Vintage books

The previous blog about the vintage knitting book I once owned from my Kiwi MIL was less than useful without any photos of the books I thought it may have been.

It could have been any of these. It had a section at the front with all sorts of patterns with number of stitches per repeat etc, and Fair Isle and lace charts etc; then a section of garment patterns for the entire family that could be customised with the first section patterns; and household stuff - tea cosies and bedspreads etc. and probably an English publication, or possibly even printed in New Zealand. It wasn't American - not many American things in NZ in the 1940s.

This is the bedspread square, it is knitted corner-wise, and four blocks together make the flower:
Bugger! Can't load the photo - failed the test of iPad and dated operating system... I had to download Google+ and I still can't add the pics...sigh.

Have a look at the pic on this site, it is EXACTLY what I made from the MIL's book:

http://knittingpatterns.knittingfan.info/2011/02/09/vintage-knitting-pattern-to-make-petals-motif-bedspread-knitted-block-afghan/

And, no - cant ask her, she is long gone in all senses of the term. She was a great knitter and patch worker, however!!!

The book she gave me is quite possibly one of these in this blog entry:

http://mysteriousyarns.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/vintage-knitting-books.html


Please let me know if you have this book, find it in a garage sale, know about it, recognise it...bugger again, -Blogger is going lopyWould so love to have it back, especially as Nana Molly i

Vintage Knitting Books...

A million years ago, when I was married to Rex The Ex in the 70s, my lovely MIL from New Zealand gave me her treasured copy of a knitting book.
Since I have got back to this activity I am really missing that book. I don't know what happened to it after God told Rex The Ex that he didn't need a wife any more and I found myself somewhat superfluous to requirement... (there is the possibility that the next woman after me burnt it. As she did with everything that had any association with me. My wedding dress, all photos that had me in them - including all the baby pics of S1 & S2, the patchwork quilts hand stitched by the MIL for the boys because she thought I had made them (grrr), you get the picture. She was one weird fucking cow who also abused my boys and I am glad she is no longer around and her own boys grew up to be bogan smackies who achieved nothing. I don't know that at all actually).
Or, perhaps I did take it with me and it went astray I one of my dozens of moves across the country, and the world. But I don't think so. I think it was left behind.

This knitting book had every conceivable basic knitting pattern, from baby wear, undies, scarves, socks, gloves and hats, jumpers for men, women and children. And the other half of the book was all different patterns with stitch multiples etc so you could customise any of the basic patterns.
It would have been published in the 1940s or 1950s possibly in New Zealand but more likely in England.

And I went hunting online and found three books that are all possibilities. Does anyone have any of these and can tell me if any of them fit my memory? Cos I would love to have it again!

And - again - I don't yet know how to edit this on the new IDevice so I can't get rid of the second and smaller image of that first book. Sorry!! At least I figured out how to cut and paste the images from Google images, hooray for me!!

PS: I just found this blog with a photo of a knitted square and remembered I knitted squares to make a blankie. And this photo looks like my squares. It is from Mary Thomas's Book Of Knitting Patterns, so perhaps that was the book I had... Unless any of the next three also had blankie square patterns, too???
PPS, let me know whether or not you can actually see these photos I so cleverly added. Cos they showed up initially and then someone else FBed me and said they couldn't see the pics.
Sigh.

And the book I had was this same beige, just like the others...vbg!

Knitting For All Illustrated:

Complete Home Knitting Illustrated

Knitting For All, Illustrated:

http://www.pennydreadfulvintage.com/bargain-vintage-knitting-book/imag0056/

Practical Knitting Illustrated:

Knitting Needle Holder

I made a roll to keep knitting needles in.
Some of them at least...

Layered pretty floral with vintage heavier turquoise and some white and turquoise striped cotton materials and sewed then RS together, then turned them trough so the long strip was lined.
Then, sewed some channels on the turquoise side, and stamped sizes onto vintage belt lining, cut it into squares and vliso-fixed each one to a channel.
It is all tied up with lovely tape measure binding that S4 gave me for Christmas last year.

Here are some little photos of the progress:

How much better, eh!


I was inspired by the roll I made for my lovely pens and pencils (again - SOME of them!!)

Wristies and sockies

Just after Mum's Big Oh birthday my baby sister fell out of a car in an awkward moment and broke both her wrists (crawling out the back of a 4WD and her jeans hem caught on the tow-ball).
Here she is drinking gin at our nephew's wedding:

Ten weeks later she is still in strife with them, needs surgery (cos the hospital she went to didn't apparently do the right thing. The hospital AT WHICH SHE NURSES. So if they can fuck up the brokenness of someone they know and care about, what happens to strangers???? Just wonderin'.)

