautical and aerial travel opportunities. (I am sorry to say that the photo is blurry in the magazine, not just in my photo.) The “boat-deck sweaters” are both in double knitting weight with plain stocking-stitch and collared-shirt form for him, fun nubbly Rimple wool and a welted front insertion with cute tied collar for her. Collars, in general, remain well in fashion, though they are not quite as large as in the last few seasons. The airplane enthusiasts in the right-hand photos sport a casual, oversized cabled cardigan in bulky Big Ben wool and a striped dolman-sleeve pullover in double knitting weight. The dolman pullover sits weirdly around the neck and looks like it would be awkward to wear.

For those who prefer more leisurely ways to travel, i.e. walking around town, here’s a “stroller sweater” in fluffy Ariel and a sort of diagonal basketweave stitch pattern. Even the children get a travel-themed photo, if only in the studio! While the little sister is very keen to drive her wooden locomotive, big brother is apparently tired of playing conductor (but still blocking the tracks…) They’ve both got wonderful things to wear. The two-tone pleated skirt is knitted sideways and the pleats sewn in with the making-up, and his light-weight pullover has another fun diagonal knit-and-purl pattern.

With all these wonderful things to knit, you would think the homewares would be less interesting, but there are still plenty of projects that are mostly small enough to pack with you on your travels. There are all sorts of cushions to embroider: darned and tufted in very 1960s colours (brown, biscuit, fawn, two shades of orange and two shades of rust), neon-on-black “peasant embroidery” in regular crewel work, and with a matching chair-back in Assisi embroidery — traditional Italian designs where the backgrounds and ornaments are filled in with cross-stitch, but the main motifs are left unworked. The Victorian-inspired tapestry chair seat and stitched bathroom rug are probably too unwieldy to pack, but the fine embroidered initials and baby outfit are easy and portable. Readers could order the pattern for the baby set along with the embroidery transfer.

The back pages feature the worst of the Patons & Baldwins “please your man” advertisements, in which a woman can’t even knit herself something for once or look nice in it without all of it being To Please Him. (And then she has to pretend to be interested in whatever boring mansplaining he’s doing with the book he’s showing her.) I can’t help thinking of that scene in Vertigo where James Stewart’s character is trying to get Kim Novak’s character to dye her hair… and she doesn’t want to… and he gets more and more frustrated before blurting out, “It can’t matter to you!” Alfred Hitchcock would have approved of this ad.

The “Children’s Features” continue the alternative telling of the Miss Muffet rhyme story, in which Miss Muffet, leaving the home of the kindly spider-lady, gets captured up by a grumpy beetle, saved by the first spider, and then in turn saves a captured beetle who promises her a present. What could it be? We will find out in next month’s issue!

None of the larger projects are begging me to make them and I’m still working through the WIP pile, so I’m going to use some of that fine embroidery on the vintage handkerchiefs I inherited from my grandmother.

February 1963: Needlepoint Bag

Magazine photo of a needlepoint church kneeler and prayer book (1963)

I was a bit uninspired by the February 1963 issue, which had several nice garments that were either too bulky for my taste or would just take too long to finish. I’m also trying to work from stash as much as possible. With that in mind, I adapted this “Prayer book cover and kneeler for a bride” tapestry design for a small, simple needlepoint bag.

My first, and until now, only tapestry/needlepoint project (what is the difference, anyway? Stitchcraft always uses the word “tapestry”and often qualifies it with gros point or petit point, but I see “needlepoint” used just as often in other sources) was this unfinished failure from the May 1961 issue. I still had the wool and enough canvas to make a smaller bag using the flower part of the design from the prayer-book cover.

Since the original chart was not printed in the magazine but had to be ordered via post, I had to recreate it myself on graph paper, which wasn’t too difficult. The basic stitch is a half cross stitch, which works much better with this combination of wool thickness and canvas density than the earlier project, which was all in cross-stitch. The flower heads are made with eye stitch — 8 stitches all going into the same center hole. The stems of the flowers and the little hash marks between them in the original are supposed to be embroidered over the tapestry using gold Lurex thread, but I changed that to add some little pink and yellow blossom-like accents and just worked the stems in green wool.

Needlepoint chart drawn on graph paper with coloured pencils

So far, so good. I ordered a little bag clasp, marked out the approximate area of the needlepoint and started on the first half. In the middle of the large piece of canvas. Obviously that was a bad move, because a bag has to be worked symmetrically along the bottom fold line, no? The canvas was just large enough to divide it into two parts, but obviously it would have been better to work the whole thing in one mirrored piece and not have to sew a seam on the fraying bottom edge.

Once that problem was solved, I found the actual work to be relaxing, if somewhat boring (lots and lots of grey background). Also, I just barely squeaked through with enough grey wool to finish both pieces. The hard part came when fitting the finished tapestry into the clasp frame and dealing with the lining. The tapestry was… strangely twisted? The two sides of the bag did not lie flat over each other even though both pieces were perfectly identical and perfectly mirrored. I steamed the life out of it with the steam iron and managed to get it flatter, but… why? How? Things only got worse when I added the lining. I hate sewing and I hate linings. No matter how carefully I cut out a lining to the correct size and pin it and mark it and all the other boring things you are supposed to do, it never, ever comes out to the right size, or lies flat, or looks neat and deliberate. (I did manage to get the lining into the bag with a nice neat edge at the top… then realised it made no difference, as the top edge was going to be sewn to the metal clasp.)

The clasp has holes in it to sew the bag and lining in on the top and sides, and it was clear enough how that should be done, but theory was easier than practice and there was much clenching of teeth and growling. Also, a lot of that nice neat edge needed to be painstakingly ripped out to fit it over the clasp rim, reducing the nice neatness considerably. Did I mention how much I hate sewing? In the end, the edge was quite messy on the inside and not perfectly aligned on the outside. Both the needlepoint and the lining are oddly twisted and uneven and steaming it didn’t help anymore.

My take from this project: Needlepoint is fine, but not as much fun as knitting. Some older issues of Stitchcraft give an address where you can send tapestry projects in to be professionally made up into a bag or cosy or whatever “for a reasonable price” and if that service still existed, I would definitely take advantage of it! I have to make up the project myself, it is not worth it.

February 1963: Overview

This month’s issue brings us on another lovely photographic journey, with “elegant settings for Spring Fashions” in and around historic Bath. Looking closer at the photos, it’s clear that some thought went into the combinations of outfit and setting. The “city” photos show models in elegant knitted dresses or suit-like separates, whilst the “country” photos highlight the continuing trend for casual, bulky garments that could theoretically be worn as outer garments instead of a coat in spring weather.

