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.    

  

Spats Revisited

In 2014, the Knitting & Crochet Guild received a donation from Coats plc of an archive of about 60 garments.  Coats plc at that time owned the Patons brand, previously Patons & Baldwins.  There was not much documentation with the archive, but we think that it was put together in the early 1950s, probably by James Norbury, who was then the chief designer for Patons & Baldwins.  There seem to be several different reasons for pieces to be in the archive, but some of them were evidently knitted from much earlier Patons & Baldwins patterns.  James Norbury appeared as a knitting expert on BBC TV programmes in the early 1950s, and I think it's possible that these reproductions were made for TV.  For instance, in 1951, he presented a series of six programmes on knitting, in one of which (according to Radio Times) he "shows some examples from his collection of historic knitted garments" - possibly some of those were reproductions.  

In this and the next posts, I shall be writing about the reproductions for which I have found matching patterns in the British Library. 

First, a pair of spats. 

Spats, from the Coats-Patons donation

(They came into the KCG collection with an attached label 'Gaiters', but no, they are spats.)   

I wrote previously here about an intriguing pattern leaflet for spats which I knew of but hadn't seen, Patons & Baldwins' Helps To Knitters No. 101.  The British Library, I discovered, has many of the early Helps to Knitters leaflets, and I have looked at the leaflet there.  (It is unfortunately hard to photograph well, because numbers 101 to 130 are bound together in one volume.)  The leaflet is titled "Hand-Knitted Spats from Various Wools".  Here is the illustration taken from the front cover. 

Lady wearing knitted spats,
from Helps to Knitters 101

And here is a rather poor photo of an illustration in the leaflet, to confirm that this is the original of our reproduced spats.    

The leaflet has four other designs too, all similar but with different tops, and of different varieties of 4-ply (fingering weight) P&B wool.  

The colours suggested in the pattern are Light Grey for the main colour, with Dark Grey and Blue, instead of white, red and blue respectively in the reproduction.  The Light Grey is a much more practical choice for an article to be worn out of doors over shoes, but if I'm right that the reproduced spats were intended to be shown on TV, perhaps the colours were chosen to give good contrast when shown in black and white. 

Another difference is that the reproduced spats were knitted flat, on two needles, with a seam up the back, whereas the original instructions have this design knitted in the round, on four needles. (The other four designs in the leaflet are knitted flat.)  I don't know why the change was made - perhaps the knitter really didn't like knitting in the round, or didn't know how, though that would be odd for a presumably professional knitter. 

As I said in the earlier post on spats, the fashion was launched in 1926, apparently at a party given by Lady Strathspey, who called them "Highland spattees".   I thought that the fashion might have been very short-lived, but Lady Strathspey was still promoting spattees in October 1928, when a letter from her appeared in several local newspapers across the country: 

"Last year and also in 1926 [your newspaper] was kind enough to be interested in the highland spattee which I was then privileged to sponsor. Women do not often reserve a permanent place in their wardrobes for a novelty such as this, and it may be that they are becoming less conservative (a point, I understand, upon which all the party managers are at the moment sorely exercised). Certain it is that the overknee gaiter, into which the original spattee evolved last season, appears to be quite firmly established, from Caithness in the North to Cornwall in the South; and also, as I can personally say, throughout Australia and New Zealand overseas. Possibly the explanation is that there was a definite demand for a warm woollen covering, easy to put on, which fits the leg and is waterproof." 

(I like the sly reference to the possible political leanings of women - 1928 was the year that women in the UK achieved electoral equality with men, so that all women over the age of 21 could vote.)

Ads for commercially knitted ladies' spattees persisted into the 1930s.  (Generally, it seems that 'spats' was used for men's wear and 'spattees' for women's wear, but spattees, Highland spattees, spats and gaiters are all used, apparently interchangeably,  for the women's garments.)   On the other hand, I found an article in the Sunderland local newspaper from September 1929 reporting that the weather had turned cold overnight and women had had to change from their summer outfits into something much warmer, including in "isolated cases", "old and the now out-of-date spattees" - so fashion had by then moved on, at least in Sunderland. 

