Marriner's Knitting Patterns

Marriner's leaflet No. 163

I have been compiling a catalogue of Marriner's leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection from the late 1940s and early 1950s.  They are now out of copyright, so that we can copy the leaflets for Guild members.  Marriner's leaflets were first published in the late 1940s, and from the start were colour leaflets, nicely designed and attractive.  

First, some history of the company behind the brand.  This account is mainly based on the book 'Marriner's Yarns: The Story of the Keighley Knitting Wool Spinners', by George Ingle, published in 2004.  The address on the pattern leaflets is R. V. Marriner, Greengate Mill, Keighley.  The company originated in 1784, when the mill was owned by a partnership, one of the partners being Abraham Smith whose niece and heir Ann Flesher married William Marriner.  Their sons bought out the other partners, and the company became B & F Marriner from 1817, and switched from cotton to wool. In 1908, after the death of his father, the company came under the control of Raymond Victor Marriner, a great-grandson of William and Ann, and the company was renamed R. V. Marriner.  

In the 1920s, the company formed an association with L. Copley-Smith & Sons, who sold Copley's wools.  According to George Ingle, they were "supplying Copley-Smith with about 80% of their yarns and much of their output was hand knitting wool." By the 1930s, one of the R. V. Marriner directors was one of the Copley-Smith sons, so the two businesses were very closely linked.  During WW2, production was disrupted, and after the war, the agreement with Copley's was ended, apparently from the Copley's side.  Although R. V. Marriner had previously sold some of their knitting wools themselves, by mail order or through their own shops in Keighley, the need to find a new market for the bulk of their production led the company to start selling to yarn shops more widely.   The company started to advertise nationally and introduced knitting patterns under the Marriner's brand. 

Back to the pattern leaflets.  The earliest ad I have seen for Marriner's knitting wool appeared in 1948 and featured leaflet no. 21.  The ad emphasises that the leaflets are 'printed in natural colour', so that a knitter could see exactly what the finished garment would look like in the suggested colours.  Here is another of the earliest Marriner's leaflets, probably also from 1948, for a Lady's Jumper Coat:

Marriner's leaflet No. 6

The company played up the seafaring connotations of the family name by using a logo of a pair of knitting needles and a skein of wool, arranged to look something like a sailing boat.  The colours of the wool copy the colours in the garment - in leaflet No. 6, the skein alternates scarlet and white wool, with a bit of dark blue for the tie. 

Marriner's advertised quite widely in women's magazines and needlecraft magazines such as Pins & Needles, and almost always featured at least one pattern leaflet, which is very helpful for dating them.  Some of the leaflets in the catalogue have the message "Marriner's have been spinning wool during the reigns of nine Kings and Queens".  These must date from after the death of George VI in 1952, and tie in with the starting date of 1784, which was during the reign of George III.  That does give nine reigns (George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II) - but since Greengate Mill was originally a cotton mill, the claim isn't entirely accurate.  The slogan gives a handy way of dating some of the Marriner's leaflets, though it was not used consistently, so its absence does not imply an earlier date. Another dating point is the Coronation in June 1953: leaflet 186 has a sticker on the front reading "One of the Marriner Coronation Series".  Again, the sticker was not used consistently -  another copy of the same leaflet in the KCG collection does not have it.  But we can safely say that any Marriner's leaflet with a number less than 186 was published in 1953 or earlier.  

Marriner's leaflet No. 186

The embroidered 'Hungarian Cardigan' in leaflet 186 is knitted in DK wool, and so is perhaps more accessible than many of the earlier patterns which are almost all in 3-ply wool (or even 2-ply) - a hangover from the clothes rationing period of the 1940s, when a little wool had to go a long way.  

Many of the leaflets have a black-and-white drawing inside, as well as the cover photo, showing an idealised version of the garment.  Here's a pattern for a very fancy bed jacket, with frills everywhere and stranded colour work on the yoke:

Marriner's leaflet No.107

And here is the sketch inside, showing an improbably slender woman in an elegant 1950s boudoir. 

Here's another pair of cover photo and sketch: 

Marriner's leaflet No. 133

The sweater has an unusual construction, with the sleeves knitted sideways in a twisted double rib (also used for the collar and welts).  The sketch shows a very smart 1950s sitting room, with up-to-the-minute built-in furniture. 

Copies of any of these patterns are available to KCG members - just email collections@kcguild.org.uk to ask.  The catalogue showing 69 Marriner's patterns will be available shortly on the KCG website (kcguild.org.uk).

