Blast from the Past: Hooded Pram-Coat

Photo of baby in knitted jacket, Stitchcraft, October 1965.

EDIT December 19th, 2023: Finished!

It’s been another month of much knitting and comparatively little to show for it. There was a wonderful bed-jacket in a cute, spongy slip-stitch pattern in the November 1965 issue that I very much wanted to make. I thought I had the perfect yarn (DROPS Lima) and chose green and black for the colours — very much my taste — and started on a swatch to better understand the stitch pattern. I made it correctly, but it didn’t look good. I tried with different wool and different colours. Still didn’t like it. The way the two colours played with each other didn’t harmonise and didn’t give the effect I wanted. I couldn’t make it work with the wools I had and didn’t want to make it in baby blue and white (I don’t wear white). On top of it all, I had a pile of endless WIPs at home and two pregnant colleagues, one whose baby was probably being born just in time for this blog post at the end of November, and another due in January. So I decided to put the bed jacket plans on ice and make some baby things instead.

For the November colleague, I made a simple baby blanket in thick cotton yarn of the “dishcloth” variety. The pattern wasn’t vintage — just the traditional crochet “American square” motif with white edge and different colour centres — but the yarn actually was! A couple of years ago, another colleague (not the pregnant one) had to clear out her mother-in-law’s flat after the elderly lady moved to a nursing home, and gave me a huge bag of yarns that had been left behind. In that sense, the blanket does have a vintage connection, though this type of craft cotton honestly hasn’t changed much in fifty years. Here’s the finished product:

For the January baby, I looked through a few earlier Stitchcrafts from the 1950s, which often had the best baby patterns, and found an intriguing hooded “pram-coat” jacket from the October 1956 issue. I say “intriguing” because it had some unusual design aspects, like the front hem facings that fold under to make a hidden button band, the wide-edge hood and the turned-back-and-crocheted-on sleeve cuffs. I still had some light blue and white-ish Lana Grossa Meilenweit from the March 1964 Slipover for a Smart Tot — probably not enough for the whole jacket with hood, but I thought I might make the sleeves in dark blue (left over from the same project).

The stitch pattern is a nice basket-weave over 3+3 stitches, with 2 rows of stocking-stitch interspersed to even it out a bit. There isn’t supposed to be a hem at the bottom, but it curled so badly, even in the basket-weave pattern, that I picked up stitches from the cast-on and made one with a purl row for turning. Similarly, the sleeve cuffs were supposed to be knit separately, sewn on later, turned back and then crocheted over, but why so much effort? I made a hem the same way. Continuing in the spirit of saving time and energy, I made the fronts and back in one piece up to the armholes, the sleeves flat and two at a time on one needle, and the raglan yoke in one piece back and forth. There wasn’t enough light blue to even make the whole fronts and back, so I bought more to the whole thing in light blue, as in the pattern.

Of course it occurred to me, when halfway finished, that I could have made the bed-jacket pattern after all, just adjusted the size and yarn to fit a baby... and then it would have had the same colour scheme as the original, too. Too late! What can I say. My brain had been occupied with too many “real-life” things.

Part of those real-life things included a lot of work-related travel on trains, which has the advantage of giving me lots of time to knit — and the disadvantage of not being able to take good in-progress photos. Here are some of the jacket after completing the body and knitting the front bands, with a lovely background of train floor. The front bands are picked up and knitted horizontally in the usual way and folded under, so double thickness, and the buttonholes are only on the inside part of the fold, so that they are hidden when the jacket is buttoned. There are increases at the neck edge to make a sort of top facing in the front “corners” where the hood join ends.

The hood is made in a separate piece from the brim to the neck, with short rows to round out the top part. Here again, the instructions said to make the hood in blue first and pick up for the facing later. I could have just cast on with white and made the facing first to avoid having to pick up along the cast-on edge later, but I was happy not to, since I had limited white wool — I ran out and had to switch to blue for the under-facing part (after the fold). That wasn’t a problem and the white wool remnant has now been successfully de-stashed.