The question remains of why someone in the early 1950s (say James Norbury) should have chosen this design to reproduce.  I don't think that there was any suggestion of reviving spats/spattees in the 1950s, though they do have similarities to the leg warmers of the 1970s.   And if you wanted to choose a few designs that are representative of 1920s knitwear, I don't think you would choose this one.  I don't know.   

Disneyland Wools

 

These six balls of angora knitting wool were added to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection this week.  They were found in a charity shop by one of the volunteers working on the collection.  The brand is Disneyland, and each ball band has a Disney cartoon character on it - Sleepy (one of the Seven Dwarves), Pluto the dog, Elmer the elephant, the three little pigs, Hiawatha, and Cupid.  The ball bands say that there were 26 Disney characters in all, and that it is Hand Knitting Wool, though oddly they don't give the weight.  They are in fact quarter ounce balls (7 gm.), which is remarkably small.    

I had heard of Disneyland Wools before, because we have a few of the knitting patterns.  Most of the designs are straightforward and have no cartoon connection, apart from a child's Mickey Mouse twin set (below), although most of the leaflets do have a group of Disney characters on the back, including Snow White and all seven dwarves. 

Disneyland Wools No. 120

Several of the designs are multi-coloured, and shown on the leaflets in very bright colours.  

Disneyland Wools No. 108

Disneyland Wools No. 109

But there are also simpler designs in single colours. 

Disneyland Wools No. 104

None of the pattern leaflets that we have are for angora - they all specify 3-ply Botany Wool (merino).   So I can't tell what garments were to be knitted with ¼ oz. balls of angora. Or perhaps they were intended for trimming on garments mainly knitted in botany wool.

From the style of the designs, the leaflets appear to date from the late 1940s or early 1950s. The leaflets give the name of the producers of the yarn - the British Wool Company, of Wembley.  (Rather a presumptuous name, I think, given all the other British wool companies in existence at the time.)  Grace's Guide gives a little information about the company, and shows some very nice ads for Disneyland Nursery Wools (the botany wool) and Disneyland Angora, dating from 1947, when the company exhibited at the British Industries Fair, to 1953.   It's interesting that the botany wool is referred to as nursery wool, i.e. for babies and very small children, when the pattern leaflets are obviously aimed at a much wider age range. 

I have not seen any ads for Disneyland Wools in the needlecraft and knitting magazines where the bigger spinners advertised.  But I have searched the newspapers available in FindMyPast for Disneyland Wools.  There are mentions of the brand from late 1948 to 1954 (though most are in 1949 and 1950), mainly in ads for yarn shops in local newspapers.  One intriguing piece appeared in the Dundee Courier in 1949:

 CARTOON CHARACTERS FOR COLOURS 

Children familiar with fairy and animal characters on the screen will be able to tell their mothers the colour of wool they would like in their clothes. They will not name the colour, but the character which stands for that shade, provided a particular brand of wool is purchased. The 26 choices include:—Mickey Mouse— scarlet; Pinocchio—blue; Donald Duck—navy; Dopey—yellow; and Bambi—brick. Menzies have a window display in their Princes Street (Dundee) shop of this "Disneyland" nursery wool which is 1s 10½d an ounce. Each ball has a character-stamped paper band, and boxes containing 1 lb. [i.e. 16 balls] of a particular shade are available, though the balls may be had singly. 

(I am a bit disappointed that Bambi isn't fawn, though I suppose that brick might be approximately the colour of a deer.)  This must have been the original way that the company used the cartoon characters, i.e. on botany wool, with a character for each colour.  From a couple of ads I have found for the angora, it was only sold in about 8 pastel colours, so it made more sense to use all the characters on each colour.  

More colour-character combinations appear in the instructions for the Mickey Mouse twin set.  Snow White is, of course, white, and sky blue is represented by the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio.  Figaro the black-and-white cat, also in Pinocchio, is black.   The colour names are not used in the patterns for adults or older children: the company perhaps felt that referring to colours by cartoon characters might deter older customers.  And perhaps they were, in the end, right — even though the cartoon characters on the ball-bands are charming, the brand doesn't seem to have lasted very long.  

