Identifying a Designer's Work

A couple of weeks ago, I was sorting through a small batch of pattern leaflets and other publications that had been donated to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  One of the items was a pull-out supplement of 'Happy Holiday Knitteds' from Woman magazine - undated, but I think probably mid to late 60s.   I looked through the supplement and immediately recognised one of the designs.

I recognised it because I saw that sweater in 2012.   It was designed by Elizabeth Forster, and the sweater was one of those I saw when I visited the house in Norfolk where she had lived, as I described here.

I am used to matching knits to the patterns that they were knitted from, but this one is the other way round:  it is the sample knit that Elizabeth Forster sent to Woman magazine with the design, and so is the exact same sweater that the model is wearing in the photo.   If I hadn't already seen the sweater , I wouldn't have known that it was one of her designs - there is nothing in the Woman supplement to identify any of the designers.

Spotting this design as one of Elizabeth Forster's prompted me to look again to see if I could find any more of her designs.  She kept extensive paperwork on the designs that she sold, and I took photos of a few examples when I was in Norfolk.  If she sold a design to a magazine, the company whose yarn she specified also paid a 'placing fee' (as well as providing the yarn to knit the sample I believe).  Her invoice specified the date of the magazine, with a very brief description of the garment.  So for instance, in an invoice sent to Emu Wools in 1959, is an item

"To yellow calypso blouse in Woman's Own supplement 7.3.59 .... £3. 3s. 0d"   

We have that knitting supplement from Woman's Own in the KCG collection, and here is the yellow blouse in Emu Calypso:

From Woman's Own supplement 'Knitting for Out of Doors", 7th March 1959. 

The pattern is headed  "Sun Bright . . .  Fashion Right" and goes on "An attractive belted blouse in stocking stitch".  Evidently Calypso was a fine yarn:  the blouse is knitted on size 12 and 13 needles (2.75mm and 2.25 mm), to a tension of 9 stitches and 12 rows to 1 inch.  (About 36 stitches and 48 rows to 10cm.).  It's a neat, tailored, knit and very elegant, but would anyone want to put in so much work now?

I found a few more of Elizabeth Forster's designs, by matching invoices for placing fees to Woman's Own supplements we have in the collection.  This one is headed "Long, Loose and Elegant".

From Woman's Own supplement "Family Knitting", 1st October 1958.

The description goes on: "This lovely middy style jersey pinpoints today's feeling for long, straight lines.  It is worked in stocking stitch with a deep moss stitch collar."   (That's 'middy' as in midshipman, which came to mean "A woman's or child's loose blouse with a sailor collar")  It's knitted in Patons Beehive Fingering 4-ply, also on size 12 and 13 needles, to a tension of 8 stitches to the inch.

Another design from 1960 is in slightly thicker wool, Patons Quickerknit Botany.  Again a lot of stocking stitch (at 7 stitches to the inch) but with a leaf motif at the neck.

From Woman's Own 'Knitting for All the Family' supplement, 20th February 1960.  

These are all good-looking knits, but it's daunting to think of the time it would take to knit all that stocking stitch - even the thickest yarn used is finer than DK.  But I suppose that knitters in the late 1950s were used to that  - and these designs are overall much more interesting and stylish than the very plain boring stocking stitch twin-sets which also appeared in knitting patterns at that time.

As I've said before, it's sad that the designers of knitting patterns were rarely acknowledged - if Elizabeth Forster had not carefully kept all her papers, I doubt if it would be possible to identify these three designs as her work.  I'm very pleased to have been able to use the paperwork and the KCG collection to make the link.  

Elizabeth Forster carried on designing knitwear through the 1960s and 1970s, and many of her later designs were influenced by her travels around the world, and her interest in bird-watching.  Her archive of papers and sample knits is now under the care of Norwich Castle Museum.  There was a fascinating exhibition of her work at the museum in 2014, including designs featuring birds and othes showing a South American influence - you can see my photos of the exhibition here.

More Elizabeth Forster Designs

The first designs by Elizabeth Forster that I saw were illustrated in her book, The Wandering Tattler.  The designs had been published as Wendy pattern leaflets, and a year later I found copies of the leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection - they are illustrated here.

