Another amazing eclectic podcast. I absolutely adored the BBC archive footage of the farmer identifying his sheep and the interlopers. The whole clip was fabulous and punchline was just the icing on the cake. Can’t wait to see the finished cardie. 🙏🏻❤️
For someone who started sewing before she started knitting, like properly trying to knit garnments, I love hearing about your sewing. Hearing someone with a fresh take on it and how you analyse it from a different perspective is great.
You can't go wrong with Alexandra Morgan. She knows her stuff. I love the sweater & wish the pattern were available. I think I can figure it out from your videos. The sleeve cap to armhole is really nice. Thank you for sharing the journey.
Thank you Roxanne! Another comment from another vintage sweater youtuber led me to you. I love that you are documenting knitting these vintage patterns from each decade of the 1900s.. so interesting! This is my first time here, and love your tidbits! So incredibly interesting. You are a fantastic teacher, I feel like I am in a class:) your blue sweater is coming along nicely, and love your explanations about the button row and the yolk samples. So happy I found you and subscribed to your channel. Happy New Year and thank you so much for sharing your beautiful projects, books, techniques and tidbits! Mary 🧶🙏💗🤗
It’s so interesting to follow your sewing discoveries. Topstitching is not always done with the thicker topstitching thread. That makes it very prominent, like on jeans. On finer fabrics or less sporty looks I topstitch with the regular thread. Always use same colour thread in bobbin and top, otherwise it may be visible, giving little dots of the bobbin colour showing on right side. Exception that thicker topstitching thread, usually that only goes on top with regular thread in bobbin; often that topstitching thread has a contrasting colour while bobbin has the regular colour that harmonises with the fabric. You can also choose to have no visible stitching on the outside of the garment and instead of topstitch use understitching. For your woollen skirt e.g. I would probably use understitching. Last for now 😉: topstitching is done from right side for at least two reasons: 1) the stitch on top is ofter nicer than the one on the under/bobbin side, 2) doing it on the visuable side of the garment gives more control on how it’ll look; being a bit off on the inside is no problem, on the outside the slightest wobble is very visible. Excited to see both your blue sweater (cardigan to me) and your first wearable sewn items. Good luck 💕
I'm sure I've said this before but love that shirt. I taught my partner's mom knitting (well retaught her, she hadn't knit since the 80s). So now, my poor girlfriend has two people who regularly tell her "hold on I'm finishing this row."
I so enjoy your enthusiasm in learning about your crafts! I am a lifelong knitter and sewer (sewist?), and I have never personally known anyone who pursued the details as I like to do, and who had the patience to experiment for best results. EZ was the first such person in my experience, and you are her successor! Thank you for doing the work and especially for sharing your journey with the knitting and sewing communities.
I look forward to Tuesdays and Fridays for your videos. I pull up my knitting and a cup of coffee. It is like knitting with a longtime friend. Thanks for all you do for the improving knitters.
I loved the story about your grandmother. My grandmother was born in Iowa in 1880 and the family moved to San Diego a year later. One of her sisters became a teacher - going to San Diego "normal' school. But my grandmother taught music, having received her degree at what was to become the music school and Northwestern. It's interesting how so many people from Iowa ended up in California during that time period.
Very interesting Connie, and neat how similar your stories are... I love hearing about the 1800s and 1900s, our Grandmothers were so strong, mentally and physically! My Grandmother was an extremely talented seamstress and made draperies for the beautiful homes in the town in which she lived. She also made all of my Mother and Aunts and my Uncles clothes when they were little. I am very honored to be sewing on her sewing machine today. A Phaff from the 1950s. 🧶 lately my passion is knitting! I think my Grandmother tatted too, I can crochet lace, but would love to tat one of these days! Thx for sharing!
Even though I'm not knitting things that need these techniques at present, I find it very valuable listening while on projects, because it makes me think about things I never would have known, which make it easier or less daunting to do something different. Thanks.
Thank you for your vintage knitting, I started looking at some patterns that belonged to my grandmother. There are several Workbasket magazines so I started with them. Found one from 1979 with a knitted vest and she had written on the cover, “ nice one” on pattern page she had written, “ my favorite “ so of course I have to knit this. I am almost finished the back pretty simple 4 row repeat pattern and a vest I will wear and enjoy. Thanks for the encouragement.
