Dresses, jackets and ensembles

Back at my late 1950s (?) Style counter catalogue, and this time I'm looking the section marked "Dresses With Jackets / Ensembles". Clearly this was an important element of dressmaking at the time, as it's the second tabbed section in the catalogue, after "Dresses" and its various subsections. Despite this being a winter catalogue, there are no new patterns in this section.

1145, on the section's front page, is the newest design

The dresses are almost all straight, there's only one with an option for a full skirt.

1127, with straight or full skirt

Most of the more recent patterns have loose-fitting jackets.

1137, with a loose, hip-length jacket

But there are a number of more fitted options as well, although these tend to be older patterns.

953 is a very fitted shape

There are also some shorter jackets.

968 has a waist-length jacket

Although the basic silhouette of the dresses remains the same, there are lots of variations in design details.

972 has a bodice detail to match the pockets

1024 also has under-bust detailing

1025 emphasises the neckline

As does 1031

1119 has bows and an interesting jacket back

Of the 27 patterns in this section, all but six are described as "Dress & Jacket". I have no idea why 1030 is described as a "Two-Piece" despite it being, well, a dress and a jacket.

The jacket can be made loose or fitted

This "Dress and Shortie Jacket" only goes up to a 38" (96.5cm) bust, so I'm guessing that it was intended as a younger style.

1126, definitely a more modern look

I'm also assuming that it would have counted as an 'ensemble', as the jacket can be made in a different fabric, whereas in all the preceding examples the same fabric is used for both pieces.

These must also have been 'ensemble' patterns, as they consist of three garments.

983, "Three-Piece"

1077, "Three-piece Suit"

1130,"Cardigan Suit & Blouse"

Including patterns for a dress and a full-length coat in this section seems a bit of a stretch, but I suppose that the implication is that you could create an ensemble by either making both in the same material, or lining the coat with the dress fabric.

1036 and 1046 combined in one illustration

Only a couple of the patterns in this section go up to a 44" (112cm) bust, but that is a subject for another post.

Progress of a sort

I've had lots to do this week (a situation which isn't going to change any time soon), so not much time for sewing or knitting. I have however got a little bit of both done, with one project going rather better than the other.

My summer version of Simplicity 4463 is coming along. I have made up the front and the back, joined them at the shoulders, and attached the sleeves and the facing. After the problem of Butterick 5997 I am always worried about V necklines ending up too low, so I raised this one a bit - and then worried instead about whether or not I could get my head through it! Happily, it has turned out just fine.

Happy with the front . . .

. . . and with the back

There's a lot of hand sewing to do next, so it will be a while before I have a completed dress.

I'm also continuing to work away on my Confidette bolero. I must admit, I'm not enjoying this pattern as much as I did Wondrella. The back and fronts were fine, but once they were joined together, I found the long rows (over 200 stitches) a real slog. Assuming that I do knit a second version in my 'good' wool, I think that I will knit the three pieces separately, and sew them together. This also means that I can do the whole thing in lever knitting.

Confidette progress

Yes, there are two balls of wool attached to the bolero in the above picture. I have changed the order of construction. Instead of knitting the main border and then the sleeves, I'm doing the sleeves first. Although I had a lot of wool left over from my first Wondrella, it turned out that I did need to buy an extra ball, and it was impossible to match the dye lot. The new lot doesn't look any different from the original, but in an abundance of caution I've decided to knit the body of the bolero in the original wool. If the new ball is a slightly different colour, it won't show so much in the stripes of the border.

I'm not thrilled with my pick-up-and-knit on the sleeves, either. It looks very loose, so much so that I think I will need to sew it slightly tighter - in which case I might as well have knitted the sleeves separately as well.

The join is very gappy

It looks messy on the inside, too

I'm not entirely sure that I have understood the instructions for the sleeve, either, and am bracing myself for having to frog it and try again. Hopefully with a better cast on. On the plus side, knitting the pattern in a basic acrylic before trying it in more expensive wool is currently looking like a very sound move!