There were three more pattern leaflets that she designed for Wendy in the display of her archive at Norwich Castle Museum earlier this month.  All three date from the 1970s, and I had already picked out two of them as possible Elizabeth Forster designs when I was sorting Wendy pattern  leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection two years ago.  I knew that she had done a lot of work for Wendy Wools and that her designs were often inspired by her travels, so I kept an eye out for likely leaflets. Leaflets 1593 and 1721 were two of those I thought were hers.  (I think that I was probably right about the others that I picked, too, but that hasn't yet been confirmed.)    

Wendy 1593

Wendy 1721

 They are very 70s shapes - the hooded tabard looks very dated now.  And shawl-collared belted jackets are a bit Starsky and Hutch, for those who remember 70s TV.  But I like the colour work - though in both cases, the belt breaks up the pattern and tends to spoil the effect, especially in the tabard.

The third Wendy pattern on show in Norwich is not one I had picked as a possible Elizabeth Forster, because it is less obviously 'ethnic'.  But it might be based on a motif she saw somewhere - in a mosaic maybe?  The yoke pattern with its expanding diamonds and graduated colours is a very nice effect, and it's a classic sweater shape that you could knit now with very little alteration.  

Wendy 1815

  There's much more research to be done into Elizabeth Forster's designs, of course - these are just a few examples.

The Elizabeth Forster Archive

More than two years ago, I wrote here about a visit to Norfolk to see an amazing collection of sample garments and records left by the designer Elizabeth Forster. She designed knitwear from the late 1940s to the 1980s, and after she moved to Norfolk in the late 1950s, she made her living from it. Hundreds of her knitting and crochet patterns were published, in magazine and newspapers, and as spinners' leaflets.  But, like other knitwear designers at that time, her name was unknown to the many thousands of knitters who must have made her designs over the years.  As I said in 2012, it was fascinating to see all the samples and records that she had left, and I thought that it was an immensely important archive.

In 2012, her friends were trying to find a permanent home for the collection.  And now they have succeeded!  They invited me to stay with them last weekend, and to go with them to Norwich Castle Museum on Saturday.  The museum has acquired the whole collection, and on Saturday, as part of a day of activities celebrating fashion and textiles, the Elizabeth Forster Archive was on show to the public for the first time.    

The display was in the castle keep, a very grand space.  Eight of the sample garments were displayed on mannequins - the museum staff had picked some of the most striking and characteristic designs.

One of my favourites is a sweater with a band of interlocking black and white birds around it - she was a keen bird-watcher, so I expect that the birds are a correct representation of some species, though the interlocking design must also have been inspired by Escher.

I also liked a cream sweater with a geometric design in orange and turquoise.  The motif again probably comes from something she saw on her travels - designing knitwear funded her travels, but at the same time, her travels gave her ideas for more designs.

   
The influence of South America is obvious in some of her designs: on show on Saturday was a coat and skirt, with bands of llamas and other motifs on the skirt.

There were more garments laid out on a table - these were samples which have already been matched up with its published pattern from one of Elizabeth Forster's files.   The samples that she kept were those where the design was published in a magazine - the magazine had no use for the sample, once the design was published .  On the other hand, if a design was sold to a spinner, and published as a pattern leaflet, the spinner would keep the sample - I think that sample garments were lent to yarn shops to display both the yarn and the design.

Saturday was a wonderful day.  It was good to see the some of archive in its new home, and to meet a few of the enthusiastic volunteers at the Museum who are keen to tie together the sample garments with the designs - there is a lot of research to be done.  And it was lovely to visit my friends and see that they have done a great job in securing the future of the archive, and proper recognition for Elizabeth Forster's work.  

Elizabeth Forster and her cat

Talking about Elizabeth Forster

Yesterday, I went to London to give a talk at the AGM of the Knitting History Forum, on Elizabeth Forster.  The meeting was at the London College of Fashion, just off Oxford Circus.  It was a very good day, though it meant an early start to get to the College for 10.45.    I forgot to take a camera with me (how daft is that?)  so I cannot show you photos of the splendid Christmas decorations in Oxford Street, or of the wonderful pieces of knitting that had been brought to the 'show and tell' session  You'll have to make do with a couple of book jackets off the web, and the title slide for my talk.  The title was suggested by Sandy Black, and I thought it was great - there must have been lots of knitting pattern designers working at the same time as Elizabeth Forster, and we know very little about them. The designers of the patterns published in magazines or by spinners were hardly ever named.  We don't even know many of their names - they were invisible.  

