The P&B Family Album

Patons & Baldwins became very good at advertising their wares by the 1930s.  They were publishing about 100 'Helps to Knitters' pattern leaflets every year, intended of course to sell their wools, and advertised the patterns widely.  They also published a series of free booklets, each showing many of the patterns currently available.  An imaginative example of  these booklets is the Family Album, published in 1936. 

It shows a fictional family of Mother, Father and four children.  Father is a bank manager, and plays golf.  The eldest of the children, Priscilla, is engaged to be married; another girl, Sue, is old enough to drive a car.  Then Timothy, aged about 11, and Bill, who is a toddler.  They all wear woollies made, naturally, in Patons & Baldwins wools.  Priscilla and Sue knit their own, while Mother knits for the others.  

The six characters, plus the fiancé (David), are shown in scenes of everyday middle-class life, wearing their woollies. Here are Sue and two of her friends at the country club.  

Jumpers with collars seem to have been in fashion for women in 1936.  Here is the pattern for one of the jumpers.  

P&B 2998

Elsewhere in the album, Sue is wearing another jumper in Beehive Wool Cord:

P&B 2104

Wool cord was a thicker version of Beehive Wool String, described as 'pure wool looking just like string' - perhaps very tightly spun?  In the two jumper patterns here for Wool Cord, it's knitted on size 6 (5mm.) needles, so probably at least as thick as modern double knitting.  

Priscilla and David don't go out much, because they are saving to get married, so instead they stay at home and make a rug together.  Patons & Baldwins sold rug wool, as well as rug patterns, and many of their brochures feature rugs as well as knitwear.  

Like the other men (and Timothy) in the Album, David's knitwear isn't very interesting - they all wear V-neck sleeveless pullovers, though Timothy in one scene is shown wearing a V-neck jumper with long sleeves.  (The V neck is to show the tie, which was apparently compulsory, even for casual wear.) 

Meanwhile, Mother is shown having a morning cup of tea in bed. 

How does she manage that - there's a toddler in the house!  And I imagine that Father has gone off to manage his bank - he might possibly have made the cup of tea first, but I can't imagine that he is looking after 'Bill the Baby' while Mother relaxes in bed.  But my reading of Agatha Christie and other 1930s fiction tells me that a bank manager was a well-respected member of the community, and could probably afford a maid, and possibly a nursemaid for Bill, too.   

Mother is wearing a Dressing Jacket that she (of course) made herself.  It's crocheted, with flowers embroidered around the bottom edge of each sleeve.  

P&B 2991

Here's Bill in his nursery (they obviously live in a spacious 1930s villa.)

As well as the photos of the 1930s family, there are little sketches of the imagined ancestral knitters (in the maternal line, I assume), going back to Great-great-grandmother, born in 1785, "the year James Baldwin set up in Halifax".  Great-great-grandmother used Baldwin's wools, and her descendants used 'best wools' - implicitly, the precursors of P&B 1930s wools, though in fact John Paton & Son of Alloa and J. & J. Baldwin of Halifax were separate companies until 1920. 

The main point of the Album is to show some of the P&B Helps to Knitters pattern leaflets current in 1936, and about 65 of them are illustrated, including those that various members of the family are wearing.  Members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild can download the Album from the Guild website here.  Nearly all the leaflets are in the Guild collection and members can request copies from collections@kcguild.org.uk

1920s Woolly Jumpers

 In the last post, I wrote about outfits in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection that were knitted in the early 1950s from 1920s patterns.  Here's another, based on the same set of Beehive Recipe Cards.   

And here is the photo from the card.

 

From Beehive Card No. 51 (1923)

The jumper is partly knitted and partly filet crochet.  The knitted parts (the front and back) are stocking stitch, with evenly spaced columns of pairs of eyelets (i.e. knit two together, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, knit two together).  The photos make the construction fairly clear, I think.  The front is straight up to the armholes, then you increase each side for the sleeves.  The neck opening is made simply by dividing the stitches into two halves and knitting each half separately. There are five pieces of filet crochet as well, one for each shoulder, one for each sleeve, and one for the waistband. 

To put the jumper together, 'sew the pieces of insertion to the front shoulders, then join to the back, leaving a space for the back of the neck.'  The shoulder insertions are made to to the same length as the front shoulders, and the back is wider than the front, so that there will be a space at the back of the neck. 