Our cover model starts off the “city” look with a fur-trimmed dress in “Ariel“, a bulky, yet airy triple-knit wool-acrylic blend. It’s advertised as being “light as thistledown” — the whole dress uses 14, 15 or 16 2-ounce balls of wool, which comes out to about 550 grams for the middle size stitch pattern. I’m guessing the diagonal slip-stitch herringbone pattern and ribbed, belted waistline also help control any sagging. The same yarn and same stitch pattern are used for a jumper-and-skirt set in a dramatic yellow and black colour combination. Look at that model’s hair! I always thought people with red hair should never wear yellow, but she looks amazing. Bobbles on ties feature in both the belt of the dress and the neckline of the jumper and skirts are still just below the knee.

Rounding out the elegant city category is a classic skirt set whose rectangular, unshaped form is made more elegant by the use of vertical lines on the cardigan. Bouclet wool in fingering weight keeps the effect sleek and light.

For casual country wear (a.k.a. “The Open-Air Look”), bulky Big Ben wool is still the first choice, or double knitting weight for a somewhat lighter look. Both the men’s and women’s garments are hip-length and unshaped and cardigans are mean to be worn buttoned. At the same time, interesting stitch patterns, textured wools and details like collars and pockets break up some of the shapeless-bulky effect. Even toddlers can join in on the fashion fun with a knitted bathrobe, which showcases many of the current trends (bulky “Ariel”, textured stitch pattern, contrasting collar and cuffs, and a bobble-tie belt) as well as being practical for chilly homes in February.

The homewares in this issue are mostly standard fare — cutwork or embroidered aprons, tablecloths or finger plates — but a couple of more creative ideas stand out. There’s a pile rug with a “modern” design, which I would have loved to have seen in a colour photo (note guitar and records — I did mention that the Beatles’ first album came out in 1963, right?) and a crocheted and cross-stitched bathmat that makes it very clear in which room it belongs (though I can’t help laughing when I think that this issue was also photographed in Bath — they could have had some absurd fun with the bath mat in front of the cathedral or one of the historic buildings…)

For tapestry fans, there’s a prayer book cover and kneeler “for an Easter bride” with a flowery cross pattern, using gold Lurex thread together with wool (kneeler) or silk (book cover) for extra luxury. There’s also a footstool made up of old tins! They used old stockings to pad and wrap the clean, empty tins, then stitched fabric around the bottom and sides and covered the top with the tapestry. The result is a bit oddly shaped, but I suppose it would be quite useful — strong and able to support a bit of weight, but still quite light — and I admire the creativity and the upcycling spirit.

There are no particularly interesting advertisements in this issue, but in the ongoing children’s retelling-of-fairy-tales comic series, Miss Muffet gets invited to the spider’s home, where Mrs. Spider shows her the lace curtains and tablecloths she has spun out of spider-silk and teaches her to spin a shawl. How sweet! Next month: “The Beetle-lady.” (Also: Note the ruler printed on the side of the page, to make it easy to check your knitting tension. It’s in every issue.)

I’m a bit at a loss as to what project to make from this issue. I love the “Ariel” cover dress and yellow sweater, but I have serious stash overflow and so, so many unfinished projects, so I would prefer to make something small and easy. I am not religious and would probably not have much use for a prayer-book cover or kneeling pad even if I were, but the flower tapestry design without the cross would be pretty and versatile, and I still have tapestry wool and backing fabric from an earlier failed project. The question is, what should I make out of it? A clutch purse? Coin purse? Cell phone cosy?? I already have so many little zippered bags for knitting tools and sewing notions and general “stuff”. I’ll give it some thought and let you know. If it’s easy enough, I will hopefully be able to finish up and edit some of the WIPs lying dormant in the blog. Stay tuned!

January 1963: Junior Fashion

This month’s issue had a wonderful winter pullover for a larger child, featuring white “Swiss darning” (a.k.a. duplicate stitch embroidery) on a brilliant red background. I had also promised a friend to knit something for her toddler, whose favourite colour is red. Perfect!

Well, not quite perfect, since the toddler in question has a 22 inch chest and the pattern is written for children with 28, 30 or 32 inch chests. But it’s also written for DK weight wool and it was easy enough to find a lighter-weight wool to convert the pattern down into a smaller size. DROPS Garnstudio “Nord” (45% alpaca, 30% polyamide, 25% wool) gives 26-27 stitches in 4 inches and is soft and easy to care for. It’s also inexpensive and the red colour is beautiful. The white is just subtly off-white, which I like better than pure white for pairing with a really strong colour like the red.

The pattern uses stocking stitch and reverse stocking stitch to make square-ish pattern “blocks”, which are embroidered with white wool in duplicate stitch after everything is finished. Duplicate stitch or “Swiss darning” as it was often called in vintage magazines, is made by threading a length of contrasting colour yarn around stitches that have already been made. I had seen it on garments and in many vintage patterns (all kinds of embroidery on knitting was quite popular in the 1950s and early 1960s), but I had never tried it myself until now. It is pretty easy in principle, but tricky to get the stitches to look even — in this smooth yarn, any pulling of the thread made the embroidered stitches disappear. But it worked and it really peps up an otherwise simple pattern!

I made the body in the round to save time, but correctly guessed that it would be easier to embroider the sleeves if I made them flat.

This was fun and easy to make and I actually finished it on time for once! I have plenty of yarn left, so I think I’ll go ahead and make the hat before I give both to my friend. EDIT: I made the hat! Here is an updated photo.

January 1963: Overview

Happy New Year, everyone! It’s 2021 in the real world and 1963 in the Stitchcraft Sixties blog world. The real-life 1963 was a turbulent year: the Cold War escalated, as did the war in Vietnam; the civil rights movement in the US both gained ground and suffered violent setbacks; John F. Kennedy was assassinated; the Second Vatican council entered a new phase. In England, scandals abounded in the wake of the Profumo affair and the divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. On a happier note, the Beatles recorded their first album, Please Please Me, kicking off Beatlemania around the world, and women in Iran gained the right to vote. Also, the smiley-face symbol was invented. 🙂

Of course, none of this — not even the Beatles or the smiley face — had any direct influence on Stitchcraft (certainly not in the January issue, before any of it happened…). What we think of as “1960s fashion” — the miniskirt, the “space age” look, the shift dress, the Mod look, the hippie-bohemian styles of the later years of the decade — was just gearing up around 1963, and Stitchcraft was a fashion-conservative magazine. That said, holdover fashions from the 1950s like fitted, waist-length cardigans and wide, swingy skirts have disappeared completely by now; the female models often wear trousers or “slacks” and casual, bulky-knit sweaters are ubiquitous.

