A Vintage Christmas Competition

Over the last few weeks I have been working on a very special project. A little knitting pattern booklet called "Vintage Christmas Knits". It features between 12 to 15 vintage inspired and adapted patterns from Victorian time to the 1950s, focusing mainly on the 40s and 50s. It will be available to pre-order in the next week or so in both print and digital versions. The 'proper' photos aren't done yet but here is a sneak preview of a couple of the designs featured.



This is the perfect 1940s christmas sweater in classic red and white, to fit a wide range of sizes. Just enough kitsch but not too much with that quintessential sweater girl shaping and christmas motif. It is knitted in Jamieson & Smith 2 ply Jumper Yarn.



The repeat pattern almost looks like snowy peaks!

The next design is still a bit of a secret, but will give you something to think about.
This is inspired by a late 40s, early 50s design but I have reconstructed it completely to make it an easier knit.



It is knitted in 4 ply alpaca yarns and is dreamily soft. The main part of the design which is on the photo is worked in a simple slip stitch.

Sometimes your favourite part of a design is a detail, something that not everyone will even see. Its the case with this design. I really, really love how this section looks



Nothing complicated but completely different from the original design which had the piece you can see sewn in place rather than joined as you can see here. This just works so nicely I think.




I'll reveal more next week but I would love to see in the meantime if someone can identify exactly what it is that I'm knitting. And as an early christmas treat I have a little goodie bag of vintage patterns, buttons and yarn to give away to the winner who I will draw at the end of next week. Just leave a comment on this post saying exactly what you think it might be.


Good luck!


I am also hard at work at some other secret knitting for The Knitter. I am very excited to have a number of patterns coming out in their magazine from about March/April of next year. For now however this is all I can reveal.



And finally, the Knit a Poppy Appeal draws to a close at midnight tonight. Donations have surpassed our wildest dreams standing at present at £2632.00. Its quite astonishing, thank you all so much. There is still time however if you would still like to get your poppy pattern by making your £2 donation here.

I have been asking for images of the poppies to put on the knitonthenet blog and here is a very special one from my lovely husband, Gavin, who daringly decided to knit his poppy this year from embroidery thread and 2mm needles. I think its come out fantastic. The centre is a vintage button.



This tiny little poppy is about the third of the size of the original but is knitted to exactly the same pattern on 2mm needles. Particularly great for men who might want a more discreet poppy to wear.

Hope to hear from you all soon,

for now
Ruby

knit a poppy on BBC Radio 2

This morning I had my 5 minutes - or should I say 20 seconds - of fame. Sarah Kennedy of Radio Two told her listeners all about the Knit a Poppy campaign. You can here a little clip from it below.



The response was fantastic and the appeal has now received over £1000 in donations which is unbelievable. So a big thank you to everyone who has donated and again I would love to see photos of your completed poppies, so please send these to ingrid[at]knitonthenet[dot]com.

for now
a big big thank you
Ruby xxxx

Knit a Poppy

The official Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal launched a couple of days ago in the UK. Our own Knit a Poppy Appeal has been running for a couple of weeks and is doing really well, but if you haven't yet had a chance to download my knitted poppy pattern here is the link. A donation of £2 is required for the downloads with all proceeds going to the Appeal.





You can knit the poppy just for yourself or you can knit a few, sell them to family, friends or colleagues and donate the money direct to the Poppy Appeal. I would love to know if you have done this so I can estimate how much the poppy pattern has really raised for the Poppy Appeal. We also have started a Poppy Gallery on the knitonthenet blog and I would love to see photos of your poppies so please do send them to ingrid[at]knitonthenet[dot]com and she will share them on the blog.

I'm thrilled to hear that many people in Canada are also knitting the Poppy for Remembrance Day too. I'm honoured that there will be people around the world wearing my little poppy on such a significant day.

for now
Ruby xxx

A Stitch in Time fashion night

The day finally dawned yesterday when our fashion show was to happen at the Cath Kidston store in Liverpool.

The main aim of the evening was to promote knitting and to hopefully get some non-knitters to pick up needles and have a go. The fashion show combined selected garments from A Stitch in Time with those from the latest Cath Kidston clothing range. The Cath Kidston staff laid on tea, cakes and jam sandwiches which went down a treat.





