A £5 Aran Cardigan

A bag of mixed knitting patterns arrived at the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection this week, including a copy of a magazine called Knitting & Homecraft.

Knitting & Homecraft magazine, No. 4

We have several issues of Knitting & Homecraft  in the collection, and in fact we already have this one.   It was published monthly, and this was a February issue - but which year?  It's evidently some time in the 1970s, by the styles, but the year isn't given.  It isn't in the British Library catalogue either, which would give some dates.  I've tried looking for clues in the magazine before, but I went through this one again, carefully looking for a mention of the year.  Couldn't find one.   It must be 1971 or later, because the price is decimal (30p), and I think it's early 1970s rather than later.

But looking through the magazine, I was struck by the claim that the Aran cardigan on the cover could then be knitted for 'around £5', which seems astonishing now.  The yarn specified was good quality, too - Blarney Bainin Wool, Irish pure wool specifically intended for Aran knits.    The pattern is headed 'Forever Arans': "These beautiful traditional stitch cardigans will always look right, feel right and be right for wherever you are.  They would be very costly to buy, but these can be made for around £5 from our pattern."    The editorial at the front also makes similar points: "we had in mind those of our readers who like good top fashion garments, yet cannot afford to pay high prices for the ones sometimes seen in the shops....... they are in pure wool, which will last for a very, very long time."   Aran knits were very popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s for hand knitters (though not really 'top fashion', I think). The magazine was quite right about that last point - an Aran cardigan or sweater knitted in the 1970s could very well still be wearable.  (I've got one myself (here), though it's not really a traditional Aran.)

I think the £5 cost reinforces my feeling that the magazine is from the early 1970s, rather than later.  There was huge inflation in the U.K. around 1973-6, and according to the Bank of England's historic inflation calculator, the 2017 equivalent of £5 in 1970 is £73.53,  but £5 in 1976 would only be worth £34.21 now.

My guess for the date of the magazine is 1971 or 1972, but I'd like to know, to catalogue it properly.  I don't think the magazine lasted more than a year, in fact - we have (most of) issues 1 to 12, and I suspect that it folded after that.  The content suggests that they hadn't quite worked out who their readers were.  They included 'Homecraft' in the title, but in fact there is very little that isn't knitting - just three short pieces on tatting, embroidery and gardening.  So anyone looking for cooking, say, as part of the 'Homecraft' would be disappointed.

Another knitting pattern that caught my eye is this dress in random-dyed yarn (Jaeger Spiral Spun).

There are a few other designs for random yarns in the magazine, and they all show similar patterns of stripes in some areas and large patches of one colour in other areas - random yarns were very popular for knitters in the 1970s, and these unpredictable patches of colour were a desirable feature.  (Now, colour pooling is something to be avoided.)  The overdress is machine knitted, and again I wonder if the magazine was judging its readership correctly.  Presumably they thought that including both hand and machine knitting would increase readership, but I suspect that most machine knitters would prefer to buy a machine knitting magazine (there were several being published then).  And if a hand knitter saw this design and liked it, it would be frustrating to find that it was only for machine knitters.   If I'm right that it only lasted for 12 issues, it never attracted readers in sufficient numbers.  And now it is almost completely forgotten, except in archives like the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection. 

Arans in Birmingham

I have just been to Birmingham with my colleague Angharad - we did a trunk show and workshop on Arans yesterday for the Birmingham branch of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  That is, I did the trunk show in the morning, and Angharad did a workshop in the afternoon.  We had two suitcases full of Arans - they are of course very bulky and heavy.  (Fortunately for us, we didn't have to transport them ourselves on the train - they were taken to Birmingham by car a few weeks ago and they are being brought back this week.)  I've given talks on Aran sweaters a few times, based on those in the Guild collection, and I showed some of the same things yesterday, including a replica of the sweater illustrated in Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns, published in 1943, that I showed here.  We had also chosen the Aran sweater in 4-ply (fingering) wool from a 1959 Woman's Weekly magazine (see here for more details):

and my own Susan Duckworth Aran from 1973, as well as more conventional Aran knits.

