Woollen Stockings

I was looking through some Stitchcraft magazines in the Knitting & Crochet guild collection and came across this striking image of disembodied legs walking downstairs.

Very surreal.  (The apparent tear in the bottom left corner is actually part of the image.)

Model legs like these are still used in shops selling tights and stockings (e.g. John Lewis) so the only question is how the legs were positioned like that.  It is a very bizarre illustration for a knitting pattern though.

The legs appeared in the January 1941 issue of Stitchcraft, more than a year after the start of World War 2 as far as Britain was concerned.  There were bombing raids against British cities every night that winter, though there is little mention of that in the magazine.  But the bombing must have exacerbated fuel shortages (through damage to gas mains, for instance) so keeping warm must have been difficult. Hence Stitchcraft's pattern for knitted stockings.

The introduction to the the pattern says:

"Who would ever have thought that in the year 1941 we should be wearing good warm woollen stockings? Yet so it is, and what fun they are—as dotty and amusing as can be. Gather up all the bright odds and ends of wool you can lay hands on and set to work. By this time you will have had good practice at turning heels after knitting all those socks for the forces, so you should have no qualms about making a good job of these." 

This implies that before the war, women didn't wear woollen stockings.  So what did they wear?  There were silk stockings, but they were expensive and not very warm, I should think, so what did ordinary women for everyday wear in the winter?   

Back to the pattern.  The stockings are knitted on two needles, except for the toe, which is knitted in the round and then grafted.  The leg and top of the foot are knitted in one piece, with a seam up the back of the leg.  The heel, sole and toe are in a different colour in the illustration and are knitted afterwards, with a seam along each side of the instep.  The construction means that it would be easy to replace the foot part of the stocking when it wore out.

The diamonds on the legs of the grey stockings are knitted in a combination of intarsia and stranded knitting.  The blue pair have embroidered clocks either side of the ankle.

There are several other knitting patterns in the magazine, including the jacket on the cover.

Stitchcraft magazine, January 1941.

There are patterns for two "Service Woollies", a sleeveless pullover for a woman, and a polo-neck jumper for a man.

Woman's WW2 Service Woollie 

Man's WW2 Service Woollie

There are a few other 'civilian' knits too, including this pretty jumper in a openwork design.

Although Stitchcraft was a Patons & Baldwins magazine, so its main focus was on patterns using P&B wools, it had a cookery page at that time as well.   And in January 1941, the cookery editor addressed air raids directly, giving recipes for fillings for sandwiches to take into the shelter:

Air raids, unpleasant as they are, offer a good opportunity for an enterprising and valiant woman to show the stuff she is made of. For there is no doubt about it that a little light refreshment does help to pass the time while a raid is going on. Some people are spending a considerable time in shelters, and the packing of a provision basket may need a little thought. There is not only one's own family to be considered, for it is surprising how soon one gets to know people in a shelter, and the offer of a sandwich may prove to be the start of a pleasant friendship. Even in the lower regions of your own house, you will find yourself popular if you can produce something unexpected in the food line. Speaking for myself, I try to see that there is always soup ready in the larder, for this is a great restorative when one has gone through a time of strain. In our cellar we have a shelf on which I keep two small saucepans, a spirit stove, bottle of methylated spirit, matches, tin opener, cardboard plates, unbreakable cups, Oxo cubes, Ovaltine, and so on, and it is only a matter of moments to heat soup or milk. We find time goes much more quickly if we have a little meal to take our attention off the sound of planes or bombs. Another tin holds bars of chocolate, and every morning I make a thermos full of coffee, and this we drink, raid or no raid. So here are a few suggestions, some suitable for a picnic meal in an outside shelter, others for use in one's own house. Some good sandwich fillings to start with, as the useful sandwich certainly leads the way in popularity. 

It was a terrible time, we shouldn't forget.

There is an edited version of the magazine on the Knitting & Crochet Guild website (only the pages with the knitting patterns - if you'd like to try the liver and parsley sandwich filling, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed).  Guild members can access it by going to Membership, then Pattern Downloads, then Stitchcraft Magazines and Booklets. 

