I often browse through the online digital archives of the Australian National Library (aka Trove), looking for articles about knitting. Today’s search turned up a real treasure. A pattern for a hand knit oval lace doily.
From the Townsville Daily Bulletin, October 25th 1952.
At least those of us who know how to knit have!
Do you remember the times, when learning to knit, finding that your rows were ever widening no matter how you tried to keep your stitch numbers the same? Not much has changed in 80 years 🙂
A poem from the Sunday Times (Perth), October 27th 1935.
KNITTING.
Hush! You mustn’t speak to them,
Marigold and Joan.
Tip-toe past the nursery door,
Leave them quite alone.
They are, oh, so busy now,
For they’ve learnt to knit.
Perched before the glowing fire,
Solemnly they sit.
They are counting all the time,
“Purl, plain, purl – two plain; Purl once more – oh bother it!
Dropped a stitch again!”
Then the ball of wool gets lost,
Till at last it’s found
Twisted by bad Kitty-Cat All the chair-legs round!
What’s Joan knitting? Well, you know,
That is hard to say!
Though, it started as a scarf,
It has run away!
If it grows much more it will
Make a lovely rug!
Big enough – it seems to me –
To keep an army snug!
I don’t usually embroider cross stitch but I have fond memories of a binca kit my Mum and Dad once bought for me when we were on our Summer holiday, with red fabric. I was very disappointed when the things I made promptly unravelled, but it was a late 1970’s craft kit for ten year olds, with instructions to match (I.E. lacking in finishing details of any sort)!
On the Monday before Christmas I found a green piece of vintage binca fabric at the op shop, just like the one from my kit all those years ago, so I brought it home. I immediately knew I wanted to make a Christmas table runner with it, and finished on the 7th. Just in time for Christmas, um, next year 🙂
Nothing says “Christmas” quite like a table runner with VW Combi Vans and snowflakes, don’t you think? Our Christmas table cloth is orange, and our favourite Christmas serving bowls are light blue with lobsters on them so it fits our Christmas decor perfectly. As my daughter put it, it’s weird so it’s “us”
It’s stitched entirely with thrifted embroidery threads (I have a problem with “rescuing” almost every discarded embroidery thread I find, so I have a large stash of many different kinds). I made up the border and the snowflakes off the top of my head but the VW van chart comes from Hancock’s House of Happy Blog where you can download it for free, just like I did 🙂
I have some more modern cream binca fabric in my stash that I’m going to have to play with. I was thinking of just having some fun with it and see what I come up with. I’ll let you know what happens!
I really want to make these. My stitches are always falling off the ends of my needles when I’m knitting socks. Probably because they sit in my work bag for several years at a time 😉
From Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, December 30th 1899.
Knitting.
Most people who knit have experienced at one time or another the annoyance of stitches dropping off the needles when the work is put down for a few minutes. Knitting-needle holders prevent this, and are extremely easy to make. Bore a hole, quarter of an inch in circumference, in the bottom of two hazel nuts. Remove the kernels, and with a red-hot knitting needle bore two small holes at each side of each empty shell. Run together (at both edges) two pieces of narrow ribbon, not quite half an-inch wide and three-quarters of a yard long. Then draw through the casing a narrow black elastic, two inches shorter than your knitting needles, and stitch each end of elastic to the small holes in nut, drawing the ribbon over the ends of elastic to hide the stitching. Tie a small bow at each end to cover fasten- ing, and the needle-holder is complete.
From the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, July 8th 1936
Knitting
When knitting pullovers for several children, use wool of one colour. When the jumpers are partly worn and shabby, unravel, and wind the wool from the strong parts, and use again. Children’s jumpers can be unravelled and knitted into a fresh-looking pullover for a boy of twelve, a pullover for a boy of five, and perhaps two smart berets for school for miss nine and miss eleven. There is usually enough wool left for darning these articles later on.