A 1949 Sports Jersey

 

The sweater shown in the photo was donated to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection more than 30 years ago, in 1994.   We have the matching pattern, too - in fact, probably the copy that the sweater was knitted from, though that wasn't recorded at the time of the donation.  

Don Maid leaflet no.212

The leaflet has clearly been kept folded in four for a long time, and mended with Sellotape (not a good idea for a long-lasting repair).  But the instructions are just about legible, and there isn't another copy in the collection.    

'Don Maid' was a brand of knitting wool manufactured by Donisthorpe & Co. of Leicester, a very long established spinning company, dating back to the 18^th century.  Knitting wool was a minor part of their business, starting just before World War 2 with knitting wool for children's clothes, under the label  'Little Pals'.  The company seems to have seen the end of clothes rationing in the late 1940s as an opportunity to extend their range of knitting wools and patterns and hence introduced the Don Maid brand.  

We currently have just 17 Don Maid leaflets in the KCG collection: a few children's patterns, numbered between 1 and 18, and the rest adult patterns, numbered from 201 to 246 - I suspect that the gap in numbering reflects two different ranges of numbers for children's v. adult patterns.  Don Maid leaflets aren't common, and I don't think that many were produced after no. 246, published around 1952.

Judging by the dates when Don Maid patterns with numbers close to 212 were advertised, Don Maid leaflet 212 was issued in 1949.  Our sweater is described in the leaflet as a Sports Jersey.  The pattern instructions are to knit with 2 strands of 3 ply wool, held together, making a double knitting (DK) thickness, and that is how the sweater is knitted – the two strands are easily seen in the floats on the stranded knitting sections.  I think that Don Maid knitting wool was only made in 3-ply at that time, judging by the other leaflets in the collection and Don Maid ads I have seen.  Many spinners had produced DK knitting wool before WW2, but it had disappeared during the war, and was not reintroduced until the 1950s. Even so, Donisthorpe & Co. evidently thought that a pattern for a sweater in the equivalent of DK wool would be popular - and of course would sell a lot more wool. 

The sweater is knitted on size 7 needles (4.5mm).  The body and sleeves are in brioche stitch, i.e. on a multiple of 3 stitches, plus 1:

Row 1: Slip1 purlwise, (knit 2 together, yarn over, slip 1 purlwise) to last 3 stitches, knit 2 together, slip 1 purlwise.

Row 2:  Knit 1, (yarn over, slip 1 purlwise, knit 2 together), to last 2 stitches, yarn over, slip 1 purlwise, knit 1.  

This gives a very soft, warm and squishy fabric.  

The stranded colour bands are the most noticeable feature of the sweater.  The bands round the yoke and cuffs are knitted in with the rest of the sweater, but the bands along the raglan seams are knitted separately and stitched in place when the sweater is made up. 

It was very different from most 1949 knitwear designs, and I think could be worn now, with minimal adaptation.  I have only recently studied the sweater in the KCG collection in detail and realised how distinctive and unusual it was for its time  - it's now one of my favourite pieces. 

Patons' Embroidered Badges

 I found two embroidered badges in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection quite a while ago. They are machine-embroidered on felt, with a stiff backing, vaguely heraldic in design, with 'PATONS', a beehive and 'HANDKNITS', and measure about 5in. (13cm.) by 3½ in. (9cm.). 

'PATONS HANDKNITS' embroidered badge

They were mixed with with assorted publications (patterns, magazines, ...) with no clue about what they were for or when they were produced.  I thought of them as a pair, like elbow patches, but clearly that's not what they are.  

Then quite recently, a Guild member asked me for a copy of a Patons pattern leaflet, number 3196. She had knitted the skirt and sweater for herself in the late 1980s, and would like to make them again.  She had the original pattern but it had been torn and she needed a new copy. (Copies of vintage patterns are a benefit of Guild membership, with permission from Patons in this case, as they own the copyright.)

Patons leaflet 3196

And there, on the sleeve of the sweater, was an embroidered badge like the two in the collection.  The list of materials required has 'Decorative badge (optional)'  and also 'Shoulder pads (optional)' - those were the 1980s, when women's coats and jackets had shoulder pads, and often cardigans, sweaters and blouses did too, so that you could end up with a stack of three or four on each shoulder. 

The pattern was published in 1987, and I looked at other pattern leaflets with neighbouring numbers to see if any others showed the badges.  I found seven more, all for Patons Diploma yarn, which was a 60% wool, 40% acrylic mix, sold in a chunky weight and a DK.  The sweater in leaflet 3196 is knitted in Diploma Chunky and the skirt in Diploma DK - all the other patterns are for Chunky. 

