The 'Susie' Yarn Holder

I wrote a few months ago (here) about a group of tools and gadgets that had recently been given to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection. One of the gadgets was an intriguing yarn holder in a leather case.

I have never seen or heard of another yarn holder of this design, but I have now found an ad for it, that appeared in Good Needlework magazine in August 1935.

The ad says:

With "SUSIE" you Knit Quicker — keep the wool clean — you can knit in comfort whilst travelling. The wool follows the needles making tangling impossible.  Post Coupon now for return post delivery, enclosing 8d. P.O. [postal order], or stamps. 

As you can see from the drawing, it has a bangle to go round your wrist, and the V-shaped piece of wire with the two little balls on the ends goes through the middle of the ball of wool - as I had already worked out, more or less.

The fact that I have never seen another like it, nor any other ads, suggests that it didn't catch on.  I had assumed, when I first saw the example in the Guild collection, that it was designed for use with ready-wound wool - it's easy then to push the V of the wire through the hole in the middle.  But in the 1930s, most knitting yarn was sold in skeins, and to use the 'Susie' you would have to wind the yarn around a section of broom handle, or a nostepinne, or something similar, to get the same effect.  (I don't think mechanical wool winders were available then.)  If you were used to winding wool into quite tight spherical balls (which is what I do when I'm winding by hand), it wouldn't be easy.   Or you might think, from the drawing in the ad, that you would have to wind the wool directly onto the yarn holder, which would be very awkward.  I suspect you would only buy one if you saw a demonstration, or on personal recommendation from someone you knew.  If it had been sold through yarn shops and not by mail order, it might have done better.  It's a pity - it's an ingenious design and deserved to succeed.  It might be more successful now, when most commercial yarn is sold ready-wound.

The company that sold it is named in the ad as Tormidor Ltd., with an address at 5 Rampayne Street, London S.W.1.  I can't find out anything about Tormidor - any further information gratefully received.

Making Bone Knitting Needles

In the previous post I showed two ads for knitting needles, from 1921.  Both ads mentioned bone knitting needles, implying of course that the advertised needles were far superior.  Since I wrote that post, I have found a description of how bone knitting needles were being made in the early 1920s, at a factory in Gloucestershire. (I was browsing in some historic newspapers online, looking for something else entirely.)

By the 1920s, the process was highly mechanised, though still requiring a great deal of skill,  But it was also doomed - the article mentioned that a factory nearby was making casein, an early plastic.  The writer thought that it "has probably affected the bone trade in no small measure, but there still remains an extensive demand for knitting needles and other like articles manufactured from bone."  Not for much longer, I think.

We have a lot of bone knitting needles and crochet hooks in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, and  I picked out a small selection today. Here are two pairs of straight needles, a set of four double-pointed needles, and a crochet hook. The needles are sizes 5mm. and 5.5 mm. - bone could not be used for fine needles.  It's hard to measure the size of the crochet hook - it tapers along most of its length, so I don't know where to take the measurement.  

Bone knitting needles and crochet hook

The bones for knitting needles were a by-product of the meat trade, and I had assumed that they came directly from butchers.  But evidently they didn't - they were collected by rag-and-bone men, largely I assume from private houses after the meat had been eaten.  I remember a rag-and-bone man making regular appearances on our street, with his horse and cart, when I was very little, but he was just part of the background, and I never thought about what happened to the rags and bones.  Later, if I had thought about it, I might have guessed that the bones were converted into bonemeal for fertiliser, and possibly some was, after the more useful pieces had been selected for destinations like the needle factory.

The article describes the initial preparation of the bone - which must have been a very smelly business:

The bones collected by the rag and bone merchant—or the tatter man—eventually find their way to the mills, and one section of the bones which are the result of stew are sawn off and are ready for use at once. The remainder, however, have to be thoroughly boiled. This is done in large tanks, the bones being boiled in steam-heated water for some 24 or 48 hours, as the case may require. Having been thoroughly boiled, which renders them soft and possible to handle easily, the bones pass on to the second process. This consists of sawing them into square strips—a most tricky and tedious business —and they then go to a series of machines through which the square strips are run emerging at the other side of the machine in the round. The bone is converted from the square to the round by means of a small revolving knife, through which the bone is drawn. This done the round strips are next placed in vats containing a bleaching chemical, and on being removed from this the bone, which was previously a creamy colour is perfectly white. 

The bone strips were then taken upstairs to the skilled needle makers:

The bones are now in round strips about eight inches long and bleached white. They next pass to the first floor of the factory, and here the strips are finely polished. To do this the pieces arc placed in the end of a rapidly revolving spindle, one at a time, and as they revolve they are polished by means of a piece of emery paper held in the hand of the operative. The points are then made, a revolving emery wheel being used, and the knobs for the other end having been turned out by a special machine, are attached by glue, the finished needles tied together in pairs, and packed ready for the purchaser. 

Knobs for bone knitting needles

A disadvantage of bone, mentioned in the Double Century ad, was that to make long needles two pieces had to be joined together by splicing. Evidently bone would only yield lengths of about 9 or 10 inches (23-26 cm.)  The article explains how pieces were joined to make longer needles:

Needles of 12 inches [31cm.] or more in length have to pass through an additional process—that of splicing. Bone cannot be obtained in long enough lengths to enable needles of this size to be made in one piece, and so two short strips are taken and cut at the ends in such a manner that they may be strongly spliced together with the aid of fine string and a specially prepared cement. When the needle is complete it is almost impossible to discover the joint, so perfectly is the work finished. 

