Crochet Gloves

On Saturday, I went to Lincoln with a suitcase of some of my favourite pieces from the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, to show them to the local Guild branch. I shan't write about most of them here, though one that has already had a post to itself is the "Victorious Peace" tea cosy -
an obvious choice as it has the date 1919 worked into the filet crochet, so this is its centenary year.

I also took a few crocheted gloves, which I think are fascinating.  I don't ever want to wear a pair, but they represent the way that women once wanted to look.  Once upon a time, ladies were not properly dressed out of doors without a hat and gloves.  In winter, gloves had an additional function in keeping hands warm, but in summer, they had to be cool and preferably light coloured.  In the 1940s and 50s, patterns appeared for summer gloves crocheted in cotton. We have many of the patterns, and at least a dozen pairs of the gloves, in the collection. 

Here are two pairs I showed on Saturday: a white pair with a very open pattern of ovals on the back of the hand and the fingers, and around the cuffs. 

 And a pale blue pair with a pattern of trefoils around the cuffs, and crochet buttons to fasten them - I think these are delightful.

In a few cases, we have managed to match a pair of gloves to a pattern.  Here's a late 1940s Bestway pattern, and a pair of gloves to the same pattern.

Bestway 2014

My favourite patterns for these gloves show the ideal look that the gloves were intended to complement.  Coats leaflet 298 is an example - it shows a sketch of a lady in a sort of New Look outfit, wearing the gloves that you could make from the pattern.

Coats 298

 
Inside are further sketches of various ladylike activities which would be enhanced by the gloves - drinking champagne, smoking a cigarette (in a holder, of course),....  All with a smartly dressed (no doubt rich and handsome) escort.

And Coats Book No. 405, with several patterns for crochet gloves, sets out what a pair of crochet gloves would offer: "Paris or Penrith, country or town, feminine fancy dictates crochet gloves for summer chic.  The 'finger tip-top' smartness of fashionable gloves in crochet gives that groomed, well dressed, finish to spring suit or summer ensemble.  Elegance, daintiness, delicacy, youthfulness -- take your choice from these inexpensive 'made-to-treasure' gloves."

Coats Book No. 405

They would certainly be inexpensive to make (if you are skilled with a crochet hook, which I'm not).  They are totally impractical for everyday activities, but they could look very pretty with a floaty dress at a summer wedding.  (Again, not for me.) 

If you'd like to try making a pair, and you are a member of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, the Coats booklet is available to download from the Membership area of the Guild website. (And if you're not a member, you could join - membership is open to anyone.)

From Coats Book No. 405

Steve's Jumper

The Knitting & Crochet Guild collection is moving to new premises very soon, which is exciting but involves a lot of work.  We have been busy tidying up - all sorts of things that were put to one side to deal with on another day.  On Friday, I brought home a box of 'miscellaneous publications' to sort out.  When I first started working on the collection, there were many, many boxes of very miscellaneous publications, but we have gradually worked through almost all of them - this is the last one, I think.  (I hope so.)  I have riffled through this box at various times and taken out all the things that can be easily placed elsewhere - magazines, spinners' pattern leaflets, booklets, and so on.  And the contents of other boxes have been amalgamated with this one. What was left in the box finally was a very random lot of stuff - mostly things that don't belong in the collection (sewing and embroidery leaflets, etc.) or out-and-out rubbish (creased and crumpled plastic pockets, booklets with no covers and pages missing).  But it was worth going through carefully, because there were some things worth keeping.  And one thing that I have been looking out for, but didn't ever expect to find.

About three years ago, my friend Stephanie (known as Steve) came to Lee Mills, where the Guild collection is stored at present, and showed us a jumper that her mother knitted for her when she was a teenager in the 1950s.   She demonstrated that it still fitted her, though I'm sure she hadn't worn it for many years.  She later gave it to the collection, and it has featured in several trunk shows that I have done since then.

Steve in her jumper, as a teenager

It is knitted in emerald green, with bands of stranded colourwork in cream and tan - very 1950s colours. It's a complicated knit, and very well made.

Steve thought that the pattern had been published in Radio Times, in the late 1950s.  I looked through the Radio Times archive in Manchester Central Library, but I couldn't find it (though I did meet several characters from 1950s BBC television like David Nixon the magician and Lenny the Lion).  Memory being fallible, I decided that Steve was wrong and that it was published somewhere else.  But I hadn't seen it in a pattern leaflet, and if it was in another magazine, there were so many possibilities that it would need a lot of luck to find it.