You could have the badge on your sleeve, or on the front of your sweater or jacket....

Patons leaflet 3191

... or on a pocket...

Patons leaflet 3195 

...and a child might like one too. 

Patons leaflet 3206

I am very pleased to be able to assign a date to the badges in the collection, and to know how they were intended to be used.  But I wonder how many knitters did actually sew them onto their finished garments.

Spattees and Silk Winders

I bought a copy of the magazine Needlework for All on eBay recently — I'll donate it to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection after I've written this post.  It's the December 1926 issue (there is no date given in the magazine, but it's clearly a Christmas issue, from the content, and I worked out the year from the information in the British Library catalogue and the other issues that we have in the collection already). 

Needlework for All No. 202, December 1926.  

I bought this issue partly because the eBay listing showed that it includes a pattern for spattees — a garment I have covered in previous posts. 

Spattees in Needlework for All No. 202

There was a brief fashion for spattees (or spats) for women which were launched at an event in the summer of 1926, as I described here and here, so in December 1926 they were still very new and fashionable. The Editor of Needlework for All emphasised this in the introduction to the issue: 

"Needlework for All" is nothing if not up-to-date — a statement which we may safely say is borne out by our current number, with its practical designs for the new Spattees and the fashionable Beret."  

Here's the beret, crocheted, with a tassel:

Beret from Needlework for All no. 202

There was a unexpected bonus for me when the magazine arrived, in an ad for Stratnoid knitting pins, crochet hooks and other needlecraft tools, including Silk Winders. 

As soon as I read the description of Stratnoid Silk Winders, I realised that I have one: "Collapsible. 4½in. long, price 6½d.  Knitting Pin Gauge and Winder combined."  

Stratnoid Silk Winder

And here it is folded up:

Actually, I didn't know until I saw the ad that it was a silk winder.  I bought it as a knitting needle gauge, which it is as well — the holes in the arms measure knitting needles from sizes 5 to 12 (5½mm. to 2¾mm.)  Sheila Williams, in The History of Knitting Pin Gauges describes it as 'a strange propeller-shaped gauge which folds neatly'.  She dates it to 'late 1920s/30s' — I think that probably the 1926 ad in Needlework for All marks its introduction, so 'late 1920s' seems correct.  

Once I thought of it as a silk winder, it is clearly similar to silk winders that we have in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, like the three shown below.  One of them still has silk wound onto it — or rather 'art. silk'. i.e. rayon.  

These gadgets were designed to handle rayon, which was very popular for knitting and crochet in the 1920s.  Like other knitting yarns at the time, rayon was sold in hanks. It is a very slippery yarn, and would be unmanageable if you wound the hanks into a ball as you would with wool, so instead it was wound onto something like one of the winders shown here.   You could make your own winder from a piece of stiff card - we have one in the collection cut from a box which originally had something like perfumed soap in it.  It has survived because it still has the rayon wound onto it, otherwise it would have been thrown out long ago.  Winders that were not home-made were generally made of cheap materials: two of those in the photo above are of plywood, and the one with 6 arms is compressed cardboard.  Many of the winders in the KCG collection have the name of a shop printed on them.  The winder above still with rayon on it was from The Grand Pygmalion, Boar Lane, Leeds, a large department store.  The six-armed winder is printed with "Rowntrees of Scarborough - Artificial Silk Specialists".   I suspect that these cheaply-produced winders were given free with a purchase of rayon, though I have no concrete evident of that. The 'Felix Keeps on Knitting' winder is relatively common, and may have been a free gift with a magazine, or something of that sort.

Back to the Stratnoid collapsible winder.  It obviously seemed like an excellent idea to the manufacturers, and the reverse of the winder says that a provisional patent had been taken out, though I haven't been able to find it.   

It doesn't seem to have sold well, though — very few seem to have survived to now, and none of the other Stratnoid ads that I have seen mention it. It is not too surprising that it didn't catch on when you think that at the end of a knitting or crochet project, it is common to have some yarn left over.  Most knitters have a cache of part-used balls of yarn that we keep because we might find a use for it one day. If that happened with an art silk project, you would want to keep the remaining rayon on its winder (and that's why we have winders in the KCG collection that still have silk wound onto them).  That's OK if the winder was free or home-made, and you could easily get another winder for your next project — not so good if it cost you 6½d.  But I am very pleased to have found out more about my Stratnoid needle gauge, and that it was not primarily a gauge at all, but a silk winder. 

The Wheel of Fortune

I recently acquired a new addition to my collection of knitting needle gauges.  An exciting acquisition, as I had never seen one for sale before, though I knew of it from Sheila Williams book 'The History of Knitting Pin Gauges'.  On one side, it reads 'THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE WIRE GAUGE'. 