What she was talking about with your sloper is the HBL the Horizontal balance line, which is particularly important if you have a check fabric , like tartan. I think I saw you had such in one of the kit you had, not only do you need to match the check at the seam, so that there is not a mismatch. For your skirt to look good you also need to keep the horizontal line of the check parallel to the floor at the this can be done by adjusting the darts in a process of trying on and checking . If the line is pointing downwards you increase the size of the thickest part of the dart, if it points upwards you decrease the size of the thickest part of the dart, as a scientist you will see it is basic geometry. Topstitching is meant to be decorative, hence the different thread, rather than edge stitching which is constructional.
To remove a fold line try the following: Set iron at appropriate temp for article; dampen a white pressing cloth with white vinegar; use it to press the article. Sometimes it takes two pressings. This also works if you want to create a crease.
I think it depends on the project and material being used, I would not use the fold line at all. First thing I do is square up the material by pulling a thread. It's rare to find the fold line is accurate. Once the material is square, you can create your new fold line if the pattern calls for it.
I didn’t know that about topstitching either! Although I have read that about making jeans recently. But when I was a kid and sewing clothes my mom’s sewing machine was a workhorse, but the stitches looked much better on the needle side than on the bobbin side, so I definitely wanted to do topstitching from the top. I can’t imagine changing thread and needle every time I want a line of decorative stitching, though🤷🏻♀️
Your timing is impeccable (along with your knitting, of course!) My knit along group is just getting to our button band on our 1949 pattern which is done in vertical ribbing the same way as yours. Our ribbing, however, butts up to a lace motif, as opposed to stockinette, so we're okay with an even number of stitches in the ribbing. I'm also on a size 2 needle and will try to use a half stitch in my mattress stitching to avoid bulk in this delicate fabric. Your name comes up in our group, so I'm sure they'll all be looking to see how you did yours. Thanks, as always, for a great episode.
To save yourself some yarn, you could make the sleeves in your vintage sweater 3/4 length sleeves... very fashionable and I think it would fit the silhouette of the sweater nicely.
One thing you might try with the button band is what I used when I knit the Potter's Shawl by Jen Lucas published by Interweave Knits. The body of the shawl was knit vertically and then a horizontal leaf pattern was added going across the bottom of the shawl and the live body stitches were finished off as the leaf pattern was created. It made a very smooth finish, so that I now can't tell where the ending of the shawl is and where the leaf pattern starts. It was a SSK done with the last stitch from the body and one stitch from the horizontal leaf pattern that was being created as I went along. It saved needing to bind off the live stitches from the shawl, create the leaf band and then sew it on which would have left a very visible band of stitching. I may not have explained this very well and maybe you've already thought of this and decided it wouldn't work.
If you want to sew Claire Shaeffer has very good DVD on sewing you maybe able to get from your library, she also has books, when I was sewing and tailoring I used her book all the time
Rox, I knit mostly with acrylic, it's what I can find in my corner of the world without having to sell my kidneys on the black market. Yet, most of the tutorials on knitting I find assume one is working with wool and other natural fibers (and I get it! Natural fibers are awesome!). So my question is: how to work with acrylic? From choosing the right yarn, to actual knitting, weaving in ends, blocking, and caring for the finished item; what one should look out for? Thanks!
My understanding of why you need to top stitch on the top of the fabric is that the stitches on the bobbin side are slightly slanted as a result of how the stitch is formed. I have seen diagrams that show why this happens but I can’t find any right now. I can see the difference with my machine. I’m not sure if there is a difference with side loading bobbins. Mine is top loading.
Love the look of that pattern, is the pattern available? It is so good there are knitters like you, I really love visiting your TH-cam segments, they are always helpful and fun, thank you ,
It's out of print, unfortunately, and because of when it was published, is not out of copyright. It's possible you might be able to find a copy for sale online via ebay or etsy, etc., but it might take some time to do so.
My grandmother (born in 1892 , lived until 1979) taught me to knit at age 7. I never saw her in slacks, pants or a swimsuit. She was very proper and thought the bikinis in the 60-70’s were obscene. I wonder what she would think of todays thongs? She also was extremely strong from farm work but would not be caught uncovered, she got her bachelors degree and became a dietitian and started school lunch programs in westchester county in NY state . Strong women .