And then I found it in the miscellaneous box that I brought home on Friday.  It was indeed published in Radio Times, in a supplement to the November 21st 1958 issue.  (Perhaps the supplement had not been archived, and that was why I didn't find it in Manchester.) 

It's especially interesting to see the pattern, because Steve's mother changed the construction.  According to the pattern, it should be knitted in one piece, starting at the bottom of the front.  You cast on stitches for the sleeves either side, so that the stranded colour band is knitted in one piece from cuff to cuff. Then you make an opening for the neck, and carry on, knitting the second stranded colour band from cuff to cuff, cast off the sleeve stitches, and then knit the back.  You pick up stitches around the bottom of the sleeves and the neck opening for the ribbed cuffs and neckband, and finally sew the side and sleeve seams.

Steve's mother apparently didn't like the fact that at the side seams, you would have to join two stranded colour bands going in opposite directions, i.e. the one on the front knitted upwards and the one on the back knitted downwards.  She probably thought that the difference in direction would show - I think she was probably right.  She wasn't worried about the bands on the sleeves, because they don't meet at a seam - in fact you wouldn't usually see them next to each other.  So instead of knitting the body and sleeves entirely in one piece, she stopped after the sleeves were finished, and put that piece aside, leaving the stitches for the back on a spare needle or a length of wool.  Then she cast on again for the back; she knitted the welt and then the stranded colour band working upwards, and then the rest of the back up to the armholes. Then she grafted the two pieces together, which I think is extraordinary.  We had spotted that the two stranded knitting bands on the back of the jumper were knitted in opposite directions, and so we had found the graft, though it's very neatly done.  I don't think I have ever seen such a long graft in such a visible place, and I was surprised that a 1950s knitting pattern should be so ambitious.  But now I know - it wasn't.  The graft was Steve's mother's idea.

So having the pattern as well as the jumper tells us that Steve's mother was an expert knitter and a perfectionist - she saw something that she didn't like in a pattern that she wanted to make, and she fixed it. 

This was the last thing she knitted for Steve - she died in 1959, only about six months after the pattern was published.  I'm sure that Steve kept the jumper for that reason.  Steve herself  is very sadly no  longer with us - she died in 2017, not very long after giving her jumper to the Guild.  She would have been very pleased that the pattern for her jumper has been found.  (I think she would also have been a bit cross with me for doubting her memory that it was in Radio Times - sorry, Steve,) 

Detail of Steve's jumper, showing stranded colour work and basket stitch 

PS I have only just noticed, after writing the above, that the colour work bands in Steve's jumper are not exactly the same as in the pattern - the flowers are spaced further apart, because the intervening abstract design is doubled up.  I can guess how it happened - the chart shows a flower pattern with the abstract design either side, to show how it would look overall.  But you were only supposed to repeat the flower design and the following abstract design, not the whole chart.  Equally acceptable either way, I think.

A New Match

It's very exciting (as I think I've said before) when we identify the pattern that was used to make an item in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  I talked in a recent post about how important it is to have a story to tell about an item of knitting or crochet - the pattern it was made from (if there was one) is a crucial piece of its story.

The 1950s jumper below is one of many items in the collection that were the work of one woman, Jane Denny.  She was a prolific knitter - she commuted to work in London by train, and knitted on the journey.  She eventually gave the Guild more than 50 garments.  The earliest is a pixie hood that she probably wore to go to school in the 1940s, but there are also several little jumpers that she knitted in the 1950s, and later garments too.

We have three feather-and-fan jumpers knitted by Jane Denny in the collection - it was evidently a stitch pattern that she liked very much.  As you can see, it has a buttoned opening at the back of the neck (one of the buttons is missing), which was common in 1950s jumpers. This one is distinctive in having a square neck and dolman sleeves, and those features match it to a Marriner's pattern.

Marriner 266

I like the square neck opening - a neat way of avoiding having to incorporate a curved line of decreases into feather-and-fan.  There is of course a seam along the shoulders, running into the sleeves, and an underarm seam.  It's awkward to seam the wavy edges of feather-and-fan neatly, but I think that the seams would look better when worn (as in the illustration on the pattern leaflet) than when laid out flat.