I didn't know until I saw the Double Century ad that bone needles might be spliced, and I looked for some long needles today to see if I could see the join.  And indeed, the double-pointed needles shown above are just under 12 inches long, and they are all spliced, if you look very carefully.  The join is still almost invisible after all this time, and is perfectly smooth.  (Look for the faint diagonal line in the photo below.)

Splice in a bone knitting needle

The factory described in the article also made crochet hooks (or crotchet hooks, as they are called throughout):

The first stages of the manufacture of crotchet hooks is identical with that of knitting needles. On arriving at the finishing department, however, the pieces of bone are polished and then one end is slightly tapered. This accomplished, both ends are rounded and the hook made. The making of the hook is an operation which needs no little skill on the part of the operative, for the slightest mistake as the bone is placed against the revolving disc which performs the operation would immediately destroy the piece of bone on which the hook is being made. The hook is polished once again, and is then ready for packing.
The better class hooks are decorated on the handle, and this is done by a specially constructed machine, and also requires great skill on the part of the worker. 

The crochet hook shown above is one of the 'better class', and is beautifully decorated.

Decoration on bone crochet hook

I'm really pleased to have found out how bone needles and hooks were made, at the tail-end of the history of working with bone.  It had been a raw material for making tools and decorative objects such as sewing needles and combs for hundreds of years.  By the 1920s, perfect knitting needles and crochet hooks made of bone could be mass-produced  - and then bone was completely superseded by new materials like anodised aluminium and plastics.  I don't know when the factory described in the article closed down, but I think it must have been within a few years.

Advertising Knitting Needles

I wrote a post two years ago about Double Century knitting needles, which had a metal core inside a plastic coating.  The original idea was patented in 1913 by Emily Doubble, although she seemed an unlikely inventor, as she was a widow in her 70s at the time. But this week, Emily's great-granddaughter commented on my post and said "she did invent a knitting needle which her son, Theodore, patented for her. My aunt told me that she was fed up on her fine needles breaking and had the idea of putting a metal wire in them. She was a great knitter, embroidery and wood carver!"

(One of the best things about writing a blog is that sometimes people give you fascinating information in comments - sometimes several years after the post first appeared.)

Belinda's comment reminded me that at the time I wrote the post, the earliest ad I had seen for Double Century needles dated from 1945, though it was clear from the wording that the needles must have been in production before the start of World War II.

But I've since found a much earlier ad.  It appeared in Needlecraft Practical Journal, and I date it to 1921.  (I'll write later about dating issues of Needlecraft, because it's not at all straightforward.)

At that time, bone was a common material for making thicker sizes of knitting needle, and you could also get ivory knitting needles, though they were of course much more expensive.  Double Century needles were always a cream colour, and this ad shows that it was because they were imitating the colour of bone or ivory.

In the same issue of Needlecraft, was an ad for Stratnoid knitting needles - another brand based on a patent.

This is also an earlier ad than I had found previously.   The patent (to make knitting pins from duralumin, an aluminium alloy) was granted in 1919, so the manufacturers were quick to get the idea into production.

The claim is that Stratnoid knitting pins are "STRONG - FLEXIBLE - LIGHT AS BONE - STRONG AS STEEL".  As with Double Century, bone was one of the materials to compete with.  It's interesting that they are claimed to be flexible - the finer ones will bend a bit, but you'd need a lot of force to bend the thicker ones.  And the ad doesn't mention their other big advantage over steel - they don't rust.

And with both Double Century and Stratnoid needles, you could knit faster, allegedly.  I've tried both, and they are very nice to knit with, but I don't think I can knit faster than with other needles.  Perhaps I should be comparing with rusty steel needles, wooden needles with splinters, or bone needles with  snags, but if so, I'd rather not do the experiment - I'm convinced already.    

More Knitting Needles

Through the local newspaper, the Huddersfield Examiner,  I have been trying to find out more about Wakefield Greenwood, a Huddersfield business that sold knitting yarns to stores throughout the country, and elsewhere, in the 1940s to 1960s.  I got a few replies to my appeal in the Examiner for information, and a couple of weeks ago I met someone who worked for the company for more than 20 years.  She has given me a lot of fascinating information, so I am gradually getting a more complete story, ... and she gave me several things for the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, including a box of knitting needles.

I've definitely turned into a knitting needle nerd, I now realise, because I got quite excited by some of the makes.  Several of the pairs still had their original paper labels - not because they were unused, but because the donor liked to use the labels to keep the pairs together.

Here are the labels:

The needles at the top are Wimberdar brand - along with three other pairs of green/blue/turquoise plastic needles in the box. Wimberdar specialised in brightly coloured plastic needles, though they made other things too.  There are several pairs of Milwards Phantom needles in the box, in both grey metal and mauve plastic.  Then a really exciting pair - the Ivy needles.  I had never heard of Ivy needles before, and more surprisingly, neither has Google, as far as I can see.  There is no clue on the label as to who made them, except that it says "Made in England".  There are no marks on the needles or head, apart from the size, and IVY written on the head, not very clearly - barely visible except in a strong side light.

The labels on the Stratnoid needles read "The New Stratnoid Knitting Pins", The needles are the usual gray enamelled metal, like several other brands, and so are no longer the shiny duralumin of the original Stratnoid needles.  So 'new' in this case means 'just like everyone else' - a bit disappointing, when they started out being different from everyone else.

And of course there was a pair of Aero needles, made by Abel Morrall of Redditch - they must have been the commonest knitting needles in the country.

One pair of needles which did not have a label was, even so, particularly exciting,  I hadn't heard of the make before and the needles were marked with a patent number.  (I do like a knitting needle with a patent number.)  The make is Jouvenia, and they are the usual grey enamelled metal, so don't look very interesting.

Here's the head, with the patent number:

Patent 395307 is a British patent granted in 1933 to Joseph Jouve, a Frenchman.  The reason for the head being offset is that it has a hole in it, alongside the needle itself, where the point of the other needle can be inserted.  So the pair of needles can be joined together like this:

 (Although actually it is not at all easy to get the points of both needles at once into the hole on the opposite head.)  The idea is that fixing them together like this will keep the knitting securely on the needles, as in this drawing from the patent application.

.  
A Google search for Jouvenia found a couple of ads for Jouvenia needles in the French magazine Tricot Journal in 1936, and a sheet of headed paper from the Jouvenia factory in Paris, so it seems that Jouvenia needles were made and marketed in France, in spite of the British patent.  Yet one pair at least ended up in Huddersfield.    

Altogether a fascinating little collection of knitting needles.  If you like that sort of thing.
  

Exasperated Skein Holder

Writing last week about the design for a 'novel wool winder' in Hobbies Weekly reminded me of some war-time correspondence I had seen in The Times about why wool was sold in skeins and not ready-wound into balls.  I found it a while ago when I was trying to find out when wool started to be sold in balls.  The letters appeared in 1944, not long after the Hobbies Weekly design was published, and began when a man wrote, under the pen-name 'Skein-Holder', to complain that he was having to hold skeins of yarn for his wife while she wound them into balls, and what a dreadful waste of time it was.  Obviously, he was not a Hobbies Weekly reader, and so hadn't made a skein holder for his wife.  (The Hobbies Weekly 'wool winder' is in fact a skein holder, or swift.   It holds the skein of yarn and makes it easier for a person to wind it into a ball, but doesn't help with the winding - though there are now hand-operated gadgets that do, and can be properly called wool-winders.)

This was Skein-Holder's letter:

SKEINS AND KNITTERS

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Sir,—The Government has recently called on our women to knit a vast quantity of wool into articles required for the forces.  My wife was sent with a lorry to fetch the 2,000lb. [slightly over 900 kg.] of wool from London allotted to the knitters of our county.  The skeins packed in bales were so bulky that the lorry would only hold 1,200lb.  I suspect that had the wool been wound into balls the whole 2,000lb. would have gone into the lorry.

The knitters have now to wind each skein into a ball before they can start to knit the wool.  Each skein takes one or more often two persons at least five minutes to wind.  I have just held a tangled skein which took my wife 15 minutes to wind.  The time which our unpaid knitters spend in winding must add up to thousands of hours.

By 1779 Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton perfected the spinning jenny.  In 1787 Cartwright perfected the power loom.  Yet in the last century and a half the wool trade has failed to produce a mechanism whereby knitting wool can be wound and sold in a ball ready for the needles.  Ever since, as a small boy, I held skeins for my mother I have wondered why.  My excuse for now seeking an answer to this simple question through your columns is that every hour which every worker can save is a factor to hastening the end of this war.  For the reason given above. the answer to this question will interest thousands of your readers if you can elicit it from the wool trade.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

SKEIN-HOLDER.

A few days later, there was a definitive answer from the Director of Lister's, spinners of knitting wools in Bradford:

Sir,—For many years wool has been wound by machine into balls ready for the needles. The reason for discontinuing this make-up during war-time is that the process is costly both in labour and in the materials and space needed for packing in boxes. 

Yours truly, for Lister and Co. (Knitting Wools), Limited, 

W. A. G. WATSON,
Director. Manningharn Mills, Bradford, Yorkshire. 

Mr Watson's letter showed that 'Skein-Holder' was wrong to think that machines to wind wool into balls did not exist and that 2,000 lb. of wool would have taken up less space if already wound - he claims that on the contrary, it would take up more space.  That should have ended the correspondence, but didn't.  The following day, the Yorkshire Post newspaper joined in:

Banishing the Skein 

Long-suffering husbands will surely be grateful to Times correspondents who have raised the question of winding knitting wool from skeins to a ball.  Someone wrote plaintively to say that he had just held a tangled skein which took his wife 15 minutes to wind, and added that the time which wartime knitters spend in winding must add up to thousands of hours.  "Ever since, as a small boy. I held skeins for my mother I have wondered why." he adds.

So, indeed. have I.  I recall one handy man who, determined to end the agony of skein-holding, made an adjustable wheel on which the skein was placed and pulled off as the knitter worked: to the best of my recollection the idea was a success.  Goodness only knows why some such gadget was not marketed long ago.

Why market wool in the skein, anyway?  Why not in the ball?  Many a man must have asked himself that.

The Yorkshire Post then quotes the whole of the letter from Mr Watson, and finishes with a stirring plea for wool to be sold ready-wound after the war:

So! It can be done. Husbands will grimly note this, and demand that all postwar knitting wool shall be in the ball. That destroyer of domestic serenity, the skein, must be banished from the firesides of Britain.

