Tag: 1970s

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Sewing Together a Cowl

Lately, I’ve been a bit obsessed with knitting cowls in stranded knitting. They are easy projects with a good stretch of nice straightforward knitting, enough that it’s now one of those projects that are done just when you get started. I knit cowls by knitting in the round until the piece is long enough, around a meter, then twisting one end 180 degrees and sewing the two ends together. The resulting cowl has a very nice drape around the neck, fits loosely, and can be formed to drape as you like it. And, it’s a good way to try out a color pattern to see what it looks like one a bigger surface.

Here, I’ll show you how I sew a cowl together. I am using my Memory Cowl to show this step, the pattern for this will be published when the pattern is finished and has been tested (if you are interested in being notified when I have a test, you can sign up here). Memory Cowl is a relative of Memory Vest, and you can read the story about that pattern here. Both patterns are based on a child’s vest my grandmother, Judith Harvest, knitted in the mid-1970’s.

I cast on using an ordinary long-tail cast on, then just knit in the round according to the diagram until the cowl looked like this:

Then, I twist one end 180 degrees:

And this is what it looks like with the 180 degree twist and the ends brought together, ready to sew:

I sew using a kind of grafting that I found by improvising. It’s a way to graft the open, live stitches on to the cast on edge. I find this technique a lot easier than true graftign, where both sides have live stitches.

The way I do it is as follows, and is also shown in the video below:

  • Sew from back to front through the live stitch
  • Sew through both “legs” of the stitch on the other edge. Note that I sew into the stitches of the first stranded knitting round, not the one-color round as that is the cast on
  • Sew into the live stitch from the front and drop it from the needle
  • Repeat for all stitches (and you may find a nice rhythm where sew from the front-drop stitch-sew from the back becomes one motion).

I don’t worry about correct tension as I sew – after some stitches, I go back and pull the yarn so the tension is correct, and after that is done, the seam becomes quite invisible.

When all stitches are sewn together, sew in the end and the project is done.


PS: Sorry about my garden hands. I scrubbed them but they still look quite interesting. But hey, at least it’s not as distracting as those knitting videos with long brightly colored fake nails, I think!

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Memory Vest

Publishing a knitting pattern always makes me happy. This one even more so, since it is the first pattern I publish on this web page, and it is a pattern that I’ve been thinking about for a long time!

Some years ago, when I lived in France, I visited my aunt, who lives outside Paris. We spent Christmas and New Year’s together, talking a lot about many things, including my grandmother – her mother – Judith Harvest.

I have mentioned Judith Harves before on this page, and also the small stranded vest that she knit during the first half of the 70’s. When I visited my aunt that Christmas, she let me have the small vest that had been sitting in her attic for many years. That became the beginning of a much larger project for me. Here is the original and an almost-copy that I made:

The child’s vest from the first half of the 70’s. Judith Harvest’s original on the right and my heathered version on the left.

The vest is interesting because its patterning does not belong to one single knitting tradition, but incorporates elements from several different traditions.

Judith spent all of World War II in England, where strict rationing of yarn and clothes were in place. Before the war, in the 20’s and 30’s, Fair Isle knitting became hugely fashionable. The fancy Fair Isle garments were very colorful, but the colors were coordinated and used in patterned bands that were repeated.

Wartime knitting became extremely colorful. In many cases, it was not hard to tell that the colorful expressions were a necessity because of scarcity. Seen from the present, some of the wartime knitting is just beautiful, for example the cardigan at the bottom of this post in Susan Crawford’s old blog. The colors never repeat, but are visually held together by repeating the same pattern throughout.

Judith never let odds and ends of yarn go to waste, and a lot of garments that she made during the 60’s and 70’s are made largely with leftover yarns knit in Fair Isle-type patterns, sometimes with clear Scandinavian influences. For example, I’ve seen some of the small geometric forms from the Memory pattern in patterns from Norway.

A radical new knitting style emerged in Denmark in the 70’s – “hønsestrik”. The direct translation of the term is “chicken knitting”, a comment directed at the men at the “Red rooster” publisher who had rejected publication of the book that detailed the new knitting. Chicken knitting was an often chaotic mix of colors and shapes, rebelling against “big yarn” and its control of individual creativity.

I’m quite sure that Judith immediately recognized the creativity of chicken knitting, and she used elements of it in her own knitting during the 70’s. I also quite sure that she did not approve of its political messages.