So I made her a pair of little wristies to cheer her up and protect her wrists and to tell her I love her heaps:

The bright multi-coloured wool is a soft and cuddly soy/wool mix, the turquoise is 8 ply pure  wool. Despite what it looks like it is really a 2Purl 2Plain rib, and with a picot cast-off (how smartie pants am I getting with my knitting, eh!)

I also made wristies for The Sweetheart to wear in his freezing cold office:

Is Opal sock wool, all ribbed to be stretchy and snuggly.

And lacy socks for my all singing, all dancing Bollywood Princess Parvyn Kaur Singh (Google her name - there are thousands of links to all sorts of delightful youtube sites, and to her songs. She is gorgeous!)
I added ribbons through the eyelets just for fun.

The lacy pattern is an easybubs "P5, K4tog, (YO, K1) 6 times, K4 tog, P5 (should still be 22 stitches - or whatever you started with!). Then, K three rows. Rep". You can do any number of purl stitches to fill in the side of the rows. I did the soles in Continental knitting so they would be thicker, and added an extra fine thread into the toes and heels. Two at a time, toe up - THIS is the method I used but there are lots of vids and pages showing how to do it. So much easier than one at a time, and really doesn't seem to take that much longer. Also, essential for lacy socks cos then the patterns are matching...

Knitting and Skiting

I have had fun whipping up a pair of socks for S4. 

He headed off on Valentine's Day to study in Germany for a semester. 

He is about to start 3rd year Electrical Engineering,and is off to some Uni near Stuttgart who thinks he is a wonderful student. He is on exchange which means he can still get all the Government allowances that he gets when studying here, but he also won a scholarship (for "Academic Excellence"!). He has just had a week in England to catch up with friends from when he was working and living there with the Gorgeous Clancye. She isn't going, she has to stay here. This will be the longest they have ever been apart. Hard for them both I reckon.

The background is the jumper I am knitting for The Sweetheart. 

Last year I got to the armholes on both the back and front before it all got way too heavy for my poor belly. Will finish it in time for this winter...

Merry New Year!!!

Merry New Year everyone - I know that 2012 is going to be a much better year than last year. Has to be...

However, I am already over summer this year. Today is 40*, tomorrow is going to be even hotter. That is enough summer for me.

 When it is cold you can always add another layer. Or go to bed. Or both...
But when it is like this there is a legal - and aesthetic - limit to what you can peel off...

Just been flopping on the couch reading and doing not very much else. Lots of water. Not even able to do all the net things that are so much fun in winter as this little notebook gets so HOT. In winter it is just cosy and warm.

I will show you what I have been knitting another day (two circles from Nicky Epstein's "Knitting in Tuscany" of her Tuscan Sun Shawl to make a pot holder, a stray ball of wool in Cross Stitch to make a belt for a skinny neice, and another pair of socks for the boy off to Germany).

Stay cool. Envying you if you have snow...

Nicky Epstein

I have been reading a wonderful blog based in the book "Knitting On Top Of The World", called - appropriately enough - Knitting On Top Of The World Knitathon.

Lovely knitting, Mary has set out to reproduce every garment in the book. A HUGE feat given that I reckon Nicky Epstein had more than a few test knitteres running  up all the patterns in her book...
Have a look at Mary's site - she has created lovely garments.
And last month she had a give-away, a copy of the book signed by Nicky Epstein, the genius knitter-designer herself!!!

AND I WON THE BOOK!!!!!!



Here it is, snuggled on my couch with some of my knitting - the Sock Yarn Blanket, socks, Bare Bear's clothes. the jumper for The Sweetheart, some other doll clothes, and the tiny fine knitted bedspread for the doll's house bed (with tiny dollies in bed, too).

It is chockers with wonderful patterns based on different techniques from 50 or so countries. Everything from those tiny islands north of Scotland that make Skye - and the Mallee - look like Gardens of Eden! to South America, Japan, Middle East - all over. And everything from socks for feet to hats (and jumpers) for heads and all areas in between. Fabulous!!!!
Now to save up for some of the wools - the garments are all knitted with yarns that I should have to mortgage my house to be able to afford!!!

By the way - the koala in the photo was given to my by my Mum's Uncle Shig. Uncle Shig (Cedric) Bayliss was a tanner, saddler and whip maker in Tumut from the 1920s to his death in the 1970s (or maybe 80s - will have to check the Family Tree).
He would go out in summer and shoot kangaroos and feral cats, and then spend winter tanning them and doing his leatherwork. He is in The Stockman's Hall of Fame for his talents.
He made a stockwhip that was 60' long. At the handle end it was as thick as an arm. He used to walk out along the road dragging it behind him to be able to crack it. When he got too old to be able to crack it he took it up the back to the woodheap and chopped it up.

