Vintage crochet - successes and failures

In my previous post on vintage crochet, I said I'd show some of the problems I've faced coping with vintage patterns.
I've been fascinated by gloves for a while now, and there are a number of vintage crochet glove patterns available.  I also gained a few crocheted examples in my amazing haul of vintage auction gloves that I mentioned in my last post.

Crocheted gloves from the auction.

The glove patterns suffer from the common problems - no real gauge given. The yarns are out of manufacture, and it is difficult to research equivalents. The size it is intended to make isn't often stated, and they have the loosest of instructions for larger or smaller sizes, usually written in two sentences at the very end of the pattern, where it is easy to overlook.

I tried a few glove patterns before I got as far as a thumb. One required me to make a very long chain and then join ensuring it didn't have a twist, which I find tricky, and after three attempts to start those ones I'd just crocheted three möbius strips.  With another I have no idea what size hook and thread it wanted, because my attempts either made such long starting wrist measurements that it would go round twice, or wouldn't get near it. I'd look at the small attempt, try a larger yarn - and suddenly be swimming in glove. Hmm. I still like the way that glove is supposed to work, so I want to make it work. 

Finally went back to a long chain start but worked it in foundation chain, which made keeping it from twisting significantly easier. 

Once that hurdle was cleared, the rest of the wrist and palm part of the gloves was simple. The thumb wasn't too hard, although I'm not sure I like the finished shape. But the fingers!

Vintage glove pattern, take one. Made from leftover baby hat cotton.

Oh, the fingers. The first one turned out ok: although it didn't fit well, it looked the right proportions. I'm still not exactly sure what went wrong with the weirdly misshapen tube that is the second finger. 

Patterns without a fixed gauge are far easier, and I've had more success with them - such as this crocheted jabot.

Crocheted Jabot from vintage pattern

Much happier with this! 

Vintage gloves and Christmas gloves

I love vintage clothes but suffer from one major drawback when it comes to buying them: I'm overweight.
Truth be told, even if I got down to my ideal target weight, I'd still be built on somewhat hefty lines for most vintage clothes. So when we were at an auction, the only things I thought might fit me were a men's dinner shirt and vest (I was correct; they are great) and gloves. As a result, I got a bit trigger-happy with my bids on gloves. I ended the day with 27 more pairs of vintage gloves than I'd started with.

Many vintage gloves - these ones fit me.

More vintage gloves - these ones are a bit tight.

Even more vintage gloves- these ones don't fit at all

My mother got quite excited when I posted some photos of these after I'd bought them and when she was over for my sister's wedding she tried on a few pairs. She fit into and took some lovely small kid gloves.

Vintage kid gloves. 

She also liked the look of some chamois gloves, and I agreed to decorate them with some embroidery as a Christmas present. I was happy to have gloves that weren't a fantastic fit given to a new home, and I always like giving gifts that I've spent some time and love embellishing.

These fit me but are a little short in the fingers, so I was happy to gift them.

  I decided on a small spray of fern stitch leaves and colonial knot berries to make a pattern around the hem of the cuff. Very Christmas gloves.

The decorated gloves.

A close up of the embroidery.

Among the gloves I bought were a few with embroidery; unfortunately those ones were too small for me:

The most gorgeous embroidered kid gloves. It looks like tambour chain to me. 

Lovely embroidered vintage gloves. Shame these were too small.

The next glove project is to select some of the many cream pairs that fit me - see the first photo, above - and embroider them in the style of these ones.

A Thank-You Hat

This year I was teaching 9 periods out-of-faculty. Even though this was in TAS, my first area of qualification, I haven't taught it for years, and hadn't taught any of the projects I was asked to teach. Suddenly in the workshop with classes in front of me and lots to learn, I was pretty well lost.

Luckily I had a colleague come to the rescue. Show me what to do. Come to my rescue with questions I couldn't answer or resources I couldn't find. Come into my class and help my students. Encourage, support, and inspire me.

Where would we be without colleagues like that.

So I wanted to make her something for Christmas. Something to show my gratitude and give her something my time and skill created, to pay for all the time and skill she shared with me.

Sorry for the photo. It was late at night when I finished and I had to gift it the next day. She loves it though, which is all that matters.

Vintage crochet - the introduction

Tanith has been powering out blog articles this month and has made me feel lazy. As I'm at a point where I need to scrounge for photos before I can do many more, I've filled in with a post where I can grab the photos from the net!

Vintage crochet patterns are lovely and surprisingly easy to find. 
I get lots through the reprints done by Bramcost Publications - you can order their stuff through Amazon, and I always get the parcels from them weeks ahead of the shipping estimate.  Another good source is the searchable newspaper archive Trove, which now has the Australian Women's Weekly. (I wish it had been so during my thesis, but never mind. Those hours I spent going through the AWW on microfilm are a source of fond memories and lots of 1940s short stories.)

AWW, Feb 4 1953. An example of the sort of patterns you can find.

They now have a new trial interface for the Australian Women's Weekly here, which makes searching for craft patterns so much easier. You can also get all wistful about the patterns, particularly dress patterns, that are described and pictured but are to be sent away for...

Send away... annoying words to read. AWW, 29 Oct 1958

Trove also has the Illustrated Sydney News and the Australian Town and Country Journal, which have the advantage of being very old, totally out of copyright, but I have to admit the quality isn't amazing and it lacks the cool trial interface of the AWW. 

Jan 4 1905, Australian Town and Country Journal.

 See what I mean?

Of course, vintage patterns also have some drawbacks - the biggest being the complete lack of gauge. Modern patterns almost always have this, except for afghans or scarves or items where the finished size can vary and it doesn't make a lot of difference. Vintage patterns almost never do, and the ones that occasionally do are striking for that alone.

A tension given! A miracle. AWW, 24 Aug 1946

A lot of patterns just give the hook size (sometimes in a specific brand) and the thread/yarn details. The pattern above gives way more details than many.  Without knowing enough about the yarn (and often they are out of manufacture; one of the good things about fine thread work is that a No 20 crochet cotton is much the same today as in 1940) and no tension gauge given, working out what you are making will be too small or too big often doesn't happen til mid-way through - or even the end.

As a result, vintage crochet requires a lot of trial and error. I'll show some of the trials, errors and successes in a later post.