And finally, 'make a twisted cord of the wool, thread it through the spaces at the waist, attach pom-poms (when threaded) at each end.'  The spaces are in the knitted part of the jumper, using the eyelets.  As with the dress in the last post, there are no instructions for making the cord, or the pom-poms.  (And that's not what I'd call a pom-pom - it's a crocheted ovoid, stuffed with something.)   Cord belts on jumpers, with tassels, pom-poms, etc. were very common in the early 1920s, and some patterns do give instructions for making stuffed crochet balls to go on the end of the belt, so perhaps the person who made the replica in the early 1950s had access to one of those patterns - or else just worked out how to match the photo on the recipe card.  

I don't like the fact that the back is wider than the front - that's not a good way to create a V neck.  And the jumper is very short - the belt appears to be higher than the model's natural waist, though that is easily modified.  I like the use of filet crochet combined with knitting, and I'm sure that a modern design could be based on this one.  But not one that I would like to tackle - my crochet isn't good enough.  

We think of 1920s knitwear as long and straight - worn by women with ideally no curves anywhere. But that wasn't always the case especially in the early 20s - as the photo of the recipe card shows, jumpers sometimes were loose and wide, with a well-defined waist (even if not in the right place). Another replica in the Coats-Patons donation is more typical of our view of 20s knitwear.  It is similar to the Eunice design above - it is a T shape, with a draw-string cord belt with pompoms.  But it is much longer, and I think the belt would sit at hip level, so would be pulled in very little.

I have not yet found the pattern for this jumper.  It is not one of the Beehive recipe cards, though some of the designs have a similar look, like those below. 

From Beehive Card No. 67 (1923)

From Beehive Card No. 84 (1924)

The pattern may have been one of the 'Helps to Knitters' leaflets (originally published by John Paton, Son & Co., and later by Patons & Baldwins). But we have very few of the 1920s 'Helps to Knitters' leaflets in the Guild collection, so looking for the original of the jumper will have to wait - I'll report here if I find it. 

A 1920s Costume

I wrote about the Coats-Patons donation in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection in my last post, and said there that some of them are knitted from vintage Patons & Baldwins patterns. I have identified some of the replica garments as knitted from  Beehive Recipe Cards, which I wrote about here. Although we only have a few of the cards in the collection, the British Library has a complete set of 86, and four of the replica garments given to the collection can be matched to the cards. Here's the first: 

And here is the illustration on the card:

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No. 31

The description on the card is: 'The "Pauline" Costume, being made in TEAZLE Wool, is suitable for sports wear, it is knitted in two colours which, if tastefully chosen, will make a very distinctive one.  The skirt is worked in one piece and knitted so as to give a pleated effect.  The coat is worked in plain knitting, with a vest — knitted in the same manner as the skirt — fastened into the front of the coat.'   

So although the top looks like two separate garments, it is just one: the 'vest' is actually just a piece to join together the two sides of the coat.  It is not easy to see in the photo, but there is a deep band of fabric showing above the top of the vest — the model is wearing something like a camisole, and the outfit is more modest than it looks at first glance. 

Teazle wool was so called because you could create a furry effect on the finished knitting by brushing with a wire brush, though in this case the finished outfit is not intended to be brushed.  A few years ago, I recreated a tam pattern originally intended for Teazle wool, as I described here, and used Rowan Felted Tweed as a substitute, though without seeing the original Teazle wool it's impossible to know how similar they are. 

The back of the jacket is knitted first, and then continued into the two separate fronts (so there are no shoulder seams).  The broad collar, forming a full-length lapel, is knitted as a separate piece.  The skirt and vest are knitted sideways and the pleating is done by working alternate bands of garter stitch and stocking stitch, alternating the two colours.  

The suggested colours are Light Saxe (blue) and Pearl Green.  There is very little contrast between the colours in the black and white photo on the card, and I think that in colour the stripes would have given a subtle green-blue effect. The colours chosen for the replica are not subtle at all, and even in black and white it looks very obviously striped, but again if it was intended for showing on TV, the colours might have been chosen deliberately to show the stripes.

The Beehive Recipe cards in the British Library have British Museum date stamps (because the British Library used to be housed in the British Museum) showing the accession date.  The dates are December 1921 for cards 1 to 37, November 1923 for cards 38 to 74, and June or July 1924 for the rest.  Yarn shops advertised the cards from January 1921, and I think that the Pauline Costume can be dated to 1921.  