And the teddy - Bare Bear - was also given to me when I was born. He used to have fur but when I was three I dropped him in the copper when Mum was doing the washing and all his fur fell out. And that is why he is Bare Bear...

"Knitting On Top Of the World" is available from all good book shops - in Oz if I am not buying in person from Stoneman's Bookroom in Castlemaine I use The Nile which is another Aussie on-line bookshop. With free postage, too.                                          

Housewarming socks

These are the socks I made for S2 for a Housewarming present. He and his wife just bought their first ever home. I have a feeling it will probably be their last ever home, too. It sounds fabulous - 30+ fruit trees, and a chook palace, other shed, a well (with lots of water in it!), a paddock, lots of vege gardens - all on a couple of acres on the outskirts of Wodonga.

More socks

 These were made for my Tall Fiddling Friend Andrew Clermont.
He is REALLY tall and has REALLY long feet to match. And these fitted perfectly!

The green is some lovely spotted silk, the brown cashmere. Bit luxury, actually.

This was the first pair I made, they are top-down, and I made a little mistake on one when I was joining up the heel. That is OK though cos Andrew says he will know which one to put on first...

And nicely styled with a yummy breakfast goog...

PS Go and find his music, he plays all over the world, and if you don't like folk stuff, then he also has country, bluegrass, soul, blues, Indian et al in his repertoire

Bugger - I am bumped!

The hospital just rang - they need my bed for someone with a trifle more urgent need so have postponed my surgery for a week.

Now it is December 5...

The lovely nurses in Victoria have been on strike for the last few weeks. Whilst I cannot deny them the right to more pay I JUST WISH THEY WEREN'T DOING IT ON MY SHIFT!!!!!!!!!

Their strike hasn't had any influence on my delay - that is just the system... Too many sick people, not  enough doctors or nurses, not enough beds in not enough hospitals etc etc. At least we have hospitals, and running water unlike 90% of the world.


The Good News is that I will be able to go to the House Warming Party that S2 and his missus are throwing on the 3rd of December. They just bought a house, their first ever (eeek!!!) and are having the BEST fun playing cubby houses!
Here  is their blog:
http://widgetgrove.com.au/
They have a couple of acres, and there are already lots of good stuff - chook palace, hay shed, green house, garden beds, a well that reaches to the bottom of the earth (or at least to the water table!) and dozens of fruit trees. They now have chooks, and are getting some sheep, and are planting lots of garden stuff. I think they will be largely self sufficient within a short time!


In the meantime - I can keep knitting socks...

Cunning me...

Smart arse me, really, too clever for this world, will have to grease my bum and slide into the next one... "Why?", I hear you whining... BECAUSE - I cleverly loaded all those sock photos on Sunday whilst I was still at home, wrote a tiny bit of cleverness, and then hid it down the back of the couch so I could surprise you all down the track. And now when I tried to edit it and add more lyricism the screen is full of gobbledygook of HTML stuff and it is impossible for me to edit. Cos whilst I LOOK like I know what I am doing with computers I really know bugger all. the most computer related thing I have done IN MY WHOLE LIFE was to give birth to a computer genius - S#2 who did computer science AND computer engineering and used to fill in the software squares inside Nokia phones but has now grown past that and now does immensely cleverer things like build some little machinery that is like a photocopier except it makes more bits of itself so you can then build some bigger bit of machinery that will then create more of itself and eventually will get up off the desk and bring you a cup of tea from gratitude. Or something. If you want a lesson on reading computer gobbledygook then here is an old page from his secret diary: http://noraisin.net/~jan/diary/ Not really secret cos I googled him ("S2 computer gobbledygook")and found that stuff. Course, might be nothing to do with my computer genes at all, cos Rex The Ex was a Systems Analyst back in the olden days. (Yep, Rex The Ex and Malcolm The Unwelcome... Makes me wonder why I got married really). So, the whole point of this entry is to tell you that you will have to extrapolate from the little I wrote in the previous entry what all the other captions might have been if I wasn't such a computer lightweight. Ooroo.

More socks

All this talk of socks in previous posts has surely whet your apetites for more photos. Surely?
Hope so - cos here are some more...
I used this pattern as the basis for my toe up socks. Look at how lovely they look (even if I say so mine self)

And Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off which really IS surprisingly elastic and stretchy...

Socks for a Sweetheart (and me)

Above is when I had knitted one sock, and the second one was still in kit form beside it.



And then I got TWO made, and the Sweetheart practised being a ballerina with some fancy footwork.
Actually fancy sockwork because he has never been able to do this without those socks on.

He says...



