Florence the knitted bear gets into nursing outfit

I  knitted this little bear for a family new born named Florence and just had to dress her as a nurse; after her famous namesake.

 Designing the little blue dress for this tiny bear, just 6” high, was quite tricky. It has separate bodice pieces, puffed sleeves and flared skirt. The intricate shaping for the sleeves was achieved by making stitches along several part rows and then decreasing rapidly. Using several sets of increasingly larger pins created the flared skirt without too much bulk. A little bit of crochet for the collar.

The bear, knitted in DK on size 11(old UK) was easy to work yet really firm so that no stuffing would ever escape.

Golden sands and Golden Hands - landscape knitting

Never one to throw anything away, my box of odd bits of wool is overflowing again...

Recently I have been gradually working my way through the 150 issues of Golden hands and Golden Hands Encyclopedia of Crafts which I acquired a couple of holidays ago for the princely sum of 1p each. These publications go back to the 1970's. I never saw too many of them at the time. But I will be ever grateful to the good lady who ordered every issue, kept them all and then forty years and later left them at her gate. For sale at one pence a copy - the money to be left in the honesty box at the side. Our stroll to the beach had to be abandoned, the only way this lot could be got back to the campsite was in the car.  And I wasn't going to pass this little treasure trove up!

A little tip I had just picked up about knitting in several colours said to keep the yarn in use coming up from below the other yarns. I thought I would have a little practice. I did not have a pattern so I cast on about twenty  and  made a little sketch of a country scene to have something to aim at. I had to have two goes at the little dog, it came out too big the first time. But drawing a little grid over the shape made it quite easy.

The tip was a good one, I ended up with a little bag. I was so pleased with it, I took the trouble to line it. Just right for crochet hooks and little tools.

All thanks to Mrs Lee.

Now they have all gone bananas in pyjamas

Bananas in pyjamas knitted hats

In the run up to Christmas I spent more than a little time creating Bananas in Pyjamas outfits for two of my nearest and dearest for a seasonal fancy dress party. How easy that should have been. But having trawled every shop in town and seemingly every location on the web, I could not find a single piece of fabric with the right sized stripes. Candy stripe fabric every where... but only a mean narrow cm. wide. In true dedicated Grandma style I ended up piecing every single blue and white stripe for two pairs of pyjamas! A bit tiresome by the end but I got there just in time and with two inches of fabric to spare.

Knitting the banana hats was much more fun and would have been simplicity itself if only I had not had to knit them simultaneously to eke out a very limited amount of yarn between the two hats. They are based on a simple bobble hat with a slip stitches on alternate rows to create the idea of sides and the top stitches decreased  rapidly into an oblong shape, lightly stuffed. And don't they look cute!

What reminded me of all this was the sight of  "this season must have fashion trend" in the Sunday Times Style magazine. Bold monochrome stripes are all it apparently. Amongst many other examples, lo and behold, boy and girl bedecked in £75 bold stripey jacket and £41 bold stripey shorts.

Well I got two pairs of pyjamas out of a slice of blue fabric off the bottom of an old duvet cover from out of my patchwork stash and a metre of white cotton from the market. And two banana hats from some yarn someone else had left over many moons ago. Which is why I never throw things away.
Woolly

Fifty years in the making - Aran knit meets Swaledale hand spun

Aran Achill jacket knitted c.1963 meets Swaledale hand spun c.2012

It seems ages ago now; but actually only about twelve months have passed since my big sister promised to re-knit the Achill jacket pattern she had last knitted 50 years ago if I came up with the wool. Back in the early 1960’s she produced several beautiful Aran jackets in wool brought back from holidays near Achill Island off the West Coast of Ireland by our late parents. (earlier post-Out for a spin).

Despite a long time searching, the special quality of the wool proved impossible to match at any affordable price. So it’s been a double challenge for Katharine to convert my wobbly hand spun Swaledale into this fantastic jacket. I am very much the novice at spinning and it took me a good while to spin the yarn. Many other major knitting projects have been and gone through Katharine’s hands while she has been waiting.

The result is superb, I could not be happier. It deserves the greatest care I can give it but I will want to wear it all the time

I wore my earlier jacket to destruction and we were convinced all that remained of the Achill wool was one of Narnie’s hats.  How very odd that the very week the new jacket was finally completed, mother’s original brown Achill jacket was spotted at the bottom of an old trunk.

Here they are together.  My new one complete with its handmade wooden buttons, created from fumed oak by my unique brother in law Derek Martin, who is not only maker of all those knitting pins for my knitting bags but also the craftsman who designed and built my spinning wheel.

At the risk of sounding a bit cheesy ……..and I have just had some for lunch; this is about more than just knitting. It’s special and its wrapped up in wonderful family ties and fifty years of memories, in particular my BMT in 1988 from Katharine which gave me the last 24 years.  We have come by two great husbands, thirteen children and twenty grandchildren between us and countless cousins , uncles and aunts so there is still plenty more knitting to do…...