And a day later, another letter appeared in The Times, confirming that some wool was sold in balls before the war, and then claiming that in any case winding wool into a ball before starting to knit is completely unnecessary.  (Provided that you don't mind being tethered to a chair, or something like that, while you are knitting - carrying about a loose skein of yarn could lead to terrible tangles very quickly.)

Sir,—Your correspondent "Skein-holder" is quite wrong in supposing that no machine has been invented to wind wool.  Before the war at least a score of various brands of wool were sold ready wound----in the "cocoon" style, i.e., with the thread unravelling from the inside, not the outside, and this type of ball has the great advantage of not rolling about.

Admittedly, none of the wool officially issued for "service comforts." is in balls, but it is perfectly easy to knit direct from the skein, provided that it is not tangled to start with.  I did not believe this myself until it was demonstrated to me many years ago by a nun, who knitted dozens of garments annually for an orphanage run by her order.  Since then I have never spent a single moment in "winding." Yours faithfully,

ELLIS SWALE.

The 'Cocoon' style was used in this country in the 1880s - though apparently only by one small spinning company at that time (see this post).  It's interesting that Ellis Swale could claim that by the 1930s it had become a common way of selling wool.

The final voice in the correspondence went to "A Mere Male":

Sir,—I am not so fortunate as "Skein-holder" in having time on my hands, but may I briefly reply to his letter of February 5.  I suspect from the facts given that the county to which he refers is one in which I also have a knitting interest.

Any member of the wool trade will tell him that (1) It is possible to wind wool into balls, and this is done in the case of special wool, such as Angora.  (2) It is not practicable in the case of wool in general demand, for the following reasons: —(a) An extra process is involved with consequent increase of price. (b) Balled wool is more bulky than skeined, as the balls must be loose. (c) Wool loses its resilience and other qualities expected of it.

As my competence to buy wool or even arrange its distribution has frequently been called into question by ladies of a certain country-wide organization, I sign myself

A MERE MALE. 

Rather a nasty letter. I think.  It was mean to suggest that 'Skein-Holder' has time on his hands (and by implication, wasn't doing as much as he should for the war-effort) just because he was helping his wife to wind her knitting wool.  And he had clearly annoyed the women of the 'country-wide organization' (the W.I.?), perhaps by throwing his weight about. 

The Times correspondence ended with a final letter from Skein-Holder, who remained unconvinced by the arguments that winding wool into balls was better done by hand, and in any case unnecessary.   He suggested that if knitters preferred 'in ordinary times' to buy knitting wool in the skein, it might have been out of 'deeply rooted habit'.  It seems more likely to me that if there was a significant cost to the manufacturer in winding wool, then ready-wound wool might have been more expensive for the knitter, and that would have been an excellent reason for many knitters preferring to buy wool in the skein.    

In fact, quite apart from the design in Hobbies Weekly, there should have been several skein holders on the market.  From about 1910 to the start of World War 2, several patents for skein holders were granted.  The illustration shows a complicated contraption in wire, patented in 1913.  It must have been put into production, because we have one in the Guild collection, as well as a few others of different designs.  

So Skein-Holder might equally well have asked why, if knitters had to wind wool from the skein into a ball before knitting, they did not invest in a (mechanical) skein holder, and instead press-ganged husbands (and handy children) into helping.

A Novel Wool Winder

John saw this copy of Hobbies Weekly at a book fair, and bought it for me, because of the illustration of a wool winder on the front cover.

The magazine did not cover a wide range of hobbies, in spite of the name - it was mainly aimed a woodwork, and specifically fretwork.  This issue was published in September 1940, when almost all knitting wool was sold in skeins and had to be wound into balls at home, and the magazine explained the virtues of the wool winder:

"Every knitter—and this, of course, relates more to ladies—knows the trouble of getting somebody to hold the skein whilst it is turned off into a ball suitable for their own use. The more independent knitters who use the back of a chair for the same purpose also have cause to complain. Here is a piece of work which will make them entirely independent and able to handle as much wool as they like, easily, expeditiously and satisfactorily."

The magazine would supply a pack of wood (oak) for making the wool winder, by mail order.   The pattern, printed on paper, was glued onto the oak sheets and the pieces cut out with a fretsaw.  Then the paper was removed (somehow).  The copy I have no longer has the paper pattern, so perhaps it was used, successfully I hope - it sounds as though you could only make one wool winder, and that would more or less destroy the pattern.

The contraption was made to fold up, as shown in another illustration:

 "The whole thing can be kept in quite a compact space because the arms will close when not in use. Moreover, the needles themselves are accommodated in simple racks on each side of the parts as can be seen in the picture. They are thus placed in a handy position whilst the next ball of wool is being wound."

That was surely not written by anyone who knew anything about knitting - if you were winding each ball of wool as you needed it, as it implies, then after the first ball of wool, your needles would already be in your knitting. And the racks wouldn't do for general storage of a knitter's needle collection - it looks as though they only hold a very few pairs, and that wouldn't be adequate for any knitter I know.

If the wool winder worked, it would be a useful gadget to have.  And I suppose I am being a bit mean in suspecting that the cut-outs in the arms are more designed to show off fretsaw skills than for any practical purpose - there probably was a practical reason, in lightening the weight of the arms so that they would turn more easily.  A potential snag with the design is that, as far as I can see from the instructions, the winder isn't adjustable for variations in skein size - but perhaps that wasn't necessary?  And (me being picky again) the base would have to be a lot heavier than it looks, to stop the whole thing toppling over.  But I should stop being negative, and believe the magazine when  it says:

"When complete and nicely finished with stain, polish or paint, the article is worth a great deal more than it costs to make, and will be most acceptable as a present to any ardent knitter. Or, of course, it is just the thing to complete for a Sale of Work, or for private sale to those who are or are likely to be busy knitting comforts for the Services." 