So what does January 1963 have in store for us? The theme of the January 1963 issue is “Paris Casuals” and resolves to start with “a bumper all-round family number.” For adults, that means warm, comfortable jumpers and cardigans in a range of wool weights with V-necks or interesting collars and textured stitch patterns. The cover garment epitomises all the trends: made in bulky Big Ben wool in a two-colour slip stitch pattern, it sports “this season’s Paris collar choice and longer line.” The textured raglan cardigan is a similar look, as is the man’s casual cardigan on the back cover. The bouclet cardigan gives a nod to earlier fashions with its choice of fine wool and classic shape, but here too it is longer and looser-fitting than previous classic bouclet garments. A simple collared jumper in double knitting with attractive fine details rounds out the adult garment selection.

There are great winter fashions for children, first and foremost the girl’s skating set of skirt and collared pullover. Unfortunately, I suspect something went wrong with the sample knit, as both pictures show the model turned 3/4 away from the camera and it’s not clear how it is supposed to look from the front. (Also, could someone please give her some warm tights to wear before she goes out onto the ice.) Toddlers get a cute “buster suit” with a design of cherries on the jumper, and older children get a wonderful hoodie (to use the modern term) and jumper-cap set to wear while playing in the snow. (Or in the photo studio — check out the snowman and snowball made of wool and/or cushion stuffing fluff!). Crisp, wintery colours of blue and red with white are trending. Notice also that the girl model is wearing trousers, the hooded sweater is unisex, and the model wearing the red outfit in the black and white photo is allowed to be active and tomboyish for once. I wouldn’t even have known she was a girl if the sweater weren’t (for whatever reason) considered specifically a girls’ garment. Slowly, very slowly, roles are changing.

Babies get a pram cover instead of a garment this time — padded and quilted to be extra warm — and there’s a cute bedjacket and fantastic “tower” hat that is perfectly in fashion. (Side note: The caption, “PARIS HAT”, makes me think of that line “If a Harris pat means a Paris hat, Bébé… ooh la la!” in “Always True To You In My Fashion” from the musical Kiss Me, Kate. In true Cole Porter style, it’s an upbeat love song… in which the singer explains to her boyfriend that her dalliances with other men for gifts and money — basically sex work, though of course not explicitly described in those terms — shouldn’t count as infidelity, since she’s only doing it for the financial benefits and is true to him in her heart. Ah, romance! Anyway, the hat is great.)

With all the great knitted items, home fashions are pretty standard this month. There are rugs and cushions, a lovely embroidered tablecloth and tea-cosy set, a tapestry picture, a cutwork table set, a very impressive crocheted doily and a hassock or kneeling cushion for church-goers.

The “readers’ pages” have a review of what was probably a very interesting book on dressmaking for dolls, and –bucking the “single girl” trend of the early 1960s — we’ve got another “stand by your man and knit him something” ad for P&B wools (though this one is really quite sweet and romantic, unlike the “you only exist to be pretty for him” ad seen in other issues). There’s also a new cartoon serial for children: a re-telling of the “Little Miss Muffet” nursery rhyme, where Miss Muffet is not at all afraid of the spider. I’m sure, when she grows up, she will be not at all afraid to suggest to her man that he knit something for her for once.

My project from this issue will probably be a scaled-down version of one of the children’s sweaters for a smaller child. Stay tuned!

Out of Order: Felt Stars, December 1963

2020 has been a bad year for many things, but a good year for little home-made presents made from stash. I used a lot of cotton fabric for pandemic masks (with an added inner layer of fabric cut from an upcycled duvet cover made of special hypoallergenic tight-weave, dust-mite-proof fabric) and a big piece of green felt went to this iPad cosy, but I still had plenty of large scraps of all kinds of materials and the usual box full of odd buttons and leftover embroidery floss. Meanwhile, the holiday season was upon us, all the stores were closed and I wanted to be frugal with money but still be able to leave some mini-presents in friends’ mailboxes with a card and some cookies. These little felt stars from the December 1963 issue of Stitchcraft were the perfect choice.

There was a life-size transfer in the magazine to trace (or photocopy and cut out — I’m lucky to have a printer at home that is also a scanner and single-page copier) with samples of the three star designs to copy onto the points of the star. I traced it onto the felt with chalk, cut out two stars, picked my favourite design, and embroidered away. (Technically I should have first traced the design onto the fabric, then embroidered it and then cut out the stars, but it worked anyway.)

I had neither sequins nor pearls, so I just did everything in embroidery and added a button for the center on one side. I overstitched the edges to make a little cushion, added a loop for hanging on a tree and stuffed it with polyester fluff. Wonderful! The first star went to a fellow knitter from my now-online knitting meetup — we did a Zoom version of our usual “secret Santa” wool gifting party — and by then I was so involved in getting people’s knitted gifts finished that I ended up not making any more this year. Now that I know how it works, and that it works, I can make more next time.

Merry Christmas, if that’s your holiday, and happy New Year to all of you.

December 1962: Quick and Easy Cushion

I have a huge backlog of unfinished projects and recently even got a commission to write a pattern for a new knitting and sewing magazine, so I needed the December project to be something quick and easy that I could make from stash. Behold, a very 1960s crocheted flower-petal cushion from this month’s issue! I love cheerful crocheted cushions and afghans — they have that fun, old-fashioned charm.

This one is made in double knitting, and I had two colours of blue and one of green to make a big, blue flower. I guess it’s a cornflower? Whatever, it’s cute and the colours looked good together. The dark blue is 100% acrylic (left over from this project and this project, which was patterned after this project — yes, I bought plenty of yarn), the light blue is 90% alpaca / 10% sheep wool (a gift from a very nice friend who brought it over from Chile!) and the green is a wool-acrylic blend last seen in this project from January 1960, so I was concerned that the finished item might behave inconsistently when washed or blocked, but I had no problems with that.