Question. So I''m so glad you mentioned that you are knitting your 1960s cardy in a smaller size due to having heavier weight yarn, because that's exactly what I've just started doing. Do you have a video about that? I tried searching your videos, because I knew I'd heard you speak about it, so I knew it was possible, I'm just wondering if there is anything I need to account for other than stitch count in the smaller size, lengths in numerical size I'm aiming for (for example, I'm making a M jumper using size S stitch counts)? I can work out in my head that it is going to work for the front and back panels, and for the sleeves, I just can't work out if there is anything I need to take into account for joining the sleeves to the body. Anyway, thank you for this video, I love a casual friday.
Stitch gauge:row gauge proportions tend to remain consistent, but it's always good to verify that shaping done over a large number of rows (like for sleeves) is going to work in order to get the sleeve size/shape you want with the row gauge you have. Even when you match stitch gauge with a yarn substitute of the same weight, you don't always hit row gauge. I do have a video on re-calculating shaping if you have a different row gauge or need a different length for a shaped area. Just do a check to make sure it's all going to work out with your row gauge.
To save yourself some yarn, you could make the sleeves in your vintage sweater 3/4 length sleeves... very fashionable and I think it would fit the silhouette of the sweater nicely.
The reason I'm knitting the sleeves top down (after working the sleeve cap bottom up) is so that if I don't have enough yarn to do the full length sleeves, I can do 3/4 length. It's not my preferred length for a sleeve (fingering weight for a sweater is barely usable in the climate I live in), so I don't want to plan for a 3/4 length sleeve from the start.
Another amazing eclectic podcast. I absolutely adored the BBC archive footage of the farmer identifying his sheep and the interlopers. The whole clip was fabulous and punchline was just the icing on the cake. Can’t wait to see the finished cardie. 🙏🏻❤️
For someone who started sewing before she started knitting, like properly trying to knit garnments, I love hearing about your sewing. Hearing someone with a fresh take on it and how you analyse it from a different perspective is great.
You can't go wrong with Alexandra Morgan. She knows her stuff. I love the sweater & wish the pattern were available. I think I can figure it out from your videos. The sleeve cap to armhole is really nice. Thank you for sharing the journey.
Thank you Roxanne! Another comment from another vintage sweater youtuber led me to you. I love that you are documenting knitting these vintage patterns from each decade of the 1900s.. so interesting! This is my first time here, and love your tidbits! So incredibly interesting. You are a fantastic teacher, I feel like I am in a class:) your blue sweater is coming along nicely, and love your explanations about the button row and the yolk samples. So happy I found you and subscribed to your channel. Happy New Year and thank you so much for sharing your beautiful projects, books, techniques and tidbits! Mary 🧶🙏💗🤗
It’s so interesting to follow your sewing discoveries. Topstitching is not always done with the thicker topstitching thread. That makes it very prominent, like on jeans. On finer fabrics or less sporty looks I topstitch with the regular thread. Always use same colour thread in bobbin and top, otherwise it may be visible, giving little dots of the bobbin colour showing on right side. Exception that thicker topstitching thread, usually that only goes on top with regular thread in bobbin; often that topstitching thread has a contrasting colour while bobbin has the regular colour that harmonises with the fabric. You can also choose to have no visible stitching on the outside of the garment and instead of topstitch use understitching. For your woollen skirt e.g. I would probably use understitching.
Last for now 😉: topstitching is done from right side for at least two reasons: 1) the stitch on top is ofter nicer than the one on the under/bobbin side, 2) doing it on the visuable side of the garment gives more control on how it’ll look; being a bit off on the inside is no problem, on the outside the slightest wobble is very visible. Excited to see both your blue sweater (cardigan to me) and your first wearable sewn items. Good luck 💕
I'm sure I've said this before but love that shirt. I taught my partner's mom knitting (well retaught her, she hadn't knit since the 80s). So now, my poor girlfriend has two people who regularly tell her "hold on I'm finishing this row."
I've been wanting to watch the Great British Sewing Bee. Thanks so much!!