In September 1940, the country had been at war for a year, and many knitters were busy making 'comforts'.  I wrote a post a few years ago about the things that were needed for the Army - you can find it here, and think of someone using the "Hobbies Weekly" wool winder while knitting a khaki cap-muffler.

Stratnoid Knitting Pins

I do like a knitting needle with a patent number.  (At least I do if I can find the patent - sometimes I can't, and then it's just frustrating.)  It seems so unlikely that something as straightforward as a knitting needle should have anything patentable about it.  But several brands of knitting needle that we have in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection do have patent numbers, for instance the Double Century needles that I have already written about.

Another brand with a patent number is Stratnoid  (a horrible name).

Patent number 151307 was issued in 1919.   The patentee was Harry Norman Lilley, of Astwood Bank near Redditch, and he said in the application:

"My invention relates to improvements in the manufacture of knitting pins, crochet hooks and the like and has for its object to enable such articles to be easily and rapidly produced in such a manner that they are not liable to get rusty or otherwise deteriorated in use as has hitherto been the case.

Knitting pins, crochet hooks and the like have usually been made out of steel and plated or otherwise polished in order to render them rustless and not liable to be deteriorated in use and therefore have to undergo a series of processes whereby the production of such articles by these means requires undue time. To avoid this it has been proposed to manufacture knitting pins and crochet hooks of aluminium but this is objectionable in use as it marks or soils articles with which it contacts.

Such articles need not particularly be made of steel, and our invention ... consists in making knitting pins, crochet hooks and the like of aluminium and manganese alloy which is readily workable, such as that which is known under the registered trade mark "Duralumin", whereby an easy manufacture may be undertaken which effects a large saving both in tools and machinery."  

 It's interesting that aluminium by itself was "objectionable in use" because it would stain the wool - presumably that's why later aluminium needles are anodised in pretty pastel colours.  Also interesting that the patent doesn't mention another big advantage of the Stratnoid needles - they are much lighter than steel needles, but very strong.   In the KCG collection, we have a haberdasher's catalogue of knitting and crochet equipment from 1918-19 (see here), that lists knitting needles made of steel, bone, wood, vulcanite and ivory.  Anything finer than a size 12 (2.25mm) had to be steel, but the thicker needles (more than about 4mm) were only sold in the lighter materials.
   
At the 1911 census, Harry Lilley had been a commercial traveller for a needle manufacturer, so although he obviously understood the pros and cons of different knitting needle materials from the sales point of view, it doesn't seem likely that he knew a lot about metallurgy and the processes involved in making knitting needles by 1919.  But all the patent says, really, is "I think it would be a good idea to make knitting needles out of this new Duralumin stuff."  And in the 1939 register, he was still a commercial traveller, so the patent didn't change his life much.

(In fact, he seems to have got the composition of Duralumin wrong - according to various websites, it was an alloy of 95% aluminium, and 4% copper, with the rest made up of manganese and magnesium, so "aluminium and manganese alloy" suggests that he wasn't very familiar with it.)

The patent was taken up (though I don't know when) by the firm of Stratton and Co., of Birmingham.  According to Grace's Guide, the company was set up in 1911 by George Abe Laughton, who at that time was running a small section of another company, selling coronation badges and flags. "Components were bought in from a small supplier who suffered from the ravages of alcohol and supplies were erratic. Laughton bought the business for £50 and acquired four hand presses and two girl workers. He named this enterprise Stratton, reputedly after the hero in a novel his wife was reading."   A nice story about the source of the company name, but in fact their eldest son, born 1906, was named George Stratton Laughton. So he might have been named for the hero of the novel, and the company named for him.  (And when he grew up and joined the family firm, he was known as Stratton Laughton, not George Laughton.)

By 1920 (again according to Grace's Guide) the company was making knitting needles, radio receivers and men's jewellery (an odd portfolio).  It then merged with Jarrett & Rainsford, the company that George Laughton had worked for until 1911, and became Jarrett, Rainsford and Laughton.  The Stratton name was kept for such things as powder compacts (vintage Stratton powder compacts are evidently very collectable) and of course Stratnoid knitting needles.    

The earliest ad for Stratnoid needles and hooks that I have found dates from about 1925.  It features a testimonial from a customer: "JUST IMAGINE MY DELIGHT when I discovered 'STRATNOID' -- so light, soft as silk, and never discoloured my white wool as aluminium ones did.  I have several sizes in 'STRATNOID' and they are JUST PERFECT."

Stratnoid ad, about 1925

The brand continued to at least the late 1950s. In 1955, an ad listed the  "points of appeal about Stratnoid Knitting Pins":

• Solid heads that CANNOT come off.
• Polished rounded points that pick up stitches easily.
• Supersmooth finish for rapid work.
• Lightweight and unbreakable.
• Neutral shade that obviates eye strain.

The last point seems a bit of a stretch, but all the others seem valid.  (The head couldn't come off because it was made in one piece with the rest of the needle, I believe, unlike some of the anodised aluminium needles.)  

Here's another ad, from 1958.  At that time, the company often offered free knitting patterns in their ads - if you bought a pair of Stratnoid knitting needles, you could send off for a free pattern.

