Ladies Three-Quarter Sleeve Cardigan - The Beginning

The yarn has been calling to me for a year and a half. I finally had to start the project.

I inherited a stash of almost vintage yarn from a friend of my mom’s. There are plenty of yarns in the stash that were really nice and colors and weights that I want to make things (sweaters, hats, vests) with. There were a couple of yarns in the stash that I didn’t particularly like, but for some reason couldn’t get rid of them. Something about them made me want to hang on to them and use them together in a project. It’s the weirdest thing. 

I don’t really like the color of one of the yarns in this new project, but I liked it with the second color of yarn. I’m not sure they even go well when put together. But there you go, I couldn’t get rid of the yarn, so I had to come up with something that would use both yarns in a single project. 

Bernat Berella & Unger Utopia yarns.

I was clicking through our patterns one morning and came across this pattern, the 1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern. The pattern called for mohair yarn, but I don’t enjoy working with mohair yarn…it’s almost impossible to rip out stitches when I mess up stitches.

1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern PDF 0858

I started with a swatch to test the pattern. I hadn’t done a slip stitch pattern before and I couldn’t figure out how the stitches were going to work together to create the design. It turns out the pattern rows are easily memorized and even easier to knit.

Test swatch, using scrap yarn.

The yarns were perfect for the jacket. It’s pretty neat looking in-person. Using the darker yarn as the secondary color means that the color pops look more like shadows - they are subtle.

I have 4 skeins of the lighter/main color and 3 skeins of the darker/contrast color. I searched online and could not find any yardage information for the Bear Brand Curlicue or the Fleisher’s Curlette yarns. That isn’t too surprising. Back in the olden days, yardage wasn’t generally included on the label. The original yarns were worsted weight. Here's a link to theVintage Yarn Wikia page for info on yarn information we've run across over the years.

The pattern calls for 11 ounces of the main color and 6 ounces of the contrast color.  I have 14.10 ounces of the light and 10.5ounces of the dark yarns.  Here’s hoping I have enough to make the sweater.

Slip stitch pattern.

The project details:

• Yarn 1: Unger Utopia, Color: 171, 100% Courtelle Acrylic, 240 yards/skein.
• Yarn 2: Color: Bernat Berella, Color: 8815/Antq Rose, 100% Acrylic, 200+ yards/skein.
• Needles: 8 US. Chaiogoo Stainless Steel.
• Gauge: 5 sts = 1 inch (per the pattern).

I should have pics of the started project shortly. Fall baseball has started and we have some Saturday games where I will have to be knitting to calm my nerves.

Happy Knitting!

 

Tapestry Crochet - Here's What We've Discovered About It

We have several tapestry crochet patterns for sale in our Etsy store. Periodically we get questions about the tapestry crochet and the yarns that the patterns used. The patterns are from the early 1900s - around 1913. The yarns are no longer available, which isn't that surprising. Finding a substitute can be a pain. I know I want to see what the old (vintage) yarns looked like so I know what to look for when I am out and about shopping for the latest project.

So, here's what we have discovered about Tapestry Crochet & the yarns from the Fleisher's booklet.

Fleisher’s Germantown Zephyr was likely a worsted/light worsted weight, 100% wool yarn. The yarn was sold in 1 oz, balls. Compared with similar yarns made by the parent company the balls were likely about 100 yards per skein. If you are looking for easy care, an acrylic yarn would be the way to go. Many of the acrylic yarns are virtually indestructible and machine wash & dry. If you are looking to stay true to the pattern, then 100% wool is the way to go. It would be warm; but more of a hand wash item so it wouldn’t felt after all of your hard work. 

I’ve tried and really like the Loops & Threads Impeccable worsted acrylic yarn found at Michael's. It has a lot of body and softens up after washing. Lion Brand makes Wool Ease an acrylic & wool blend yarn. Plymouth Yarns makes a really nice acrylic/wool blend yarn with their Encore Worsted. Joann's Sensations acrylic worsted weight yarn is really nice too. I’ve made a couple of hats for my kids with the yarn and really like how it works up.

We have not yet tried tapestry crochet, but it seems to make a thick, dense fabric, so the crochet hook used is often smaller than those called for on the yarn wrappers.

As for the color options, Attached is a link to a color chart for color available during the time period. As for the color options, we found this Fleisher's Color Chart from 1929 at VintageKnits.com. While the color chart is not the exact time period, it gives a great view of the colors from back then.

When we started looking for information on how-to do the tapestry crochet we found several sources of information. This video by Carol Ventura provides a close-up showing the difference between crocheting back and forth or working the afghan with the front facing you at all times - you crochet right to left, then left to right.  It seems like you can work your project either way as long as you work the correct number of rows. I'm not sure I could get my head and my hands in sync to work the afghan with the front facing me at all times. It does look really cool though.

One of the problems we run into with vintage patterns, especially the really early 1900's patterns is that they rarely provided finished measurements. Once you have a swatch that you like the looks of, you will be able to calculate the stitches per inch and figure out the final measurements of your afghan. I don't have a link for doing this. I'm a lazy crafter and generally go with what the number of stitches the pattern tells me to use.The pattern doesn't provide for fringe, but it is super easy to add. Verypink.com has a bunch of tutorials - she's one of my favorites sources of information for knitting and crochet. Her fringe tut is located here.

Happy crocheting!

Needle Sizings

If you have looked at any vintage pattern, especially those from the turn of the century (last one, not this one), you know what a pain it can be to determine what needle size the pattern is asking for.

We have had conversations with people asking about needle sizes required by some of our patterns and often comes down to determining when the pattern was written and the researching the type of yarn called for in the pattern. Generally, the yarn is pretty small and the needle sizes are a blindingly small size as well.

Alison ran across these cool charts from the early 1900's that show needle sizes called for in some of our really old patterns. We have put them in pdf file so you can download these little nuggets of vintage-ness.

Click here to download the pdf.

From a Patons & Baldwin's pattern book, early 1900s.

Taken from a Fleisher's pattern book. circa 1917. 

Taken from a Fleisher's pattern book. circa 1917.