The collection has some distinctly unconventional Arans from the 1980s, using more or less standard Aran stitch patterns, but not knitted in wool.  One we showed yesterday is in purple chenille, following the Sirdar pattern below (cropped version):

Sirdar 5231

Another is in pale blue cotton:

Wendy 4033

We even have a batwing Aran sweater in a cream yarn with lurex, though in that case we don't have the pattern:

Here's a detail to show the gold sparkly bits:

If you recognise the pattern, please let me know.  Did the pattern specify lurex yarn, I wonder, or was that the knitter's choice.  And why not?  Maybe my life too would be richer for a batwing lurex Aran sweater.

At Angharad's workshop in the afternoon, we were given Aran weight yarn in cotton, to knit a wash-cloth.  We each chose stitches from the Arans in the trunk show.  I chose mine mainly from a very fine 1950s Aran:

I used the double cable from this sweater and the cable from the welt, and a related cable from the welt of the 1943 replica.  I carried on knitting it on the train back home, and then finished it last night.

It was a very successful workshop - devising your own pattern from a garment makes you examine it much more closely than you would do otherwise.

We had travelled to Birmingham on Friday, and as an extra, that evening our friend Janet took us to a Rowan Ruby Anniversary event, put on by the Stitch Solihull yarn shop.  The Birmingham branch had treated us to the tickets, and it was a lot of fun.

There was a display of current and vintage Rowan designs, as well as the current Rowan yarns and book to browse.   The Soumak wrap below by Lisa Richardson is both past and current: it was first published in 2013, but is also in Rowan's new 40 years book.

Lisa Richardson's Soumak and Mayfield designs

There were of course several designs by Kaffe Fassett: the China Clouds jacket is from Rowan Magazine 28 (2000) and Summer Star from Magazine 25 (1999).

China Clouds jacket by Kaffe Fassett

Summer Star by Kaffe Fassett

We were encouraged to wear a Rowan knit for the evening (in exchange for free entry in a raffle).  I wore the Gilda sweater that I made in 2009, in Rowan Wool Cotton - still a favourite of mine.   It was fascinating to see what other people were wearing - including a huge 1980s intarsia sweater.

There was a fashion show, too, presented by Anna of Stitch Solihull - here she is modelling a jacket with 'ROWAN YARNS' knitted into it.

It was a very good evening.  The shop provided drinks and a buffet with a 1970s theme (for the 40th anniversary) - including pineapple chunks and cubes of Cheddar cheese on cocktail sticks, and of course Black Forest gateau.  Looking through the Rowan books, I found at least two designs that I really want to knit.  And Angharad won the first prize in the raffle. 

New Acquisition

On Friday I took delivery of 4 boxes of knitting publications - the collection of a woman who has recently died.  They were donated to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection by her husband, and delivered by a friend of his who lives locally.  There are magazines and pattern booklets, as well as  pattern leaflets - the leaflets alone make a stack about 20cm high. They are mostly in very good condition; she can't have knitted them all, and perhaps she just liked collecting knitting patterns.

Most of them are from the 1970s and later, but a few are older. There are a couple from the 1930s, and a few from the 1950s.  Quite a few are baby patterns: I like these two sitting in their baby Lloyd Loom chairs, looking a bit bemused.

Bairnswear 1653

And there are a lot of Aran patterns.  Some are quite traditional, some use recognisably Aran motifs, but not on a standard sweater or cardigan.

Garryowen FF.41

Sirdar 6474

And then there are the Aran ponchos, which are just never a good idea, if you ask me.

Bellmans 1296

 So, more pattern leaflets to sort out.  They are in such nice condition that  it will be a pleasure to add them into the collection.

PS I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't written more about the Guild convention earlier this month in Sheffield.  But Emma Vining has written a very comprehensive post here about the Convention, and the open day at Lee Mills beforehand, so now I can just re-direct you there for more details.  Thanks, Emma! 

