Quiz

On Thursday, we had the January meeting of the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild branch.  As last January, we had a quiz set by Marie and Sarah - all the questions were on knitting & crochet, of course.  It was a lot of fun - especially as my team won this time.  (It was a lot of fun for me last year, too, even though my team came 3rd out of four, so it's not just enjoyable for the winners.) 

Here's my prize, in a tiny carrier bag made by Marie - a set of heart-shaped buttons from Sarah, a set of stitch markers, a 10g. ball of Opal sock wool, and a bracelet that you can use for counting rows.  The bracelet has nine beads in each of two colours, that you can slide from one end to the other through a loop in the middle, and so count up to 99.

Ann Kingstone was in my team, which helped a lot.  One set of picture questions was about some of the very popular patterns in Ravelry - patterns that have generated thousands of projects.  We had to give the name of the pattern and the name of the designer.  I did recognise the Hitchhiker shawl/scarf (over 28,000 projects), because I looked at it when I was choosing a pattern for a similar scarf in Louisa Harding's Amitola, but couldn't remember the name Hitchhiker, and had no idea of the designer.  And I recognised the Color Affection shawl (15,750 projects) because I have knitted that one myself, and knew that the designer is Finnish and her name begins with 'V', but  couldn't remember 'Veera Välimäki'.  So I would have done very badly on that section - but Ann knew most of the answers there.  I did much better on dating designs from different decades.  And as Ann said, if I didn't know where Beehive yarn was first produced, I ought to lose my job. (Halifax, by J. & J.Baldwin & Partners).  (And as someone else said, I haven't actually got a job as such - I'm a volunteer.)  There were other sections where the other members of the team stepped in - one on references to sheep, knitting, needles, etc. in popular culture, including Game of Thrones and Zootopia.  I was annoyed that I couldn't remember the author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, even though I have read it (Kate Jacobs) - I am very bad at remembering authors of books.  And Ann and I were hopeless at remembering the early branch meetings, even though we were both there.  We couldn't even remember the topic of the first workshop that we had, so it was a bit shaming to find out that it was on feather-and-fan - taught by Ann herself, and I wrote about it here. 

It was a really good sociable evening - thanks very much to Marie and Sarah for compiling the questions and providing the prizes.

A New Yarn Shop in 1919

I was browsing some online newspapers today, looking for something else, when I found an account from May 1919 of someone opening a wool shop. The woman concerned had been in uniform during the war, and wanted to carry on being financially independent.  Employment for women was scarce, with all the men returning from the war, so setting up her own business was a way round that.

It seems from the article below that wool shops had not been flourishing before the war, though the huge effort in knitting comforts for the troops must have helped the trade.  In 1919 a new 'knitting craze' was foreseen - correctly, as it turned out, with knitwear becoming very fashionable in the 1920s. So it must have seemed an auspicious time to start a wool shop.

I was particularly interested in this account, because the Wakefield Greenwood company started out in  just the same way:  in June 1919, Clara Greenwood and Harold Wakefield (who were engaged to be married at the time) set up a shop in Huddersfield, selling knitting and crochet yarns, and all kinds of needlework supplies.  This could almost have been their story too:

MY WOOL SHOP. 

A BIT OUT OF CRANFORD SUCCESSFULLY REVISED. 

Somehow talking about wool shops seems to suggest "Cranford" and Jane Austen, and those early Victorian days of terrible gentility when one of the few things that a poor woman could do for a living was to keep a shop for the sale of Berlin wools and crewel silks. Those times have changed, however.  At the outbreak of war period it required some searching to find a shop where such commodities were the principal feature.  Wool and fancy workshops "went out" at the beginning of the century, but the war has helped to bring them back again.
At least, they are on the way.  There is, I think, a decided opening for them in many parts of the country.  I happen to know, because I have just received the experience of a woman who has established one.  Her home is in a little country market town not very far from London, a fairly busy place and popular with holiday makers.

 The Business Rest Cure. 

"When I came out of khaki,"  she told me, "my doctor advised me to stay at home and take things quietly for a while, and in answer to my protests at enforced idleness, he said jokingly: 'You'd better take that empty shop in the High-street and turn it into a wool repository, like it used to be when I was a boy!  The papers say that there is a wool craze ahead, and that women will soon be knitting all their own clothes, so you ought to do well!'
"It was meant as a joke, but it seemed to supply just what I had been trying  to find—an idea for 'something different' from my pre-war work, something that would give me some independence and which would not demand a terrifically large initial outlay.  So I did it.
"The empty shop which had been a Berlin wool shop in my grandmother's young days became mine for a moderate rental: it was painted and cleaned and made to look pretty, and one bright morning it was opened with some wools and fancy work goods arranged artistically in the window and myself behind the counter.  Since then it has been opened continually, and now there are two 'young ladies' in the shop as well as myself, and things are more promising and prosperous than I ever dreamed.