Stratnoid ad, 1958

And after that, the ads seem to have stopped (if I see a later one, I'll add it.)  But the needles have carried on - as Harry Lilley's patent application didn't say, they are very durable.  (Though we have had several rejects in the KCG collection that were slightly bent.)  I've tried knitting with them, and if you like very smooth needles, these are ideal.  Though I might not go so far as to say "JUST PERFECT", like the 1925 ad.

Mending

A friend has been sorting out her mother's things, and found a stocking mending kit and other sewing bits and pieces that she has offered to the Knitting & Crochet Guild.

Roz's mother had a collection of stocking mending threads, in a very nice little basket.  I was impressed by the number of different shades of light brown, as well as a pale blue and a pink.  (The photo doesn't show the entire contents of the basket, by the way - there were several other spools of thread in it.)

Roz thought that the basket might have belonged to her grandmother originally.  It has certainly been a long time since stocking-mending was an important part of looking after your appearance - and silk stockings haven't been everyday wear for women since before the Second World War.

The strange object that was in the basket along with the mending threads is called a 'Speedweve'.

We couldn't guess what it was for, but Tom of Holland has one that came with the original instructions, and has very helpfully written a blog post on how to use it.  It's a very clever gadget!

Roz also found a Stocking Ladder Darner - a tiny latchet hook, still in its packaging.  (Critchley Bros. made Wimberdar brand knitting needles and needle gauges, too.)

And a few things that are nothing to do with mending stockings, including a 'War Time Pack' of snap fasteners.

  

The message on the back of one strip reads: 'These Snap Fasteners are of pre-war quality.  The card ONLY is "austerity" in size and style.'

And I especially liked a box of Cash's Woven Initials:

Cash's Woven Name Tapes and Initials have been made for a very long time: I had a set of name tapes when I went to secondary school and every item of clothing was supposed to have a name tape on it.  (They were inspected at the start of every academic year.)  My sister had a set too, and so did my daughter, and you can still get them.  The roll of  'M.W.' tape that Roz's mother had seems unused  - and Roz couldn't think of any family member with those initials, so it's a bit of a mystery.

Other sides of the box advertise more Cash's products:

And I suppose now you could use Cash's name tapes to label your hand-knits.  There's even a knitting-needles-and-ball-of-wool motif  that you can choose on Cash's Designer Labels page. Tempting - except that mostly I knit things for myself, and I already know I knitted them.    

Metrication

Today I was sorting some magazines in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection and separating out surplus copies.  One of them was a Woolworth Knitting Magazine from 1976, and I was idly looking through it to see if there was anything of interest in it.  At that time, Woolworth's sold knitting yarns under their Winfield brand, as well as pattern leaflets, an annual knitting magazine, and  knitting needles, crochet hooks, buttons and other haberdashery.

The patterns in this magazine weren't very exciting, but an ad about metrication of knitting needles caught my eye.  Evidently, the old imperial sizes were just changing over to metric sizes at the time.

It essentially gives a conversion chart, with the old imperial sizes alongside the new metric sizes.  I doubt that the reassurance that "Tensions won't be affected, so you won't have to learn to knit again" was really necessary - changing needle sizes was very straightforward compared to the conversion of weights and measures that was happening at the same time.

Knitting yarn was already being sold in metric quantities, and I had forgotten that balls of yarn used to be much smaller than they are now.  From the quantities given in the patterns, Winfield yarns were sold in 20g and 25g balls, except for Aran wool, which was in 50g balls.  So a short-sleeved smock top took 22 balls of DK for the 36 in./91 cm. bust size.  I suppose that meant that you should have less than 25g left over when you had finished knitting, whereas I'm often left with most of a 100g. ball when I've finished a project.  But think of dealing with all those ends!    
 

The Cornucopia Gauge

From The Knitter's Friend, 1847

My copy of The Knitter's Friend, edited by Mrs Hope, has an ad for a knitting needle gauge, The Cornucopia Gauge. The gauge was evidently a production of the Hope family - anyone who couldn't find a shop that sold them could buy one direct from Mr Hope.  But I think we can be more precise - it has a monogram stamped into it, which I think is GCH for George Curling Hope, the son of the family.  I guess that he designed it, and was using his mother's little book to advertise it.

I have never seen an actual example of a Cornucopia Gauge, but Sheila Williams illustrates one in her book The History of Knitting Pin Gauges, so some at least were made.

The ad in The Knitter's Friend says that the gauge is "a correct measure, according to the numbers used in the works of Mrs Gaugain, Mrs. Mee, Mrs. Jackson, Mrs Burrell and Mrs Hope" - they were authors who had all published books on knitting in the 1840s (see the list here).

Steel knitting needles were made of wire, and indeed called 'knitting wires' by some writers, so the numbers used as knitting needles sizes were wire sizes too. (It was the standard sizing for knitting needles in the U.K. until metric sizes replaced them.)  That explains why all the writers listed, and George Curling Hope, used the same sizing and numbering system - they had adopted the sizing and numbering already used for wire.   One knitting author did use different sizes: another ad for the Cornucopia Gauge says "This gauge is a  a correct measure..., according to the numbers used in every publication on knitting, except those of Mrs. Lambert."    Frances Lambert had introduced her own knitting needle gauge, the 'Standard Filière' in 1842.  An ad for it claimed: "The want of an Instrument for determining with accuracy the size of Knitting Needles has long been a cause of complaint" - a want that was soon filled by several competing suppliers, including George Curling Hope.

