Old Knitting Patterns

This week I have been doing a lot of over-time –so I haven’t done much knitting.  On my only day off last Saturday – I went to the Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting in Oxford.  We looked at some of the Guild’s historic items including stockings knitted in very fine yarn, a fair-isle jumper, and a crocheted tea cosy cover commemorating the end of World War 1.  It was interesting to see them.  I meant to take some photos – but I forgot! At least one of the items – a wrap made from little granny squares - came from an old Vogue Knitting magazine and when I saw it – I thought – I have got some of them from the 1950s or 1960s.

This is actually a Stitchcraft magazine from 1963 but it is similar to some of the Vogue magazines that I have somewhere.  The patterns are so old that they have come back into fashion – but most of the sizes are so small they wouldn’t fit me.  In fact this magazine includes an attractive unisex jumper which means it has larger sizes to fit the men – I might add it onto my list of patterns to knit one day.

When I was trying to find another shawl pattern to knit – I looked through the box files that I have full of old patterns cut out of magazines – and thought many of them need throwing out as they look so dated.  In fact they are only about 10 years old – but that was the time of funky fur and other strange fashion yarns – now we seem to be in an era where more traditional yarn is prized.  However, I suppose if I keep them long enough – they will come back into fashion again.

Incidentally – I didn’t find any shawl patterns – shawls were not in fashion 10 years ago.  However 30 years ago – when I was a student – they were.  One of the first garments I ever knitted was a bramble stitch shawl.  I have still got the pattern for that – I will have to knit another one – something else to add to the list.