The size and scale, on the other hand… There was no tension given in the instructions, only a finished size of “approximately 17 inches diameter” and instructions to use double knitting wool and a No. 8 (5 mm) hook. The cushion is made in pieces — first the petals, then the triangular inserts at the top of the petals, then the center, then it gets sewn together, then you crochet the border and sew it onto fabric for the back side of the cushion — so it was hard to tell how big it was going to be. Also, the instructions very clearly say to make 12 petals and 12 insertions, but the accompanying photo very clearly shows a cushion with 16 petals and insertions. Patience Horne, you need a tech editor and a proofreader!

The result — once I had finished all 16 petals and 16 insertions, which was in fact the correct number to get the petals to form a circle, and sewn all the fiddly bits and pieces together — was huge. Granted, 17 inches in diameter is a fairly large cushion, but mine was 19 inches in diameter before I had even started crocheting the border, and the triangular insertions were also too big, making them pucker and wave a bit. I made a snap decision to just crochet the border larger and larger until all of the green wool was used up and have it be a baby blanket instead of a cushion, which would also spare me the trouble of figuring out how to make the back of the cushion, whether or not to make an inner cushion pad and have the crocheted part be a removable cover, etc. etc.

The border in the instructions only being a few rounds and me not being the world’s best crocheter, I searched for a formula to crochet something in rounds of double crochet that would have the right amount of increase per round to keep the circle flat. Though I found many amazing doily patterns and not-quite-fitting formulas, I didn’t find what I was looking for, so I just increased one stitch per petal each round and did a plain round in between every so often. There was much ripping back and doing over, but in the end it worked out fine. As for the still-puckery triangle inserts, I declared them a “design feature” and left it at that.

I wash-blocked the blanket, which evened it out some more, and only then realised that I had forgotten to embroider the lines down the center of each petal. In the end, I decided against it. The dark blue and green yarns were all used up, I didn’t have any other colour that looked right and I honestly thought it was fine the way it was. The finished size is 23 1/2 inches or 60 cm in diameter, which will fit a baby’s pram nicely. Not having a baby on hand, here it is with a teddy bear for scale:

It’s not perfect and it definitely has that “home-made charm”, but I think it will make any parents and baby happy.

December Extra: Stitchcraft Cooking, September 1949

“Someone coming to tea, nothing much in the house and you are short of materials?” None of those things are likely to be true in our pandemic-stricken December 2020, but if it were September 1949, you might very well find yourself making one of Stitchcraft‘s recipes from this issue. After having excellent results with December 1949’s nut loaf recipe and fairly disastrous results with September 1949’s (this same issue) “oat crunchies”, I was cautiously excited to try out the date and ginger cake, which was promised to be “very welcome” and have a “delicious flavour”. It certainly looks appetising in the photo.

It claimed to make a 2-pound cake (weight, not price …) and that sounded huge to me, so I decided to make a half recipe for the first experimental run, using my little 16-centimetre-diameter round spring-form pan. The measurements in the original recipe are all in old-fashioned ounces by weight, so I did some halving and rounding to convert to gram measurements. (Apologies to any of my American readers who may want to try my version of the recipe at home — I meant to notice and record the measurements by volume as well, but I was too caught up in adapting that I forgot!)

Admittedly, there was a lot to adapt. The Stitchcraft recipe starts off with 8 ounces of self-raising flour, which I don’t use, so I had to figure out how much baking powder I should use for one-half of 8 ounces i.e. 4 ounces i.e. approximately 113 grams of flour. One teaspoon seemed right to me. One egg can’t reasonably be halved, so, one egg. Three ounces of margarine divided by two converts to about 40 grams — not very much for a cake! Then there’s one tablespoon of syrup or black treacle (“the latter for preference”) — I am lucky enough to be able to buy actual date syrup in my local yuppie organic supermarket, so I used a whole tablespoonful of that and reduced the sugar (I used Demerara brown sugar) to 1 tablespoon, so a bit less than half of the 3 tablespoons called for. Then 5 to 6 ounces of chopped dates (about 70 grams?), 3/4 cup aka a generous 1/4 cup milk (I used oat milk), and 1/2 = 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate-soda i.e. baking soda. Plus almond and lemon essences (“although not essential, they do improve the flavour”) and/or a teaspoon or half teaspoon of lemon juice.

Are you still with me? Is your head spinning? You understand why I forgot to record the volume measurements. Also… where is the ginger??

I read the recipe again. Definitely called “Date and Ginger Cake”. The description definitely mentioned the it was the combination of “dates, ginger and essences” (emphasis mine) that gave this cake its delicious flavour. And definitely no actual ginger mentioned in the list of ingredients! I think the cooking editress needs a proofreader. So I chopped up about 60 grams of dates and 20 grams of candied ginger, which looked like a good amount for a small cake, and added about a half or maybe it was closer to a whole teaspoon of grated lemon peel.

On to the recipe itself. “Rub fat into flour” — I was again impressed at the relatively small amount of margarine — “add dates, sugar and ginger”. Ah, so it is supposed to have ginger in it after all! Pro tip: toss the chopped dates in some of the flour before adding it to the mixture, so they don’t stick together. “Break egg straight into dry ingredients; stir in treacle.” The italics are original and I wonder what that “straight” is supposed to mean. Don’t beat the egg first? Don’t throw it in at an angle? “Dissolve bi-carbonate soda and essences in milk, add to mixture and mix thoroughly.” Okay. According to the recipe, the resulting batter should be fairly sticky and mine had a bit more liquid, so I added some more flour, then put it in the cake pan and baked it. The recipe said to bake it at Regulo 4, or 375 degrees, for … one and a half hours? That seemed excessive even when reduced for a half recipe, so I set a timer for 30 minutes.

It baked fine in that time, though a little less would have been even better. Then I added my own personal secret ingredient: coconut icing. Nothing goes better with dates and ginger than coconut! I used a sweet coconut spread from the same organic supermarket, slightly warmed and then smoothed over the top, but it’s easy enough to make it yourself from coconut oil, dried coconut whizzed through a grinder to make a sort of powder, powdered sugar and a little coconut milk. Heat together in a double boiler until liquid enough to spread and spread it on the still-warm cake, then let it cool well.

It looked good, but did it taste good? Yes! It tasted delicious. The consistency was a bit on the dry and crumbly side, which I guess is to be expected with so little fat in the batter, but the icing balanced that out perfectly. The date and ginger flavours came through well and harmonised. And it had that depth of flavour that comes from good gingerbread or spice cake, although I used no extra spices. The half-recipe cake is small, but rises well and will surely keep for a while if covered and in the refrigerator. It makes the perfect cake for your socially distanced, one-person 2020 holiday teatime. (If that’s any consolation.)

