WW1 Memorial Quilt – Arthur

This week I have been knitting a filing cabinet!  There are a lot of knitting blogs out there but I doubt if any of the others contain that line. 

This is the next piece of my knitted quilt.  It is to remember several of my relatives who died in World War 1, but it is named after my third cousin twice removed – Arthur Edward Jones who was a Lance Corporal in the 6^th battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.  He was killed on 30 July 1915 aged 26.  Arthur was a clerk.  His brother and brother-in-law were also killed during the war.

My second cousin three times removed John Frederick Stenner was also killed. He was in the Grenadier Guards and was killed on 2 Oct 1916.  He was only 19 when he died but he had done office work as a young boy in 1911.  His cousin Edward Henry Stenner (who is also my second cousin three times removed was also in the Grenadier Guards and a clerk in civilian life.  He died on Christmas Eve 1914.

I don’t know what the occupation of “clerk” suggests to you – perhaps piles of paper, but I thought of a filing cabinet.  I am not exactly sure what a contemporary filing cabinet would have looked like – I looked at a few antiques online – and it seems it is likely to have been made of wood – so I decided to use brown yarn.

Originally I had thought of green.  I have an old green metal filing cabinet – but I think it is only about 50 years old rather than 100.  I think I will be using green yarn for other occupations – such as labourer and gardener – so I decided on brown for this piece.

For Arthur I cast on 67sts using my main colour  Shade 145 and then knitted 6 rows in the darker brown  Shade 169.  I used red – Shade 150 to outline the drawers which are knitted in light brown – Shade 157. The handles are the main shade again – and I used Shade 177 for the labels.  I knitted three columns of 4 drawers with 2 rows of the darker brown between each row, 2 sts each side and 3 sts between the drawers. There are 99 rows in total.  This is exactly the same size as Caleb – the first piece I knitted and at the moment – I intend them to be placed at opposite corners at the bottom of the quilt.

I drew the design on graph paper but once I had done the set up row to get the first row of drawers in the right place – I did not really need to refer to the diagram.

Now I am going to start knitting a piece to remember the printers and compositors in my family. 

Free Your Fade

Free Your Fade is the latest design by Andrea Mowry of DreaReneeKnits.com.  A couple of weeks ago I received a copy of the Tangled Yarn newsletter and it advertised this shawl as well as a variation on the Hitchhiker pattern – Hitchhiker Beyond.  I ordered both immediately and started knitting this shawl as soon as the pattern arrived.

I think I have almost finished it.  At least I haven’t got much yarn left so it will have to be nearly finished!  You are encouraged to use any yarn of any thickness. 

I have used 2 balls of Debbie Bliss Rialto Luxury Sock yarn in Shade 04.  The idea of the shawl is to change from one colour to another whenever you like.  The pattern describes two colours changes.  I have knitted it in one shade but have changed balls following the pattern – so I have two colour changes, but my colour changes are very subtle.

When I started knitting this shawl – I took it out 3 times until I got the hang of the pattern.  It is me – the pattern is excellent.  I was tempted by the previous design called Find Your Fade shawl – but decided it is a bit too big – this one is a more manageable size – both to knit and to wear.  I may have a go at Find Your Fade but make it smaller.  I thoroughly recommend Free Your Fade to all shawl fans.

I am now going to get back to the serious stuff.  I have started knitting the next piece of my Memorial Quilt.

WW1 Memorial Quilt – Fred – Finished Piece

I have finished my second piece – I told you it was easy!

This piece is called Fred and is based on the occupation of tea packer.  A rough pattern is given below.

I used brown (Rowan Felted Tweed Shade 145)for the background and 15 other shades (from the top left to right  158, 150, 181, 151, 157, Mink, 154, 184, 159, 177, 192, 186, 175, 161, 195)  I used separate balls of each colour – winding 3 balls of brown.

Using 4mm needles I cast on 67sts and knit 165 rows.  I knit 2 rows in brown and then did a “set-up” row to place the colours as follows: K7 in brown, K9 in first shade, K15 in brown, K9 in second shade, K15 in brown, K9 in third shade, K2 in brown.  For the next 4 rows I decreased the brown by one st and increased the colours correspondingly until I had 2sts in brown, 19sts in Shade 1, 3sts in brown, 19sts in  Shade 2, 3sts in brown, 19sts in Shade 3 and 2sts in brown.  I worked 18 more rows straight – so you have 19 rows without “shaping”.  I then reversed the procedure I had used at the bottom to reduce the coloured sections down to 9sts again.  I then worked 4 rows in brown, and started the with 3 new colours and so on.  When I had completed the 165^th row, I cast off in brown.

If you want to try it – it may be best to draw it on graph paper first.  As with the first piece – the pattern sounds much more complicated than it actually is.

While I have been knitting this piece – I have been thinking about patterns for some of the other pieces.  I am going to start another piece this week but at the moment I am knitting a shawl.

WW1 Memorial Quilt – Fred

I have started working on a second piece of my knitted patchwork quilt.    I am calling it Fred after Frederick Charles Connew who was my third cousin twice removed. He was a private in the 2^nd Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment who died on 25 September 1915 aged 21.  

According to the 1911 census Frederick was a tea packer working for a tea merchant – presumably in London where he lived.  I think this could have been quite dangerous work, as tea can be explosive if it forms a dust cloud.  The design I have come up with for this piece is based on the tops of tea chests.

Originally I intended to do columns of 4 shapes – but now I have decided to do 3 columns of 5 shapes – this means that this piece uses 16 different shades of Rowan Felted Tweed but it could be knitted with just 2 one for the “centres” and one for the background.  I have used my main colour – brown for the background.

This piece is knitting up very quickly.  I think there are 2 reasons for this – firstly it is quite interesting to knit and secondly because  it is easier to knit than the first piece - the yarn does not get so tangled.