Marriner patterns at that time included a sketch of the garment as well as a photo, to give you an image to aspire to.  Wearing gloves, earrings and flowers on your shoulder is easily achievable, if a bit impractical for everyday wear, the hourglass figure not really. 

The obvious difference from the Marriner pattern is that Jane Denny's jumper is striped, in two shades of pink and a blue-purple.

Most knitters, I'm told, like to match the illustration on the pattern leaflet as closely as possible, and choose the same colour.  (I've done that myself.)  It's a very useful habit, as far as the collection is concerned -  it helps in matching a finished garment to its pattern. For instance, the pink crocheted disco dress (see here) was easy to recognise because the pattern leaflet also shows the dress in pink.   But Jane Denny not only chose a different colour, but also knitted her jumper in stripes.

One of the earliest cases where I matched a garment in the collection to its pattern was also a Jane Denny jumper, knitted to a Jaeger pattern.  I wrote about it here.

Jaeger 3398

It was knitted to a Jaeger pattern, and again it was designed to be knitted in one colour.  But Jane Denny knitted it in broad bands of four different colours, combining together beautifully. We already knew quite a lot about her, and we know from the quality of the garments she gave to the collection that she was a skilful knitter.  We can now see, comparing these two jumpers with their patterns,  that she also had a very good eye for putting colours together, and didn't just follow the intention of the pattern designer.

A Scarf in Springtime

Earlier this year, the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection was given several balls of a vintage yarn. They were donated by a Guild member who volunteers in a charity shop.  She bought the yarn when it was brought into the shop, because she thought it looked very old, and had never heard of the make - 'Wakefield Greenwood'.   But when she asked on the Guild Facebook group for information about the company, she was pointed to posts on this blog - I have been gathering information about Wakefield Greenwood for several years, because it was a local company.  She offered the yarn to the Guild collection, and we were delighted to accept it.

The brand name is 'Springtime' - a wool yarn that was made in several thicknesses.  This is 'laceply & tinsel' - very fine, as the name suggests, and composed of 75% botany (i.e. merino) and 25% tinsel.  I don't know what the tinsel is - some sort of metallic thread.

Wakefield Greenwood (aka W. G. Spinners) introduced their wool and tinsel yarn in 1953.  The Yorkshire Evening Post featured it in their report on the British Industries Fair in that year:

Wakefield, Greenwood and Company, Huddersfield, this year features wool with a sparkle.  Each strand is spun with tinsel thread, giving a "brilliant" effect to garments. Though this new product was introduced only eight weeks ago, substantial orders have already been received from European countries, South Africa, and Australia.  In the shops it will retail at about 3d. an ounce more than normal wool. 

We have about 200 Wakefield Greenwood pattern leaflets in the collection, and I looked for any that used this yarn.  Here's one that looks like the same black and gold colourway as our yarn.  It's in stocking stitch, and the pattern specifies a tension of 36 stitches and 52 rows to 4 in. (10 cm.) with size 12 (2.75mm.) needles.  I have knitted a stocking stitch swatch on size 12s and it makes a very nice fabric, with a lot of drape.

W. G. Leaflet 1021

Here's another evening blouse pattern, for the same yarn.  The lace pattern looks very complicated and the result looks almost not knitted.  Maybe I should try it.... 

W. G. Leaflet 1145

These two patterns are from later in the 1950s, but I did find a pattern for Springtime laceply that was advertised in 1953, when the tinsel yarn was introduced. 

W.G. Leaflet 152

According to the leaflet, you could make a short scarf, about 32 in. (81 cm.) long, with only one ½ oz. ball of Springtime laceply (i.e. without tinsel).  I decided to try it, to demonstrate what the yarn was like when knitted up.  I couldn't make a scarf of a sensible length from one ball, as it turned out, partly because the tinsel reduces the length in a ball, and also because I'm not very good at blocking.  So I used two balls - it's still quite a short scarf.  It's knitted on size 6 (4mm.) needles.  I found it absolutely impossible at first, because the only size 6 needles I could find were metal and very smooth -  their weight kept pulling them out of the stitches.  But then I found some bamboo needles of the right size and got on much better.  I put in lifelines, too, but didn't actually need them when I got the needles right.  