Another of the replicas is based on Card no. 26 for a Lady's Knitted Dress.

 

Here's the image from the card:

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No. 26

The description from the card is "The 'Alicia'  Knitted Dress being light in weight is suitable for indoor or outdoor wear. The skirt is worked in a rib which gives a pleated effect, the remainder of the dress is knitted in a plain smooth fabric, with a simple pattern introduced at the neck and cuffs, whilst a thick twisted cord is used for the sash.  The garment being knitted in one piece — with the exception of the sleeves — is easily made and can be worked by any average knitter."  

Here's another photo showing the "simple pattern" at the neck. 

As the description says, the body of the dress is knitted in one piece, starting at the lower edge of the front, continuing up to the shoulders, casting on stitches in the centre to replace those cast off for the front neck opening, and then knitting the back of the dress downwards.  The sleeves are knitted from the cuff upwards, finishing with a straight edge.  This kind of construction was common in 1920s jumpers, though often the sleeves were also knitted in one piece with the body. 

There are no instructions for making the cord belt.  The card just says "make a cord — with tassels attached at each end", of the same wool used for the rest of the dress.  Evidently in the 1920s knitters were expected to know how to make cords, tassels, pompoms and the like, without further direction.  Personally, if I were making the dress I would like some indication of how many strands of wool to use and how long they should be, because a thick cord with tassels, like that shown on the card, would use a lot of wool, and mistakes could be expensive. 

I think it's an unexciting design, but it must have been so much more comfortable to wear than the fashions of 10 or 15 years previously (let alone Victorian fashions) that I can understand women wanting to wear a dress like that.  Pleated skirts (or rather skirts with a pleated effect) seem to have been popular in 1921, at least according to the Beehive cards.  Here are two more designs from the same  1921 tranche. 

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No.30

The title of Card No. 30 is 'Lady's Knitted Dress', but actually it's a skirt and jumper.  The back and front of the jumper are knitted in one piece, as in Card No. 26, but there are separate ribbed pieces to go either side under the armholes.  I don't know why knitting designers of the 1920s were so averse to shoulder seams.   

Illustration from 
Beehive Recipe Card No. 41

Card No. 41 is another Knitted Costume ("Doreen" design), but unlike the Pauline design, above, the jacket is a proper jacket, without the awkward 'vest' piece.  It has some similarities to the jacket of the Pauline costume - the broad striped collar forming full-length lapels, and the belt going under the lapels at the front.  And the back and fronts are knitted in one piece, as before.  

(What's wrong with shoulder seams?  I avoid unnecessary seams where I can, and often choose to knit jumpers top-down, in the round, in one piece so that there are no seams at all, but these designs have seams elsewhere, just not shoulder seams.) 

If I were choosing a knitted costume to represent early 1920s knitting, I would choose the 'Doreen' design rather than the 'Pauline' design.  And I wouldn't choose the 'Alicia' design because it's not very interesting and doesn't seem characteristically 1920s.  But when the replicas in the Coats-Patons donation were made in the early 1950s, I have no idea what the purpose was, or why particular designs were chosen, so I can't judge.  

In my next post, I'll write about another replica garment that was knitted from a Beehive Recipe Card, and is much more attractive, in my view.    

  

Helps to Knitters 101

The spinners J. & J. Baldwin & Partners of Halifax and John Paton, Son & Co. Ltd. of Alloa merged in 1920 to form Patons & Baldwins, probably the largest manufacturer of knitting wool in the country.  Before the merger, both companies had published knitting patterns:  Baldwin's Beehive Booklets and Paton's Helps to Knitters series.  In spite of the merger, the component companies continued to operate more or less independently for several years, with the two separate series of pattern leaflets.  But eventually, they were merged into a single Helps to Knitters series.  

Some of the (very few) 1920s Helps to Knitters leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection list the current leaflets on the back.  This is the beginning of one such list:

(Click on the image to enlarge it.)  The jump in numbering after 84P marks the start of the new series, which began with Helps to Knitters No.101. 

(Geeky note: The earlier leaflets had been numbered from 1, but it seems that neither series had reached more than 90 leaflets by 1927, so 101 was a good starting point.  A few of the earlier leaflets remained in print for several more years, but were re-issued as Patons & Baldwins' Helps to Knitters, with their original number.  A 'P' was appended if the leaflets had originally been a Paton's Helps to Knitters leaflet; so for instance, there were two different leaflets numbered 69 (formerly a Beehive Booklet) and 69P (formerly a Paton's Helps to Knitters leaflet.))