Many of these gauges, including the Standard Filière, were circular discs, but in 1847, a bell-shaped gauge was patented by G. Chambers & Co. and that became the most common shape for knitting needle gauges.  Bell gauges can be found with the names of many different manufacturers and suppliers until well into the 20th century - we have an Emu bell gauge in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection which dates from the late 1940s.  So although The Knitter's Friend and The Knitter's Casket sold well, the fancy shape of the Cornucopia Gauge did not assure its success - and George Curling Hope turned to other ideas.    

The Trunk Show in Haworth

Yesterday, Angharad and I took the trunk show to Haworth (home of the Brontes).  The Skipnorth group get together every year for a knitting weekend at Haworth Youth Hostel - a great idea. This year, they asked us to do a show for them.  

It was more or less the same selection as at the Birmingham Trunk Show - we have been very busy, so no time to pick completely different things.  I got some new photos, though.

We took a beautiful knitted octagonal cloth (large doiley?  small tablecloth?)  - possibly a Marianne Kinzel design.  In the background is the pizza box with the daffodil doiley inside.  

We have several examples of granny squares - this jacket is a nice one.  The colours are very fresh and spring-like.

My role in a trunk show is to  show a selection of tools, gadgets, and publications.  Here are two of the gadgets I showed yesterday -  holders for rayon or 'art silk'.  Rayon is such a slippery yarn that if you wind it into a ball, like wool, it will fall apart into a terrible tangle.   (I know, I've tried.)  So it was wound onto cross-shaped pieces of plywood, or similar shapes made at home from cardboard.  The 'Felix the Cat' holder  hasn't been used, so you can see the message 'Felix keeps on knitting'.  The other holder shows how the yarn was wound onto the holder - from the part of the writing that I can see, it seems to be from a shop on Boar Lane in Leeds that sold art silk.  

 
Because they are made from a cheap material, and sometimes have advertising for a yarn shop, I wonder if these holders were given free if you bought art silk.  It would be difficult to find out, now - it's the sort of everyday thing that doesn't get recorded and is easily forgotten.  

Double Century

I have recently bought some vintage knitting needles, and I think they are the nicest straight knitting needles I have ever used.    The brand is Double Century and they have a plastic coating over a steel core.  They are very good to knit with.  The coating is smooth - but not too slippery, unlike metal needles. They don't bend, unlike plastic or wooden needles.  The steel core gives them a satisfying weight, although perhaps some people might find them too heavy.  And the points are just right  - not too blunt or too sharp.  

The name and other details are incised into the plastic, and I think that originally the lettering was filled in with some black substance.  A few of the Double Century needles in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection still have the inlay (see photos), but it has usually worn off.

Add caption

After "The Double Century" there is a patent number, and on the other side of the needle, "English Made" and "B.G." for "British Gauge", I think, and then the size.  The coating of the needles is always a cream colour, to imitate bone or ivory.  

The patent, for "Improvements in or relating to Knitting Needles, Crochet-hooks and the like" was applied for in 1913 by Emily Doubble, widow, of  "Knole", Harpenden, Herts.

The specification reads:

"This invention relates to knitting needles, crochet-hooks, and the like of the kind which are made of vulcanite, ebonite and such like pliable material, the object of the invention being to lend a stiffness to the hook or needle when in use.

It has been found the knitting needles, crochet-hooks, and such like appliances of domestic use when formed of ebonite, vulcanite or other material, though possessing a desirable smoothness and silence in working, are apt to become soft and to lose their stiffness when held in the hand for any length of time, owing to the heat of the hand softening them.

According, therefore, to this invention, I reinforce the needle, crochet-hook or the like by imbedding a core of stiffening material ... to increase its rigidity.

In one manner of carrying out the invention as applied to a knitting needle, a steel wire is imbedded in the centre of the needle when the same is in a liquid or semi-liquid state, the reinforcement being entirely covered at the pointed end of the needle..."

I have been trying to find out more about Emily Doubble, and how her patent led to my knitting needles.  She  seems an unlikely inventor.  In the 1911 census, she is recorded as living at the same address as on the patent application, aged 72, and already a widow.  She had had 14 children, and living with her were two daughters and a son, all unmarried.  The son, Theodore William Doubble, must surely be the T.W. Doubble, Chartered Patent Agent, who is also named on the patent application - his occupation in the 1911 census is engineer, so he seems a much more likely inventor than his mother.    

Then there is a gap after 1913 when the patent was granted, and 1945, which is the date of the next reference I have found to Double Century needles.    

They were advertised in June 1945 in the magazine Home Chat as "The Knitting Pins with a history and a future."   Evidently the manufacture of Double Century needles had been suspended during the war, and in 1945 they were still not available. The ad says "The Steel for their unbreakable centres has been needed for essential war work.  Soon they will be back for those insist on the finest knitting pins in the world."  Many ads with a similar message appeared around that time, saying "our product has not been available during the war but it soon will be".  

The company making Double Century needles was James Smith & Son, in Redditch.  The town had a long history of needle-making, and the firms of Henry Milward and Abel Morrall (makers of Aero knitting needles) were also based there.

When I first saw this ad, with the date 1698, I thought that Double Century referred to the age of the company, i.e. more than 200 years, and thought that the name might have been introduced in 1898.  But surely it is not a coincidence that the brand name is Double Century and the patent was granted to Emily Doubble?  What is the link between a widow living in Harpenden, and a needle-making company in Redditch?   It's very mysterious.