You can see that I haven't managed to stretch the lace pattern as much as in the pattern illustration.  In my defence, I think that the tinsel might possibly make it more resistant to blocking, maybe? 

I think it's much easier to relate to a vintage yarn if you can see something knitted in it that is also of the right era.  And now we have an example of something knitted in our 195os yarn to a 1950s pattern.  The scarf and some of the remaining balls of Springtime laceply and tinsel have already been in a trunk show of collection highlights last weekend, and will be included in future trunk shows too.  

James Norbury in Woman's Own

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a book fair with John.  On one of the stalls, there was a pile of Woman and Woman's Own magazines from the 1950s, in good condition, not expensive.  I bought several of them - selecting ones with interesting knitting, of course.

Two of the Woman's Own magazines, from 1955, advertised knitting patterns by James Norbury on the front cover.  James Norbury was then the chief designer for Patons, but the main draw for Woman's Own readers, I'm sure, was that he had a TV series on knitting.

In one of the magazines I bought, from January 1955, there is a double-page spread with the heading "Famous T.V. knitting expert James Norbury joins Woman's Own" - evidently intended to be the first of a series of features.

Woman's Own, January 6 1955.

The two patterns in this issue are billed as "To wear at the weekend".   Both are (of course) knitted in Patons wools - the man's is in 4-ply (sport weight?), and the woman's in 2-ply (super-fine?).  The black and white photo of the man's dolman-sleeved pullover doesn't really show it adequately - it is knitted in black and grey, mainly, but uses oddments of four other colours - suggested are green, scarlet, white and royal.  The colours are used in the band from cuff to cuff; the fancy pattern at the lower edge of the band is in green on black, and then there are stripes of red and white, with three rows of stranded knitting in white and blue sandwiched between the bands of stripes.  I'm having trouble visualising that - it sounds much too busy to me. 

And then there's the woman's jumper - just right "for the girl with the 'what shall I wear when  my guests come tonight' problem", it claims.  (Though frankly, if that's your problem, it's a bit late to start knitting a jumper in 2-ply.)

In its favour, it has two wide bands of my favourite print o' the wave/leaf and trellis pattern back and front.  Apart from that I think there's far too much going on - there's a different stitch pattern up the centre, and the frills round the sleeves and neckline are too fussy.   And her waist is ridiculously tiny!  Though actually I think it's partly that her skirt has stiff petticoats underneath to puff it out.

You can see from the photo that there's a lot of shaping above the welt.  There's also shaping in the rib, to accommodate the width of the skirt - the rib is first knitted on size 11 (3mm.) needles and then on size 13s (2.25mm.)

I think the whole jumper is awful - and such a waste of effort to knit something so complicated in such fine yarn.  But I'm quite prepared to believe that some people will like it.

Woman's Own, October 20 1955.

Another of the magazines from the book fair was a Woman's Own from later in 1955, with three more James Norbury patterns.  Designs for women, all using lacy stitch patterns.

The first is a dress, which takes 24 oz. of 3-ply wool (somewhere between fine and super-fine?) and a huge amount of time, I'm sure.  The description says "An insertion of lace stitch between bands of knit 1, purl 3 rib (the knit stitch is worked through back of loop) forms the skirt of the dress.  It is shaped at the waist and has a panel of lace stitch on the bodice."  It looks quite pretty, though it would be hugely impractical for anything more energetic than watering house-plants, which is what the model appears to be doing.

Then there's a lacy cardigan, also in 3-ply, which I think is very attractive.  The magazine says "this charming cardigan is right for any informal occasion".  (But obviously not so informal that you'd leave off your pearl necklace.)  I like the combination of a fancy rib gradually evolving into a lacy pattern on the fronts and back.

Finally, there's a relatively thick knit, in 4-ply, for "autumn's chilly days".   It's described as a tunic-jacket.  The panels on the front, with a pattern of trailing leaves, are knitted on the bias; that's what the introduction says, though I must confess I can't figure out from the (very complicated) instructions how that's done.   An interesting idea, though.   

James Norbury wasn't short of inventive ideas (even if he sometimes went over the top in putting too many of them into the same garment).  And I assume he had people to knit for him, so he didn't have any problem with designing a dress with a full skirt in a complicated pattern in 3-ply wool. 

