Finish A Long - Sewing up Seams on my Land Army Jumper

Heavens! It has been almost exactly a month since I last blogged. March came in like a lion and despite the arrival of lambs, it did not go out like a lamb. It raged and roared all month long and it proved a tough 31 days to get through! Now as the Easter weekend is with us, the daffodils are finally beginning to flower and we have actually had two or three dry, sunny if cold days. On one of those unexpectedly nice days we finally had a long overdue photoshoot so that I could finally prepare for the launch of several patterns. One of those is my Land Army Jumper. 

Knitted in Excelana 4 ply in most appropriately, Land Army Green, it is already my most favourite of jumpers. You can get the yarn directly from my website here. You'll need between 6 and 9 balls depending on the size you're knitting. The heavily textured cable pattern creates warmth and the very stretchy nature of the stitch creates a very flattering, form fitting shape. Increases worked at the side seams enhances this neat fit. A looser option can be worked by casting on more stitches at the beginning and working straight to the underarm. The V-neck makes the jumper wearable indoors as well as out and is the perfect depth to wear with either a blouse or t-shirt underneath or it can also be worn on its own.

I've teamed the jumper here with my reproduction land army dungarees from Apple Tree Lane Costumery which I absolutely love. I wear them regularly for farm 'duties'. They are comfortable, warm and very practical. I opted for a ready made pair rather than custom made but now I have this pair and understand where I may need little fitting tweeks, I may very well get a second pair made to measure.

The completed pattern for the Land Army Jumper should be available in a few days time but as part of the Finish A Long on my ravelry group I promised to share some of the details of the finishing techniques involved in sewing up a jumper knitted in flat pieces.

The Land Army Jumper has four pieces. The back, front and two identical sleeves. Because it is a cable and rib pattern there is no need to press the pieces before starting to sew up. In fact you would flatten out the pattern if you did so. 

The first step in the finishing process is to sew together the shoulder seams. The shoulder shaping in this pattern is created by casting off a percentage of the shoulder stitches at the beginning of each of the next 8 rows creating a sloping cast off edge going downwards from the back neck to the armhole edge. By creating the seam in this way small ‘steps’ occur along the length of the shoulder seam. There are a number of alternative ways to approach the shoulders but for today I am going to simply look at sewing together this type of stepped shoulder. 

On this particular pattern, one of the things to look out for is the obvious pattern of knit stitches and purl stitches. It is essential when joining the front and back pieces together that the knit stitches are matched to each other and the same with the purl stitches. No matter how neatly you may sew up the seam if the stitches are out of line the shoulder will look unsightly. In the first instance I always pin the seams with right sides together so that I can adjust until everything is lined up correctly. Most importantly for a neat seam is to create a smooth diagonal sewing line - DO NOT follow the contours of the steps. If you are in anyway unsure about your sewing abilities sew a line of running stitches along this line using sewing thread and fairly large, easily removable stitches. Remove the pins as you go. Now you can follow this nice, straight line when you sew up properly. For a garment of this weight I would always use the same yarn as I knitted with. I cut a length of the yarn sufficient to complete the entire seam and thread it through a ‘sewing up’ needle.

I have a whole host of sewing up needles of different lengths and eye sizes, some sharp and some more blunt. I have one or two favourites however which I use for most sewing tasks. One of the most important things to remember when sewing through your knitted pieces is not to sew through the stitches. ALWAYS take the needle between stitches. If for any reason you have ever had to take sewing up out after breaking through any stitches you will know how dreadful a task this can be! This applies regardless of what stitch or technique you are using.

For shoulder seams of this type I would always use back stitch. It creates a very strong seam which gives the rest of the garment strength and structure. As a rule I start at the back neck edge and work downwards towards the armhole. Leave a length at the beginning to reinforce the first couple of stitches. Start by working a couple of stitches in the same position then remembering to follow a straight diagonal line, begin to work your way along the shoulder.

Take your needle down through both layers of knitting between the stitches and come back up one stitch along. Pass your needle back down through the work half a stitch back, and come up half a stitch ahead. Continue in this manner all the way along the seam. Reinforce at the end in the same way as at the beginning then weave the end in back through 2 or 3 stitches before cutting off. Rethread your needle to the length left at the beginning and weave this end through 2 or 3 stitches then cut off.