 

This (below) is really what the colour was like and what it looked like when I tried it on.
Geez he has got BIG feet!!!


He has sworn NEVER to put these socks inside his boots. And is also thinking I could sew soles on them so he has 'house slippers'...

I made sockies for me, too. This was the variegated stuff I got as a surprise that I blogged about last week and knitted up with the cone of silk I scored from the opshop.

Coming along well.

I now have two made, and then I made another pair.

And then I made another pair (almost to the cuff on the second sock) and I knitted a WHOLE sock whilst hanging around surgeon's rooms on Monday.






It is nice to be home on my Mac and to be able to post photos easily....
even if it means I have to make my own tea and toast...

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words!

This is going to be where I upload photos of what I have knitted this past week.
Or it will be an essay on ditto...

Because, indeedy doody, I am becoming THE queen of sock creation!
This past week I have finished the pair or sockies I started last week, AND WORN THEM. Nobody noticed...

And then I started another pair, still using the toe-up pattern but adding in even more of my own creativity. I made a lacy row of eyelets around the ankle. I meant to do it too.

And then thought that looked so pretty that a whole lot holes would mean lacy socks. So, I did rows of "knit 2, yarn over, knit 2 together" (K2,YO, K2tog) which didn't make for anything like a lacy pattern. But it did make an interesting sort of spiraling rib.

Then, I did a picot edge around the top...

Here endeth the first lesson.
Blogger, or the iPad ate my homework.
I shall rewrite these thousands of words shortly.

Spring has sprung...

Or maybe spring hasn't sprung at all.
Today the Bureau of Meteorology told us that tonight's minimum temperature will be 13* (C - which is around 55* in the old money)and this coming Sunday's MAXIMUM is going to be 13*!!!

Nice and warm and no need to add a quilt to the bed for tonight, and by Sunday the forecast is for snow down to 1,000 metres...

I have had the Rayburn fired up a bit recently. And made some overly sweet pancakes from a recipe that I found on an American blog. They had started with a basic pancake mix with a spiral of butter melted with cinnamon and castor sugar. Flip the pancake, finish cooking them all, layer them and add a frosting with cream cheese, icing sugar and cinnamon. The sugar burst made me fall asleep almost immediately. Furthermore, the original creator never said that I would need a cold chisel to get the cinnamon toffee off the pan...
I am not going to credit the original source cos I don't think it is one to repeat.

I didn't get a photo of the plated up product - it DID look so good that The Sweetheart and I fell upon it like wolves upon the fold...

I have been knitting. knitting. knitting...

It is getting bigger and bigger!!! There is enough left from 8 metres of what is on one of the skeins to make one of the tiny squares which start with 8 stitches per side.
There is a pretty rainbow of other bundles that I am combining to make multi-coloured squares. There are a few in it already, each made of up to four different but similar colours.
Aren't they pretty?


And then to finish off, for the moment - LOOK WHAT HAS MOVED IN DOWN THE ROAD!!!!!!!

Aren't they so totally gorgeous and amazing?! They are just in a paddock, a hundred metres up on the edge of the bush, just down the road from me. As if it isn't enough to have the Clydesdales on holiday from Sovereign Hill next door to alpacas, donkeys and an emu, and lots of other horses, sheep, cattle now we have a lovely little zoo.
It doesn't matter that although all the rest are truly ruly real animals and these are life-size statues. They are fabulous!
I wish I had some, too.

Knitting

I have been snuggled on the couch a lot lately. Mostly cos I am still recovering from the wrassle with CMV, but also because it has been quite nippy. And I have been knitting. I found a tutorial online for a Sock Yarn Blanket - thank you so very much Knotty Knickers!

I don't make very many socks so I didn't have any sort of stash of leftover space dyed 4 ply, but I do have a goodly collection of DMC (and etc) tapestry wools left from knitting hippy hats.
Each square takes most of the 8 metres in each skein, and at between 80c and a dollar a hit this is going to be a bit of an exxy blanket.

I am starting with a few rows of black Totem 8 ply, and then mostly a single colour in each square. Some of them I have had to use more than one colour, though trying to make them similar shades. And I have also started a row (or more) of little squares where four of them make one of the larger squares, doing them with two lighter colours at 3 and 9 o'clock, and darker colours at 12 and 6 o'clock.

After starting with ten separate blocks I then joined them together knitting another square in between setting them on point. I am also knitting in the ends as I go so the blankie is really very neat and tidy on the back. And also very warm, I have had a lot of afternoon naps when I nod off in front of the fire whilst knitting...
Here are a couple of photos before I started adding the smaller units. Doesn't it look pretty on the wattle? Incidentally, has anyone got any spare skeins they want to get rid of? Or scraps of 8 ply? I would welcome them...