In Aran Style, 1959

On Friday I did my talk on "The Evolution of Aran Style" once again for the Leeds branch of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.   It's the 4th or 5th time I've given the talk, but it changes a bit each time, and I use a slightly different selection of Aran sweaters to illustrate it.  The new entry this time was a jumper that the cataloguers were recording a few weeks ago.  

The donor had included the pattern with the garment - otherwise we might not have felt confident in describing it as "Aran style".   The pattern was published in Woman's Weekly in 1959.  The headline is "In Aran style is this chunky patterned sweater", and the magazine goes on to say "These magnificent husky patterns, so like those from the Atlantic Isles of Aran, make up a Double Knitting jersey we think you will find irresistible."  It is hardly chunky or husky in modern terms, but the description suggests that Woman's Weekly readers were usually knitting with finer yarn at that time - they are assured that because it's Double Knitting, "the sweater will grow quickly on the needles."   In fact, the sweater we have in the collection was knitted in 4-ply, not DK - I think that the knitter followed the instructions for a larger size than she was aiming for, to compensate.  It is a very 1950s sweater, especially as styled in the magazine. 

I used to read Woman's Weekly back then at my Grandma's, and I was always fascinated by the suggested colour schemes for outfits.  It seemed like a glimpse of some profound and esoteric knowledge that the Woman's Weekly writers had mastered, and if only I tried hard enough I could acquire it too.   For this sweater, the magazine declares: "There are appropriate colours to choose" and then lists them: 

• Leprechaun green jersey, beige cavalry twill skirt, cream silk scarf.
• Unbleached natural jersey, peat brown skirt, emerald green scarf.
• Atlantic blue jersey, dark navy skirt, pale lemon yellow scarf.
• Gypsy red jersey, black and white check trews, pale grey scarf.
• Gorse yellow jersey, green tartan skirt, dark green headband. 

Too bad if you'd like purple or pink.  

The largest size (40 in.) is intended for a man (who ideally should have an open-topped sports car to go with it) and the magazine advises: "Choose the stronger colours of granite grey, storm blue or unbleached natural if you are knitting for a man."

It's interesting that the possibility of knitting in unbleached wool is offered in both cases - only a few years later, Patons introduced Capstan yarn specifically for knitting Aran sweaters.  It was what we would now call Aran weight yarn, i.e. thicker than DK, and initially was only available unbleached.  After that, Aran sweaters knitted in Capstan or similar yarns, in "traditional" Aran patterns, became extremely popular in this country.  Perhaps the Woman's Weekly pattern shows the beginnings of a trend towards knitting Aran sweaters in unbleached wool. 

Talking about Arans, Again

At the Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention in Derby,  I gave a repeat of the talk I gave to the Huddersfield local group, as described here, but with added PowerPoint. The theme was how Aran sweaters first became known to hand knitters in the U.K., and became very popular  from the 1960s on.

I took three sweaters from the Guild collection as props for the talk, as well as a couple of things of my own. I've written about my own vintage Arans before:  one is the Susan Duckworth sweater that I knitted in 1974 and still wear, and the other is  the Aran bobble hat that my mother knitted for my sister in the late 1960s. 

The first Aran sweater that I took from the collection is a replica of one that was bought in Dublin in 1936 by Heinz Kiewe, and illustrated in Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns, published in 1943.  

Replica of the 1936 Aran sweater in Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns

I don't know of any other Aran sweater that was written about in this country before 1943, so the original would be a historic garment, if it still existed.  But it seems that it doesn't.   Mary Thomas gave instructions for the stitch patterns in her book, but no details of the overall construction.  In 1987, Richard Rutt devised a complete knitting pattern from the printed photograph in the book, and it was published in the Guild's magazine, Slipknot.  We have two sweaters knitted from his instructions in the Guild collection, and it was one of those that I took to Derby. 

The second sweater is one of the gems of the collection.  It is beautifully knitted, in a fine yarn - it appears to be 3-ply (light fingering).  