Here’s my version of the recipe, for a small cake:

DATE AND GINGER CAKE

125 grams flour (you can mix 1/2 whole grain and 1/2 white)
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
40 grams margarine
60 grams chopped, dried, pitted dates
20 grams chopped candied ginger
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 tbsp brown or Demerara sugar
1 tbsp date syrup, dark sugar syrup or molasses/treacle
1 small egg
1/4 cup milk or milk substitute (almond, oat)
1/4 tsp baking soda
Coconut icing

Toss dates in a small portion of the flour. Mix rest of flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl; add margarine in small chunks and rub into the flour with fingers until crumbly. Add dates, sugar, ginger and lemon peel and mix. Make a small well in center of mixture and break the egg into it. Add syrup. Dissolve baking soda in milk; add to mixture and mix everything until blended. Drop into a greased and floured 16-centimetre-diameter round spring-form cake pan, smooth surface evenly and bake at 180 degrees C for approximately 30 minutes. Set on a rack to cool. Warm the icing in a small double boiler or microwave until spreadable and smooth over the still-warm cake. Decorate with date slivers, ginger or shredded coconut as desired and let cool completely before serving.

December 1962: Overview

It’s that time of year again, and Stitchcraft is getting into the festive season with their annual Christmas issue — though if it weren’t for the wreath on the door behind our cover model and the other model in the window holding a metallic tree and box of ornaments, I wouldn’t know it was the Christmas issue at all.

The suit on the cover is “The Suit for Spring ’63”, made in Bracken Tweed double knitting (colour: “Green Witch”! Great name) and trimmed with black braid, like the November 1961 suit from which I made the blazer last year. The December 1962 jacket has no buttons and more of a boxy “swing-line” shape, like the classic Chanel suits that were especially popular in the early 1960s. The simple pink blouse worn with the suit was made from a Vogue pattern which could be ordered via Stitchcraft, thus completing the outfit.

The other larger knitting projects are either warm, bulky and practical for the cold, or fancy, pretty things to wear to parties. In the first category, there’s a wonderful hooded coat for a toddler which keeps out “all the draughts” — except, of course, the ones traveling up her bare legs! I still feel sympathetically sad every time I see pictures of cold-weather children from pre-1970s eras with five layers of wool on their upper bodies but basically nothing on the bottom half.

There’s a zig-zag patterned sweater in Big Ben wool for a larger child or young teen (who is luckily old enough to wear trousers, as seen in another photo) and a stranded design in double knitting that fits into the same “harlequin” diamond-pattern idea (though the adult version makes me think of spiky eyes looking out at me). Also in double knitting is the cabled turtleneck “for the extra slim” (30-31 or 32-33 inch bust). Rounding out the warmer designs are two partner-look sweaters in bulky Ariel and an “Italian stitch” (stranded knitting and purling — that’s going to be really warm and bulky.) The “Continental” trend can be seen in the spiky-eyes sweater as well, which is apparently of Viennese (as per page 20) and/or Tyrolean (as per back cover) design.

Then there are the party clothes: a fluffy cardigan for a young girl and a beaded 2-ply blous with minimal shaping and a beaded crochet finish on the neckline. Holly green is always a hit in the winter designs and other than that, the preferred colour is white with bright contrasts in red, orange or turquoise. The cabled turtleneck is made in “Lipstick Red”.

Surprisingly, this month’s homewares are not particularly special. Our year of embroidered flowers has come to an end with a design of “Christmas roses” (really, they’re just roses) and readers could back-order any transfers they might have missed over the course of the year to make a tablecloth with all of the 12 flower designs on it. There are quick, easy cushions in darning or crochet and a cutwork design for another tablecloth.

The Christmas issues of Stitchcraft usually have a lot of very creative and sometimes bizarre ideas for knick-knacks, small gifts and other “novelties”, but this year seems to put more focus back on knit designs. There are a few small sewing projects that could work as gifts any time of the year — little aprons, a pincushion doll and a sewing case. The winter-motif mats for the Christmas table, a small tapestry scene and a felt Father Christmas wall panel that you can pin cards to are more appropriate to the holiday theme, and the back pages give readers a few traditional cross-stitch motifs to adapt to their own use and ideas for table trimmings. The table-trimming “trees” are made of sequinned tissue-paper trees stuck on top of empty sewing-thread spools and the “Berries and Twigs” are twiggy branches from a real tree, painted white and decorated with red wool pom-pom “berries” and foil leaves.

Christmas and any other large family get-together holidays are obviously not happening this year, but — good news! — as the blog year 1962 draws to a close, so too does the real-life year 2020, which I’m pretty sure most of us can agree was awful. I hope you all continue to get through it with minimal damage and enjoy the holiday season as much as possible in a pandemic-safe way. My project for this month will be the easy crocheted cushion, and finishing up all the unfinished projects.

November 1962: Star Motif Embroidery

The November 1962 issue had so many exciting projects that I wanted to make, but as I am woefully behind on so many other projects, I settled for a modern version of the cute embroidered tea cosy from this “star motif” cosy-and-tray-cloth set. The star design only really comes out on the tray cloth, where flowers with spiky leaf bases are embroidered in circles. The tea cosy has the flowers arranged individually in lines.

Since I don’t use tea cosies, I adapted the design as an iPad / tablet cosy, like I did with the “Gay Goslings” design from April 1960 and the “Posies for Cosies” from March 1961. I had plenty of green felt left over from the not-so-successful October 1960 “No Fun Fuchsia” project and enough scraps of embroidery floss in fitting colours to make everything from stash.

Obviously I didn’t have a transfer, but luckily this design is so simple that I was able to just draw around a coin with chalk for the flower heads and add in the stems freehand. I say “simple” and “just”, but the felt material was of a nature that chalk does not stick to it for more than a minute and the colour is too dark to draw on with a pencil or embroidery marking pen. My continuing incompetence in drawing, cutting or embroidering straight lines came back to haunt me! Oh well, that’s how you know it’s handmade.

The tea cosy has three rows of flowers: three in the top row, four in the second and five in the third. Not sure exactly how to scale the design for a tablet cosy, I started by embroidering two rows of flowers with three flowers in the top row and two in the bottom row. I didn’t like the asymmetry, so I filled in the gaps with more flowers aligned upside down.