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.  

Stitchcraft Number 2

Stitchcraft magazine was published every month for 50 years, from 1932 to 1982, except for a few years during the Second World War when paper shortages meant that it was published less often. The Knitting & Crochet Guild has copies of most issues, and I have put a pdf version of the 2nd issue, from November 1932, on the Guild website.  (The first issue, from October 1932, is there already.)  Members who are interested can download it, and maybe knit something from it. Here I'm outlining what's in this issue. 

Stitchcraft, November 1932

The cover shows that it was "for the modern woman and her home", and covered Knitting, Crochet, Embroidery and Rugwork.  Stitchcraft was owned by Patons & Baldwins, and the main purpose of the magazine was to sell the company's wools.  All the garments shown on the cover are made with P&B wools.  The company at that time also sold embroidery wool (used for the stool top) and rug wool, used for the nursery rug, embroidered in cross-stitch.   

The main image on the cover is the jumper with red and white diamonds - 'a gay colour scheme for grey November days'.  For me, it's the most attractive of the designs in the magazine, and the stranded knitting would make it very warm. 

Another of the cover designs is shown there as striped.  A note with the photo inside the magazine says: "it is a pity that, owing to the fact that blue and grey photograph alike, the striped pattern of this  charming little jumper does not show up in this illustration of it."  Sounds like someone made a mistake there. It certainly looks much more interesting on the cover, where the stripes are clear.  Although the photo doesn't show the two colours, it does show that the stitch pattern creates some texture in the fabric too. 

The other striped garment on the cover is crocheted, in three colours. I think I would like it better if the model's pose in the photo didn't look quite so awkward and uncomfortable - though a short jacket, fitted to the waist, is not something I would want to wear anyway.

The cover also shows a very charming outfit for a little girl - a dress with yellow ducks around the lower edge, and a pair of knickers to wear with it (though actually they look more like rather baggy shorts).   

The top right of the cover shows a V neck pullover and long socks.  These are intended as "Christmas presents for men who are critical!"  Perhaps it sounded rather different in the early 1930s, but I think that anyone who is critical of a hand-knitted Christmas present doesn't deserve it.  (On the other hand, knitting something as a gift for someone without checking first that it's what they want is a bit risky.)  Stitchcraft's suggestions for these undeserving men are, first, a sleeveless pullover. ("A pullover must be conservative in style to make a masculine hit, but a touch of difference in stitch is permissible.")  Then, "golfing husbands and brother will appreciate the extremely well-shaped golfing stockings", which are shaped to fit the calves, rather than relying on the stretchiness of the knit. Finally, there's a nice-looking plain cardigan with pockets, in Shetland wool (not shown on the cover).  "A rather bright navy blue is the colour that well-dressed men are choosing for their cardigans this winter."

There are several other knitting and crochet patterns inside the magazine.  The one below looks quite practical, because it's knitted in thick wool (as long as you don't mind a jacket that finishes at the waist).  "Paris sponsors short, snug-fitting jackets for winter walks. This particularly fascinating example is given especial cachet by wide ribbing, gleaming clip fasteners and the casual chic of a large soft collar. To go with it, there is a cap in the turban shape that is so smart and so universally becoming. The thickness of the attractive wool the coat and cap are knitted in make them particularly quick work."

Elsewhere in the magazine, there is an ad for the clip fasteners used on the jackets, declaring "Buttons are finished".  A bit premature, I think.  

The mention of Paris is backed up by a report by Stitchcraft's Paris correspondent, on the hand-knits shown by the Paris designers.  The sketch below shows two designs by Jean Patou, a ribbed cardigan and a zipped pullover, both worn with leather belts. 

Although it mainly carried patterns for Patons & Baldwins products, Stitchcraft gave instructions for making things in other manufacturers' (non-wool) products, too.  From this issue, you could make a "Sunshine set for morning tea".  It's intended for tea in bed: a tray cloth, tea cosy and napkin in yellow linen, with filet crochet trimmings, worked in Ardern's Star Sylko crochet cotton.  And there was a cookery page too - " 'Quick to Make' Cakes for November Teas".   At a time when Patons & Baldwins leaflets cost 2d if there was only one pattern in the leaflet, and up to 6d if there were several, it was very good value for 6d.  