We know that the new Helps to Knitters launched in 1927, because Beehive Booklets were still being advertised in January of that year, but then in April  Helps to Knitters No. 102 was advertised:  

Ad for Helps to Knitters 102, April 1927

But the most intriguing leaflet in the list is No. 101:  Hand-knitted spats, in various wools.  Whenever I have seen that entry, I have regretted that we don't have the leaflet.  In the 1920s,  men wore spats over shoes, to cover the ankles and top of the shoe, but they were quite formal, city wear - worn for instance by Bertie Wooster and his ilk in the P G Wodehouse stories, and were definitely not knitted.  So what were the Hand-knitted Spats like, and were they for men or women?  

Then, a little while ago I was looking in the excellent Trove archive of Australian newspapers (for something else entirely, of course) when I found the pattern!  It appeared on the women's page of  The Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania) in April 1927, under the headline "Hand-Knitted Spattees".  I have transcribed the pattern below.  

Paton and Baldwin's Helps to Knitters, No. 101M.

Materials. — 5oz. Patons' super Scotch fingering, 4-ply, or Beehive fingering, 4-ply. Two No. 14 steel knitting needles, 9in. wide elastic.

Measurements. — Length from top to heel (with top turned over), 14in.

Work at a tension to produce 10 stitches to the inch.

Cast on 96 stitches.

Work in rib of (K. 2, P. 2) for 4in.

Proceed as follows: —

1st row. — K. 7, P. 2, * K. 6, P. 2. repeat from to the last 7 stitches, K. 7.

2nd row. — K. 1, purl to the last stitch, K. 1.

Repeat these two rows for 3½in., ending with the 2nd row.

Decrease once at each end of the needle in the next and every following 8th row, until 82 stitches remain.

Work 7 rows without shaping.

In the next row; K. 1, K. 2 tog., work in pattern on the next 35 stitches, K. 2 tog., P. 2, K. 2 tog., work in pattern to the last 3 stitches, K. 2 tog., K. 1.

Continue decreasing in this manner in every 8th row until 74 stitches remain.

Decrease once at each end of the needle in every 8th row, until 70 stitches remain. In the next row work on the first 35 stitches, turn.

Work in pattern on these 35 stitches for half an inch, ending with a purl row.

Increase once at the beginning of the needle in the next and every following second row, whilst at the same time increasing once at the end of the needle in the next and every following 6th row, until there are 61 stitches on the needle. 

Purl the following row. Proceed as follows: —

1st row. — K. 1, increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 24 stitches, turn.

2nd and alternate rows. — Purl to the end of row.

3rd row. — K. 1, increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 27 stitches, turn. 

5th row. — K. 1, increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 30 stitches, turn.

7th row. — K-. 1, increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 33 stitches, turn.

9th row. — K. 1,. increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 36 stitches, turn.

11th row. — K. 1, increase once in the next stitch, work in pattern to the last 39 stitches, turn.

13th row. — K. 1. increase once in the next stitch, Work in pattern to the last 42 stitches, turn.

14th row. — Purl to the last 2 stitches, turn.

15th row: — Work in pattern to the last 45 stitches, turn.

16th row. — Purl to the last 3 stitches, turn.

17th row. — Work in pattern to the end of the row. Work 4 rows in plain knitting.

Cast off.

Work on the remaining 35 stitches to correspond. 

Work another spat in exactly the same manner.

With a damp cloth and hot iron press carefully.

Sew up the front seams of the foot. Sew up the back seams. Sew elastic at the instep.

I think there's no doubt that this is copied from the Helps to Knitters leaflet 101, even though it calls them spattees and not spats.   It's clear from the instructions that the spattees start off like knee-length socks, with a turn over, but the foot part is not like a sock, and there's something complicated happening, involving short rows.  I did some digging, and found this 1927 ad showing a woman wearing a knitted 'sports coat', a knitted 'stocking cap' (a cap and muffler combined), and 'knitted woollen spattees in a jacqard design'.     

