pattern

Alright, I’ve seen a lot of people knitting up the so-called ’3 Hour Sweater’, complaining about how NO, it does NOT take 3 hours to knit, it takes a day or two, blah blah blah. I say these people are modern whiners. Perhaps in ye olden days it really did only take 3 hours to work up this sweater; perhaps women sitting near their radios were so scandalized by a saucy soap opera they gained knitting uber-prowess and by the time that and an episode of Fibber McGee and Molly’d passed by they had a sweater in their lap. In any event it’s true that modern knitters lack this ability; we’ve been so over-scandalized it would take…actually I can’t even make anything up for us to be scandalized by, if I type it up here it’ll appear on VH1′s schedule to fill in for the shows they pulled after their reality star suspected of murdering his wife went on the lam.

In any event, I hereby throw down the gauntlet. I present to you….THE TWO HOUR SWEATER! That’s right, this claims to take a whole hour less to work up than the previous ‘quickie’ vintage sweater everyone’s tried a hand at, so translated into modern times that would probably be one long train ride of knittin’. Boy oh boy.

It also makes nice use of the superchunky yarn most knitters have on hand- I myself couldn’t resist buying some (so large…so textural!) but had no idea what to apply it to. Most of the Vogue Knitting stuff that utilizes large yarns is so patently ridiculous it’s just DARING you to spend time and energy making it, forget wearing it out in public. So, here’s a quaint lil’ charmer with some nice neck detail. I hope to see myriad examples of it in the near future.

Yes, I’ve traveled extensively, taken lots of interesting photos, and what am I posting on here? More dusty patterns from the New York Public Library. It’s late notice, but this evening they’re having a research/resource class on vintage patterns at the Schwarzman Library (aka the Ghostbusters library, the one with the big lions out front). I’m headed back to dig up more stuff, but in the meantime I scanned this guy in from microfilm. It’s very strange- at the same time microfilm’s very dated and archaic, it’s still very convenient and fun to press a button and have exactly what you’re seeing in front of you print out. Of course, one of the printouts for reasons inexplicable came out too light (I filled it in as best I could), showing that the tactile pleasures of whipping through pages of something are mitigated by technological annoyances.

The pattern’s from Workbasket Magazine, from some point in the mid-40s to early 50′s. I’d say late 40′s judging by where I was on the reel. I should’ve payed closer attention but whipping past pages and pages of ads for bras and bust support was making me nauseous. There’s also a matching sock pattern at the end, should you want a matching set.

Behold- the Arrowhead Sweater!