A 1940s Face

If you look at a lot of old knitting patterns and magazines, as I do, some of the models start to become familiar.  In a few cases, I can put a name to the face - for instance, Patricia Squires, who often appeared on the front cover of Woman's Weekly in the 1950s, modelling one of the knitting patterns in the magzine.  Some models are famous for other reasons - notably Roger Moore, who was a knitwear model briefly in 1952 before his acting career took off, and I have occasionally seen Joanna Lumley on 1960s knitting patterns.    But usually, these familiar faces are anonymous.

One of the models on 1940s knitting patterns is particularly noticeable because she usually wore her hair in a very distinctive heart-shaped style.  It reminds me of a medieval headdress (called I think a hennin, or possibly an escoffin).

Bestway 1480

She appeared on several Bestway leaflets in the late 1940s, and the hairstyle varies slightly, though her hair is always long, and almost always swept up.  (How would you get it to stay put without copious amounts of hairspray, which I'm sure didn't exist in the 1940s?)

 

Bestway 1326

Bestway 1685

She sometimes appeared on pattern leaflets for knitting wool brands such as Copley's.... 

Copley's 1579

.... La Laine, by Bairns-Wear .....

La Laine 2178

.... and Patons & Baldwins. The leaflet below was advertised in 1943.

Patons & Baldwins 875

She appeared in magazines, such as Woman's Weekly, too. 

Woman's Weekly, 6th February 1943

I kept seeing images of this woman, without knowing who she was.  But by chance, I found out some time ago, from a magazine in the British Library.   (This was of course in the Olden Days, when you could go to London for a few days and stay with friends. And visit museums!  And spend a day in the British Library!)  I've been collecting together some images of her since then, to show in this post.   

 

Woman and Home in July 1944 showed a photo of her wedding, with the caption:

"Do you recognise in this lovely bride the Joan Felce whom you have so often admired in our knitting pages?   Now you see her photographed with her bridegroom, Lieut. D. C. Nurse, of the Royal Marines - a handsome pair. "

Joan Felce must have been aware that her hairstyle had a medieval look, because it goes on to say: 

"The beautiful, medieval-style gown was designed by the bride herself, and she had it in readiness for three years awaiting the bridegroom's return from Overseas.  So this is a story of patience and faith with a very happy ending!"

We are also told: "Her bridesmaids were two fellow Service women from the W.R.N.S." - the Women's Royal Naval Service, or Wrens.  From the end of 1941, single women could be conscripted into war service, and many joined the women's branches of the Army, Navy and Air Force.  

I don't know how she managed to carry on with occasional modelling work while being a Wren. I assume that she was based in England - some Wrens would have been doing clerical work at the Admiralty in London.  She may even have been able to get leave, if modelling was considered important morale-boosting work, though that seems unlikely. In the summer of 1944, she appeared in a very appropriate feature in Woman magazine, which I found on the same visit to the British Library. It was a double page article "Woman plans a treat for a Service girl", and begins "When a Service girl comes home on leave she looks forward to a very special list of treats, her holiday aims are the little homely things which she can't get in Service life and which she hankers for all the more. She's been doing her part in the fight - let's see that the rest she so much deserves is the kind a Service girl would enjoy most of all."  In the rest of the article, Joan Felce is shown enjoying the prescribed treats - meeting her friends on the first evening, breakfast in bed, a picnic tea in the garden, a date with her boyfriend (though that wouldn't be possible if he was serving overseas, as Joan's fiancé had been).   

Most of the pattern leaflets I showed earlier were published after the end of the war.  But I have not seen her on any leaflets published after the late 1940s, and I think that she must have then retired from modelling.  (Douglas Nurse had, happily, survived the war.)  I am pleased to have been able to put a name to one familiar face, though many others remain anonymous. 

Copies of all the patterns shown above are free to members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild - email collections@kcguild.org.uk to ask.