Apart from the knitting patterns, there's a lot in the magazines that is absolutely fascinating - it was such a different world.  I was struck particularly by the distressing number of corset ads - you don't get a tiny waist like the model in the first magazine just by will-power and breathing in.    

The descriptions make them sound like a feat of engineering, which I suppose they were, in a way. A typical description is the Kayser Bondor "new all nylon net girdle with wonderful boneless control in criss-cross reinforcements".  That was made in sizes 24-30 in. waist (61-76cm.), so they weren't aimed at the overweight.  The emphasis is on control rather than comfort - though I imagine that the introduction of nylon and better elastication did make them more comfortable than earlier corsets.  Still gruesome though.

Pattern leaflet designs

It's been four weeks since my last post - in the meantime we have been on holiday on Greece, for two weeks,and it always takes me at least a week to catch up with life when I get back.  We had a wonderful time, with Naturally Greece, visiting two of the islands, Ikaria and Samos, and then after the official end of the holiday we had a few days in Athens.  Maybe I'll post some photos later. Maybe not.

Now I'm back to work on the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.   Yesterday we were sorting a box of Patons & Baldwins patterns, and found this pattern for gloves and mittens - there were several copies of it.  It was published around 1950, I think.

Paton's leaflet 652

It looks at first glance as though the people in the photo are looking at an important document - perhaps architects on a site visit, looking at the plans for a building.  Or maybe engineers looking at the blueprints for a new jet aircraft.  Definitely something significant.

But when we looked more closely, the drawings on the paper are nothing like that.

Here's one that I have made clearer - it's a cartoon of a small girl who has tied up her father (?) and laid him across the model railway so that she can run over him with the train.  And the gloves in the pattern are children's, so it looks as though they are considering whether or not this is a feasible plan.

Whoever designed the covers of Patons pattern leaflets at that time evidently thought that straightforward illustrations of gloves would be too boring.  The next two leaflets were also glove patterns.  Leaflet 653 has a surreal illustration of four gloved women's hands bursting though a page of The Times.

Paton's leaflet 653

And leaflet 654 shows (the hands of) three men poring over a street map. One of the men has the inevitable pipe.  The image looks slightly sinister somehow, as though they are planning a bank robbery.

Paton's leaflet 654

Patterns for other types of clothing usually have more straightforward leaflet illustrations, though not always.  Leaflet 694 shows the model buried up to her waist, like a scene from a Samuel Beckett play.

Paton's leaflet 694

The glove patterns must have sold well - copies turn up over and over, and leaflet 652 was reprinted at least once, with the same cover illustration.  But I think I have only seen one copy of leaflet 694, in the Patons archive, though the jumpers are perfectly nice (in a 1950s way), it's a useful pattern with several options, and the bright colours are attractive.  Perhaps the idea of being buried up to the waist spoilt its appeal.

The Vintage Shetland Project

My copy of Susan Crawford's mammoth new book, The Vintage Shetland Project, arrived last month.  It was a lovely surprise - I ordered it at the end of 2015, I think, but publication was delayed because Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer and then going through some horrible treatment.  I had had updates saying that it was about to be published, but actually I had forgotten all about it by the time it was delivered.  It is huge - nearly 500 pages.  There are 27 knitting patterns in the book, based on vintage pieces from the Shetland Museum.  They are gorgeous - mostly Fair Isles, but some lace too.  And there is a lot of background information on the original pieces and the history of Shetland knitting through the 20th century. A lot to read (and a lot to knit) - I have only dipped in so far.

One chapter that has caught my attention so far is on Pattern Appropriation - the 'borrowing' of Shetland designs by commercial companies, especially in the 1950s.  One of her examples is a shawl that Kate Davies wrote about in The Book of Haps: it appeared in a Patons & Baldwins pattern leaflet, number 893, published in 1951 or 1952.  According to the leaflet, the shawl was 'designed by Mrs A. Hunter of Unst'.  The original shawl was bought from Mrs Hunter by James Norbury, chief designer for Patons & Baldwins, and is now in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

Patons & Baldwins leaflet 893

It proved a very popular pattern, and the leaflet was reissued several times over succeeding decades.

Another example of appropriation illustrated in The Vintage Shetland Project is a pattern leaflet, also by James Norbury, that was free to readers of the Daily Herald newspaper. 