October 1942

Two friends who visited recently, and know I like old magazines, brought me a Woman and Home magazine from 1942 - a very welcome gift.  The cover is very worn and coming apart down the spine, but the contents are in much better condition, and a fascinating glimpse of war-time conditions.  Woman and Home was, and still is, a monthly magazine.  It was launched in 1926, and had incorporated Good Needlework magazine from 1940 or 1941.

The cover shows three things that you could make from instructions inside. There is one knitting pattern, for a high-necked ribbed cardigan (also described as a 'button-up jumper') that you could wear on its own or over a blouse.

 Inside, there is an illustration of the tiny V-shaped pocket, which "will hold a small handkerchief to match the blouse". (Only for show and not for use, I hope.)

Clothes rationing had been in force for over a year by that stage of the war, so a cardigan was a useful garment, especially if you could wear it buttoned up and treat it as a jumper.  There is also advice in the magazine on unravelling old knitted garments to re-knit the wool into something else.  And all oddments of wool could be carefully saved - the magazine gave instructions for crocheting collars and necklets, including the African-inspired one shown on the cover, out of rug wool (not rationed, I believe) and brightly-coloured oddments of knitting wool.  There are dress-making features, too - again covering making old garments into new.

It seems that paper for non-essential uses was getting scarcer (although magazines like Woman and Home had not yet been much reduced from their pre-war size) and shops were not providing paper bags for purchases.  (This of course pre-dates by a long way the current concerns over single-use plastic packaging - many things like fruit and veg were sold loose, and only wrapped up in paper or put into a paper bag when you bought them.)   So to deal with this you could make a shopping bag with a wipeable lining to hold everything.

As well as the needlework features, there is quite a lot of fiction - two serials and a complete story.  One of the serials is by Pearl S. Buck, an American novelist who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.  The magazine doesn't mention that, though it does say that she wrote The Good Earth, a novel set in China which is her best known book. The Woman and Home serial is called Answer to Life!, listed as a 1941 novella in a list of her works.  Its main character is a young woman who wants to train as a surgeon, a very difficult thing in those days.  Her mother is a doctor, and apparently the main bread-winner for the family, as her husband has been damaged mentally in some unspecified way by his experience in the previous war.  There are two young men who also appear in the first episode -  I imagined that in future episodes the young woman would fall for the wrong one and then eventually realise that the other is a better choice.  But I was completely wrong - after some digging around, I found an article about the novella here.  She does marry the wrong man, and the marriage breaks down, and having given up her training to marry and have children, she goes back to her ambition to be a surgeon.  Not the usual women's magazine romance at all.

I'm fascinated by the ads in the magazine, too.  There are a few that advertise knitting wools, and two of those feature pattern leaflets - like the pattern in the magazine, they are for high-necked cardigans.

Both the Golden Eagle and Femina ads stress 'coupon economy'  - I think this refers to the fact that your clothing coupons went further if you knitted your clothes instead of buying them ready-made.  But apart from rationing, knitting wool was hard to find even if you had the coupons to spare, as the Femina ad says: "Intensified war production means a shortage of many things, including Femina wools — but they are always worth waiting for."

The Copley's ad goes even further in acknowledging that wool was scarce: it has one of a series of "Couplets of Knitwise Notions",

Cut out the front, crop waist and sleeves, of winter-time's thick sweater;
bind firmly — this bolero makes your best frock even better.

(Though I can't help thinking that you would be sorry next winter when you didn't have your thick sweater any more.)

But it does go on to say that you might be lucky and be able to buy some new Copley's wool: "You're a good knitter (and a good sort) if you put Comforts first, put brains into "remakes," and put wrapping paper in your shopping bag —  ready for some "Excelsior" or some other Copley line and a Copley leaflet when your woolshop has a supply."

There are ads for some products that are still around - Weetabix, Bovril, Knight's Castile soap.  And Ryvita, which surprised me - I thought it was a much later import from Sweden.

But as I discovered here, it was imported from Sweden long before the war (from 1925) and was made in Britain from 1936.

There were a couple of public information notices, too, one from the Ministry of Food, encouraging women to collect wild produce from the countryside - elderberries, crab apples, rowan berries, rose hips, haws, mushrooms and blackberries.  I was a bit surprised that the section on mushrooms does not give any advice on identifying safe fungi, or warn that some fungi are deadly.  Perhaps people were more aware in those days - but then you'd think that  they wouldn't need the ad in the first place.