I so enjoy your enthusiasm in learning about your crafts! I am a lifelong knitter and sewer (sewist?), and I have never personally known anyone who pursued the details as I like to do, and who had the patience to experiment for best results. EZ was the first such person in my experience, and you are her successor! Thank you for doing the work and especially for sharing your journey with the knitting and sewing communities.
I look forward to Tuesdays and Fridays for your videos. I pull up my knitting and a cup of coffee. It is like knitting with a longtime friend. Thanks for all you do for the improving knitters.
Your shirt speaks to me, I must say that 10 times a day...second only to, 'can't talk, counting.'
I loved the story about your grandmother. My grandmother was born in Iowa in 1880 and the family moved to San Diego a year later. One of her sisters became a teacher - going to San Diego "normal' school. But my grandmother taught music, having received her degree at what was to become the music school and Northwestern. It's interesting how so many people from Iowa ended up in California during that time period.
Very interesting Connie, and neat how similar your stories are... I love hearing about the 1800s and 1900s, our Grandmothers were so strong, mentally and physically! My Grandmother was an extremely talented seamstress and made draperies for the beautiful homes in the town in which she lived. She also made all of my Mother and Aunts and my Uncles clothes when they were little. I am very honored to be sewing on her sewing machine today. A Phaff from the 1950s. 🧶 lately my passion is knitting! I think my Grandmother tatted too, I can crochet lace, but would love to tat one of these days! Thx for sharing!
Thanks for directing me to the Wool channel. I have really been enjoying it.
Glad you enjoy it!
Thank you! All good! What we should do/ what we know we can do/ what we do. :) (The Shepherd knows his sheep...)
Even though I'm not knitting things that need these techniques at present, I find it very valuable listening while on projects, because it makes me think about things I never would have known, which make it easier or less daunting to do something different. Thanks.
Enjoyed this podcast. I loved watching the guy identifying the sheep. Amazing. Have a good weekend.
Thank you for your vintage knitting, I started looking at some patterns that belonged to my grandmother. There are several Workbasket magazines so I started with them. Found one from 1979 with a knitted vest and she had written on the cover, “ nice one” on pattern page she had written, “ my favorite “ so of course I have to knit this. I am almost finished the back pretty simple 4 row repeat pattern and a vest I will wear and enjoy. Thanks for the encouragement.
What she was talking about with your sloper is the HBL the Horizontal balance line, which is particularly important if you have a check fabric , like tartan. I think I saw you had such in one of the kit you had, not only do you need to match the check at the seam, so that there is not a mismatch. For your skirt to look good you also need to keep the horizontal line of the check parallel to the floor at the this can be done by adjusting the darts in a process of trying on and checking . If the line is pointing downwards you increase the size of the thickest part of the dart, if it points upwards you decrease the size of the thickest part of the dart, as a scientist you will see it is basic geometry. Topstitching is meant to be decorative, hence the different thread, rather than edge stitching which is constructional.
To remove a fold line try the following: Set iron at appropriate temp for article; dampen a white pressing cloth with white vinegar; use it to press the article. Sometimes it takes two pressings. This also works if you want to create a crease.
I think it depends on the project and material being used, I would not use the fold line at all. First thing I do is square up the material by pulling a thread. It's rare to find the fold line is accurate. Once the material is square, you can create your new fold line if the pattern calls for it.
I didn’t know that about topstitching either! Although I have read that about making jeans recently. But when I was a kid and sewing clothes my mom’s sewing machine was a workhorse, but the stitches looked much better on the needle side than on the bobbin side, so I definitely wanted to do topstitching from the top. I can’t imagine changing thread and needle every time I want a line of decorative stitching, though🤷🏻♀️
Your timing is impeccable (along with your knitting, of course!) My knit along group is just getting to our button band on our 1949 pattern which is done in vertical ribbing the same way as yours. Our ribbing, however, butts up to a lace motif, as opposed to stockinette, so we're okay with an even number of stitches in the ribbing. I'm also on a size 2 needle and will try to use a half stitch in my mattress stitching to avoid bulk in this delicate fabric. Your name comes up in our group, so I'm sure they'll all be looking to see how you did yours. Thanks, as always, for a great episode.
I really appreciate how your experience becoming a master knitter has informed your process for mastering sewing as well.
To save yourself some yarn, you could make the sleeves in your vintage sweater 3/4 length sleeves... very fashionable and I think it would fit the silhouette of the sweater nicely.