It is steel, about 6 cm. in diameter, and it measures needles from size 1 (7.5mm.) to size 24 (0.5mm).  Very roughly, the finer the smallest needle measured, the older the gauge.  Most needle gauges made since the 1950s have not measured needles smaller than size 14 (2mm.), while Chambers' Bell Gauge, patented in 1847, measured needles down to size 28 (0.375mm.).  

  

The Wheel of Fortune gauge dates, I believe, from the early 1900s. The other side of the gauge has the address 'Head & Son, 191A & 192A Sloane St., London S.W.'   W. H. Head & Son was a haberdashery shop - the Knitting & Crochet Guild has a copy of their catalogue and price list for Autumn and Winter, 1918-1919.  (KCG members can download a copy of the catalogue from the KCG website, and see the whole range of needlecraft supplies that the shop stocked.)  

The catalogue has two knitting needle gauges.  One is Walker's Bell Gauge, descended from Chambers' bell gauge, and the other is the shop's own Wheel of Fortune gauge.    

The description says: 'Made in Steel, very hard, exact in measurement will not alter in use, indispensable to all Ladies who Knit or Crochet. THE BEST GAUGE YET PRODUCED.'

The Wheel of Fortune gauge was on sale by at least 1909, when it was mentioned in The Queen magazine. In spite of being the BEST YET PRODUCED, it doesn't seem to have sold well.  

On the other hand, Walker's bell gauge which was also illustrated in W. H. Head's catalogue, with a small figure of an archer drawing a bow, seems to have sold much better, judging by the fact that many have survived - they can be easily found on eBay.  According to Sheila Williams' book, it had been in production for many years before the 1918-19 catalogue.  The bell had become a popular shape for needle gauges, with many different versions made. (My post on Chambers' bell gauge, linked to above, shows more than a dozen variations.)     

The 'Wheel of Fortune' was a phrase often used at the time - newspapers used it for stories of rich people who had lost all their money or people in modest circumstances who had inherited a large legacy from a long-lost relative.  It was also used more literally for roulette wheels.  I don't know why the gauge is called the 'Wheel of Fortune' - maybe just because it is circular?  

It was not in fact the first circular needle gauge: Sheila Williams shows illustrations of circular needle gauges in knitting and crochet books from the 1840s.  One of these books, by Elizabeth Jackson, says that her gauge is based on those used by wire drawers.  The Wheel of Fortune is itself called a wire gauge, because the sizes of knitting needles were the same as wire sizes at that time - metal knitting needles were basically lengths of wire.  It seems that the circular shape has been a standard for wire gauges for a long time.  I don't know anything about the history of wire gauges; I'm looking into it and will report if I find out anything interesting to knitters. 

 

1920s knickers

 I wrote a couple of posts last year about several knitted garments in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection that were made in the early 1950s using Patons & Baldwins patterns from the 1920s.  Here's another:  a pair of lacy knickers.

They don't look very pretty laid out like that, but they were supposed to be worn as part of a set, and would look better with the rest of the set, and on a person.  Though loose knee-length knickers in wool still don't seem an attractive idea, to me. 

I found the pattern in the bound volumes of Beehive Recipe Cards in the British Library, which I wrote about here.  Card No. 61 has a British Museum date stamp for November 1923.  It's called the Princess design, and the set has a camisole and Princess petticoat, as well as the knickers.  

From Beehive Recipe Card 61

('Princess petticoat' was apparently a term for a garment combining a bodice and skirt part, without a waist seam.  The term was current from the late 19th century, and was advocated as a way of avoiding excessive layers of underclothing around the waist.)  I assume that the camisole draped over the model's arm, would have been worn under the petticoat, but would not then have been visible. 

All three garments have the lacy pattern knitted around the legs of the knickers, shown in close-up below. 

There are two other sets of women's underwear in the 86 cards in the British Library, both consisting of a camisole, petticoat and knickers.  The images from the cards are shown below.  

From Beehive Recipe Card No. 71

The photo from Card No. 85 shows that the legs of the knickers in this outfit are extremely wide, and also that the model is wearing what seem to be quite thick stockings .  The stockings would have been held up by either a suspender belt or garters - I'm not sure which method was current in the 1920s.  And possibly she would be wearing a corset, too.  