And voila, your shoulder is complete. Now follow the same process for the second shoulder. Our next step is picking up stitches around the neck which I will take you through in a couple of days time.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot similarities between this jumper and ‘The Warm Jumper’ in A Stitch in Time volume 2 and indeed the Land Army Jumper is based on this, with a different cable pattern and some tweeks to the fit, construction and number of sizes available, but I’ll have more on this when I publish the pattern shortly. We had an absolutely fantastic time on the photoshoot for this jumper and got so so many beautiful photographs that its going to be hard to choose just a few for the pattern pages. In addition we had 'publicity' photos of the two of us on the farm done and I just wanted to share this photo from the shoot with you. Here's me and Gavin having a chat over the farm gate during the shoot with me in my Land Army jumper and Gavin in his Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover. This photo just makes me so happy!

'sew' for now
Happy Finishing!

Susan xx

All images Copyright ©Susan Crawford Vintage 2015

The Land Army Memorial unveiled

After successfully raising £85,000 the Women's Land Army Tribute Campaign was finally able to reveal the beautiful sculpture commissioned to honour both land girls and lumber Jills who worked so hard through world wars one and two.

My land army badge

The sculpture was unveiled on Tuesday by the Countess of Wessex at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Although it was a terribly wet and cold day, many former land girls made the trip to see the 8 foot high statue for the first time. Some of them even dressed up in their land girl uniforms!

Copyright Express & Star

  The fabulous bronze was created by sculptor Denise Dutton who is based in Staffordshire herself.

Here you can see the models posing for the statue in their land army uniforms.

 Here is the sculpture in a bit more detail.

I feel extremely privileged and proud to have been involved in the campaign in even just a small way by raising funds through the sales of the Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover pattern and I really want to take this opportunity to thank everyone of you who purchased a copy of this pattern. You all helped make this memorial actually happen.

Funds are still needed to for annual rent on the plot, insurance and maintenance, so please do continue to support the campaign. The Wartime Farm pullover will continue to be sold to help raise funds towards these running costs.

I thought I would close with an illustration I found on the cover of Woman's Magazine from September 1941. Its called Land Girl and inside the magazine it states that it is taken 'from the camera study by W. Suschitsky' who was a photographer and cinematographer born to Jewish parents in Austria in 1912. He moved to London from Vienna in 1934 due to the political climate, where he worked on Government information films during WW11.

What fascinates me about the illustration though is the colour choice for the land girl uniform. Brown jumper and blue tie. Had the illustrator not seen a land girl uniform? Artistic licence? Or was there an alternate colourway? I'm leaning towards the first option but would love to hear if anyone knows differently.

Thank you all once again,

for now,
Susan xx

Fair Isle Knitting with the Wartime Farm

It dawned on me yesterday that I haven't 'officially' announced the publication of the Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover. I'm sure most regular readers will already know that it is now available to download but in case you didn't, it can now be downloaded for £5.00 from ravelry with £2.50 from each sale going to the Women's Land Army Tribute Campaign. Just click on the link below to take you to the ravelry page to purchase (there is no requirement to be a member of ravelry to purchase).



You can also read all the details about the pattern and the wide range of sizes available here.

We had a wonderful time photographing Gavin 'disguised' as Alex from Wartime Farm. He didn't take much disguising to be honest as once he was donned in his period style clothing and fedora, he looked remarkably similar.

The pullover featured in the photographs is knitted using Jamieson and Smith jumper weight Shetland wool and I am currently knitting another sample for aged 3-4 years in Excelana 4 ply. Here is the swatch.

I have used Saharan Sand as the background colour and tried to keep the same type of colour combining in this sample so it as similar to the original as possible. This colourway is now also available as a kit from my website.

All the yarn to knit the pullover is provided neatly packed in a Susan Crawford Vintage project bag. There are 21 sizing possibilities in the pattern in total which are all listed on the website to ensure you purchase the correct kit.

Once I've finished the toddlers sample I intend to knit a further Excelana version of the pullover in a bit of a different colourway and this one will be for me. This will also be available as a kit once its all completed.

A first for me with this pattern is the release of my first video tutorial. A lot of people have bought the pattern who haven't previously tried stranded Fair Isle knitting, so to help people get started I have put together a video introducing the basic skills and techniques needed to knit the Wartime Farm pullover (and many other Fair Isle patterns). I hope to gradually add other tutorials and more advanced techniques over time.

So without further ado, here is an Introduction to Fair Isle Knitting.

Do let me know what you think. As I've already mentioned this is the first time I've recorded a video tutorial and it wouldn't have been possible without the marvellous camera work of my daughter, Charlie and the editing talents of Alex impersonator, Gavin! And to finish, here are a couple of wonderful 'out takes'.

for now,

Ruby xx

All images copyright @Susan Crawford 2013

Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover

I am beside myself with excitement at being able to announce that I am about to release the Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover pattern as worn by Alex Langlands in the BBC series, Wartime Farm.