Man's Fair Isle Pullover, from the Daily Herald 

The leaflet was offered to readers in September 1952, and the article describing it makes clear that the pattern was copied from a Shetland original:  "To find fresh ideas for his designs, Norbury, the Herald and T.V. knitter, makes regular trips to knitting centres here and on the Continent.  His latest discovery is [this] authentic Fair Isle pattern...  This design has been knitted in the Shetland Islands for over 100 years.  Norbury first saw it when he judged the famous annual Shetland knitting competition in Lerwick recently.  He brought the pattern back to London and worked out an easy-to-follow pattern chart.  It is a challenge to all knitters who know the feeling of achievement to be had from making a garment in Fair Isle."  The model for the pullover is named as Michael Howard (no, not that one) - apparently a famous radio comedian at the time.

As with Mrs. Hunter's shawl, the pattern was based on a pullover that Norbury bought on Shetland, and the original pullover is now in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.

Original pullover from Shetland 

The card with the pullover reads "Shetland Man's Pullover. This is a modern design incorporating the 'Seed of Life' and 'Star of Glory' patterns."  At some time between James Norbury's purchase of the pullover, and its arrival in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, it was put on display with this label. 

It's clear from comparing the pullover with the Daily Herald leaflet that Norbury shortened the pullover, to be more in line with 1950s men's fashions.  He also modified the construction method - the original Shetland pullover is knitted in the round, but in the leaflet the front and back are to be knitted separately, with seams at the sides. But the colours of the original are copied exactly: five natural fleece colours, from white to dark brown, with navy, dark green, yellow, carrot and ruby.   I suppose that Norbury might have argued that the designs in the pullover were traditional, and so could be used by anyone, though I think any Shetland knitter might have disagreed - but copying the colours too, for a commercial publication, seems to me questionable.

The 'Seed of Life' and 'Star of Glory' patterns - detail

Difficult Knitting

In February, I wrote about finding several balls of Patons Lucelle in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and showed several pattern leaflets for little jumpers knitted in Lucelle on very fine needles.  I thought at the time that the best way to show what the yarn is like would be to knit a swatch, and when we had a lot of snow a couple of weeks ago, and I mainly stayed at home, I decided to do it.

I also wanted to try out the lace pattern in one of the jumper patterns. The leaflet calls it a "Shetland-pattern jumper" and it has three lace panels on the front and one around the bottom of each sleeve.

Patons 994

As I said in my earlier post, the main part of the jumper was intended to be knitted on size 16 needles (1.6mm.), with the rib on size 17s (1.4mm.).  The smallest needles I have are 14s (2mm.) but I decided for a swatch it wouldn't matter.  Knitting an entire garment on size 16s would be a daunting prospect, even though it has short sleeves, is only designed for a smallish size (34-36in. bust) and is quite short (19¾ in., or 50cm.).

I had assumed that, apart from the lace panels, the jumper was knitted in stocking stitch, but got an unpleasant surprise on reading the instructions - the background is a lace mesh stitch pattern.  Barbara Walker calls it 'Star rib mesh' in her book A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.  It's a 4-row repeat, and on alternate rows you just purl, so it's relatively simple.  Even so, it's a lot harder than stocking stitch.  I certainly wouldn't ever be able to knit it without watching what I was doing, as I can with stocking stitch. 

The main lace stitch, in the panels, is much more complicated.  It's a 40-row repeat, for one thing - though again, on wrong side rows you just purl.  (I might have given up otherwise.)  What's more, the number of stitches changes constantly.  You start with 23 stitches, but sometimes you have as many as 31 stitches, and other times it goes down to 17 stitches.  Which is pretty crazy.

After I had done the first pattern repeat, plus a few more rows, I was a bit puzzled about what it was supposed to look like.  (I made a small mistake half way up - it's supposed to be completely symmetrical.  But apart from that, I followed the instructions correctly, I assure you.)  There are some things that might be intended to look like leaves, and some smaller shapes that might be petals?  or smaller leaves?   Altogether it doesn't make much sense to me.   

So I went back to the pattern leaflet and had a closer look. 

 I thought that in some places, the photo seemed to show two leaves, a four-petalled flower, and some smaller leaves either side.  Hard to tell. It looked as though there perhaps should be a central disc in the middle of the four 'petals' - like a sort of daisy. So for the second pattern repeat, I changed one row of the pattern to make it look more flower-like.