Summer 1940

I have done some sewing and some knitting this week (I'm happy to report that the KnitPro Ginger needles continue to do the job splendidly), but not enough of either to write a blog post about. I might have got more done if I hadn't spent today with friends at a 1940s event at the National Waterways Museum. I wore my Liberty Butterick 2535 dress, and had a great time. So, in a nod to that, here are some 1940 summer dresses* from my Vogue counter catalogue. Click on any image to see a larger version.

Starting with the Vogue Special Designs.

S 4225

S 4238

Then the non-special designs which are new enough to merit a whole page to themselves.

8760

8845 (love that red fabric!)

The slightly less new, two to a page.

8706 and 8748

8725 and 8733

8735 and 8766

8749 and 8759

And finally, the designs squashed in three or even four on the page.

8267, 8409 and 8534

8642, 8658 and 8661

8683, 8688 and 8696

8273, 8599, 8682 and 8684

* - The catalogue is from December, so it isn't exactly awash with summer clothing. For the purposes of this post, I defined a ‘summer dress’ as something with short sleeves, drawn in a light coloured fabric  and/or worn with a large hat!

The good, the bad and the ugly

The last time I posted about my knitting, I mentioned how much I am enjoying the fact that this is something totally new to me, so there is lots to learn. Perhaps I should have been careful what I wished for, as this week has involved a lot of learning!

My knitting needle bag contains my mum's and grandmothers' needle collections, assorted cast offs (no pun intended) from other people, and some which I have bought for specific projects.

Inside my knitting needle bag

They are a mix of old and new sizes, mostly metal, a few plastic. Long-gone brand names like Milward and Aero feature heavily. For the most part, I have just used whatever pair I have found in there which are the right size and length.

My Wondrellas have been knitted on straight metal needles, with the sleeves done on circular metal needles of different lengths.

Wondrella needles

My Dahlia shawl started on straight metal needles, and quickly moved to straight bamboo which gave better control of the yarn. When the rows got too long for straight needles, I discovered interchangeable circular needles, in this case beech Basix from KnitPro.

Dahlia needles

I started Confidette on straight metal needles as normal, but eventually it was easier to switch to a circular needle. The pattern requires a longer circular needle for working the border than I had, so I bought this in Edinburgh and switched to it straight away.

This didn't feel very zingy to me

Sorry KnitPro, but I just couldn't get on with this at all. Even though I use metal needles most of the time, these ones just made my hands cramp up. Very odd.

My local fabric and wool shop has recently got a few interchangeable wood needles in, so once I felt well enough to venture out, I bought these.

These looked promising

The wooden tips were much more comfortable to use, and things were progressing nicely, until . . .

Aaargh!

This photograph was taken after I had managed to run an emergency lifeline through what I hoped was most of the dropped stitches. At some point the tip had detached from the cable, and I had been blithely knitting stitches which simply fell off the back end of the tip. About 60 stitches on a row of 210 were just hanging loose.

I did consider just frogging back to the lifeline below, but decided that I would at least try to save it. I had to transfer the remaining stitches off the tip and onto the lifeline, then reattach the tip to the cable and try to transfer the stitches back onto the needle from the lifeline.

Some of the stitches I had only caught partially or not at all, and for these I had to unravel them to the next row down and pick them up with a crochet hook. Once I had rescued all the stitches, I decided to unpick the row stitch by stitch and reknit it, to make absolutely certain that everything was properly in place. Needless to say all this took quite some time, but it did work.

Unsurprisingly, after all that, I wasn't very confident about continuing to use these needles. It was hard to photograph, but the thread for screwing in the cable seems to start quite a long way down the tip, so I'm not sure how well the two are fastened together.

The start of the screw thread is just visible right at the bottom

I turned to Ewe and Ply, who saved the day by speedily sending out a set of KnitPro Ginger tips and a cable. Like the Basix, these use a key to make sure that the tip is properly attached, and they are really comfortable to knit with.

Back on track

So this week I have learned that not all knitting needles are created equal, and that there's more to it than just grabbing the first pair of the right size from my bag. On the plus side, I'm now a fair bit more confident in my fixing skills if something goes wrong.