The patterns from little vest became much less chaotic in my Memory Vest, since I’ve limited the colors, only using a limited palette. I decided on the name Memory Vest because I found a photo in one of Judith’s albums where my cousin is wearing the little vest. The picture was taken during a trip to England in 1975 where they visited the small town Watlington (in Norfolk).

Judith spent most of WWII alone in Watlington. Her husband, William Wildman, was killed in 1940, and his namy is seen on the monument. On the second photo, my cousin is leaned against a stone that bears the words “In Memory” and wearing the vest.

A page from Judith Harvest’s photo album, 1975.

I decided to make my version of the vest in women’s sizes, and the pattern has 7 sizes from XS to 3X, with a finished chest measurement of 83 to 147 cm (32 3⁄4 to 58 inches). Here, my sister is wearing the pink version with a white shirt under, the most classic of vest looks

Memory Vest, the pink version

Being a redhead, she obviously went for the pink version (what is it with pink and redheads?) although I had planned for her to wear the blue one! But we managed to get pictures with the blue version too, both with the classic white shirt and in a casual version with a long sleeve tee under

Memory Vest, the blue version

The Memory Vest is knit with Rauma Finull, which is an excellent yarn for colorwork. Because it comes in so many colors, but also because it blooms nicely when washed, holding together the knitted fabric. The vest is steeked, and when knitting with Finull, it is not necessary to reinforce the steeks, the steek stitches themselves and the picked up edges hold together just fine.

I have put together kits for the Memory Vest, in three color combinations: blue, pink, and green. You can find them in our online store:

It is also possible to buy the pattern only, you will find it here. You can of course work the vest using other yarns than Rauma Finull. Finull is 175 m / 50 g (191 yards / 1.77 ounces), and the vest is worked at a gauge of 25 stiches x 27 rounds = 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 inches). It is possible to use a more slippery yarn, but then it is wise to reinforce the steeks with a couple of machine seams before cutting.

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Memory Vest & 3 Needle Bind Off

I’ve been working on a modern version of a child’s vest, knit by my maternal grandmother during the first half of the 70’s.

My maternal grandmother, Judith Harvest, was born in the northern Danish town of Aalborg in 1908. In so many ways, she is my entry point into historical knitting. Although she died when I was little, I grew up with her knitting. And of course, my mother taught me everything in knitting that her mother taught her. I am currently working on finding out more of my grandmothers’ story. So this is definitely not the last time she will be mentioned on this page.

I first tried knitting the patterns from the small vest in 2014:

The child’s vest from the early 70’s. Judith Harvest’s original on the right and my muted version on the left.

Now, I’ve dug up my notes on the vest, and I’m going to turn them into an actual knitting pattern. It will be called “Memory Vest” and will come in women’s sizes.

The colors of the original are both garish and somewhat uncoordinated. And that is not a criticism – it just goes to show that my grandmother grabbed into her yarn basked and used whatever came out. She did not plan patterns out beforehand. Look at the large red and yellow pattern band on the top part of the original. It is not centered around the V-neck, that’s what happens when you just knit! She must have thought that it was not a big problem.

My first adult version of the vest is in cool aqua shades with a light gray background. I am knitting it with Rauma Finull

And that finally brings me to the topic I was actually going to write about in this post: how I close shoulder seams using a 3 needle bind off. It is basically a variation on the standard bind off (or cast off, whatever you like to call it) where you knit 2 stitches and pass the first over the last, knit one, pass over, and so on.

In a 3 needle bind off, two stitches from two different needles are knit together (instead of just knitting one in the standard bind off). The 3 needle bind off allows you to knit two pieces together with a strong and slightly elastic join, perfect for a shoulder seam.

When the body is finished, I turn the work inside out. Here, the stitches for one shoulder are held, the front and back stitches each on their separate needle (or actually two ends of a circular needle in this case).

A third needle is inserted through one stitch from each of the two needles holding the stitches – the first stitch on one needle and the front stitch on the other

Then, the two stitches are knit together

Repeat for the next two stitches, that leaves two stitches on the right needle

Just like in a standard bind off, pass the first stitch (that was worked first) over the last

One stitch was bound off. Then, knit together the next two

And pass the previous stitch over. Keep going, knitting two together and passing the previous stitch over, until all stitches have been worked

Break the yarn and pull the end through. The bind off is finished.

When I worked my blue version of the Memory Vest, the stitches to be bound off in shoulder seams were all grey. If you find yourself needing to 3 needle bind off color-knitted rows, the best thing is to work in the color of the stitches, holding the yarns in the same way as when doing colorwork. The yarn used for the bind off will show just slightly on the right side.