The cakes were all made by the lovely Genevieve, seen posing below in the Diagonal Rib cardigan in royal blue



The show got underway with Lianne very bravely coming out first in The Call of the Sea





The brief for all the models was 'ham it up' and enjoy themselves which they all did fabulously



This is the adorable Yuki in Greet the New Season playing at being a domestic godess.





Lianne following in the domestic vibe using a Cath Kidston handkerchief as a turban - they are the perfect size and shape.

A certain amount of frivolity ensued and the urge to reveal knitted underwear became to much for some people to bear -





This young lady is Meg, who had no fear of the catwalk at all, modelling the Blackberry cardigan



followed by Sunray Ribbing





She shows really well how the garments can be worn in a casual way.



We gave Light and Lovely and Enchanting in Black and white a playful feel with vintage shorts and skirt respectively





Frilly Jumper is modelled by Suzie who looks really elegant here. She's also wearing my great grandmother's polished jet beads and earrings.

Yuki is wearing my daughter's dungarees for a modern take on the Land Girl look. The jacket is a second version of To Set off your summer frocks which I finished sewing up on Monday night! This time I used Pure Castlemilk Moorit with 30% silk from The Natural Fibre Company. The firm texture was perfect for this jacket which needs a lot of body for the sleeves to stand up.





I think this is my favourite look of the night actually.

Next is Michelle looking slightly more demure showing off Made So Quickly rather than her undies!




Not to be outdone Lianne closed the show 'revealing' her Slimline Undies






The store very kindly let me have a table just for the books



I was rather tired by the end of the evening but I did agree to one photo of me in my own Made So Quickly and Cath Kidston Tea Dress - looking slightly relieved that we had got through it all ok.



And finally here's my favourite photo of the night of all the girls together



Thank you girls for a really enjoyable evening.

for now
Ruby xx

All photographs courtesy of Charlie Moon

A Stitch in Time with Cath Kidston

I am so excited to show you this poster. To see my name on the same page as Cath Kidston - I really can't believe it




If you do fancy popping along to the evening I think places are limited so it is advisable to phone the store to reserve a place. I think the first 20 places get front row seats at the fashion show!

for now,
a very excited
Ruby xx

Edited: Date wrong on poster! Said Weds instead of Tues - corrected poster now uploaded.

What do Cath Kidston, Ysolda, Selvedge & buttons

... have in common?

Answer: They are all in this post.

I have been waiting to tell you about a visitor to my stand at IKnit but was waiting for the photos to be available. Well now they are. Ysolda Teague came and spent some time with me and we had a great time dressing her in garments from A Stitch in Time and discovered that the first garment she knitted was from the original Stitch in Time and was Such Flattering Puff Sleeves.



This is also shown on Ysolda's blog. Funnily enough I finished sewing yet another of these sweaters at the IKnit show to wear for an evening out whilst I was in London. This is the end result.



I knitted the second size, but again played with the fit to suit my excessively narrow shoulders and much preferred the fit as a result. I kept the length short and have added some pleated interfacing to the 'puff' to provide some structure and shape. It was a technique used a lot in the 40s in both knitted and woven garments to add structure. I'll show how its done in another post. I used RYC Cashsoft which is much softer than the recommended Jamieson & Smith so doesn't have as much natural support from the fabric itself so needs that little bit of help.

I haven't as yet got the full details, but I am hosting a very exciting evening in Liverpool on October 20th. I have been asked by the Cath Kidston store in Liverpool to present an evening of vintage knitwear alongside their Autumn/Winter 2009 clothing range. We are having a fashion show, presentation, enormous quantities of tea and cup cakes, followed by a chance to mingle and knit. It is a ticket only event but I should have full details of that side of things by the end of the week. The knitted garments will all be from A Stitch in Time and I am styling them for the fashion show with the lovely vintage inspired pieces from Cath Kidston. I'm so excited about this event as I am a big fan of everything Cath Kidston does and it is hopefully only the first in a number of collaborative events that we will be doing.