 

So the magazine had plenty of valuable content for 9d.  A good read, and useful things to make.

Knitskrieg

I have been reading a new book, Knitskrieg! A call to yarns by Joyce Meader - subtitled "A history of military knitting from the 1800s to the present day" (published by Uniform Press - full details here).   I have met Joyce several times over the past  few years, most recently in Glasgow last year, at the Knitting in Wartime study day, when she gave a fascinating talk, covering a lot of the same ground as the book.  The book is lavishly illustrated - many of the illustrations are from Joyce's collection, and there are also photos of replica garments made by Joyce and modelled by her friends.

Joyce starts with the Napoleonic Wars, represented by a knitted forage cap of the 33rd Regiment of Foot.  The original is in the Bankfield Museum in Halifax - a rare survival, if not unique.

3rd Foot forage cap, in the Bankfield Museum, Halifax

(A digression: I went to a talk and demonstration recently by John Spencer in the 33rd Foot re-enactment group. He said that the group had had a set of replica forage caps made - you can see them in one of the photos on their website.)

The forage cap was part of the official uniform; in later wars, the emphasis of the book switches to unofficial knitting, of  'comforts'.  The Crimean War of 1853 to 1856 was the first war that Britain was involved in that was reported almost as it happened, and was notoriously badly managed.  For the first time, the British public were concerned at the plight of the men fighting on their behalf, and the terrible conditions in the Crimea, especially during the winters.   Joyce writes about the book of knitting and crochet patterns, Comforts for the Crimea, published in 1854  by Mlle Riego de la Branchardiere, a prolific author of books on needlecrafts, and describes aristocratic ladies frantically knitting comforts to be sent out to the troops in the Crimea.  

Later chapters cover knitting comforts in the American Civil War, the South African War of 1899 to 1902, and the First and Second World Wars.  One or two original patterns are given in each case, in the original words, which are sometimes more or less incomprehensible, though Joyce also gives 'translated' versions of a few patterns at the end of the book.  I was delighted to see a photo of a gentleman with a suitably military moustache wearing the striped sleeping helmet that Joyce showed in Glasgow.  (If you feel inclined to knit a striped balaclava, there is an updated pattern using modern yarn and needles in the book.)

Photo: Uniform Press

The Second World War chapter shows pattern leaflets produced by the spinning companies (American and Australian as well as British) for a wide range of Service woollies.  There are also more unusual illustrations, such as a combined 'Knitting and Recipe Leaflet' from Batchelor's Peas, with the message "Save Time by using Batchelor's canned ready-cooked foods - spend it in knitting for yourself and the Services!"   And some ephemera which must be very rare - a chit from the Board of Trade allowing a representative of a comforts group to buy wool in Service colours off ration,  and little brown paper packets used by spinners to send out samples of Service wools.

(Another digression: I remember Batchelor's Peas from when I was a child - they were usually marrowfat peas, aka processed peas, which were dried and then soaked and cooked before being canned. They were a lurid, unnatural bright green.  Canned garden peas, which were fresh before they were canned, were a bit of a luxury.  You can still buy both - as well as Batchelor's canned mushy peas.)

There is a chapter on later 20th century wars that Britain was involved in:  Korea, Rhodesia and the Falklands. This includes a section on the virtues of 'string' vests, and another on the Guernseys issued to British soldiers in the Falklands.  The book comes right up to date covering Iraq and Afghanistan, and knitting by soldiers, as well as for soldiers.  Joyce also mentions knitting used to protest against war, and her pattern for knitted Remembrance Day poppies is illustrated with white peace poppies as well as red.

Photo: Uniform Press

Joyce has an enviable collection of military knitting patterns, equipment and ephemera, as well as all the replicas she has knitted, and has put them to good use in this book.

