Wool Re-Fashioned

We went to Salts Mills at Saltaire yesterday (our nearest World Heritage Site), mainly to shop.  There is an antiques place there, which often has some interesting things.  Yesterday,  I bought knitting patterns (3 for £1!  A bargain!) - two Patons & Baldwins from the 1950s and a Jaeger pattern, from around 1960, I would guess.  I don't usually look for old knitting patterns because most of the ones I find are already in the Lee Mills collection, but the two P&B ones are an addition, as far as I know. The Jaeger one may not be in the collection either - we haven't sorted the Jaeger patterns yet.  (I was going to say that it has quite an interesting collar construction, but that sounds completely dotty.  (It has, though.))  And really, if I spend long enough in a place that sells moderately-priced, interesting things, I feel that I ought to buy something.

Also at Salts Mill just now is an interesting exhibition that I hadn't heard about, Wool Re-Fashioned.  It is an exhibition of 12 garments from the Yorkshire Fashion Archive, dating from the 1940s onwards, along with re-workings of the old designs by students of the School of Design at Leeds University.  It's fascinating to see the constructions details of the archive garments, some of which are quite complex, and then how the students kept some of the details, changed others, selected new materials and colors, and finally produced something quite different from the original but still recognisably related to it.  (None of the garments are knitted, but I can be quite broad-minded.)

The Yorkshire Fashion Archive at Leeds university seems to be relatively new, and this seems to be the first exhibition based on the archive.  You can find more details, including some video clips, on the web site. The exhibition runs until 11th November, and entry to it (and the rest of the Mill) is free. Worth a visit.