I added lightweight wooden buttons. The covered-button design didn’t really convince me, in the end, since I imagine it will be unnecessarily difficult to button up if the baby is squirming around, and the doubled facings are a little bulky even in 4-ply, fingering-weight wool. That said, the facings will put up with a good amount of wear and tear. The finished jacket is really cute and should fit a larger baby in the first few months as an “outdoor” pram jacket, or maybe a six-month old as a cover-up on cooler summer days.

I hope the my colleagues will be happy with this baby jacket! The mother is herself an expert knitter and seamstress, so the bar was set high. But I’m quite satisfied and I think they (and the baby, of course) will be too.

July 1963: Diamond Yoke Design

UPDATE August 21st, 2021: Finished!

My July project was this sleeveless jumper with contrasting colour accents on the collar, upper bust and hem.

It’s written for Patons Cameo Crepe wool, but I thought a summer top like this would be more practical in cotton. Sadly, it is nearly impossible to find a truly fingering-weight, non-mercerised cotton yarn. Crochet cotton is always mercerised and I don’t like the stiff and shiny look and feel. Non-mercerised cotton is generally DK weight i.e. too thick. The only company I know that makes a nice, soft, pretty much fingering-weight cotton is Mayflower and I can’t get their yarn anywhere at the moment. Also, it’s summer, and cotton yarns, especially seem to be only available in “summer colours” of white, neutral and pastel, which I do not like or wear. What to do?

Well, remember my May project — the child’s T-shirt made with cotton from the Hamburger Wollfabrik? (Again, city, not food…)When ordering the yarn for that project, I went ahead and ordered 250 grams of the same cotton 4-ply yarn in a slightly darker colour, thinking that I would probably want to make a summer cotton top for myself at some point. That was good forward thinking… only, after making the May project, I realised I really didn’t like the yarn, as it was un-plied and therefore splitty and difficult to work with. The green colour I chose for myself was also still too “cold” — not dark enough or green enough for my taste. But since I didn’t know what else to do with it, I went ahead and used it for this month’s project.

The pattern is basically stocking stitch with “lines” of purl stitches to make a just-slightly-like-ribbing, geometric effect. It has a hemmed bottom edge, which was very much in fashion for knitted garments in 1963. As far as hems are concerned, I should probably have learned a lesson from this jumper from last year, which was also lightweight and hemmed, and has continually gotten shorter and wider with time — the hem neither weighs enough nor cinches in enough to keep the sideways expansion in check, thus ruining the “long-line” effect and making me look short and dumpy in it. At this point I am convinced that hems do not belong on knitted garments unless they are heavy enough and really need to be flared at the bottom, e.g. an A-line coat, but of course I didn’t have the foresight to think about that before starting and replace the hem with ribbing. We’ll see how it turns out.

The knitting itself was boring and slow. The intarsia diamonds were fun, at least. (I used bits of leftover black merino for the contrast colour parts.)

The sleeves are finished with simple ribbing that is supposed to be turned in and hemmed, like the bottom edge, but I decided it looked better with just ribbing. The collar is made, in typical 1960s style, without short-rows as one would probably make it these days — there are increases and decreases at the front “corners” to make the shaping. The black edge of the collar is also hemmed and then the collar is sewn on.

This will probably never be my favourite project, but it turned out better than expected. The colour is not the best for my skin tone, but it looks much better now that I have pink hair! Also, I should have made the larger size. It fits OK, but a bit longer and wider would be more in keeping with the way it is supposed to fit. Also, the neckline is very tight — I can hardly get it over my head and definitely not over a bouffant hairdo. (And a top should always fit over your bouffant hairdo.) But it’s comfortable and fun — and best of all, it’s finished!