A 1950s Aran sweater in fine yarn

 I think that it dates from the 1950s - the neck is very close fitting, with buttons at one side, and that is typical of the 1950s.  The stitch patterns are not unusual, but all the details have been so carefully worked out - for instance, the welts and neckband have little cables in them, which merge neatly with the cables in the body and sleeves.  

Detail - welt and body stitch patterns

    
And my favourite detail is that the central horseshoe cable in each sleeve is continued as a narrow shoulder strap and then merges into one of the cables in the neckband.   It is all just perfect - in design and in execution.  It's wonderful.

Detail - neckband

The third sweater I took from the collection is not, strictly speaking, an Aran. It is the Wheatsheaf sweater, knitted from a free pattern in the Sunday Times Magazine in 1984.  It looks like an Aran at first glance, partly because it is knitted in the thick cream wool we associate with Arans, but actually it is quite different.  

Wheatsheaf Sweater

Although the Wheatsheaf sweater has cables and bobbles, the central panel is nothing like a typical Aran sweater - in fact, much of it is not even knitted, but embroidered.  The ears of wheat, for instance, are in blanket stitch - and in the Guild's example have been beautifully done to give a very 3-dimensional effect.  

Like the Susan Duckworth Aran, the Wheatsheaf sweater demonstrates that by the 1970s,  Arans had become so well-known and mainstream that just a few basic elements (thick wool in natural cream, cables, maybe bobbles)  would indicate "Aran", and designers could then deviate from the typical Aran sweater and produce something completely novel. 

And having done all the research for my talks, and closely examined the Aran sweaters I took to Derby, I'm beginning to feel that I want to knit another.   I've bought myself  Alice Starmore's  Aran Knitting (purely for research purposes)  and it is full of enticing patterns......  

Talking about Arans

Yesterday evening we had the second meeting of the Huddersfield group of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  I talked about Aran knits - how knitting patterns for Aran sweaters started to appear in this country in the 1950s, became very popular in the 1960s, and have never really gone away since then.  The talk was based around sweaters and patterns from the Guild collection.  You need a lot more baggage to talk about Aran sweaters than you do talking about gloves - I had a large suitcase full of sweaters and a bag of pattern leaflets, magazines and books as well.   But it was worthwhile - the talk went well, I think, and people were interested.  

The talk was a kind of rehearsal for a talk I am giving at the Guild Convention in Derby, later this month.   I don't want to say too much about the talk, and give away the plot, or it might spoil the surprise.  But I shan't take to Derby all the sweaters that I had last night - I need to take my own things for the weekend as well. So I can show an Aran sweater that I'm not planning to take to Derby: 

 

It's a man's sweater, very bulky, though not as heavy  as it looks.  We know the pattern that was used to knit it:  Sirdar 2018, issued in 1962.  Although it's about 50 years old, it looks up-to-date - if you saw it in a knitting magazine now, you wouldn't assume it was a vintage design. 

Sirdar 2018

The sweater seems to be in the same yarn, Sirdar Supreme, that's featured in the leaflet - in fact, the same colour too.  It's a very thick, soft and loosely-spun yarn - I don't think that the resulting sweater would stand up to hard wear, but it would be ideal to wear on  a cold day while leisurely smoking your pipe (as demonstrated by the model).       

In the early 60s, spinners don't seem to have made their minds up about the thickness of yarn appropriate for Arans.  Here's another Sirdar pattern, issued in about 1960, for an Aran sweater in double knitting yarn - much finer than Supreme.  "Aran"  did not become a term for a standard yarn weight in the UK, as well as a sweater style, until some years later. 

Sirdar 7795

Confusion confession

I have had to edit my previous post on my Aran bobble hat.  I discovered that I had confused two different Patons Aran pattern books from the 1960s, The Aran Book and The Aran Look.  When I wrote the post I inexplicably included the front cover of  The Aran Look, when the bobble hat is actually from The Aran Book.  Got that?  So now I have switched them round.  Here is the cover of The Aran Look, which some readers will already have seen in the original version of the earlier post:

And just to prove that The Aran Book was indeed very popular (and that I can now tell the difference between them), here is a later cover,  which says that the original edition sold over a million copies.  It's that first edition that turns up over and over again - I sometimes feel that I must have seen a significant proportion of the million copies.