I don't know.  It's quite pretty, I suppose, but I'd like it to look a bit less random.   And it is much too much work to want to repeat it. 

Here's my complete swatch.  I do at least now have something to demonstrate what Lucelle is like when it's knitted up.  I do wonder, though, whether anyone ever knitted this jumper, apart from the sample knitter.  Who was, I hope, paid more than the usual rate for it.

   

Patons Lucelle

Whatever happened to January?  It doesn't feel like we've had 31 days since the New Year, and yet here we are, past the end of January and galloping through February. Anyhow....

Last week we were busy at Lee Mills having a big clear up (or Big Clear Up) - things that had been sorted once but not quite finished, things that had got into a bit of a mess,...  Mostly I spent the week sorting out knitting needles (more later).  And in a drawer that probably hasn't been opened for years, we found a long-forgotten cache of 1950s knitting wool.

It's Patons Lucelle Fine Ply, and as you can see I found some Lucelle pattern leaflets elsewhere in the Guild collection.

Each ball has a ticket buried in the middle:

It is very fine - we should probably call it lace weight now, I think.  The earliest leaflet I found (from 1954) is for a 'Shetland-pattern jumper' and is knitted on 16s and 17s.  I can't find a knitting needle conversion chart that goes below a 14 (2mm), but from a British wire gauge conversion chart, it seems that a 16 is 1.6mm, and a 17 is 1.4mm.  Or to put it another way, the tension specified in the pattern, for stocking stitch on size 16 needles is 54 stitches and 78 rows to 4 inches/10cm.  Here's the illustration, should you feel inspired to have a go.  (It only takes 4oz. (about 100 g.) of yarn, so at least it should be a thrifty knit.)

It has three vertical panels of a lacy pattern on the front, but unfortunately the leaflet illustration doesn't show the lace clearly - you would have to knit a swatch to see what it looks like.

As the ticket with each ball says, Lucelle was a blend of wool, angora and nylon.  It was intended as a luxury yarn, in imitation of cashmere.  It seems to have been introduced in the early 1950s: I found an ad from November 1952, for "PATONS LUCELLE WOOL -- The New Cashmere Wool".  It was priced at 2/6 per ball.  2/6  is directly equivalent to 12½p, so now that seems remarkably cheap, but the same ad gave the prices for 'Purple Heather Wool', 3-ply and 4-ply as 1/5 per ounce (7p) and  'Patons Super Fingering, 2-ply and 3-ply, as 2/- per ounce (10p).  Since Lucelle was sold in ½ ounce balls, it cost 2½ times as much as Super Fingering, weight for weight.

Later Lucelle patterns, like Patons 114, were knitted to a looser tension, on 13s and/or 14s.

And even men were allowed the luxury of Lucelle:  you could knit the pullover or long-sleeved  sweater in Patons 124 below either in 3-ply or in one strand of 2-ply and one strand of Lucelle.  The leaflet says "Lucelle and 2-ply knitted together make a fabric of the utmost affluence -- but there's also a down-to-earth version in 3-ply."  (Though a hand-knitted long-sleeved sweater in 3-ply seems very luxurious to me, and not at all 'down-to-earth'.) 

James Norbury, who was the chief designer for Patons throughout the 1950s, used Lucelle in The Penguin Knitting Book (published 1957) for two evening jumpers.  Here's the nicer one.

Lady's Evening Jumper in Lucelle, from The Penguin Knitting Book, by James Norbury

It has a chevron band around the low neckline, with a small cluster of pearls and sequins on each point - very elegant.  I am sure that James Norbury had a team of knitters at his disposal, so he would have had no qualms about designing a jumper that requires a tension of 42 stitches and 52 rows to 4inches/10cm. on size 13 needles.

The latest Lucelle leaflets I have found so far are from 1960.  Patons leaflet 1054 is for 'Two Lucelle Lovelies':

 I think that by 1960, there were fewer knitters with the patience to knit sweaters with very fine yarns - a new generation of knitters had not had the experience of clothes rationing, when you had to make a very little wool go a long way.  So even 3-ply knitting was beginning to seem like hard work, and I suspect that Lucelle disappeared not long after 1960.  Now we would knit lacy scarves and shawls with such a fine yarn, on much larger needles -- much less work per square inch.