Photo of Alex Langlands courtesy of Octopus Books and Wartime Farm

The clothes on the series, and in particular, Alex's sleeveless pullover attracted a lot of attention. I myself was concerned that some of the clothes worn were not quite of the right period and guessed by the size and bright green contrast colour in Alex's pullover, that the garment itself was post war. At the same time however, a thought was nagging away at me that I had seen the Fair Isle motifs used somewhere in my pattern collection. I really wanted to spend some time researching the pattern but had a lot of other more pressing things that I was supposed to be doing but fortunately I found the perfect excuse to devote some time to this amazing garment:

The Women's Land Army Tribute campaign is raising funds to build a memorial to the Women's Land Army to be sited at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The memorial is also to provide a focal point for the 38,000 surviving Land Army girls and to share their stories. The Women's Land Army was first formed during World War I, freeing male workers to join up. During World War II young women were again encouraged to join the Land Army, and by 1943 there were 80,000 land girls working in the fields and farms of the UK. Alongside the WLA were the WTC which were the lesser known, Women's Timber Corps or "Lumber Jills" who had to take over the provision of timber during these years. Women continued to work on the land in lessening numbers until 1950 when the WLA was formally disbanded. Whilst there have been TV shows and films about Land Girls they have received little official recognition. In fact the WLA has only being invited to take part in the Remembrance Day ceremonies in very recent years. We owe an incredible debt to the WLA and all the women who took over "men's work" at these times and showed the world just what women could achieve. This pattern is my own attempt to help raise funds for the WLA Memorial.

For each PDF pattern costing £5.00 a donation of £2.50 will be made to the WLA Tribute campaign.

So to tell you a little more about the pattern:

It is available as a PDF download only and is available to pre order now and will be released on Wednesday 9th January.

The pattern comes in a huge range of sizes from age 3-4 yrs right up to fit a chest size of 54 inches.
It is a classed as a unisex pattern and there will be photos in the pattern on both male and female models. It is knitted in the round from the bottom up to the armhole where it is divided and the front and back are knitted separately then joined at the shoulders before picking up the arm and neck bands which are worked rib. Alex's version is shown using Jamieson & Smith 2 ply jumper weight Shetland wool in the colour ways as worn by Alex in the TV show and also interestingly in the 1930s pattern that I tracked down.

Here is the image from the original pattern.

It is much much shorter than the version worn by Alex, both in the body and in the armhole depth. Interestingly and somewhat bizarrely, the arm and neck bands are knit in long ribbed lengths which are then sewn onto the garment. Unsurprisingly I haven't suggested making them this way. The suggested tension for the 3 ply yarn recommended by the pattern is a very loose 24 sts to 10cm. You can just see on the photo that the fabric looks very open and indeed the motifs are larger than on Alex's garment. My version and Alex's pullover in the show have picked up armholes and neck bands as in a 'regular' pattern! There are some mistakes in the garment worn by Alex, but most notably at the shoulders where the pattern doesn't match up, suggesting that the front was knitted slightly longer than the back as the pattern repeat finishes higher on the front than on the back. It was also knitted in two pieces and sewn together at the side seams which was the usual method in UK patterns around this time. So whilst Alex's own sleeveless pullover may have been a post war knit, I think I can safely vouch that the original pattern from which it is adapted, is from the right period.

The ladies version which will be shown in the pattern, is knitted using Excelana 4 ply in a different colour way but I'm not going to spoil it and show any more at this point.

If you would like to donate to this very worthy and very under funded campaign please do either pre order the pattern now or call back after January 9th to purchase your pattern download then.

£5.00 

(£2.50 of each purchase will be donated to the WLA Tribute)

If you would like to help support the campaign further you can add this button to your own website or blog by cutting and pasting the code below into your site.

<a href="http://www.susancrawfordvintage.com/Wartime_Farm_Sleeveless_Pullover.html" title="Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover"><img src="http://www.susancrawfordvintage.com/Home_files/wtfblogbutton250.jpg" alt="Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover" style="border: none; height: 250px; width: 250px;"/></a>

There will also be a media pack available for download in a day or two with more information if you can help promote the campaign in an 'official' capacity!

I'm also hoping to have kits available in the New Year certainly in Excelana and hopefully in Jamieson and Smith also.

Octopus Books and Wartime Farm are both very kindly lending their support to the fundraising pattern and I couldn't have done any of this without the remarkable Charly of landgirl1980 who has worked tirelessly helping me get this campaign underway.

Thank you Charly and thank you to all the ladies of the WLA. We are indebted to you in so many ways.

for now
Ruby xx