Making it up into a bag was straightforward enough (except for the not being able to cut in straight lines thing, even using a ruler and template) and I finished it off with a vintage fabric-covered button from the button box. I’m quite happy with the result, even if the design is not entirely even and the buttonhole stitch pulls to the center of some of the flowers (not sure how to correct that.) And it went so fast! I did the embroidery last night and made it up into a bag this afternoon.

It looks very 1960s!

Since I still use and love my “gay gosling” iPad cover, I will send this one to a friend as a birthday/Christmas present.

Stitchcraft Extras: WAVE~LINKS

Progress on actual projects has been going slowly this month, but here’s a fun extra: a video about the connections between performing early music and knitting from vintage patterns, written, directed by and starring yours truly.

In “real life” (i.e. what I do for a living when I am not knitting) I’m a professional concert and opera singer, and as you all may imagine, work has been more or less non-existent since the pandemic hit. Among other upheavals, my friends and colleagues Yonit Kosovske and Vlad Smishkewych had to first postpone, then completely overhaul the launch of their new organisation for early music, H.I.P.S.T.E.R. (Historically Informed Performance Series, Teaching, Education and Research). Being the creative people that they are, they re-imagined part of the launch as a new video series exploring connections between music and artisanry, called WAVE~LINKS.

Many of us professional musicians perform or engage with other artistic genres, and the idea behind WAVE~LINKS was to showcase those “other” passions and serve as a platform to discuss and reflect upon the shared spaces between (early) music and other artistic disciplines. And we are a very creative bunch! The online H.I.P.S.T.E.R. launch on November 7th, 2020 featured videos from creative artists around the globe sharing their insights into links between music and poetry,
painting, pottery, photography, dance, knitting, weaving, fermentation, wood working, and more.

My video is about knitting, obviously, and the similarities that I find between historical performance practice as it relates to singing early music, and historical “knitting practice” as it relates to working with and from vintage pattern sources. I hope it is interesting to musicians and knitters alike.

Enjoy it, and if you like it, check out the other WAVE~LINKS videos on the H.I.P.S.T.E.R. web site, their Facebook page or their YouTube channel. I can especially recommend the video by Rosemary Heredos, a fellow singer and knitter whose video explores the connections between singing, knitting and spinning wool.

November 1962: Overview

For 1960s Stitchcraft readers, November means holiday planning, so this month’s issue is full of quick homewares for decorating and small, easy projects for gift-giving. The garments are warm and bulky, featuring Patons’ new “Ariel” wool. Warm autumn tones of brown and orange as well as bright, cheerful holiday reds and blues are the colours of the season. Christmas Plans and Winter Fashions ahoy!

Our cover garment is a bulky, yet elegant coat in Big Ben wool, weighing in at a hefty 52-56 ounces (up to 3 1/2 pounds, or about 1500 grams). The mock cable/twisted rib pattern certainly won’t curl at the bottom edge, which is why I guess it’s designed without a hem or ribbing, but at that weight and in that pattern, I suspect the coat would grow ever longer and ever narrower (just in time for holiday weight gain). Still, it looks lovely! I especially like the buttoned collar. Also, I just might try to re-create the model’s hairdo with my long lockdown hair.

The outdoor photography was taken near historical buildings in York, whose grey-beige stone walls give a nice background to the bright red and blue sweaters made with “Ariel” a bulky, yet “feather-light” (well… 20-24 ounces for a sweater, so lighter than Big Ben, at least) wool-synthetic mix. I really like the red chevron sweater and it doesn’t look bulky at all to me, just fluffy and cosy. Father and daughter also get warm, cheerful garments, and look at this amazing mini-dress for a young miss! That is going on my list of patterns to adapt for myself.

Older teens and young lovers can make “the ‘sweater-match’ theme with girl-friend and boy-friend” – classic pullovers with cable ribs in double-knitting weight and identical except for slightly different shoulder width and back length proportions. That’s all for the knitted garments in this issue, since the real focus is on Christmas preparations with little gifts and housewares.

For children’s gifts, there’s a doll, clothes for another doll (pattern in last month’s issue), and a night case in the form of a puppy. This last was especially popular around the late 1950s and early 1960s – I have a different magazine with a poodle nightcase on the cover, and Stitchcraft also had some kind of poodle nightcase in the later 1950s. Poodle or puppy or not, I don’t know why a person would want to put their nightgown in a special case in or on the bed. If you don’t want other people who might be using the room to see your nightdress lying around, you could just… put it under the pillow?

There’s an intriguing “Byzantine” cushion, a firescreen with this month’s embroidered flower (chrysanthemum) and some little gifts sewn in felt, but the more interesting projects are displayed nicely in the large colour photo in the middle of the issue. We’ve got an embroidered farm scene for the nursery wall, a “hostess set” of apron and coasters featuring international drinking mottos, the usual cross-stitch cushion, and a tray cloth/tea cosy design that I would love to adapt to an iPad/tablet cover. Crocheters can use up all their scraps with medallions or a … cute? eerie? not sure what to say about it? pixie doll and patchwork fans, generally ignored by Stitchcraft, finally have a little bag as a starter project.

There are even rugs in Scandinavian designs (is that basket pattern from Denmark or from Sweden?), one stitched, the other done with a latch-hook.

What an issue! There are so many projects I would like to make from it: the girl’s dress in my size, an embroidered tea-cosy for the digitalised world, the little girl’s bulky red sweater, even the green latch-hook rug. Sadly, pandemic and lockdown have thrown a monkey wrench into my current knitting plans, it’s hard to get supplies, and I’m trying to finish or even start multiple other large projects that were planned or promised or have been lying in the WIP pile for ever. One of those WIPs was a (non-vintage) garment that I will have to frog anyway (ran out of wool and can’t make it work), so the plan is to frog that project and use the wool to make “Father’s cardigan” from this issue. Said project and I are geographically separated at the moment, though, so long story short: I do not know when I will be able to post a November project. Take heart, though: there will be some more Stitchcraft cooking fun in December as well as a special surprise next week.

Repeat Performance: Charming Blouse

EDIT: Finally finished in March 2021!

