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

Royal Wedding Day Gifts in Swaledale handspun

Voila! The first few skeins of the second helping of my handspun Swaledale, almost ready for knitting into the Achill jacket - it just need winding into balls  before I can take it down to my sister Katharine (aka the Queen of Knitting). Hopefully she has been to busy to knit the first few ounces yet...these look a little better spun.

Despite her title I understand she has not been asked to the Palace on  the occasion of the marriage William and  Kate as the names could be confusing around the table and her title is one of repute rather than noble birth. But this is of no real concern as it has been arranged by her family for her to hold a royal wedding day party at the Croft. Barbecue and burgers, fun and games for forty. I'll take it with me but she will deserve a rest before she starts any knitting of this complexity.

Wooly Facade

Out for a spin

Achill Jacket knitting pattern c.1963

In the early 1960’s we had the Beatles and, shudder my father’s timbers, The Rolling Stones. About the same time I was at Grammar School and old enough to be left with my older siblings while mother and father went on a jaunt touring Ireland with old family friends.

They went as far as Achill Island just off the west coast of County Mayo. Amongst the trophies they brought back were hanks of hand spun wool and a local pattern for an Aran style garment, the “Achill jacket”.

My sister Katharine was volunteered to do the knitting and she produced two wonderful jackets, one in donkey brown for Mum and one in a lovely slate blue for me.  The wool had quite a unique character and the complex arrangement of traditional stitch patterns had such a timeless quality that I wore the jacket for decades. Fashions came and went, but like Mick Jaggar, the Achill jacket just went on and on. I can not remember exactly when I finally gave in and let it go but there was quite a lot of it missing by then; it was worn to destruction.

Sadly there had not been enough wool for Katharine to have a jacket of her own in this yarn, by the time a return trip to Achill came about the hand spinners had gone and the wool could not be found again.

Now my dear sister has offered to make me another jacket, - a labour of love bar none! She still has the pattern and I have spent weeks trying to find a yarn which might have the feel of the original and that could do justice to the work involved - without breaking the bank.

I rather fancied grey as a colour and nearly tried my hand at natural hand dyeing some Shetland yarn I had got hold of, but it would have been a big quantity to do in one go and I hadn’t got any really big pots to do the job. Finally I came to my senses and realised I could have natural grey wool from a grey sheep which I could hand spin myself!

I settled on grey Swaledale and ordered a kilo of combed tops from R E Dickie Ltd. in Halifax. They have great ranges of British fleece and yarns which you can see and buy at http://www.ephraimson.com/redickieltd.php The eagerly awaited parcel has arrived and I’m very, very happy with the contents. All I have to do now is peddle until its done…watch this space.  Anyhow it beats going to the gym.

The longest day – Odd Sox

Odd Sox-Frenchie the stripe

Those who have to put up with me around the home are well aware that on occasions I will appear in odd socks or with my cardigan on inside out. Usually they have sorted me out before I have left the house. But some times it gets worse. I’ll never forget the day I got half way through a morning at work before realising I had odd shoes on my feet. Not wildly dissimilar, they should have been a pair of classic court shoes – plain black slip ons with a small heel. But one was definitely round toed and two years younger than its pointed and well battered companion.

The initial shock horror moment passed without me shrieking out. No, there wasn’t another “pair” in the car or in the staff room. This was it for the day. There was nothing to be done except quake.  Should I let on to my colleagues, or could I avoid open views across the office? If challenged what could I repartee? Worse still, had I already been clocked?  I was supposed to be a professional with letters to put after my name. Would this count in my annual assessment? The longest day ensued.

What brought all this to mind was getting news that one of my knitting bags had been featured on a blog http://thesockgarden.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/knit-club-folksy-friday/

So I was off to the Sockgarden, the home of Odd Sox at a rate of knots. I can honestly say these cute and crazy hand made creatures made by Shaz are absolutely terrific. Do take a look, they are really special.

If I get the chance I’d love to see them in the flesh at Sock! Sat. 26^th and Sun. 27^th March, Loughborough Town Hall. It’s hard to choose… but I think my favourite just now is Frenchie the Stripe and I’d like to be six again. 

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.