There were several other talks in the afternoon - a really interesting programme.  Lise Warburg from Denmark talked about twined knitting or "knitting with both ends of the ball".  The idea is to give a thicker warmer fabric, though it is often very decorative as well, whether or not both strands are the same colour.  Lise traced the geographic spread of the technique and suggested that it might be related to the travels of the Vikings through Eastern Europe to Byzantium.

Jane Malcolm-Davies gave a talk about the Tudor Tailor project - specifically about the replicas of 16th Century knitted children's clothes that have been made, and the difficulties in writing unambiguous instructions for them.  She brought along some of the replicas:  vests, caps, mittens, socks and a swaddling jacket.  I think that I have seen the original of one of the vests (or one like it) in the Museum of London, and tried to figure out through the glass how it was made, so it was fascinating to be able to examine the replica closely.  

Mary Hawkins talked about her efforts to find the replica of William Lee's 16th century knitting frame that was made by Eric Pasold. She eventually tracked it to the Science Museum in London.  The museum was able to supply her with photos of the models (it turned out that there were two) taken some time ago (with one of the models upside down), but although they haven't lost the actual models, they don't know exactly where they are....

Sandy Black finished the day with a talk on the work of Maria Luck Szanto who was a postwar designer of couture hand-knitted clothes.   I had heard Sandy give a similar talk at the In The Loop conference in September, but actually got a lot out of hearing it again.  The clothes she showed were beautiful - often constructed from several oddly-shaped pieces, which came together in the workshop  in a feat of virtuoso tailoring.  Often the stitch patterns were very intricate too (and always beautifully executed)   - fine pleats, lace patterns graduated to fit the shape of the garment, brocade patterns combined with beading.  Maria Luck-Szanto features in Sandy's new book, Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft, which is on my Christmas list. 

Quetzals and Llamas

I have been sorting a lot of Wendy pattern leaflets from Lee Mills recently - several boxes full, of all dates from about 1950 to about 1980.  (We have many more recent leaflets as well, but I had had enough by then.)   Following my visit to see Elizabeth Forster's archive, I was hoping to find patterns designed by her.  Two Wendy patterns are illustrated in her book, The Wandering Tattler, and we found an advert for another in one of her scrapbooks.   And I did find all three. 

It was nice to see the first two in colour.  The full-colour version of the jacket with a pattern of quetzals is quite startling, in fact.   It's supposed to be a resplendent quetzal, the national emblem of Guatemala, which is mostly green with a red front says Google, so the colours are not strictly accurate, but at least they are bright enough.    The pattern of the other, with llamas, was inspired by a trip to Peru. These both date from the mid-1970s, I guess. (The book was first published in 1976.)    

The quetzal pattern leaflet is another that has a stamp from Mrs Patrick's wool shop at Broomhill in Sheffield, that I wrote about earlier.  While I was sorting all the Wendy leaflets, I found a lot with Mrs Patrick's stamp, all of the same vintage, all in pristine condition.  They must have come directly from the shop somehow, and were never sold.  We have very few records of how any of the pattern leaflets came into the collection, unfortunately.     

The third Elizabeth Forster design is a late 1960s dress and coat, in a sort of Aran style.  This pattern must have been quite popular, to judge from the fact that there are several copies in the Lee Mills collection.  

I must say I have never understood the point of short, sleeveless, woolly dresses - (quite apart from the sagging potential of knitted skirts and dresses).   If it's warm enough to wear a thick wool dress, your arms and legs freeze, surely?        

A Designer's Archive

About a year ago, I wrote here about Elizabeth Forster,  a designer who seemed to be almost completely unknown, but by her own account in her book, The Wandering Tattler, had designed knitting patterns for magazines and spinners over a long period.  I thought then that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find out much more about her work, but fortunately I was wrong.  Although she died some years ago, she had kept a lot of paper work - files of correspondence, invoices and typed pattern instructions, as well scrapbooks of her published designs.  And all this material still exists, along with many of the made-up samples.  It has all been in her house, as she left it, and her friends who inherited it all are now trying to sort it all out and match the garments with the patterns - and contacted me when they saw what I had written in this blog.  