May 1963: Viennese

Photo from Stitchcraft magazine, May 1963

My May project was this jumper “from a Viennese design” for a young relative whose birthday was in May. Spoiler: unfortunately, the jumper was not ready in time for the birthday. May went by so quickly and I feel like I hardly made progress on any of my multiple unfinished projects. Let’s hope the kid doesn’t have a growth spurt before I finally get this done.

The jumper is written in a narrow reverse-rib pattern and the interesting stitch design on the yoke is embroidered on later. The recipient of this project was not opposed to the embroidery but very adamant about wanting the garment to have a “smooth texture”, i.e. stocking stitch. I aim to please, so stocking stitch it was, except for the yoke.

Said relative lives in a warm climate and is somewhat sensitive to wool at the moment, so I decided to make it in fine cotton. The tension according to pattern is 14 1/2 stitches in 2 inches, which is as much as I can ever accomplish even with very fine yarn and tiny needles, so finding cotton that works for me at that gauge is difficult — most cotton yarns are mercerised DK weight for making dishcloths, accessories, amigurumi, etc. Of course, there is always fine crochet cotton, but that is usually also mercerised (I don’t like the shininess of mercerised cotton.) Mayflower DK makes a lovely fine-gauge cotton that is hard to find in stores and can’t be ordered from their (Danish-language only) website. Yarn stores were still closed in my area in any case when I started this project and I didn’t have anything appropriate in stash. Luckily, the wonderful Hamburger Wollfabrik spinning mill company (as in, the German city of Hamburg, not the food! I realise that name sounds funny when you read it in English…), which was closed for a long time after a burst pipe caused severe water damage a while ago, is back up and running online with a brand new website and a beautiful selection of yarns of different fibres and weights. I chose the super-combed cotton in a 4-ply weight and a spearmint green colour.

Work in progress -- knitted children's jumper

I was happy with the weight and colour of the yarn but unpleasantly surprised to see that it was completely un-plied! Nowhere on the website does it say what kind of twist they use, nor is there an option to select what you want, but the yarn in the sample colour photos definitely looks plied and my yarn was utterly not. It is really, really hard to work with un-plied cotton, as it just splits everywhere. I guess I should call them next time I order from them and ask about that.

It is also very lightweight, which is lovely. I used that to my advantage by making the finished garment short-sleeved, making it a fancy knitted T-shirt and not a jumper. but the finished garment will be more like a T-shirt than a jumper. I tried a couple of combinations for the yoke and decided to make it in the pattern stitch with the large contrasting cross-stitch “pyramid” design in bright orange.

It blocked out kind of uneven, as I didn’t have a clothes dryer. Strange to have a knitted item that should not be dried flat! But I think this cotton needs the evening-out and fluffing-up effect of a dryer.

The combination of boring stocking stitch and un-plied yarn made progress very slow, but I got it finished by the middle of June, at least. Let’s hope the kid likes it!

April 1963: Blackwork Butterflies

Embroidered cushion, magazine photo from Stitchcraft, April 1963

UPDATE December 18, 2021 – Finished!

“For the embroideress who likes to tackle something different” came this amazing design from Stitchcraft‘s April 1963 issue. I am daunted by blackwork embroidery, having tried it only once until now with this cushion from the September 1960 issue. It’s fundamentally a form of counted embroidery, like cross-stitch, except that the stitch patterns aren’t crosses. The fillings are worked first using different geometrical counted patterns and the outlines and details are then added in (non-counted) crewel stitches like stem stitch, satin stitch, buttonhole, etc.

My biggest problem with all forms of counted embroidery is finding the proper ground fabric. The standard “Aida” fabric often used for cross-stitch is way too large, but furnishing linen, like the kind I mistakenly used for the fish cushion, is too tightly woven, making it impossible to count the holes properly and get the filling stitches to line up properly and look right. With the fish cushion I ended up just freehanding it, which is fine if you don’t look too closely but is obviously not the right procedure. I resolved to find the perfect-size linen this time!

