What I Need To Do

You know what I need to do - get moving with Adventures In Stitchcraft!

I have the yarn and have cast on for the project from the first issue. I needed to purchase some 3.75mm needles as I could not find a single set in the house. I know, this is crazy as I literally have hundreds of knitting needles of all sorts. Murphy's Law though, that you cannot find the size you need when you need it! 

The wonderfully named 'With Angora Tie' from the October 1932 issue, the very first issue published. 
I am knitting to pattern except I am going up a needle size to increase the size slightly. The pattern is for a 34" bust. 
I am using Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury Sweetheart 4 ply in Rose Petals. This was a limited edition and unfortunately this colourway is no longer available. But there are lots of gorgeous colours in their regular Luxury 4 ply range. 
As you can tell, I have lots of Bendigo yarn in my stash! Because it is great quality and great value and they have an extensive colour range!
I will look for some angora as I get further into the project. I have some of my own handdyed that might fit the bill. 

There is a lot of rib! 5 inches and this is just over 4 inches. Lots of vintage patterns have very deep rib bands. I don't know if you can tell in the photo but in this pattern the rib comes up to her belt. Nearly on to the pattern now so looking forward to seeing what it looks like! 
I have so many issues of Stitchcraft now that it is quite difficult to find ones I do not have, particularly at a reasonable price. But I did find some recently and they are wonderful!

These issues are from 1937, 38 and 39. Totally gorgeous! 

I have spent some time organising my collection and now each issue is protected in a comic bag. These are special plastic bags for collectors of comics. They come in three sizes and these three sizes are the perfect fit for the three different sizes that Stitchcraft was published in over the years. 

I purchased these bags from Online Coins and Collectables. I had to make two purchases as I grossly underestimated how Stitchcraft magazines I actually had! Great service and quick delivery. Well worth taking a look if you have vintage patterns or magazines that need some extra care as I had found, horror of horrors, a few silverfish in my collection! 

Another vintage project that I am working on is the Prelude jumper by Patons and Baldwins, circa late 1930s/early 1940s. It is available as a free pattern from Subversive Femme, who has lots of free patterns on her site. In particular, look for her annual Curvy Month patterns as, let's face it, most of us are not the size of the models in vintage patterns! 
I have altered the pattern in that I am knitting it in one colour. And it is not vintage appropriate as I am using one of my own handdyed yarns which is not a solid colour. But I had some leftover skeins (ones that I wasn't 100% happy with the dye job) from one of last year's yarn clubs so I decided to use them up here. The yarn is based on Wuthering Heights and is called Among The Heather. It is a purple and mossy green on a tweed BFL (Bluefaced Leceister) 4 ply/fingering weight yarn. I love the way it is knitting up and this is a super simple pattern. 

Check out Subversive Femme's Etsy shop here. Bex has loads of downloadable vintage patterns, both knitting and sewing, as well as full downloadable issues of Stitchcraft magazines. I particularly like the look of this Sun-Glo pattern book for larger figures, especially the knitted dress. One day I will attempt a knitted dress! 

Another great source for downloadable Stitchcraft magazines is Carol's shop. She has complete magazines from the 1930s in PDF format. These are, of course, the hard ones to find in hard copy and if I do, they are generally expensive! 

Reading wise, I recently purchased this lovely book. I have a particular interest, as I think many vintage lovers do, of the 1940s and the homefront in England during World War II. 

I actually found it when I was Googling Stitchcraft (which I do on a fairly regular basis!) as it contains a short paragraph referencing Stitchcraft magazine. 

There is an interesting chapter called The Clothes Doctor which is all about utility fashion and make do and mend. Lots of knitting references in the chapter. 

I cannot believe it says that knitted stockings never really took off! It is one of the items I am particularly interested in knitting.

But we are not up to this era yet! Back to 1932! I will hope to have some significant progress to share in next week's Adventures In Stitchcraft.