Knitting

You are currently browsing the archive for the Knitting category.

Hello all,

Perhaps you’ve noticed a lack of posts recently. Perhaps you’ve been too enomoured of the changing seasons to even notice. Perhaps my ego’s puffed up enough to assume anyone actually notices anything about a particular website before immediately clicking on to the next series of animated GIFs (featuring kitties, of course). Of late time has become a more precious commodity, due to the slowly dwindling amount of daylight to burn, the toll of the daily grind, and what I’ll loosely refer to as ‘The Saturn Return’. Mark Twain said it best when he wrote, “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” I’d hate to think of this site as work, and, for now at least, will limit Free Pattern Fridays to a vague schedule of every other week-ish, or whenever I find a genuinely exellent pattern to write about and share.

So much for the ‘bad news’; on to the good: this week’s patternsssssss(plural) include a most delightful removable Peter Pan collar, a dainty belt, wee rosebud jewelry, and a change purse. The change purse (or ‘compact cover’, to hide the shameful fact you powder your nose) I could live without, but who knows, perhaps someone on your holiday gift list has been dying for some way to keep their loose change just like the folks on ‘Mad Men’.


(Here’s what’s on the table this week.)

Fuzzy Wuzzy is an undignified name for a yarn.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

This week’s pattern took a little extra time to set up because it had to be dug out of an enormous pile of miscellaneous vintage paper goods. Somewhere in that massive stack sat an absolutely patriotic salute to this great land, and consarn it, it would be found if it took all night. And it did! And here it is, the Americana, in all its star-spangled glory. The directions don’t come right out and say it but you can only knit it while listening to John Phillips Sousa marches.

Speaking of directions, apparently I have to come right out and state the blindingly obvious: THESE PATTERNS ARE FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. DO NOT TAKE THE IMAGES AND SELL THEM, DO NOT PASS THEM OFF AS YOUR OWN. Linking to them is totally fine; printing a copy out for your own use is fine, but anything that involves you taking them and making money off of them, STOP. DO NOT PASS GO. Fellow free-pattern sharer Bex recently alerted me that an Ebay seller stole images from our websites and sold (is selling) them in her store. On the downside, this is extremely rude, lazy and annoying. We post these patterns FOR FREE, buying or digging through archives for the originals, spending time scanning and cleaning them up, not to mention maintaining a website where people can find them, all for the sheer love of vintage knitting goodness. So when someone comes along and snags the images to make a quick buck, it hurts.

On the upside, this is the first time it’s happened in my several years of sharing, and in a rare burst of good mood I shall take that as a general sign humanity, or the chunk of it that enjoys looking at vintage patterns, generally understands what theft is and avoids it. Now, onward to patriotic knitwear!

Let the Eagle soar!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey folks, today’s a special occasion here on A Rarer Borealis. This week marks the 100th pattern shared on the site, and I’ve been saving a particular pattern for just such an occasion. It’s one that delights with vintage detail and nerdish charm, and what a coincidence, it’s just in time for the end of the school year!

Yes, no more pencils, no more books, except for the full set of Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ (that’s how most kids spend their summer, right? That or deeply immersed in the Teapot Dome scandal?). It’s almost surprising to see ‘algebraic symbols’ used as decor in an age where the phrase ‘guys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses’ pointed out the social stigma of girlsmarts (clearly demonstrated by eyewear) and the horror of it possibly impinging your marriage potential (don’t worry about that any more, ladies.)

I hope you children remembered to bring your implements of destruction.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

hi·a·tus [hahy-ey-tuhs]
–noun, plural -tus·es, -tus.

1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
2. a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.
3. any gap or opening.

For the next season I’ll most likely keep ‘summer hours’; fewer posts while I attempt to make hay while the sun shines (sort of literally). In the meantime please enjoy this belated pattern in honor of Memorial Day and Fleet Week, the twice-yearly opportunity to scream ‘HEYYYYY SAIIILOOOR!’ on a crowded street without seeming like a complete nutjob.

Described as a ‘beach ensemble’, this 1934 outfit from Minerva manages to combine all the ridiculous fashions of the last few seasons: hats worn in inappropriate settings, rompers, ‘retro’-mania, too-short and too-long skirts, giant tassels, and to top it off, a giant pom-pom.

Actually the skirt’s not so bad, an appropriate tea-length nowhere near the silliness of this season’s ‘maxi’ length. Ladies, if you find a need to hold up the bottom of your outfit to avoid constantly tripping over it, it no longer meets the basic requirements of safety and has tipped over to the frippery of fashion. Then again, stripper heels (aka ‘platform heels’) are suddenly everywhere so we’ll probably see a lengthening of skirts and heightening of heels until we’re back in Italian Renaissance chopine territory. My, this section’s become an outlet for bitching cattily about fashion!

Honestly folks, wear whatever you want. If studying clothing throughout history has taught me anything it’s that every form of dangerous, ridiculous excess and exaggeration has been and will be tried, and this year’s model is no better or worse than what came 100 years before (except for maybe foot-binding, let’s not do that again).

Hoy!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Is it Tuesday already? This blissful, pleasant weather has a fogging effect on the brain, especially after the stark, existential angst of a long winter. Just toddling out into sunlight and parking it leaves one happy as a lotus-eater.

Speaking of which, this week’s pattern was designed specifically for the ultimate in zoned-out bliss, the floating hedonism that is a cruise. It hearkens to a distant era when the following were all absolutely normal: 1) You and your well-heeled friends would take a month off genteel parlor boozing to cruise to warmer climes. 2) You would have an outfit, nay, SEVERAL outfits specifically for use on the boat IN ADDITION to outfits specifically for eating/drinking both on and off the boat. 3) These outfits would be entirely knitted… 4) …by you, after imbibing a ladylike 2 gallons of rum. At least, that’s the general impression I get from Hemingway novels, 30s drink recipes and various etiquette manuals of the time. The cruise menu items are even boozed up! (check out the ‘soused mackerel’ and the exceedingly long ‘beverage’ list)

It seems appropriate then, that the pattern (the one on the right), incorporates ‘purposefully’ dropped stitches along with the cabling. It’s a simple yet interesting (and in summer, cooling) combination of heavy and airy.

The pattern includes a blouse, skirt, coat, scarf, and I’m surprised it didn’t include knitted heels. I recommend listening to the original ‘Anything Goes’ soundtrack on loop while working on it.

All Aboard!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »