A very useful book list

I was trawling the internet looking for information on Latvian Mittens this morning (isn't that what everyone spends Saturday morning doing?) and I found this Extremely Excellent List of Reference Books, from Knitting Beyond the Hebrides. I have heard of most of them, seen many of them, but only own one or two. But to me this is a very neat canon of knitting, for the less trend-oriented, more technique-oriented knitter.

Victorian Spinners & Weavers Guild

I love knitting with handspun. Love it. So, in aid of increasing my handspun stash I decided to head off to the Victorian Spinners & Weavers Guild, in North Carlton. They have a gallery/ shop, see.

I caught the tram all on my own, and didn't get lost and was quite proud of myself. The Guild Hall is a 19th century Boy Scout Hall. Very large. Very well equipped with fiber, wheels-for-hire and whatnot. The gallery was still closed up when I arrived, so I contented myself with looking at the three skeins of handspun hung on a hat tree outside the gallery. One of them was nice, but not my colours. But if there wasn't much else, it'd do.

Then someone arrived to open the gallery. They threw back the double doors into a little room where two walls were stuffed full - full - with handspun. Arranged by colour. I think I spent nearly an hour in there. Everything is priced by the spinner. Labelled by fiber, weight, price and the spinner's name. The only downside was that there were not large quantities of anything - finding more than 100g of anything was a challenge. But I rose to the occasion, and left with seven skeins.


Merino and glitz, in a pretty sea green 3 ply (not navajo). It'll be a fuzzy, flopped beret for me.


This pink/ grey/ mauve tweed was my absolute favourite. Spun by V. Harding. I just love it.

More V. Harding - nice tawny autumny colours. Whoever this mystery spinner is, she has excellent colour sense.

I wasn't sure about this, but bought it because it's nearly 200g. And it's grown on me. Natural Corriedale plied with commercially dyed merino. For some reason it reminds me of newspaper pulp. In a good way.


And this is a little scratchy and a little expensive (compared to the rest), but it reminded me of irses, so I bought it anyway. The yellows pop a lot more in real life.

knitting post-war

i recently picked up a vintage knitting magazine off ebay, attracted by the variety (vintage magazines actually tend to have quite repetitive, often boring patterns).
this has some astonishingly fashion-forward pieces, for 1947. like this 'jumper with apron front'.


sadly, as far as i can tell, there's no unique constructions. you knit a jumper, then sew that panel over the top. then wear your knitted belt over the whole lot.


now, if anyone ever tries to blame the 1980s for spawning the batwing silhouette, you can point them to that. in fact, it is actually referred as a batwing jumper.

and while i may have designed a drop-stitch scarf for your knitting enjoyment, the AWW are way, way ahead of me when it comes to the elegance and glamour potent in dropped stitches.


hehe. i find the cravat kind of funny.