If this wasn't enough for me to cope with, I have a small article in the latest issue of Selvedge (Issue 30).



It is their 'Guiding Hands' piece and explains what to look out for when buying vintage knitting patterns. I am so proud to be included in this magazine and plan to order the free rosette you can get as a contributor. (Is that very sad? I don't think so?) I think its a little late coming out so is only beginning to appear in shops this week.

So what can top all of this? Well, after yarn there's only one thing for me and that's buttons - vintage buttons. On Sunday I went to the Vintage Textile Fair at the Armitage Centre in Manchester. It only takes place twice a year but it is a great fair.
I bought A LOT of buttons. Many of them are destined for pieces in A Stitch in Time Vol 2, but some are also for personal projects.



This first group are plastics from the 1930s to the 1950s.



This more varied group are predominantly plastics from 1930s to 1950s with one set of horn buttons. The red, white and blue buttons are coronation ware and I would really like a way to fit these into Stitch in Time 2.



The black buttons in this group are glass - the larger ones from the 1950s, the tiny ones from between 1890 and 1920. The third button is hand painted mother of pearl from around 1900



This last bunch are a mixture from 1940s to 1970s in plastic.



This beautiful art deco buckle was a gift off the lovely Maureen who I buy most of my buttons from. This needs something very special but I amundecided whether it will be a sewn or knitted garment.

And finally, I've been playing with a beret/tam to complement my flattering puff sleeves. I'm using leftovers from the sweater itself, a spare ball of Jaeger Matchmaker 4 ply in charcoal, and the lovely lighter grey from Jamieson & Smith.



I'm designing this organically - making it up as I go along! Its knitted in the round from the brim up in traditional manner, however I have tinkered with the increasing but I'm really pleased with it up to now. The increases are usually done on one row shortly after completing the ribbing, but I've increased more gradually to alter the shape slightly. We shall see! I've got to start working the crown next which might need a little forward planning. I haven't completely decided yet what is going to be the centre but I have a few ideas to choose from.



Phew, so for now,

Ruby xx

Behind The Times

Impressively, I managed to prepare a blog post about a fortnight ago and then didn't get it quite finished. It remained unposted and is now unfortunately obsolete.

Since I last posted we have managed to get back to work to some degree and were able to have our stall at the I Knit Weekender. I had a great time, meeting lots of lovely knitting folks and signing books. I also gave a talk on why I love vintage knitting which people seemed to enjoy and also ran my Make Do and Mend workshop for the first time. This is a workshop I would really like to do a lot more of. I'm certainly hoping to do a lot more workshops in the future so watch this space! I even managed to say hello to the lovely Alice Starmore, who was very sweet.

I've managed to do a fair bit of knitting but I've only one to share today. When travelling down to Fibrefest in Devon a few weeks ago I started work on a gauntlet design that would be easy to knit whilst travelling. The gauntlets are knitted side to side in garter stitch with short row shaping for the wrist, cuff and thumb. A provisional cast on is worked, so that grafting together of two garter stitch rows can be worked giving a completely seamless glove.



I used Jamieson & Smith Shetland Aran which is really, really lovely to work with, and used two balls in total plus a small amount of a contrast colour for the edging which is worked with a simple double crochet row. The buttons are vintage and I used three different pairs, one on each gauntlet.



And the model is my lovely Charlie - of course!





I've managed to set up my Ravelry shop (which believe me is quite an achievement for me) and the pattern can be purchased as a pdf download for £2.75 by following the link above.

I've also made up some kits all using different vintage buttons and the Jamieson & Smith yarn but I haven't got those online yet. I'm determined to make this working from home/full time self employment work!

Mum is making slow but steady progress. Her sight hasn't as yet improved unfortunately but she is beginning to pick up words that we say here and there and seems a lot brighter in herself. I'm so grateful for all the support I have received from so many people and I hope one day she will be well enough for me to explain to her just how wonderful everyone has been. Thank you once again.

I have a lot more to show but will leave it at that for today as I have to drive Charlie to a concert in Manchester shortly and hope to see "Julie & Julia" while we wait. So much more to share but

for now
Ruby xxx