… during a never-ending pandemic, where even if there were a shop nearby that sold all different sorts of embroidery fabrics, it would not be possible to go in and look at them to see how tightly woven they really are, as retail stores were closed in my area at the time. Of course, online shops give you information about the thread count and weight! Well… some give information about the weight, and some the number of threads per centimetre, and some just show a photo, which is utterly useless because who knows from how close it was taken?

The pattern is written for Glenshee Embroidery Fabric quality 212, a type of fabric that apparently does exist again after being unavailable for decades, but which seems to be available from exactly one distributor in two colours (beige and grey). At least I was able to find out what kind of thread count it had: 29 threads per inch, which converts to 11.6 threads per centimetre. I would be happy with anything between 11 and 12 and I wanted the fabric to be blue.

The first linen I bought was called something like “100% Linen Medium Blue” and I should have noticed right away that that meant it was regular furnishing linen, not specifically embroidery fabric — embroidery linens have special names according to their type and thread count. I loved the colour, though, and was determined to try. Of course I didn’t have a transfer, so I painstakingly calculated out the size of the circle for the main butterflies and from there, the size of each butterfly. I made a paper stencil for the butterflies and drew around a felt record-player cover (coincidentally the perfect size!) with a pencil to get the circle right. On starting the first butterfly, it was clear that the fabric was too tightly woven. It was pretty much the same type as the fish cushion. I was determined to make this project the right way, so after all the work I had put in marking the fabric and starting the pattern, back to the Internet I went and bought a few different kinds of embroidery fabric with a thread count between 11 and 12 threads per centimetre.

It is amazing how different fabrics can be that have the same or similar thread count!

Here is a photo below. For comparison, the fabric on the far left is the normal “Aida” used for cross-stitch at 6.4 threads to the inch. The light grey-blue is “Permin”, which has 11 threads/cm and is very open, almost like netting. The beige-ish fabric next to it is “Belfast” with 12.6 threads/cm and perfect for this project, but wasn’t available in blue. Next to it is “Murano”, which also has 12.6 threads/cm and is a cotton/viscose mix, not 100% linen like the others and the blue they had was a bit too dark. On the far right is the furnishing linen I had originally bought, and the only one in the colour I wanted.

I wasn’t 100% happy with any of the the four options I had now bought, but I had spent a lot of time and money already and just wanted to get the project started in a way that I would be able to finish it. So I decided to use the Permin, which was not the perfect colour (a bit light, but I could try to dye it?) and very net-like (but at least it was easy to do the counted work).

The slight difference in thread count and the net-like aspect of the fabric made me decide to work with 3 strands of thread instead of 2 as in the pattern. Other than that, I followed the pattern as best I could. My buttonhole stitch outline is more like blanket stitch and not as thick as in the pattern, but that’s OK. After almost finishing the second butterfly, I decided to go against the instructions and work the outlines of the butterflies first, then fill them in with the counted work. The other way around probably works well if you used an iron-on transfer with easy-to-follow lines, but my pencil tracings are less accurate.

The pink is embroidery transfer pen and will wash out.

It was slow going, but there is something meditative about embroidering precise geometrical shapes.

After embroidering two or three of the butterflies, I got my hands on some fabric dye and experimented with scraps of the cut fabric. “Deep Sea Green” (top) is actually blue, which was desired, but too dark and not vibrant enough. “South Sea Turquoise” (bottom) was the ideal colour, but I started liking the pale fabric more the more butterflies were embroidered. I decided to stick with the fabric as it was until the embroidery was complete, leaving off the white satin stitch body bits until after I dyed the fabric (or not).

Two strips of dyed fabric in different shades of blue

May 2021 passed very quickly and I hardly made progress on my May project, let alone this one. Here is a photo of my progress at the end of May:

Unfinished embroidery project, blackwork butterflies on pale blue fabric

After leaving it for a while to work on other projects, I picked it up again and tried to work a little bit each day. Things got complicated in the autumn, as the days got shorter and darker – I realised I could only work in bright, natural daylight, otherwise I couldn’t see the threads well enough to count them, even with a good lamp. But I kept going and eventually, there it was!