From an ad for Debenham
& Freebody, November 1927,
showing knitted woollen spattees

I think that's what the spats/spattees in Helps to Knitters 101 would look like.  But I was intrigued by the last part of the instructions (labelled as 1st to 17th rows) which use short rows.  After knitting the part which eventually goes round the calf, with a turnover just below the knee, you split the stitches into two lots of 35,  and that's where the short rows come in.  I didn't want to knit a pair of spats, or even just one, but I wanted to find out what the short rows are doing, so I decided to start from the point where you start working on half the stitches.  

The fabric is supposed to be a sort of broken rib, and you are supposed to "work in pattern" as you increase and decrease, but I thought that would be confusing (it would confuse me, anyway) so I used stocking stitch instead.  And to make the shaping given by the short rows clearer, I knitted in stripes of two colours, changing after every two rows. Here's the result:

 

It's clear from this piece how the spat fits the foot, over a shoe.  The short rows shape the bottom edge of the spat,  The instructions are just to turn at the end of each short row, so there is a row of little holes just above the garter stitch edging - techniques like 'wrap and turn' which prevent the holes weren't in use then.  But in that position, the holes are not very noticeable. 

There seems to have been a brief fashion for wearing wool spattees for country wear, and I found a newspaper article which pinpointed their introduction, in The Scotsman in August 1926:  

Despite the heat and the fact that August has drawn the majority of society folk from London to the moors or Continental holiday resorts, there was quite a number of people who responded to Lady Strathspey's invitation to her "At Home" at the Savoy Hotel on Wednesday. .....

Tea and many delectable dainties for a hot afternoon were particularly acceptable in that cool, shaded room, but Lady Strathspey had arranged a novel interlude for her "At Home" which took the form of a mannequin parade to display the new Highland "spattees" which are to be such a chic adjunct for the sportswoman's wear. They are intended to replace Russian boots, the ugliness of which made them unpopular with most women. The new "spattees" are of shower-proofed wool or tweed and shaped to fit the leg, spat fashion, extending to the knee, with a fancy turnover top. Naturally, the guests were immensely interested in the novelty, and one or two caused no small amusement by trying on the "spattees" then and there. 

Another report of the same "At Home", in the Leeds Mercury, suggests that spattees were not just intended for country wear, but for wet weather in town, too.  The rising hemlines of skirts and dresses in the 1920s had revealed the silk stockings of ladies who had the money to buy such things, and also exposed the stockings to splashes of rain and mud - and the ankles to cold and wet.  

New Ankle Wear.  Many people have complained of the free display of the modern ankle, but even more have complained of its encasement in the unbecoming Russian boot. A cure for both ills was introduced at a reception given by Lady Strathspey in the Savoy Hotel this afternoon. 

This new fashion for protecting silken ankles in wet weather is called the Highland Spattee, and is made of showerproof wool, or wool and cotton, with a fancy top. Being made spat fashion it is easily slipped over the shoe and stockings, and it fits without the heavy creases which make the Russian boots so ungraceful. 

I think that spattees for town wear may have been a very short-lived fashion - the despised Russian boots (knee-length leather boots, I think) would have been much more practical in wet weather.  Suppose you went out for afternoon tea wearing your spattees in the rain, and took them off while you had tea.  Imagine how horrible it would be to put the wet, muddy spattees back on to go home again. But for country wear the fashion might have lasted longer.  And if you wanted a pair of knitted spattees, making your own would have been easy and economical.  The pair shown in the Debenham & Freebody ad, for instance, cost 19 shillings and 6 pence - almost £1.  Taking inflation into account, that would now be worth more than £60.  If they were hand-knitted (it doesn't say), that might be justifiable, but making your own would be much, much cheaper. 

It would still be good to have Helps to Knitters No. 101 as it was published in the U.K., if only to have an illustration, but failing that, the Trove pattern is nearly as good.  And it's fascinating to see that designers in the 1920s were quite able to use short rows to make complicated shapes like these spats.  

P.S.  Since writing this post, I've done some more digging in Trove, and found an ad for Helps to Knitters 101M, from June 1927. 

 This confirms what the spattees looked like as part of a complete outfit (though it shows them with a coloured stripe on the turnover, which doesn't exist in the instructions given earlier in the post).  It also again gives the number as 101M, and not 101.  I now think that this was an Australian version of the  leaflet (M for Melbourne, perhaps, where P&B's Australian base was) and a separate printing might have been necessary to allow the leaflet to be free in Australia, whereas the British version cost 3d.