1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater - A Quick and Easy Knit

I thought I had posted pics of the 1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater Button Front (knit) a while back, but that was not the case. So, without further ado, are pics of the sweater.

We posted this pattern quite a while ago, and I had always been intrigued by the "Jiffy" part of the title. It turns out that this really was a quick knit. I know I have mentioned that I may be the world's slowest knitter. I am always hopeful that my knitting speed will increase, but it has not yet happened, so I was amazed at how fast I was able to knit this sweater.

I used some "vintage" Lion Brand Wool Ease that I had purchased years and years ago to make my husband a sweater vest. The yarn is a navy/light blue twist - an acrylic and wool blend.

The vest didn't happen because he thought I was a little nuts to be making him a sweater vest. So, the yarn sat in my stash, maturing like a fine wine, waiting for the perfect project to come along.

It can be difficult to find vintage patterns that use worsted weight yarn. That's why I like this pattern. Large yarn, easy directions.

The pic on the left is a close-up of the lacy, yarn-over stitch used for the majority of the sweater. 

I found the use of stitch markers invaluable when it came to working the yoke. The raglan increases were easier to see when I used the markers. The button band was crocheted on, and so much easier than I expected. 

In vintage terms this is a 16-18 sized pattern. I currently wear a medium or large in sweaters. That would put this sweater more in the 12-14 size range, depending on how aggressively you block the sweater.

Happy knitting!

A Boat Load of Aprons

We have a bunch of aprons to show today....

All were made using guidelines and patterns from our 1940s Aprons and Bibs Sewing and Crochet Patterns & Ideas booklet. I decided to make the aprons that were calling to me....

The first apron is a cute little one to wear when serving cocktails at your next dinner party. You can look cute and stay drip-free in this apron. The ruffles make it fun and kicky! The front circle panel features a pocket. 

Gay Ones for Cocktails Apron

The pocket view

The Heart Interest apron is a fun little hostess apron. I had this fabric in my stash, and I knew immediately that this goose print fabric was going to make up as the heart apron. Sometimes the fabric just talks to you.

Heart Interest Apron

Closeup of the hearts & bows

Of course I had to make the Knitter's Delight! This is a neat apron. Alison has her hands in the top pocket, but if you look carefully below the triangle pocket you can see two buttons that show where the bottom pocket is located.

Knitter's Delight

The pockets

More aprons will be coming soon. I am working on a few more in between all of my other projects that Alison insists I work on.  You can find the booklet in our Etsy store.

Happy Sewing!

Measurement Chart from 1942

We have a measurement chart from 1942. It's a fun (possibly horrifying) way to keep track of your measurements when getting ready to start a knitting or crochet project.

 

Click here to download the pdf of the chart.

Happy knitting & crocheting!

Our New Needle Conversion Chart

Alison worked her butt off tracking down all of the different sizes of needles (knitting & crochet) over the last few months. She put all of this information together to make life a little easier when we are posting patterns and trying to figure out the modern needle/hook equivalents.

This chart (in pdf format) can be downloaded by clicking this link, or by visiting the Vintage Needle Sizing Charts page.

As we were going over the list, we realized that there is no info listed from the 1940s. That means Alison has a lot more digging to do.

Free Monthly Pattern for November (hand sewing)

This month's pattern features a great idea for fancifying any outfit.  From the late 1920s or early 1930s, this guide sheet will help you make any holiday outfit glamourous. The flower "cascades" are made from stiff organdie and require some hand sewing, The chrysanthemums look pretty easy to make.

Click on the pattern link or check out the "Free Pattern Downloads" page to be taken to the free pattern compliments of eStitched.

Rayon Straw Hat - 1960s Hats & Purses Pattern Strikes Again

This is another hat from the 1960's Hats and Purses pattern. This is view C (the easy version).

What's terrific about this hat is that it was made using yarn from my stash. No yarns were purchased to make this hat. I was poking around in my boxes of yarn, trying to find yarn that I was willing to part with for my son's Project Linus contribution, and I found the spools of Rayon Straw Yarn. We had purchased the spools a couple of years ago, then I decided to abandon the project I was working on for some reason.

This is the Rayon Straw Yarn I used to make the hat.

Bernat 100% Rayon Straw Yarn from BagsandBows.com

Close-up of center crown.

The hat worked up really quickly into a form fitting hat.

I will be heading home to see my family, and will give the hat to Alison who will test the hat for comfort, durability and color-fastness. She can provide a full report on her findings once she completes her job as my crash-test dummy. I know she will be so excited to contribute a blog post. Yay sis!

Happy crocheting!

Crocheted Party Dress: The Finale

It's done! I can't believe I completed the Crocheted Party Dress so quickly. I don't think I have ever (and I mean ever) finished a project in a month and a half.

