Coronation Knits

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Queen's Coronation.  In 1953, several spinners issued Coronation pattern leaflets to mark the occasion - I have been collecting them, as I have been sorting the pattern leaflets at Lee Mills. 

Copley 1953

My favourite is Copley's leaflet number 1953. It has an appropriately royal theme - a white jumper with an all-over design of small red and blue crowns.   And it even has the right number!   As far as I can tell, it wasn't issued out of sequence - it just happened that leaflet 1953 was due to be issued during 1953.  Copley's must have been delighted, and reserved 1953 for a Coronation pattern. 

 Sirdar issued several leaflets in its Coronation Series, though they mostly don't seem to have been designed with a Coronation theme.  

Sirdar 1441

Sirdar 515

They are typical 1950s designs, including the little girl's outfit of a knitted skirt with pleats and knitted braces - I had one like it in dark brown.  

Just one pattern in the Sirdar series had a Coronation theme - a jumper with a design of crowns and Tudor roses (?) around a square neckline. But I have only seen the pattern advertised - we don't have it in the collection at Lee Mills.  It was disappointing when we got to sorting that batch of leaflets to find that that one was missing. 

 

 

Ad for Sirdar 1440

   

Marriner 186

Marriner's issued about five Coronation leaflets.  The one I have shown has a gold label on the front saying that it is one of Marriner's Coronation Series, but others that I have seen don't have the label. There is a child's cardigan in the series, illustrated on the back of one of the other leaflets, with a design of soldiers in dress uniform and the Coronation coach, but otherwise it is not obvious that the designs in the series have anything to do with the Coronation, especially without the label on the front.    

I imagine women knitting these designs to wear on June 2nd - at a street party, or while watching the Coronation on the tiny black-and-white TV screens of 1953.    I know that I went with my mother to watch it on a neighbour's TV,  though I don't remember much about it - I mainly remember that my sister, who was younger than me, was left outside to sleep in her pram in the rain.   My husband remembers going to the Coronation rehearsal in London and having a new coat.  (It rained on the rehearsal day, too.)  He was not yet 4 at the time, so it is one of his earliest memories.    A long time ago.       

Looking For Mary Quant

Emu 2561 - designed by Mary Quant

Last week at Lee Mills, I was searching for Emu pattern leaflets designed by Mary Quant.  She did two collections of knitting & crochet patterns for Courtelle, in 1965 and 1966, and Emu was one of the spinners involved.  I found one of the Emu patterns a few months ago, but I know there should be about 5 more.  I looked in the Emu boxes that we have already sorted - nothing there.  So last week, I searched the four boxes of Emu patterns that we haven't yet sorted.  And I still haven't found any more.  

It was disappointing, but not altogether surprising. Even though we have upwards of 50,000 different pattern leaflets (that's my current estimate), that still means that there are a lot that we don't have.  And the leaflets in the collection have almost all been used, so that it's representative of what knitters and crocheters chose to buy.  We are most likely to have the leaflets that sold well.  Although the Mary Quant patterns were stylish and fashionable, I suspect that they didn't sell in large numbers.  They would appeal to young women who wanted to make themselves a high-fashion outfit cheaply (or who could persuade their mothers to make one for them), but that might have been quite a small constituency.  And there were 27 leaflets in each collection to choose from, which would reduce the number of potential buyers for each one still further.

 

Ad for Emu 2562

Even so, I did hope to find more - especially as I have seen an ad for another of the Emu patterns, which you might expect to increase sales.  (That's what advertising is for, right?)

My fruitless search for Mary Quant patterns wasn't wasted effort, though. While I was looking for them, I did some rough sorting and in the process, added to my small collection of patterns celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.  After that, I finished sorting the Emu patterns from the 1940s and 1950s (about 500 of them) - I'll write about the 1940s patterns another time.

Emu 3234 - Jubilee 77

And I also sorted some Sirdar patterns, with some Huddersfield University students who are working at Lee Mills, and another Roger Moore pattern turned up.  (I don't think the pipe suits him.)

Sirdar 1390 with Roger Moore

The Man with the Golden Cardigan

As it's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, there is a lot of discussion of 1952 in the media, so why don't I join in?  One thing that was happening in 1952 in knitting only became noteworthy later  -  Roger Moore was at the peak of his career as a model for knitting patterns, before switching to acting.  The move worked out very well for him, of course, even if it was a loss to knitting.  The Stitchcraft Men's Book appeared in that year, I believe, and he featured in most of the 1952 issues of Stitchcraft, including two front covers.

He looks very young (he was about 25) and really pretty good - male models of later decades often look ridiculous now (bad hair, dreadful moustaches and/or too much fake tan).

What looks most dated is that he is often posed with a cigarette or a pipe.  It seems quite shocking now to see a model smoking.  And I associate pipe-smoking with much older men, though perhaps it wasn't like that in 1952.

Another Jubilee Knit

Here's another pattern that was produced for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.  It turned up in the latest batch of patterns that we sorted at Lee Mills - very timely, as this is the Diamond Jubilee weekend.    Nicely produced - the band across the top is silvery, although it has reproduced as gray. I wonder how many of these tops were actually knitted?

The weather is awful today - cold and wet.  I put all my thick winter woollies away and will have to get one out again.  Such a pity when so many people have put a lot of effort into organizing events for the weekend - we aren't taking part in any, but can still sympathize.   

We were in Lincoln on Friday and visited the castle.  We saw a Jubilee party taking place in the yard of a junior school just below the castle walls.  Presumably there were contingency plans to have the party indoors if wet, but it was a fine day.  Judging by the noise, the children were having a great time.  They had evidently all been encouraged to  wear red and/or white and/or blue, and it all looked very colourful and fun.   I wonder if they will remember the party in 60 years' time?  

Jubilee Knits

My friend Ann Kingstone has recently released a shawl pattern designed to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. It is in a special Jubilee yarn from The Natural Dye Studio - 75% British Bluefaced Leicester wool, 20% silk and 5% of something sparkly called stellina. The pattern is free with the yarn, or you can buy it via Ravelry under Ann Kingstone Designs.

As always with Ann's designs, it's rather special - probably technically challenging, but worth the effort to knit. Just the thing to wear to a Jubilee street party.




I have seen some other Jubilee knits in the last couple of weeks, while I was sorting the boxes of Wendy patterns from Lee Mills.  I found two patterns that seemed to be out of sequence - their general design and layout was the same as patterns numbered about 1550 to 1750, but these were numbered 1952 and 1977.  Eventually, when I looked properly at the patterns and not just the numbers, I realised that they were Jubilee patterns, for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.  Wall-to-wall red white and blue does not seem a very subtle way to celebrate.  I wonder how many people knitted these patterns for the occasion.

I found the numbering of these two patterns very annoying too.  Wendy re-used the numbers 1952 and 1977 when they came to those numbers in the proper sequence, so having these two patterns outside the sequence of all the other patterns is very inconvenient.  It messes up the cataloguing no end!