Wearable vintage

I began making this sweater just for fun, a challenge to myself to see if I could knit something from a photograph.  This photograph

Oh no! not this one... this one is mine - three months of thinking, planning, writing notes and crossing out
and I got there -

from here...

via here...

I have simplified it, by knitting the main body sideways from cuff to cuff via the front and back I could knit the colour work panels fair-isle fashion and not as intarsia, much quicker.

The finished piece was HUGE and took over half the dining-room floor when I blocked it. Sewing up took ages too.  Does anyone else use safety pins for this?  It made it much easier to keep the lines matched up

All the little crochet detail were interesting too.  The fillets at the shoulders allowed for some fullness rather in the same way as one gets from a shirt with a yoke

And I loved the bobble buttons

and the tassells

Loved making them too

When I joined the Titanic sewing project the choice of patterns was wonderful but when I looked around there are far less things to knit.  Hats gloves and mufflers a-plenty, baby things too but not actual items of women's clothing.  Perhaps knitting was mainly confined to shawls and working men's sweaters.  So I was thrilled to find this which is spot on for the period.  Spot on for the style too.  I realise that many of the women in steerage would have kept themselves warm with a shawl but the patterns we are making up are more of the style of the 2nd class passengers and although this tunic is probably designed by Poiret, someone who would have dressed the first class passengers, I see no reason why a 2nd class passenger who was able to knit could not also copy.

My mannequin, still decked out in 1912 blouse, skirt and underpinnings wears the tunic well.

I too shall wear it, with something more modern such as a pair of straight legged jeans

The pattern I devised is available as a Ravelry down load if you would like to make one too.  If you do please let me know - I would love to see other versions

xx

c

At the halfway point

Its high time I posted about knitting again.  I have got so immersed in sewing (and I'm dying to tell you about my latest acquisition but I shall have to save that till another day) I have neglected to chat about knitting.  But I have still been working hard behind the scenes on my Titanic related knitting project

After some swatching I decided on using the two shades of pink in the Debbie Bliss Pure Silk for the lozenge pattern.  I like the different textures as well as the colour contrast.

As you know I have no pattern for this, only a good photograph from Vintage Fashion Knitwear by Marnie Fogg.  I am trying to keep to the way I think the sweater is constructed, which is not the way of modern patterns, but also I am looking at ways of streamlining the process.  I have no technical skills for creating knitting patterns, I rely on keeping to the tension of my swatch for measurements and otherwise a 'suck it and see' (or knit it and rip it) approach.  And for time to time pinning out what I have made and seeing if it looks anything like the shape I have in my mind's eye.

I knitted the front and back peplums separately first on their own they look like nothing on earth.

But things are now taking shape

Having knitted the peplums and crochet a row of eyelets along the top I began the main body knitting up from the bottom of the sleeve, This time I have knitted the bell cuff continuous with the sleeve and made the eyelets by the yfwd k2tog method.  I am going for dolman sleeves, hoping the inc1 each end of every knit row will give me the necessary ease for the armhole.  There is another row of eyelets across the yoke, so that I can get some ease in I am knitting the front and back separately then the yoke, I will hand sew the yoke in to get the ease.

At the moment I intend to knit the sweater in two halves casting off with the 3 needle method on the right side centre front and centre back but if that does not look right I will graft it like the toe of a sock.  All the edges are then finished off with several rows of DC.

I am note taking as I go along but I also change my mind a lot!

xx

c

Poiret style

If you are a regular reader of my blog you might have wondered how long it would be before I made a link between the titanic project and knitting.  Well, trawling through my books on vintage knitting I struck gold, a tunic in the style of one of the most favoured designers of the early 20th century Poiret

It's a perfect shape to go with my scallop edge skirt and something I imagine also becoming a favourite item in my 21st century wardrobe.  Perfect too that it is attributed to Poiret (or at least in the style of) as he was at the height of his powers in 1912, having left the couture house of Worth to establish his own house in 1903.

There's no actual pattern for the tunic in the book but I'm going to try and work it out.  It's knitted in a type of rib (row 1: K row 2: P7 K1 rep to the end) the horizontal coloured panels are knitted as you go, the verticals knitted separately and stitched in place (although I might experiment with intarsia here.  There is a row of double crochet eyelets encircling the waist and providing decorative detail near the shoulder.  The cord has crochet bobble and tassel ends and there are bobble fixings closing the  side vents.  A close look at the photographs reveals a yarn with a soft sheen, silk or cotton perhaps.

I don't know whether in 1912 cotton for knitting could be produced with the lovely lustre that we can get today so I guess that it was made in silk.  But in my stash I have some lovely 4 ply Rowan 100% cotton in brown and olive green

So I'll use this.  I also have some other cotton in various colours

After trying every colour combination I decided to use sky blue and mint green.

So it's off to do some serious swatching before embarkation on the main project - watch this space

xx

C