I wore a wool bathing suit in the 1950s. It stretched alarmingly in water.
Awesome story about your grandmother!
One thing you might try with the button band is what I used when I knit the Potter's Shawl by Jen Lucas published by Interweave Knits. The body of the shawl was knit vertically and then a horizontal leaf pattern was added going across the bottom of the shawl and the live body stitches were finished off as the leaf pattern was created. It made a very smooth finish, so that I now can't tell where the ending of the shawl is and where the leaf pattern starts. It was a SSK done with the last stitch from the body and one stitch from the horizontal leaf pattern that was being created as I went along. It saved needing to bind off the live stitches from the shawl, create the leaf band and then sew it on which would have left a very visible band of stitching. I may not have explained this very well and maybe you've already thought of this and decided it wouldn't work.
If you want to sew Claire Shaeffer has very good DVD on sewing you maybe able to get from your library, she also has books, when I was sewing and tailoring I used her book all the time
Rox, I knit mostly with acrylic, it's what I can find in my corner of the world without having to sell my kidneys on the black market. Yet, most of the tutorials on knitting I find assume one is working with wool and other natural fibers (and I get it! Natural fibers are awesome!). So my question is: how to work with acrylic? From choosing the right yarn, to actual knitting, weaving in ends, blocking, and caring for the finished item; what one should look out for?
Thanks!
San Diego "Normal" School is now San Diego State University
My understanding of why you need to top stitch on the top of the fabric is that the stitches on the bobbin side are slightly slanted as a result of how the stitch is formed. I have seen diagrams that show why this happens but I can’t find any right now. I can see the difference with my machine. I’m not sure if there is a difference with side loading bobbins. Mine is top loading.
I should have taken sewing classes!
Love the look of that pattern, is the pattern available? It is so good there are knitters like you, I really love visiting your TH-cam segments, they are always helpful and fun, thank you ,
It's out of print, unfortunately, and because of when it was published, is not out of copyright. It's possible you might be able to find a copy for sale online via ebay or etsy, etc., but it might take some time to do so.
My grandmother (born in 1892 , lived until 1979) taught me to knit at age 7. I never saw her in slacks, pants or a swimsuit. She was very proper and thought the bikinis in the 60-70’s were obscene. I wonder what she would think of todays thongs? She also was extremely strong from farm work but would not be caught uncovered, she got her bachelors degree and became a dietitian and started school lunch programs in westchester county in NY state . Strong women .
Do you need to block brioche stitch sweaters? If so, how????
Question.
So I''m so glad you mentioned that you are knitting your 1960s cardy in a smaller size due to having heavier weight yarn, because that's exactly what I've just started doing. Do you have a video about that? I tried searching your videos, because I knew I'd heard you speak about it, so I knew it was possible, I'm just wondering if there is anything I need to account for other than stitch count in the smaller size, lengths in numerical size I'm aiming for (for example, I'm making a M jumper using size S stitch counts)?
I can work out in my head that it is going to work for the front and back panels, and for the sleeves, I just can't work out if there is anything I need to take into account for joining the sleeves to the body.
Anyway, thank you for this video, I love a casual friday.
Stitch gauge:row gauge proportions tend to remain consistent, but it's always good to verify that shaping done over a large number of rows (like for sleeves) is going to work in order to get the sleeve size/shape you want with the row gauge you have. Even when you match stitch gauge with a yarn substitute of the same weight, you don't always hit row gauge. I do have a video on re-calculating shaping if you have a different row gauge or need a different length for a shaped area. Just do a check to make sure it's all going to work out with your row gauge.
@@RoxanneRichardson You are an absolute star, thank you so much, I just knew you'd be able to point me in the right direction.
What a cool story about your grandmother!
To save yourself some yarn, you could make the sleeves in your vintage sweater 3/4 length sleeves... very fashionable and I think it would fit the silhouette of the sweater nicely.
The reason I'm knitting the sleeves top down (after working the sleeve cap bottom up) is so that if I don't have enough yarn to do the full length sleeves, I can do 3/4 length. It's not my preferred length for a sleeve (fingering weight for a sweater is barely usable in the climate I live in), so I don't want to plan for a 3/4 length sleeve from the start.