Christmas Postscript

A knitter's notebook from World War 2

A friend sent me a package with her Christmas card, containing a little notebook, passed on by a friend of hers, for the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  It is leather-bound, quite battered, about 3.5 by 5.5 inches.  It dates from World War 2 - in the first 34 pages, the owner kept a detailed record of what she knitted during the war, for various groups.  In the rest of the notebook, she wrote out knitting patterns, and added extra pages (which are in different hand-writings) - it looks as though the owner continued to use it after the war to record patterns that she thought interesting or useful.  The war-time section is fascinating.  She knitted for a wide range of causes:  Deep Sea Fishermen, Prisoners of War, Russians, the Air Force, Evacuees.  Towards the end of the war, she knitted "for the people of occupied Europe".  She mentions the WVS (Women's Voluntary Service) frequently and I assume that the knitting for many of these causes was co-ordinated by the WVS.  

The notebook records the wool and needle sizes used for every piece of knitting, and occasionally notes that she used 'own wool'.  She keeps careful note of the weight of wool she used, too, and reckons up the total weight used for each batch of knitting.   There were schemes during the war for getting wool off-ration for knitting for the forces and other good causes, though you might still have to pay for it.  I assume that she had wool off-ration for most of the knitting listed - she could not have used her own ration coupons for so much wool.  So maybe 'own wool' means that she paid for it, and otherwise it was provided by the WVS.   I assume too that she was knitting for herself, and her own family, at the same time as for all these good causes - that isn't mentioned in the notebook.  

At the end of the war-time section of the notebook, she lists all the "garments knitted for the Forces during 1940 to 1945".   I think the list actually includes garments knitted for all the other causes as well, not just the forces, because it includes children's garments.   

Complete list of knitting for the Forces, 1940-1945

She knitted 185 garments for the Forces: 

• 6 pairs cuffs
• 23 scarves
• 16 cap-scarves
• 2 sleeveless pullovers
• 9 polo-neck jerseys
• 5 V-neck jerseys
• 39 pairs gloves (with fingers)
• 5 pairs steering gloves
• 3 pairs spiral socks
• 1 pair hospital socks 
• 1 pair gum-boot socks
• 1 pair sea-boot stockings  
• 45 pairs socks
• 15 pairs mittens
• 7 pairs ankle socks
• 7 balaclava helmets

And 86 children's garments (though these include women's garments too):

• 21 boy's jerseys and girl's jumpers
• 1 pullover
• 8 frocks
• 4 hats
• 2 lady's jumpers
• 9 cardigans (boy's and girl's)
• 8 pilches
• 18 vests
• 3 shawls
• 5 pairs gloves
• 1 pair overalls
• 6 pairs socks (boy's)

A huge achievement for one person.   The rest of the notebook will repay careful reading, I'm sure, but just this first part alone is absolutely fascinating.   

Spiral Socks

Last weekend, I went to London for the Knitting History Forum meeting at the London College of Fashion, on Saturday.  I was talking about Aran sweaters and how they became popular for hand-knitters in this country from the 1930s on (a re-run of my talk at the Knitting & Crochet Guild AGM in July, though without the suitcase full of Aran sweaters).  There were some fascinating talks in the programme, here.   There was plenty of time to knit on the train there and back, and in the meeting itself, and I finished the spiral heelless socks I have been knitting. Since then it has been a busy week, but I have just today found time to sew in the ends and get some photos of me wearing them. 

Trying to match the pattern illustration, but I got my feet the wrong way round.

 
(Apologies for my chubby knees - I don't usually flaunt them.) 

Knitting them was part of a sort of historical experiment, because the pattern  is from World War 2.   I used a Copley's pattern, but there were several others published around the same time.  (You can tell the wartime Copley's patterns, because the cartoon figure is wearing a tin helmet - before and after the war he is wearing a pill-box hat.  I think he is supposed to be a bell-boy.)

Copley's 1304

The claimed advantages are that they spread the wear on the heels so that they last longer before you have to darn them, and that they fit anyone, as well as being easy to knit.    So Angharad and I both decided to knit a pair - hers (in progress) were part of the WW2 display at Baa Ram Ewe in October. 

I chose grey for mine, partly with a feeling that that would be an authentic colour for WW2 (though the yarn is not authentic - it is Wendy Roam sock yarn, which has some nylon in it.)   But I usually wear black socks in the winter, so grey is already a bit exciting.  And I made them knee-length for warmth, though that made them boring to knit - until you get to the toe, you are just knitting a long tube that seems endless, with no heel to add a bit of variety.  They are very easy to knit, though.  