On the Wave  of Fashion. 

"No doubt the recent and present craze for woollen garments and trimmings has had something to do with it; all sorts of wools can be bought at my shop.  Embroidery silks, too, either for working cushions or frocks, besides all sorts of fringes, bead trimmings, braided work, and various made-up passementeries, for which there is a greater demand now than there has been for a quarter of a century or so.  Lately I have added some pillow and various English cottage laces to my stock, also lace-making equipment, and the results already have been very encouraging.
"One of my assistants is a good embroideress, and I have some 'outside workers,' who will do work to order, so that it is possible for me to take orders for work to be done—in particular, I find many women are glad to give orders for special dress trimmings of an everyday order, also for hat bands, children's clothes, and such like.

Lessons in Knitting. 

"To a lesser extent, too, unfinished work is completed; some orders are taken for knitted garments in special colourings, etc.; while the demand for lessons in knitting, lace-making, and embroidery of all sorts, is far greater than the outsider would imagine. It is so great. indeed, that I am seriously thinking of taking a clever friend into my business who will confine herself to teaching.
"It is an old idea which was dead and has been resuscitated, but it is worth reviving.  My wool shop is a flourishing concern: so is one on exactly similar lines which is run by another woman friend in a London suburb. And one hears people who drop in saying: 'How I wish someone would open a shop like this where I live.' "

The popularity of hand knitting lasted until after World War 2, and beyond.  When I learned to knit as a child, there seemed to be little wool shops everywhere.  In Huddersfield, Greenwoods closed long ago, when Miss Greenwood (aka Mrs Wakefield) retired in the 1960s - until then it flourished and expanded into the wholesale yarn business, run by Mr Wakefield.  It would be good to think that the woman in the article did well with her shop, too. 

1978

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, and Guild members are being encouraged to make something to recall 1978 - maybe something from a 1978 pattern, or adapting a 1970s trend. And to wear the result at the Guild's Convention in July.  (I still have a sweater that I knitted in the late 1970s - my Cream of the Crop sweater from a book of Patricia Roberts knitting patterns published in 1975.  So in theory, that's me sorted - though as it's very warm, it won't be wearable in July.)

By 1978, Patons pattern leaflets had copyright dates, and we have permission to copy them for Guild members, so I have made a catalogue of the Patons leaflets published that year. (Available to Guild members from the KCG website.) 

Quite a few of the designs are not distinctively 1970s - basic sweaters, cardigans, scarves and so on. But some features recur several times that wouldn't be so usual now.  There are a number of big, loose tops in simple T shapes - described as oversweaters or overtops.  They typically have wide sleeves, dropped shoulders and slash necks. 

Patons 1536

Most of Patons 1978 designs are knitted, but there are crochet patterns too.

Patons 1518

And many are designed for all the family. (The slanting pockets in Patons 1575 are another recurring feature.)

Patons 1575

Patons 1505 has the loose, dropped-shoulder, over-sweater style translated into a jacket.  The combination of colours in the sample doesn't work well, it seems to me, but with a different choice it could look good.

Patons 1505

There are some lighter styles too - like this lacy sweater with a big frilly collar.  (Note the draw-string hem, also a feature of Patons 1518 and several others.)

Patons 1617

There are a couple of waistcoat patterns which would be practical for a cool July day (and most July days in England seem to be cool).

Patons 1581

There's one pattern that stands out, though - Patons 1595, for a unisex 'Fair Isle' waistcoat and pullover.  I think it was a very popular design at the time - we have two waistcoats and a pullover knitted from it in the KCG collection (see this post for a photo), and two more pullovers appeared in the Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood exhibition in 2015.  And it's proving very popular now - since I put the catalogue on the KCG website, it's been asked for more than any of the others.

Patons 1595

It would be easy to make something quite wearable from one of the Patons 1978 patterns - there are none of the worst 1970s horrors.  No knitted trousers (no knitted patchwork trousers, even worse), no knitted shorts, no leg warmers....    (We do have such patterns in the collection, if anyone feels tempted.) 

So if you're a Guild member - happy knitting!  I look forward to seeing the results in July.