By 1950, steel shortages were past and you could buy Double Century needles without any problem. An ad in Needlework Illustrated claims that they are "Just like ivory" (because of the colour and feel, I suppose) and the "Best Knitting Pins in the World".  I might not go so far as to agree with that, but they are certainly my favourites just now.   If I find out more about their history, I'll let you know.

Emu gadgets

Last June we had a Hook and Needle Week at Lee Mills, to make a start on sorting out the tools and gadgets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  We found a lot of needle gauges, including more than a dozen varieties of bell gauge.   According to the Victoria & Albert Museum, the first bell-shaped needle gauge was patented in 1847, and many later variants exist.   The Emu gauge illustrated is probably the latest in the KCG collection - I think it was made in the late 1940s.   It is different from earlier bell gauges in having holes in the middle rather slots around the edge (down to the tiny 1mm diameter hole for a size 19 needle), and it's anodised aluminium, in a beautiful green.
  

Then recently we found another Emu gadget.  It's a very neat little counter, about 2 inches/5cm. long. There are two circular holes in the purple plastic at the back, just visible, and we think that the plastic would bend enough to allow a knitting needle to be threaded through both holes (though we're not going to try it, for fear of breaking it).

The Knit-Count has a registered design number - 846860, which corresponds to 1946-7.   And I found another Emu gadget on eBay, with registered design number 846859 - a plastic ruler and needle gauge, to measure knitting needles from the old UK size 1 down to 16.  

In theory, the Knit-Count and ruler/gauge could have been manufactured long after the design was registered, but I think they are likely to date from the late 1940s.

Emu was a yarn company that seems to have appeared just after the war.  There are some very nice Emu knitting patterns from the late 1940s and 1950s in the collection - I showed a few here.
Early ads claim that unlike other yarns, Emu knitting wool won't shrink.  For instance, a 1945 ad says:

'Emu is the result of scientific research into wool shrinkage.  It is made permanently unshrinkable and easy washing by a secret process called "emunising". Send for a copy of "Science and Wool" booklet, which explains why Emu Wool is unshrinkable.'  

We don't have a copy of the booklet in the collection, so I can't tell you the explanation.

Emu ran a long series of ads with the slogan "Knit with Emu and stop thinking about shrinking".  The two illustrated give the address "Emu Wools  Ltd., Emu House, Oxford Circus, London W.1."  I wonder where Emu wool was spun - obviously not at Oxford Circus.   Any information gratefully received.

From Vogue Knitting 29, Autumn 1946

From Vogue Knitting 30, Spring 1947

Another Rug Wool Gauge

I hadn't seen, or even heard of, a rug wool gauge until friends gave me one a couple of weeks ago,  and now I've seen another - or rather a drawing of one in use. (Of course, I probably wouldn't have noticed the drawing if I didn't already have a rug wool gauge, so it's not really an amazing coincidence.)

The drawing is from the Hand Book on Knitting and Crocheting published by the Scotch Wool & Hosiery Stores.  We were looking through the copies of the Hand Book in the Guild collection at Lee Mills the other day, trying to make sense of them.  They are all undated, but evidently there were quite a few different editions.  (They don't have edition numbers either.)   The drawing is from an edition that I think must have been published during the First World War, because there are several patterns for knitted comforts for the Army and Navy.

The booklet has a section in the booklet on Rug and Mat Making, using (as it says on the gauge) Greenock Rug Wool.   The company used the brand name 'Greenock' for its knitting and rug wools - the mill was at Greenock in Scotland.  You could buy the wool, the gauge, a special hook, and canvas in various sizes.   The canvas was not printed with a design, though, as was common later, and the booklet does not give any charts - you had to make up your own design, or (more likely) make a plain rug.

My Patons & Baldwins rug wool gauge is much later than this one, and I thought that such things were only in use from the 1930s to the 1950s, roughly, so it's interesting to see the history pushed back to the 1910s.

Rug Wool Gauge

Friends came to stay last weekend and brought me a knitting-related gift - a Patons Turkey Rug Wool Gauge.   It's a piece of wood, 8½ inches (21.5 cm) long.

The instructions are printed on it: "Wrap wool with even tension round gauge and cut along groove"- the groove is on the under side.

Add caption

The gauge was intended to be used when cutting thick rug wool into short pieces for making a hooked rug - the pieces are 2¾ inches long, or just over 7 cm.  (I've tried it.)  Rug making was evidently popular in the 1930s - there is a Patons & Baldwins catalogue from 1935 in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection that has several pages on making rugs.  

From Patons & Baldwins catalogue, 1935.

The woman seems to be working with large skeins of wool, so she must be cutting off short lengths of wool before hooking them into the canvas.  Presumably she is using a wool gauge, though it's not shown in the sketch.

The KCG collection also has several booklets of rug designs, from the Patons archive.  The earliest, I think, is a Rugcraft booklet. There seem to have been several editions of Rugcraft; this one is later than the one illustrated in the 1935 catalogue, but still shows vaguely Art Deco designs, so possibly dates from the late 1940s.  

My mother used to make rugs, up to the 1970s.  (My mother-in-law too.)  But I don't remember my mother having a rug wool gauge -  she bought Readicut kits, with a printed canvas, and bundles of  wool already cut to the right length.  So no need for a gauge.