Listening to the Wireless

I've cracked the dating of Weldon's Practical Needlework series (by relying on the dates given by Richard Rutt in his History of Hand Knitting - see here).   So now I'm looking at Fancy Needlework Illustrated - similarly undated,  so you have to work out the dates from other clues.

Ad from Fancy Needlework Illustrated  No. 73

And while doing that, I spotted this very charming ad for Ardern's crochet cotton, in an issue from 1925.  "Could there be any more delightful way to spend the evening hours than to make dainty crochet work while you listen in?"  Four pretty young women are sitting around a wireless set, with a huge trumpet, all busy with their crochet.  The British Broadcasting Company (forerunner of the BBC)  had been set up in 1922.  A BBC website says, 'The first broadcast came from London on 14 November [1922], and "listening-in" quickly became a popular pastime.'  So although the scene seems quaintly old-fashioned now, at the time it was exciting and new.

Two of the 'listeners in' seem to be working on handkerchiefs, making lacy edgings, and the other two are making strips of crochet lace, to go around a tablecloth or something similar.  Fancy Needlework Illustrated and other needlecraft magazines had been publishing patterns for this kind of fancy household crochet for decades.  And perhaps young women such as these did spend their leisure time making household linen for their 'bottom drawer', anticipating getting married.    But by 1925, the magazine was also publishing patterns for jumpers and dresses - knitted and/or crocheted.    The cover of the same issue illustrates the mix of patterns.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated  No. 73

The magazine gives patterns for the tops worn by the two women in the cover picture, and for the crocheted table cloth border that forms its frame.

And Ardern's themselves have another ad in the same issue promoting their Star Sylko yarn for making 'Beautiful Frocks'.

Ad from Fancy Needlework Illustrated No. 73

Going back to the first ad:  I can't tell exactly what the four young women are making.  But I do recognise the pattern for the edging of the tablecloth that the wireless is sitting on.  It was called the 'Dresden' pattern (presumably for Dresden china - the design shows a tea service) and it was published in Fancy Needlework Illustrated No. 26 in (I think) 1913.  

Fancy Needlework Illustrated  No. 26

It's in filet crochet, which was very popular in the 1910s - it is easy to produce quite complicated pictorial designs in filet crochet.  (In the Dresden design, I like the corner motif of crossed teaspoons and a pair of sugar tongs.)

Dresden was evidently a very successful design - it was re-published in a later issue of the magazine, in 1920.  The cover says: 'This number contains a reprint of the "Dresden" crochet lace.  The most Popular Pattern ever published.'

Fancy Needlework Illustrated  No. 52

  And you could have a matching tea cosy.

'Dresden' Tea Cosy Design

I think we have a 'Dresden' tablecloth in the Guild collection - there must certainly be many survivors.   It's nice to imagine some of the filet crochet in the collection in a 1920s setting like the one in the ad.

More on dating Fancy Needlework Illustrated in a later post.