And the best part is - the dress looks really cute. My behind is too big to fit in the dress, so we used a dress form to showcase our little gem.

I have to say, this was a great pattern:

• It was easy to follow.
• Easy to memorize the lace shell patterns.
• The shell patterns changed often enough to keep me from getting bored.
• There were no side seams. I can't stress how awesome this was for me.
• The finishing around the neckline and the sleeves was super easy. 

Finished measurements (all taken laying flat):

• Width at waist: 15.5 inches
• Width at bottom of armhole/bust:  18.5 inches
• Width at hem:  23 inches
• Sleeve length:  25 inches
• Length from neckline to hem:  33 inches

Hop on over to our Etsy store to find the pattern. It contains three different sizes allowing for customization of the pattern.

Partying On - Crochet Party Dress Update

Sleeves are complete! The skirt is coming along nicely. The pattern is easy. I find that I cannot stop in the middle of a row, otherwise I get turned around and head back in the direction I just crocheted - which makes the skirt a little lopsided - not a good look.

I was surprised at the waistline that showed up. I hadn't expected there to be much of a defined waistline with this pattern. But the waist pulls in and should look great when worn.

The top photo shows the dress with 67 rows completed on it. I have used all of the taupe yarn (all 315 yards of it) on the sleeves and the skirt.

A closeup of the waistline and top of the skirt. 

There are 9 more rows to complete the skirt. I'm really looking forward to finishing the dress. This has been a great project. It has gone fast - I haven't completed a project this fast EVER; it doesn't have side seams - I'm not great at seaming yet; and the pattern stitches change just enough that it is not a pain to memorize, but they hold my interest. 

I can't wait to have a finished project to show.

Happy Crocheting!

It's a Bodice!

I've been trying to work on the Crocheted Party Dress as much as possible. After a couple of days of working on an event for the little one's school, I'm back to crocheting.

The bodice of the Crocheted Party Dress. 35 rows completed.

Crocheted Party Dress - Motivation

When Alison first sent me pattern for the Crocheted Party Dress, I knew I had to make it. But it was a big project - an entire dress - and I hadn't ever started, let alone completed, a big garment before. Still, I knew at some point I would make this dress. The best part is that is's a crochet pattern with worsted weight/light worsted weight yarn, so it would make up relatively fast.

25 rows completed. Once the bodice and skirt are completed the sleeves are added.

The dress is working up pretty quickly, even if I'm a slow crocheter. The lace pattern is easily memorized. I like that a lot!

I purchased a 1 pound mill end of off white Caron Simply Soft online for next to nothing. I knew at the time that I don't particularly like working with the yarn, but it looks so pretty made up that I had to buy it. That mill end turned out to be the perfect yarn in my stash to make dress.

Out shopping one afternoon, we were talking about the dress and how cool it would look if it were an ombre instead of a solid color dress. We picked up a skein of coral and taupe yarns. I am hopeful that I can get the dress to turn out like I envision it in my head.

I am using the postings of my progress as motivation. I want to be able to show my progress on the dress each time I post an update. I'm not always so good at completing projects, so I have to find motivation where I can.

The original dress.

Happy crocheting!

The Shrug is Finished!

When I started the shrug from the Modern Twin Set I immediately saw the shrug as something that would be perfect for my mother-in-law. She likes shrugs and boleros, and the green would be perfect for her coloring.

The pattern calls for gimp to be crocheted along the edges of the shrug. I didn't have gimp, and I didn't have easy access to a ball or skein of it, either. I ended up buying Vanna's Choice Glamour yarn and using that in place of the gimp. It's a nice sparkly, light-weight yarn (#2/sport/fine/baby weight). The color is "Platinum," a bright grey yarn with silver sparkle woven through it. It looks so pretty with the sheen of the cotton yarn.

Because it is a rib knit, I didn't block the finished garment. That's a great thing! No muss, no fuss when it comes to finishing the shrug. Blocking might have killed the elasticity of the ribbing.

This was the first garment I've ever seamed. I had managed to make hats, scarves and cowls that don't need to be seamed. I did everything in the round. I was a bit apprehensive about the seaming, but purlebee.com had a super tutorial on how to do the Mattress Stitch. It wasn't nearly as scary as I had imagined.

The 2x2 rib is amazingly stretchy. The shrug fits my mother-in-law and my 11 year old niece. While it looks slightly large on my niece, it still looks nice.

Here's what...

While I normally hate cotton yarn, I would definitely use the Vendome Raps 100% cotton yarn again if I can find it. It is soft and silky and has such a pretty sheen to it. I may just start scouring the internet for it. 

I really like the pattern, as well. In fact, I would like to make it again.  As a 2x2 rib, it is is mindless knit: making it easy to find mistakes, and even easier to fix them. This pattern seems like it would be really easy to enlarge.

The pattern for the Modern Twin Set can be found in our Etsy store.