The Aran Look is itself  notable for an amazing Aran outfit of "sweater, helmet, knickerbockers and oversocks". The sweater is a nice design and perfectly wearable. But Aran knickerbockers?  No.  One of those extraordinary designs where you wonder if anyone ever made it and wore it, apart from the sample knitter and model (who of course were paid to).

An Aran Bobble Hat

In all the mass of material that we have been sorting in the Knitting and Crochet Guild's collections, some items turn up over and over again. The one that I have seen most often, probably, is a Patons pattern book, The Aran Book, published about 1968.  I have seen so many copies of it that I almost believe that every knitter in the country must have had one.

Why did it sell so well?  Most of the patterns are fairly standard Aran jumpers and cardigans.  But when knitting Aran jumpers first became popular, you were supposed to use oiled wool (in the natural white/cream, of course) - the first Aran jumper I knitted was in oiled wool.  And most of the early Aran pattern leaflets were illustrated in black and white - why would you need colour?  So I think this would have been a very attractive booklet. You don't need special oiled wool, you can use Patons Capstan, a regular wool yarn in Aran weight.  And you can knit in red, blue, green - any colour you want.  (I was knitting at the time, and knitting Aran jumpers too, so I ought to know why it appealed to knitters so much, but I don't.)

I know that we had a copy of The Aran Book in my family, because I have a bobble hat that my sister knitted from it (although I don't remember the booklet itself).  I have been wearing the hat at Lee Mills recently when I have been working downstairs in the magazine collection, where it is very cold.

It is definitely the same hat because the Aran motifs match, although it was never as roomy as the one shown in the booklet.

Hat and mittens from The Aran Book

I think it would look better without the bobble on top, but for historical accuracy I shall leave it on.

PS  My sister says that actually the hat was knitted for her by our mother.  She thinks that Mother might have been using up some yarn and that was why she made it a bit smaller than shown - although I'm not sure how.  Maybe it was finer yarn or smaller needles.   She also thinks that there might have been matching mittens as well, but we don't know what happened to them.

Revisiting a Past Project

Royal College Aran

The photo is from a "Fashion Workshop" collection of ideas for things to make  published by a long-defunct UK fashion magazine, Over21, in Autumn/Winter 1973.  It included several knitting patterns, including this one, titled Royal College Aran.   The blurb says "Fresh from a design course at the Royal College of Art, Susan Duckworth turned her talents to the traditional and folksy charm of  Aran, slicked up with  a '74 shape and doughboy pockets."

(Susan Duckworth is still a knitwear designer, and has become well-known and successful since her Royal College days, though she has mostly focussed on multicoloured designs using intarsia, it seems.)

I loved the look of this sweater when I first saw it, and how it made Aran stylish. My sister and I both knitted it for ourselves.   

By then I had already knitted myself several jumpers, though I can't remember most of them, and I had  knitted a traditional Aran jumper - they had become very popular round about then for women, I think for the first time.  That first Aran jumper no longer survives - I must have worn it out eventually.  (In my memory, winters were a lot colder then, partly because my parents' house had no heating except in two downstairs rooms. So an Aran jumper got a lot of wear.) 

I still have my Royal College Aran and wear it.  The design looks fresh and current to me, even now (though it seems rather quaint to read that it's a 1974 shape, as if that makes it new and exciting).  I have just packed it away for the summer, but I will add a photo later.

(Much, much later - in fact January 2013.)  I have been wearing the jumper again this week because it has been very cold.  It still looks up-to-date, I think, in spite of being nearly 40 years old.    You can see that I made a couple of changes: I did a twisted rib instead of a plain rib.  I made the cuffs ribbed, too,  instead of stocking stitch, and just had a single turn-back, instead of turning it over twice as shown.  And I continued the honeycomb cable up to the shoulder seams.    It is still very nice to wear.