It was very difficult to get a project going this month. The October 1962 issue of Stitchcraft didn’t have any designs that interested me and I had been trying to finish up some larger, non-vintage projects in time for the cold-weather season. But inspiration came from a good friend of mine, who politely reminded me that, way back when I made this “charming blouse”, I had casually offered to knit one for her if she ever wanted one, and wouldn’t this be a good time to make it for her? I agreed! So this month’s project echoed the one I made then. Here are photos from that issue and the finished project:

The original blouse, from the July 1960 issue, was designed for “larger”, curvier figures (37-38 or 39-41 inch bust) and featured horizontal bust darts, which was very unusual for knitting patterns of the time. I was intrigued to see how the bust darts would turn out, since I don’t usually make them on garments for myself. As I probably could have guessed, the bust darts were not only unnecessary for me, but actually negatively impacted the fit — since I am not busty enough to fill out the darts, the front of the blouse was too long compared to the back. That didn’t particularly bother me, but I did note it for future projects.

My friend has a more suitable figure for this design, and her version turned out even better. I used the same wool (Juniper Moon Farm Herriot Fine) in a lovely tweedy green colour, and (by request) without a collar or contrasting colour bands along the front.

It turned out perfectly and we were both very happy with the result. Since we’re not meeting indoors and it was still too cold for her to wear just a blouse outside (even a warm knitted one), I’ve only got her selfies for now, so I’m sorry if it’s hard to tell what the finished product looks like. When it’s warm enough to do a socially distanced outdoor photo shoot, we can hopefully get some better photos! According to her it fits perfectly, and it’s obviously a fantastic colour for her.

My friend, by the way, is the wonderful opera and concert singer Andrea Lauren Brown. We have all been out of work for a solid year now due to the pandemic, but you can definitely still buy her CDs, which I heartily recommend to all of you who love classical music. Seriously, she’s amazing.

October 1962: Overview

“There are several “special” things about this issue” writes Stitchcraft’s “editress” on the facing page, and I’m glad she put the word “special” in quotes, because this month’s issue is definitely a mixed bag. On the plus side, it has extra pages in colour and introduces a new yarn: Patons Ariel, designed to be “triple-knit” bulky and therefore quick to knit, but still lightweight. On the minus side… we’ll get to that later in the post.

The new wool, Ariel, is listed on Ravelry as bulky weight (97 yards in a 2-ounce ball) and composed of 80% wool and 20% “other” (synthetic fibres). According to the person who wrote the Ravelry entry, it may or may not have been waterproof! It appears to be quite fluffy, thus the name and the “light as a feather” claim. It’s used for the two-colour, slip-stitch-patterned garments in the cover photo as well as the identical boatneck pullovers for men or women. The partner-look idea is still going strong.

Tweed looks and suits are always popular in the fall, and this month’s issue gives us a loose-fitting suit with a short-sleeved jumper to wear underneath, all in double knitting weight. Nubbly Rimple yarn is also DK weight and still a fashionable choice for this sweater with a contrasting bow-tie. The purple pullover with the big collar (still in fashion after two years!) is made in bulky Big Ben wool. Greens, browns and yellows dominate the colour palette and go with the autumn theme.

Embroidery and tapestry take a backseat to the autumn knits in this issue, with typical floral chair-back, apron, and traycloth designs. There’s a tapestry of four famous castles, a cross-stitch wall hanging with a poem about what type of wood to burn in a fireplace (I had never heard this rhyme, have any of you?) and a more complexly embroidered cushion of “Indian design”. I cannot vouch for its cultural authenticity, but the woven and latticed stitches are certainly striking and effective.

Speaking of cultural history, remember our little model Judy with her “trim Outfit” from 1960? (Of course you don’t, and I wouldn’t have recognised her either if her name weren’t in the caption.) Here she is, two years older, cutting a dash in her warm 3-piece play suit and all set to play with…

Ah, right. Her “Golly”, who “steals the show” and whom readers can also knit from a pattern in this issue. “He’s favourite”, writes our editress, and “everyone in the nursery loves Golly.” Who is he?

In 1895, the English-American cartoonist and illustrator Florence Kate Upton produced her first children’s book, titled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. Over the next fourteen years, she and her mother Bertha collaborated on twelve more books starring the same characters. The books, and particularly the “Golliwog” character, enjoyed enormous popularity for at least sixty years afterwards and “Golly” dolls and toys as well as “golliwog” images on brand names and household products were practically ubiquitous in popular culture — particularly children’s culture — in the UK and elsewhere throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Though Upton intended the Golliwog(g) to be a positive character and the hero of the story, it can’t be denied that his representation is a racist caricature born of the blackface minstrel tradition in the United States. According to Upton herself, her inspiration for the character was a Black minstrel doll found in her house, and typical “Golly” representations show him with exaggerated, distorted features and wearing an outfit typical of minstrel performers in the early 20th century. Later literary and cultural depictions of “golliwogs” often portrayed them as animalistic, uncultured or criminal, thus reflecting and perpetuating negative racial stereotypes about Black people. Over time, the word “golliwog” and shortened forms of it became used and recognised as demeaning racial slurs.

Though many white Britons, Americans and Australians who grew up with golliwog dolls continue to claim that they are inoffensive (and capitalise on their popularity via Internet auctions and collectors’ organisations), it should be pretty obvious that they, and their related imagery, are problematic. For a more in-depth understanding of why, I encourage further reading, starting with this excellent article from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Michigan (US).

It’s not the first or only time that Stitchcraft (like just about every other knitting/craft publication of its time) has featured patterns for toys or dolls that reflect stereotypes of particular ethnic groups or portray them as an “exotic Other”, even if those representations are supposed to be positive. Many patterns from the 1940s and 1950s are particularly offensive (take my word for it, I don’t want to show them here), as is the use, up until the late 1950s in some cases, of racial slurs as colour names for certain shades of wool (ditto). By the way, I have issues of Stitchcraft and many other vintage knitting magazines up to the mid-1970s and nowhere, in any of them, have I ever seen a model who was not white — the caricatures were also the only representation to be found. Let’s remember that, for all their fantastic fashions, the mid-century decades were definitely not the “good old days”.

On top of all that, there’s no pattern in this issue that I particularly want to make, so I’ll either embroider some anemones on a vegetable bag or finish up something from the WIP pile.

September 1962: First Size Raglan

EDIT October 9th, 2020: Finished!

“The most welcome present you can give to a mother-to-be is something warm and hand-knitted for the layette,” wrote Stitchcraft’s “editress”, Patience Horne, in the September 1962 issue, and it’s still true! If I can’t decide on a project, if I don’t feel like making a full-size adult garment, if I have bits of wool that want to be used up in a useful way, I make a baby jacket. Someone, somewhere is having a baby soon, and I always have a couple of finished objects on hand in case I didn’t know that a colleague or acquaintance was “expecting”.