All I can say for now is “Thanks sis!".

Down the slippery slope - bias knitting problems

Oh dear what can the matter be? Quite a lot it appears. The knitting has gone all lop sided!

I had my suspicions when I knitted a tension swatch that all might not be well with the yarn I had Navajo plyed on the spinning wheel. This looping/chaining technique converts a single strand into a three ply yarn. It's quite simple when you get going, but  I was aware some over twisting had occurred while I was getting the hang of it.

I knew over twisted yarn can cause the knitted fabric to slope off in one direction, but the slope on the tension swatch was barely perceptible so I pressed on with the main garment sleeve. Thirty six cms.(15") of slip stitch pattern later not only do I have a bias on the fabric but one side is a good 5cms(2") longer than  the other.

Time for a cup of cocoa and burning some midnight oil while wading through Montese Stanley's "The Hand Knitter's Handbook - still the best book I have for finding better techniques and problem solving.

Along with  the over twisted yarn, loose stitches at the beginning of a purl row could well be part of the problem.  Apart from tightening the first purl stitches another suggestion Montese gave is to work a double chain selvedge on the over long edge. But that might not be suitable on a sleeve seam.

I'm hoping taking the yarn from the opposite direction of twist might help things. Another possibility for sorting the bias caused by the yarn, given by Montese, could be to incorporate twisted or plaited stocking stitches going in the opposite direction.

You often come across knitting or purling into the back of a stitch when shaping but I have never really considered the possibilities created by the use of rows of such stitches for forming basic fabrics. I am now quite fascinated and am busy making sample swatches of twisted and plaited stocking stitch.

I still love the yarn, I'm determined to make it behave and give me a new cosy cardigan - based on one I had when I was eight. Any other suggestions?

Hats off! Fair Isle beret meets Tam O'Shanter

With Sheila's admonishments still ringing in my ears I just felt I had to try harder at circular knitting. At the end of  her book a spread of amazing knitted "tammy" hats in fantastic concentric Fair Isle patterns were said to be much easier to make than to describe. That they relied on a double slip stitch decrease was all the information given. I set off to make a small hat for a child and along the way I met some very interesting people.

As I began, I got curious about why these hats are called "Tammies" and  who exactly was Tam O'Shanter? and I finally got round to reading the epic Robert Burns poem. Only half comprehending it, even in translation, I gather he was a bit of a lad for the booze and the ladies who got a bad scare to the detriment of  his horse. His "good blue bonnet" apparently referred to a Kilmarnock bonnet, - heavy duty head gear from which a man would seldom be parted inside or outside.

O dear! by then  I'm totally hooked into finding out more about the mysteries of  these knitted Scottish bonnets.  Historical hats were coming thick and fast from Glengarry's and Atholl's  in regimental dress to berets and forage caps. Fascinating.... you can read more about how they were made at
http://futuremuseum.co.uk/Collection.aspx/bonnet_making/Description

Sally Pointer is also something of an expert when it comes recreating these historical caps and she has some interesting traditional tools too. See  http://www.sallypointer.com/shop/

For this little effort I started off using trusty James Norbury's instructions for beret shaping. So this hat has a tight rim, rather than a rib and is increased out before turning back in for the crown. But then I discovered Ruskin on Ravelry whose splendid Greenvoe pattern explained that knitting a straight tube and then decreasing just within the central crown would do the job. The centre shaping is more Ruskin that Norbury and I completed the job by gentle  washing and drying it to shape over a plate. I decided against a pom pom as this quite a lightweight little hat for maybe a two/three year old. 

As Sheila said in her book making one is a lot easier than it looks or is to describe. I'll try to add an outline of how I made it on the patterns page as soon as I can.

Traditional Knitting by Sheila McGregor and a teeny tiny Fair Isle baby bonnet

Premie size Fair Isle baby hat in yellow and brown

I had a stroke of  luck this week when I came across a book about traditional knitting by Sheila McGregor. I had been on the look out for anything by her since I acquired "Michael Parson's Traditional Knitting" when I was on holiday in Scotland last  year.

If it had been her "Complete Book of Fair Isle Knitting" I would have been over the moon, still I am pretty chuffed to have laid my hands on this 1983 Batsford Paperback - "Traditional Knitting" for just 25p. While only quite a short book Sheila's take on the history of  knitting is well researched and written with some wry humour.

I'm fascinated by the different theories surrounding the development and spread of  knitting techniques and patterns around the globe. There seems to be very little hard and fast evidence and the folklore surrounding "traditional" patterns varies according to where you are asking. Do we owe Fair Isle knitting to the Spanish or the Vikings?  Sheila suggestion is that the source was more likely to have been Estonia.