 
So now I am wearing them, and they are very warm.  But they aren't staying up very well, which is disappointing.   I may have to elasticate the tops.  Maybe Angharad's (which I think are planned to be ankle socks) will behave better.   I'll give an update later.

Knitting in World War 2

Last week Angharad and I went to Harrogate to talk to the Wednesday evening knit-and-natter group at  Baa Ram Ewe in Harrogate, as part of Yorkshire Wool Week, which was organised by Baa Ram Ewe.  The original Baa Ram Ewe yarn shop in Headingley (Leeds) has been established for some years, but the Harrogate branch is new and I hadn't been there before.   The shop is spacious and light (well, it would be during the day when it isn't pouring with rain) and sells some very tempting yarns.  

We had lent some things from the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection for Yorkshire Wool Week, and the very talented Katherine, who is based in the Harrogate shop,  constructed four splendid window displays in successive weeks during October, on doilies, tea cosies, World War 2 knitting & crochet, and Kaffe Fassett's knitwear designs.  (For this purpose, Yorkshire Wool Week lasted 4 weeks.)  My favourite was the display of doilies - Angharad had selected a range of colours that went well together, and they looked splendid hanging up in the window.  Much better, I think, than laid flat on a table or plate in the traditional way. 

 

When we were in Harrogate, the window display was on World War 2, and featured a small crocheted blanket made out of small oddments of leftover wool, a knitted balaclava helmet, and several socks, including a spiral heelless one knitted by Angharad to a wartime pattern.  Katherine also used enlargements of several wartime knitting patterns from the collection.

 On the Wednesday evening at Baa Ram Ewe, I gave a talk about wartime knitting, covering knitting for the services (including all the many women's services),  the Home Front (air raid shelters and gas masks), and coping with shortages and rationing. 

Lister 802

Sirdar 887

  

Cronit 301

 After my talk, Angharad showed the spiral socks that she is making, and demonstrated knitting in the round with two circular needles.  Knitting heelless socks in a spiral rib was one way of trying to make socks last longer in wartime.   The idea was that whenever you put them on, your heel would go in a different place, and so the sock would wear evenly, rather than going into a hole at the heel.   That's the claim.  Angharad and I aren't sure how well they will work in practice, so we are both knitting a pair to try them for ourselves.  I'll write more about mine later - we are both onto the second sock of our pair.  Here is the extremely worn, torn and creased pattern that Angharad is knitting from - the one I'm using is a slight variation on the same idea, from a different spinner. 

The leaflet claims "The HEEL forms itself when the Sock is pulled on.  MUCH QUICKER TO KNIT THAN ORDINARY SOCKS AND WEARS THREE TIMES LONGER BECAUSE THE HEEL WEAR SELDOM OCCURS IN THE SAME PLACE TWICE. The photograph shows how snugly the Heel forms itself and the close, comfortable fitting round the legs and ankles."   So we'll test whether this is all true when we have finished our respective pairs.   

  

Knitting for the Army

The "Knitting for Victory" group on Ravelry has been discussing what people knitted for the armed forces in Britain in World War II.  I have come across an official booklet published in 1940 that sets out what type of garment was needed for the Army, with knitting instructions - and also what were not needed.  I'm summarising the contents here partly for the benefit of that group.

The booklet was produced in preparation for the 1940-41 winter (i.e. the second winter of the war, in this country).  By this time, wool was in short supply although clothes rationing was not introduced until June 1941.  The booklet begins by explaining that "There is just enough wool for the knitted garments needed for the coming winter.  BUT THERE IS NOT ENOUGH WOOL TO ALLOW FOR ANY WASTE WHATEVER" and says that waste of wool "was widespread in last winter's knitting efforts".  Therefore knitting for the armed forces has to be carefully organized, to make sure that the garments produced are what's required, and of good quality.  

The booklet specifies four acceptable garments: a cap-muffler, a sleeveless pullover, fingerless mittens extending beyond the wrist, and gum-boot stockings in oiled wool.  The gum-boot stockings can be any colour, but the others should be khaki, or grey if that is unobtainable.