Happy knitting!

Shrug from the Modern Twin Set Pattern

Alison found this really cool cotton yarn at a thrift store. It was vintage Vendome yarn: Vendome Raps 100% cotton yarn. While we haven't found much information about this yarn, we decided that I should make something with it. The color is amazing; it's a beautiful green, a little emerald, a little leaf. A lotta fabulous. Generally, I hate working with cotton yarn. Most days I would rather poke out my eye with a knitting needle than work with cotton. But this yarn is different. It was soft, didn't dry out my hands, and looks so pretty made up - it has a bit of a shine.

Vendome Raps 100% cotton yarn.

With the yarn in hand, we had to find a pattern that would work for the weight and the amount of yarn we had. We decided to go with the shrug from the Modern Twin Set pattern. The Shrug required 6 ounces of a worsted weight yarn. With the holidays coming, we decided that the Modern Twin Set shrug would be the perfect pattern for this color and this yarn. (The color is all over the place in these pics. My little camera was having such a rough day - it couldn't decide where to focus. The color in the pic above is the closest to the actual color.)

Shrug in progress. Lifelines in use.

I was excited about the shrug, so I started knitting. It went pretty fast. It is a 2 x 2 rib, so mistakes are easy to identify and easy to fix. I added lifelines because I sometimes forget to look back on what I have just knit to make sure everything is in pattern. I don't mind fixing stitches, but I don't want to drop back to the beginning of the project because I don't  use my crochet hook to stop the stitches from raveling back to the beginning.

Knitting completed. Now it's just waiting to be sewn up.

Now I have to seam the shrug sleeves together. I'm a little nervous about it. I am looking at videos and websites trying to figure out what type of seaming to use. I will post pics once I have finished it.

Bound off edge - done in 2 x 2 pattern.
I used a stretchy bind off so the back will stretch,
and hopefully not distort, when the shrug is worn.

Happy knitting!

Kristen

Pinwheel Afghan - a finished object

The Pinwheel Afghan is complete. What started as a project to use up yarn from the granny square ponchos became a really bright, colorful and fun project.

Finished measurements: 38 x 64 inches.

The pattern called for a 1mm crochet hook and bunches of lighter weight yarns (28 colors to be exact). I don't have the patience to work with the tiny hooks, though I wish I did. For my afghan, I used an "H" hook and worsted weight yarns. We had a bunch of Loops & Threads Impeccable and Vanna's Choice acrylic yarns that needed to be used. I like the Impeccable yarn. It works up easily and once washed becomes pretty soft and snuggly. It wasn't splitty to work with, either.

When I started the afghan, I placed all of the yarns in a tote bag and would grab colors at random. That worked for a few "squares" but then I started getting a little crazy about which colors should be next to each other. I'm a little too tightly wound to let my hexagons create themselves.

The hexagons are easy to make and the pattern is easy to memorize. I made many motifs at my sons' baseball practices and games without having to look at the pattern. They were easy enough that I could carry on a conversation while working on the afghan.

Measurement of the each hexagon is
10 1/2 inches (measured across the middle).

The size of the afghan is smaller than the pattern, but I was running out of most of my yarns, so I stopped making the squares when I had enough motifs to lay out a lap blanket sized afghan. I steam blocked the hexagons to the same size on my ironing board. I placed pins at each of the corners, then fit the individual squares to the pinned shape and steamed away. The iron never touches the yarn. That would melt the yarn. I placed the iron about 1-2 inches from the yarn and pushed the steam button like nobody's business. I let the hexagons cool, removed them from the ironing board and moved on to the next hexagon.

Once the hexagons were pieced together we had to decide what type of edging to use. I had to have help on this because I hung up on having a rainbow edging and working in every color that I had used in the motifs. I knew the multi-colored edging would look awful, but I couldn't let it go. Eventually Alison & my crochet buddy talked me out of it. We ended up with the navy edging on the outside that really makes the afghan come to life. 

100% acrylic, worsted weight yarns:
Loops & Threads Impeccable and Vanna's Choice solids, along
with a few lost label yarns.

The pattern can be found in our Etsy store.

Free Monthly Pattern Download for September (crochet)

Alison was going through her vast, enormous, gargantuan vintage pattern collection and found these two Edwardian era aprons. If you are looking for a challenging crochet project, these may be it.

Pattern Info/Materials:
The apron pictured on top takes 4 balls of size 30 Cordichet, and a size 11 steel crochet hook
The apron on the bottom takes 2 balls of size 15 Cordichet, and a size 12 steel crochet hook.

Vintage Yarn Info:
Cordichet, size 30: 100% cotton, 6-ply, mercerized crochet thread. Small balls were put up in 80 yds, Large balls were 400 yds.

Click on the pattern link or check out the "Free Monthly Pattern Downloads" page to be taken to the free pattern compliments of eStitched.