From Beehive Recipe Card No. 85

I suppose that these garments were quite practical, especially in winter - houses were generally not well heated at that time.  And the lace is quite pretty.  But really, I am very glad that I don't have to wear underwear like this.  We don't think of 1920s women as wearing bulky underwear, but we're too influenced by fashion drawings showing sleek silhouettes, and by modern dramas like Downton Abbey, where I doubt that the actors are wearing woolly underwear.  Most women, I'm sure, didn't look anything like fashion drawings - though that has always been true.   

Little Dorritt wools

I saw a skein of knitting yarn in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection recently - Little Dorritt 100% Nylon.   I remembered that I had also seen a pattern for Little Dorritt wool and nylon sock yarn among all the patterns in the collection, so I brought the two together and tried to do some research on the maker. 

Little Dorritt 100% Nylon and leaflet No. 156

The company that published the pattern and manufactured the yarn is named as George Raw Ltd., of Bingley (West Yorkshire), 'Spinners of Top Quality Hand Knitting Yarns", and the address on the pattern leaflet is Harden Beck Mills.  The valley of Harden Beck is now a pleasant wooded area of countryside, but at one time there were several textile mills along the valley, originally water powered.

I haven't managed to find out much about George Raw Ltd.  The company was certainly at Harden Beck Mills in the later 1930s.  Little Dorritt wools were advertised by a shop in Hartlepool in the early 1920s - presumably made by George Raw Ltd., and definitely wool at that point, long before nylon was introduced.  Little Dorritt wool and nylon sock yarn was more widely advertised starting in 1953 (when I think the pattern was published), and George Raw Ltd. was still at Bingley in 1958.  And then in the 1980s, Little Dorritt yarns were advertised by a completely different company - Sejeant Textiles. with the address Tobits, Werneth Low, Hyde, Cheshire.  Then it gets more mysterious:  Ravelry lists Little Dorritt 3-ply and 4-ply sock wool, both discontinued.   There are several illustrations of the 4-ply, one which is clearly the 1950s George Raw version, with "Little Dorritt" printed on the ball band in the font used on the ball of 100% nylon above, and the others the later Sejeant version. But Ravelry says that they are both King Cole yarns, (though some of the ball bands give the Sejeant name as well/instead). I guess that at some point, Sejeant took over the Little Dorritt name  and later still Sejeant started making Little Dorritt for King Cole. All very hard to disentangle.  

But the Little Dorritt 100% Nylon is worth looking at.  In the early 1950s, nylon for knitting was a revolutionary innovation. It was mothproof, didn't shrink, and washed easily.  Pure nylon knitting yarn fell out of favour fairly quickly - it is often not at all nice to knit with, and catches on the minutest irregularity in your fingers.  Wool sock yarn with nylon was also introduced in the early 1950s, like the Little Dorritt sock yarn in the pattern leaflet, and sock yarn still usually has a proportion of nylon for durability (75% wool and 25% nylon, commonly). 

Little Dorritt 100% nylon actually feels quite woolly, at least in the skein, and it might be quite pleasant to knit with (though I don't propose to try).  And although I first thought it was a small skein or hank, it is actually ready wound.  (Can you call it a ball when it's that shape?  I don't know.)  

The yarn advertises its virtues on the back of the ball band: 

A Knitting Luxury

"Little Dorritt" 100% Nylon Knitting Wool is made specially for Knitters who prefer something different.

Here is an exquisite 3-ply knitting yarn made from Nylon which is lovely to handle and extremely hard wearing though soft to the touch.

Garments made from this yarn dry quickly after washing, they do not shrink and the colours do not run.

The ball band also refers to the way the yarn is packed: 

A NEW & NOVEL PACK THAT CAN BE USED FROM THE HANDBAG OR THE POCKET

NO RAVELLING - NO WASTE, USE FROM OUTSIDE

I'm not sure how keeping it in your pocket and using it from the outside would work - a centre pull ball is more amenable to being used in a yarn holder (or pocket) in my experience, but again, I'm not going to try it with the Little Dorritt yarn - it deserves to be kept as it is. 

Although this is a very minor, forgotten byway in the history of knitting yarns, I think it's interesting that so many yarn companies were active in the mid 20th century.  They have mostly disappeared, but they evidently survived for some time - Little Dorritt yarns, apparently under the ownership of George Raw Ltd., were in production from the early 1920s (and possibly much earlier) to  at least the early 1960s.  But small companies had to compete with some very big brands (Patons & Baldwins, Ladyship, Lister and Sirdar, and later Robin, Emu and Wendy, amongst others).  The big brands had big advertising budgets and published pattern leaflets prolifically - at least 200 designs a year, in some cases.  But the little brands somehow kept going and kept introducing new yarns and new ideas, even if eventually they failed.  Well done, George Raw, whoever you were.