Knitting is a lot like cooking. When I’ve been in the kitchen all day the last thing I want to do is eat what I’ve made. Sometimes I can barely taste it anymore after all that sampling and, yes  okay, licking out the bowl too. Similarly, after a long time working on a piece of knitting the last thing I want to do is wear the thing. It’s always the wrong shape, the wrong colour or just the wrong me.

This means that my nearest and dearest have been the happy recipients of my labours over the years. My sister Jane was the one who grimaced least, so ended up with most of the jumpers. When she moved continents recently I salvaged whole piles of hand-knits in need of some TLC.

This Patricia Roberts vase of flowers was actually knitted by my Mum. It was called April Showers, though you wouldn’t know it. Being a busy woman, she didn’t have any truck with silly things like rain drops and so missed these out of the finished thing.

What’s fun is trying to match the sweaters with the original patterns. I’m sure some of them have gone the way of small things, but I seem to have stashed away quite a few, and now I’m moving into my own studio (did I mention that a few times already) I have the space to sort them out.

Looking through the old patterns, some of which I inherited from my Mum and Grand-mum, I was astonished to see ones that were from mainstream publications that would steer clear of ‘that sort of thing’ these days. I have a pile that come from the Guardian newspaper. Every week you could write off and they would send you a pattern, these ones are all from Jaeger. One of Jaeger’s brochures announced ‘Life Is Full of Surprises, Why Isn’t Your Wardrobe‘. I’m not sure I want that many surprises…

This Wheatsheaf Aran pattern was by Wendy yarns and given away with The Sunday Times colour supplement in 1984. (When did they stop being ‘colour supplements’ and start being magazines?) I think my sister sent off for the whole kit. It’s astonishing that it has survived,   although it’s looking a bit peaky now, thirty years later. Perhaps newspapers will again wake up to the fact that some of their readers are knitters and start doing this again? We could knit a petition.

WWII patterns

Rare WWI book of patterns

I’m busy researching knitting during WWI. There is so much material available about WWII but not so much that has survived since 1914. I’ve been to look at the Coats UK archive, the Knitting and Crochet Guild stores and the British Library. Lots of patterns seemed to be in newspapers though there are a few pamphlets available. I bought this Beehive booklet on eBay.

Moustache warmer

Of course knitting for soldiers wasn’t new even then. People had been knitting during the Crimean war (like this stunning helmet liner with matching moustache) and the Civil War in America.

Pattern pamphlet of the British Red Cross Society

The best non-commercial example I’ve found is the British Red Cross pattern book and it’s rather intriguing ‘Cap Scarf’. This ‘comforter’ is a hat and a scarf. It’s made as a double layer so you can pull it over your head. What a great idea, though certainly one for the machine -knitters. Knitting machines did exist, especially stocking machines for quick sock making.

My next challenge is to find the origin of Kitchener Stitch. Apparently Lord Kitchener really was a knitter and made socks himself. Do you think he really found time to invent grafting? If you have any evidence about that one please let me know.

Rowan mag 55, Spring Summer 2014 is out, including my first article for Rowan, Irish Crochet Lace Renaissance (there might be some quite nice patterns in there too…)
Lace is going to be the big thing this year, and crochet is a great way of trying it out if you’ve never done it before – what with only one stitch to drop instead of a whole row. The interesting thing about Irish crochet is that it is made in small modular sections making it easier to manage.

These are some of my own efforts with crochet lace.

I’m excited to see my first column published in Knitting Magazine. What a classy magazine it is too (but then I would say that wouldn’t I).

But it’s not all about me, really… There’s a piece by Diana Woolf about the lovely Julie Arkel and a an interetsting pattern that I have my eye on, Angela by Vibe Ulrik Sondergaard.