One thing that stands out from the book for me is the importance of felting. It had never occurred to me that not only hats but most of  those hand knit stockings were felted. The book reminds us that knitting is basically a circular technique and Sheila's parting paragraph says very much about what I think of as "Joined Up Knitting"

"....knitting is in many ways an ideal craft for today. It is no longer true that it has to be economically worthwhile; it is sufficient in itself. The varying levels of skill can explored (if knitters would only lift their eyes from their paper patterns and read a little about the basic). Not the least thing, the end result is useful as well as beautiful and, we would hope, unique."

The are lots of fascinating colour pictures in the book, but here we will have to make do with an image of  my own first attempt at Fair Isle hand knitting last year. I started off at random really, trying out some circular knitting on four pins and some contrasting oddments and just trying to make changes as I went along. It turned out as a very small hat about right for a premie baby, so I sent it off to South Africa with some knitted blankets. squares.
Woolly Facade

Knitted stripes at the double

Childs top in knitted stripes

Two colour knitting in single row stripes can be a pain. The yarn for the next colour change is always at the wrong end of the work! But an easy solution is to use two needles with points at both ends.

I recently inherited some one's lifetime collection of knitting needles containing many double pointers in various lengths so I was able to set about this little dazzler of a child's knitted top inspired by a man's vintage sports shirt I had seen in one of my favourite old books, Modern Knitting.

Jane Koster and Margaret Murray's 1940's book Modern Knitting Illustrated is an other knitting classic published by Odhams Press. The images are just so evocative of the time and a lovely reminder of  how to go about making the most of limited resources. If you ever see a copy; - spot a little lamb tugging a tiny truck laden with wool knitting pins and book on the cover, do not fail to buy it.

I made up this pattern for a four year old, but you could replicate it in any size, taking a standard stocking stitch, round necked jumper as a basic guide. The button opening is started just above the point where the sleeves come in by leaving six or so stitches on a holder and completed one side at a time. I reinforced the button band with cotton tape. The collar is a simple straight band in rib knitted up on the stitches around the neck.

The original man's sports shirt was knitted in two yarns one cotton and the other wool, this one is somewhat similar being knitted in the remainders of indeterminate cones of yarn. The red being quite soft and the yellow a little finer and harder they are quite nicely balanced and dare I say?....it turned out quite nifty but thrifty!

Woolly Facade

Seeing Red - P.S. Knitted pleats for little girls are back again

Slip stitch knitted pleats

Having got quite nostalgic about Grandma's knitting I was a bit miffed to be reminded recently of one less well remembered knitted Christmas present given to me as a child. I think I must have deliberately made the effort to forget the hand knitted jumper initialed on the chest with the letters P.S. due to one of those little Christmas jests that meant no harm but left a little sting. 

Strangely I had remembered the matching skirt which came with it quite fondly. It was worn so long it became too short! Overtime Grandma had knitted little sets for all the Stillman girls with embroidered initials on each. So there was KS, HS, MS and finally PS all kitted out in little knitted pleats and a top to go over.

To understand the impact of opening the Christmas parcel in question you will have to know something of the Christmas Day ritual at Oakfields. The family gathering at our house was huge and included all Grandma and Pam Pams’ children and their children and in later years their children. Now little PS was about five years behind all the others, so at the time I was the baby of the family and the audience packed the room. 

Christmas 1956

It was always a late start. Grandma and Pam Pam refused to leave their home, some miles away, before the Queen's speech at three o'clock. There were so many to cater for; much of the day was taken up with “final” preparations for the giant spread. No presents were opened until after a huge buffet tea of turkey, roast beef, ham, trifles and jellies, mince pies, chocolate log, meringues, éclairs, batten-bergs, other assorted cakes and six gallons of tea had been well and truly consumed. All presents from everyone were piled high around the Christmas tree. The ceremony began when Daddy started to read out the labels on each and every gift and I was dispatched to pass it over. Every present was opened with eager anticipation while we all looked on and cheered the emerging socks and books, bath cubes and handkerchiefs. It went on long into the night.

Then came the parcel containing the said monogrammed knitting.

"Oh! Thank you Grandma" said I,

"Oh!  P.S.! - well she was a little afterthought” said another.

Laughter ensued.

I was not happy and let them all know.

Somehow it didn’t stop there - endearing references to little P.S. taunted me for sometime. No wonder I'm still shy! 

Pleated effect knitted skirt sewn
on to stretch fabric bodice

Never the less, the skirt was a hit, and similar ones were knitted for the next generation too. So it definitely qualifies as a family favourite. I didn’t have a pattern, but with a little help from good old James Norbury, I learnt that the key to the pleating effect is a slip stitch. So after a little experimentation I was able to reproduce it. Big sister (KS) assures me it is pretty close.

It’s remarkably simple to knit and it’s easy to make a skirt for a pre-school little girl in just one piece. You can elasticate the top or if you put on to a little bodice it will never droop. You can find the stitch pattern here and instructions for making a little skirt here.