1940 Garments

An obvious omission is a Balaclava helmet.  You get the impression that every knitter in the country rushed into knitting those when war was declared -  but the Army did not want them.  The booklet explains why: the cap-muffler combines two different garments into one, and a soldier could not carry both a helmet and a cap.  It also says that Balaclava helmets don't allow ear-phones to be adjusted in a hurry (by radio operators, presumably) -  though the cap-muffler doesn't really solve that problem, it seems to me.  

The booklet shows a cap-muffler in use.  "A most useful two-in-one garment. Can be used as a cap and muffler, or a muffler alone. Comfortable to wear under steel helmet.  Very easily knitted." (The model looks as though he has grown a moustache to disguise the fact that he's under-age - but perhaps that's me being old.)

Cap-muffler

Gloves, ordinary socks and pullovers with sleeves were not required because they were already being supplied - perhaps machine-knitted?  Mittens, of the specified kind, were useful as well as gloves, for different purposes.  A sleeveless pullover was felt to be "excellent for extra warmth and, being sleeveless, not too bulky under battle dress."

The booklet finishes by describing the working of the Voluntary Knitting Industry.  A complex array of orgaizations had been set up to pass wool from the Wool Controller down to local working parties, and to collect together the knitted garments and eventually issue them to the troops. There was a huge clerical effort involved in recording everything, to ensure that the working parties could get wool at wholesale prices (and presumably also to ensure that all the wool issued was returned, knitted up.)  Since the Government seem to have been perfectly capable of providing soldiers with most of their kit, I do wonder how necessary it was to use volunteer knitters at all, when it required such a huge (voluntary) effort to organize it all. Maybe one advantage was just to off-load some of the cost of clothing the Army to the civilian population - though I'm sure that the knitters also benefited by feeling that they were making a contribution to the war effort.  

Christmas 1940

A friend read that I recently bought a 1934 copy of Stitchcraft magazine, and sent me a Stitchcraft from December 1940 that she found amongst her mother's things. So exciting! It gives a fascinating view of how people in this country were living at that point in World War II.

There are patterns for two jumpers, including the one on the cover, and some small items suitable for Christmas presents. Clothes rationing was not introduced until 1941, though I assume that materials were already in short supply. There are frequent mentions of using up small quantities of wool, as in the coloured cables in the cover jumper.

The magazine had a continuing feature on knitting for men and women in the services. The Dec 1940 issue has a balaclava helmet. The pattern is for two sizes, to fit both men and women, though it must be said that even with make-up, it's hard to make a balaclava look glamorous.

In the same feature, there is a pattern for a pair of mittens with two layers, an inner layer knitted in wool and an outer layer crocheted in string. The idea is that the string layer gives a good grip on wet ropes, etc. on board ship. Quite ingenious, I suppose, though it makes me think of how dreadful it would have been to be on deck in a North Atlantic storm in midwinter, with U-boats after you.

There is also an ad for Lux soap flakes with a nice photo of a smartly dressed young woman wearing trousers and carrying her gas mask case, with the caption "Prepare for action in this cosy knitted Norfolk jacket". You could send off for a free pattern for the jacket. It's knitted in camel hair wool for warmth and softness, though you would think that camel hair might have been hard to find by then.

Stitchcraft had a cooking column, too, though it seems a bit outside its remit.  In this issue, it is mainly concerned with how to do your Christmas baking without the ingredients you would normally consider essential, like eggs, butter and sugar.  There is a recipe for a Christmas cake "using no eggs or sugar". It uses a small quantity of margarine or lard instead of butter, and some black treacle and quite a lot of dried fruit for sweetening - a very meagre mixture.

Alongside, there is a half-page ad from the Ministry of Food, exhorting people to eat healthily, by eating lots of the vegetables we can grow in this country, with small quantities of protein. A sort of medieval peasant diet, with added potatoes. I especially like the little rhyme:

Those who have the will to win

Eat potatoes in their skin

Knowing that the sight of peelings

Deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings.

Lord Woolton was the Minister of Food at the time, famous for giving his name to Woolton pie, consisting of vegetables mixed with a little oatmeal and with a pastry topping, which sounds very bland and stodgy. He would have been very pleased at the current popularity of baked potatoes, I suppose, though the fillings available now would have been far too rich for 1940.

I wonder if Sue's mother ever made any of the things featured in this magazine?