Making it up into a cushion was easy. I made the cushion itself from an old white pillowcase that had been retired to the upcycling drawer, made the back from more of the net and added a zipper. I had left off the extra embroidered borders, since the design turned out more square than rectangular.

(The actual colour is somewhat less blue than the photo above, but more blue than the one below. I can’t get the colour correction to work properly on this device. )

The only problem was the transfer marker, which didn’t wash or iron out well. A tip in one of my old Stitchcrafts suggested using “solvent” if nothing else worked, Having no idea exactly what kind of solvent they meant, I tried alcohol, which didn’t work, and kitchen de-greaser, which worked somewhat. Any little bit left in will hopefully wash out in time.

Wow, it’s finished! I am really impressed with myself for getting this done, but I think it will be my last blackwork project for the time being.

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.

May 1961: Tapestry Handbag

My project from the May 1961 issue of Stitchcraft was a charming tapestry handbag with a Victorian-inspired flower ribbon design. The magazine gives directions for either the handbag or a piano-stool top. As much as I would love to have a handbag that matched my piano stool, I’m just making the bag for now.

I’ve never worked in tapestry before, but for this project it’s really just counted cross-stitch done on tapestry net canvas with tapestry wool. The hardest part was getting all the components together! The original pattern calls for Beehive Tapestry Canvas No. 27 and Beehive Tapestry Wool, which as far as I can see do not exist anymore — and if they did, they could very well be quite different from the same canvas and wools manufactured in 1961. Unlike cross-stitch fabric, there’s no indication of holes per inch, so I had to sort of guess from the photo of the bag (3 purple stripes across and 3 or 4 flowers vertically in the stripes) and the number of stitches in one repeat of the chart and factor in the size that I wanted the bag to be (a little smaller than the 9 inches deep and 11 inches wide given in the pattern) and the size of the modern handles.

I found some net that seemed about right, but tapestry wool is not to be found in a craft, knitting, wool, fabric, or notions store anywhere near me. So I had to order it online… from a mail-order Internet store whose address is in my own city, but does not have an actual brick-and-mortar store. So I couldn’t see the wool before buying and they had to ship it to me, when I could and would have gladly just gone over and picked it up. And seen it beforehand… because it is really thick! About as thick as double knitting wool. It would have been so much easier to match the size of the wool to the size of the net if I could have found both of them in the same place. It’s usable with the net I bought, but I think the bag will be rather stiff.

The handles were similarly difficult. My great knitting/notions store down the street has catalogues from a company that makes knitting needles and all sorts of related knitty-crafty stuff, including a huge selection of handles and straps and whatnot for making bags. I ordered a nice (I think?) set of handles through the store and nothing happened for weeks. Then I got a message that the handles, in fact all of the handles in that catalogue from that company, were no longer available. Now I’ve ordered some more online. We’ll see what arrives!

Modern technology is lovely and all, but I would love to be able to go to an actual store and buy all of this stuff together. It works for knitting, sewing and embroidery, but I guess tapestry is such an unfashionable hobby that it’s not worth using store space for the materials. I should probably be glad that they’re still manufactured at all.

The work itself is not difficult, but I have to admit, it’s a bit boring. I do like the way it’s turning out, though. May 2019 is almost over, but this project is nowhere near being finished, so I’ll update this post when I have something more to show.

Edit a few months later: This project did not work out. The yarn is too thick for the fabric, the handles are too big for the bag, I hate counting tiny holes in tiny fabric and not being able to fix mistakes, and I really don’t know what I am doing as far as tapestry is concerned in general. Maybe I should take a class or something until I try it again. Until then, this project is permanently on hold. Better luck next time!