That was the case this month, funnily enough in my own weekly knitting group. We have been “meeting” via Zoom since March due to the pandemic, and I dropped out for a while due to being ill myself, so by the time I came back I had apparently missed some happy news — one of my fellow knitters will be having a baby this winter. What better time to make this cute and easy first size raglan cardigan?

I had 3-ply wool left over from this jumper, so I was even able to achieve the tiny gauge of 8 stitches to the inch. Only… it turned out I did not have enough of this wool, so the raglan yoke part is leftover mystery purple 4-ply. I’m not quite convinced that it’s going to work; the harsh colour line seems weird at the moment.

I don’t know the name of the stitch pattern, but it’s a lovely easy sort of herringbone:

Row 1: knit
Row 2: k1, p3
Row 3: knit
Row 4: p2, *k1, p3*

Except… I decided to make the yoke in one piece, because I didn’t want to sew raglan seams, and the raglan decreases change the pattern at the armholes. I knew that would happen, but was too lazy to work out mathematically exactly what the decreases would do. It turned out that the fronts and back stay in the proper pattern and both sleeves end up in k3, p1 rib. OK, it’s symmetrical and doesn’t looks terrible, so I decided to live with it.

But… then I ran out of the mystery purple wool as well! And had to make the last bit of collar ribbing in another mystery purple-ish wool that was also thicker. Well, at least the colours didn’t clash too much? And I had cute, matching, vintage buttons in the button box!

… except that I somehow utterly failed to sew them on evenly spaced? I could add one more in the gap near the top — there’s a buttonhole there — but somehow the buttonhole in the lower gap got sewn shut while I was weaving in ends or sewing on the front bands. I have enough buttons, but can’t decide whether to cut a new lower buttonhole and add two more buttons or just give up and leave it as it is. At least the gaps are vertically symmetric.

Not my best work, but it will keep a baby warm and clothed. Perhaps I’ll make something else for my knitting friend’s baby — a fellow knitter deserves a more successful project!

September 1962: Overview

Autumn is the nicest season for knitting, and 1960s Stitchcraft usually gave it a little push with extra pull-out supplements, extra colour photo pages, or “bumper issues” full of the latest developments in home-knitting fashion. The September 1962 issue doesn’t have any of these extra features, but it does have a wide variety of designs in mid-weight and warmer wools, starting with the chunky twisted-bobble sweater on the cover. Made in bulky Big Ben wool, it weighs in at a whopping 38 (for the smallest of three sizes, 35-36 inch bust), 40 or 42 ounces (the largest size, for 39-40 inch bust), i.e. about two and a half pounds or 1190 grams. I am guessing the model is quite slender and even she looks bulky in it!

The dresses and separates, made with the same loose fit but in double knitting wool, show a smoother look with minimal patterning. The orange dress in the colour photo and the charcoal-grey dress with the colour-pattern border (“for those who like something really eye-catching”) are the same design, but the pattern-border version is only available in one size, “for the younger girl.” I guess that pattern was just too exciting for doddering middle-aged matrons! The blue and white ensemble, also made in double knitting weight, has three pieces: a simple sleeveless blouse in white k2, p2 rib, a plain blue skirt and a back-fastening cardigan with white vertical stripes on the front. Tops continue to be hipbone-length and hemlines are firmly anchored just below the knee.

Other garments feature interesting colour and texture effects: the man’s “smart weekend sweater” has been treated with a teasel brush to achieve a fuzzy, felted effect. The knitter was not expected to do the brushing herself, but was instructed to “take all pieces at this stage [after knitting all the separate pieces, but before making the garment up] to your usual wool shop who can arrange to quote a price and send them away to be brushed for you.”

There’s also a striped jumper for “young and carefree” women with a fringed collar and hem, similar to the one in the February 1962 issue (yes, it is more or less the same pattern in different colours and with a split collar) and a pullover in an intriguing striped and dotted slip-stitch pattern. Stripes and/or slip-stitches also feature in the three-colour pullover for older children and the toddlers’ dungarees. Colours are navy blue or charcoal grey contrasted with white and neutral pastels, as we saw with the patterned-hem dress and three-piece ensemble.

There is the usual variety of homeware designs, mostly with floral patterns: this month’s flower is the dahlia, or you can sew and embroider and apron with lilac sprays. The leftover gingham fabric from “your” workaday apron can be used for cute animal appliqués on aprons for the children (unsurprisingly, Father seems to be exempted from the washing-up.) There’s also the usual floral cutwork tablecloth and tray cloth and a coffeepot set made in Hardanger embroidery.

Needlepoint fans can make a stool top or a whimsical cross-stitch rug and/or wall panel for the nursery, featuring characters from nursery rhymes. The motifs are separate and interchangeable and can be adapted for different sizes and purposes.

In the children’s serial comic, Peter the puppet has been freed from his marionette strings and is traveling throughout the countryside writing a play about his adventures. Cyril the squirrel helps out by painting illustrations, using his tail as a brush. (But how will Peter get home?) There’s the usual advertisement for Lux washing soap, guaranteed to leave your woollies soft and fluffy, and the latest instalment of the Patons and Baldwins’ “knit to please your man” series of ads, junior version: a teenage girl knits a “nice, husky sweater” for her boyfriend with her own loving hands to show everyone that he’s the “special one.” The young woman on the back cover ad is presumably also trying to catch a man, but she looks more polished in her snappy red dress and white gloves. You can really see 1960s style coming into its own in the straight or A-line sleeveless dress with low contrasting belt, the bobbed and fringed hairstyle and the edgy, off-angle mirror pose. Compared to the designs in this issue, it also shows how fashion-conservative Stitchcraft is.

I’m not sure what I want to make from this issue. I imagine the embroidered dahlias would make a great design for a laptop or tablet sleeve, but I already have a fine home-made laptop cover, not to mention this wonderful gay-geese-in-space tablet cosy. Also, I have probably done enough embroidery for the time being and still haven’t made much progress on this appliqué masterpiece that I started in July. The knit projects are all so bulky and loose-fitting, which is not my style, and I’m not sure I know an appropriately-aged child for the interesting slip-stitch pullover. There was also a perfectly nice, if not exciting baby cardigan (not pictured) in the issue which I could make quickly from stash, which would be useful enough (somebody’s always having a baby) and maybe the best choice for my uninspired mood. Stay tuned and find out!