At the end of March I went to visit them and see the collection - I was very excited at the prospect, and it was absolutely fascinating. There are 60 dresses alone, as well as suits and coats, and probably more than a hundred jumpers and cardigans - and these represent only a fraction of her designs. 

She was designing knitting and crochet patterns  from 1947 into the 1980s, so there is a huge range of styles and fashions in her work.  For some of the garments, the best that you could say is that they are of their time - such as the knitted knickerbocker suit.   But none of them are boring - they all have some interesting detail.  Many of the designs, like the two jumpers I photographed, have two-colour geometric patterns that are evidently based on things she saw on her travels, as she described in her book.   

Two favourites from Elizabeth Forster's scrapbooks:  one is from the Daily Mirror in 1960, with Adam Faith wearing a jumper that she had designed.  (For younger readers, Adam Faith was a pop star, back then.)  The caption reads "Knit this sweater for yourself or your own special Adam."

The other appeared in Woman's Own in 1967, and was modelled by Joanna Lumley.  The original jumper still exists in the collection. It was apparently made in one piece, with the ribs that are vertical on the back and front becoming horizontal in on the sleeves - not all of the designs are 'ethnic'.


Elizabeth Forster became a full-time freelance designer in 1956, in her late 40s.  Thereafter she spent 9 months of the year designing, to supplement her BBC pension and fund three months travelling and bird-watching every winter.  She always travelled independently and rarely booked any accommodation before she left home.  She especially loved the Himalayas, and trekked to Everest Base Camp when she was in her 70s - altogether she must have been a remarkable woman.  She died in 1995 at the age of 87.  




She was a prolific designer, and employed a small team of knitters to put her ideas into practice.  Her designs appeared in many magazines and newspapers including Woman's Weekly, Woman and Woman's Own, as well as designing for spinners, especially Wendy Wools.  It is sad that her work, and that of other designers, was unacknowledged at the time and so is now almost unknown.  During my visit, I could only skim through the files of correspondence, but that was enough to find out quite a lot about the knitting business of those days and the relationships between designers, spinners and magazines.  There is a lot more to be discovered from Elizabeth Forster's archive, I'm sure.  Her friends hope to find a permanent home for it, accessible to anyone interested in the history of knitting and crochet.

Elizabeth Forster, designer

I mentioned to a friend that until relatively recently, the people who designed knitting patterns were largely unknown to knitters and that it's sad that they never got any recognition.  She told me that her mother had had a friend, Elizabeth Forster, who designed knitting patterns and, what's more, had written a book.  The book, The Wandering Tattler, is not about her work as a designer, except incidentally.  It's about her travels in South America and Asia, and the birds that she saw - she was a keen ornithologist.  (The wandering tattler is a species of bird.)    It's easy to find cheap secondhand copies of the book online, so I bought one.

She gives a brief outline of her life in the book.  She started working for the BBC in 1930, and after World War II began a parallel career as a freelance designer of knitting patterns, eventually giving up the BBC job in 1955.  In the 1960s and 1970s she evolved a routine of creating designs until she had accumulated enough money to pay for her next trip. Meanwhile, the things she saw on her travels gave her ideas for designs when she came home again.  Sounds like a good lifestyle.  In the book, published in 1976, she says "My ideas [for designs] come from textiles in museums, from baskets, from folk weaving.... The floors of Indian temples have provided several good designs, while another came from the floor of the university in Cuzco, Peru, and yet another from a pair of gloves which I found hanging on a stall in a small village in Afghanistan."  She shows two of her designs in the book, inspired by her travels in Peru and Guatemala, both for Wendy Wools.

And then, while I was sorting through papers from Lee Mills, I found a knitting supplement from Woman magazine, dated October 1957, with patterns for ten jumpers "by top British designers". It is unusual to find any acknowledgment from magazines of that period that the knitting patterns have been designed by somebody, so I took a look. The 10 jumpers are designed by 9 women I had never heard of .... and Elizabeth Forster.

Hers is, I think, more interesting than most of the others. It has an intricate panel of interlaced single cables on the front, and the caption says that it was inspired by wrought iron work - perhaps seen on her travels.

I don't know whether it will be possible to identify any more of her designs - I'm not sure how it could be done. But I am pleased to have brought together these three, at least.  She seems to have been an interesting person and an interesting designer.