Who doesn’t long for the days when all knitters were real knitters and demonstrated good taste? When McCall’s Needlework and Crafts first introduced the timeless “Shapeless Shaggy Vest”! This gem was knit from Unger’s Gespa using US size 17 needles. The gauge: a speedy 1.33 stitches/inch! Can you say “Kewl”? (See detail below.)
I feel sorry for young knitters today who can no longer find patterns, yarns, or needles like these.
But, let us not be blue. Turn our minds back once again and recall the days of yore when young knitters, like my mother and I, eagerly flipped open the pages of the July/August 1981 issue. How we squealed in delight when we discovered long, boxy sweaters featuring intarsia names on the chest!
Mom looked at me and said: “It’s you, Lu! See, Betsey Johnson knit your nickname, ‘Lu’, not just once, but twice on the child’s sweater!”
I told Mom I’d knit myself one if she would chart out “Natalie” and knit one for herself. We giggled!
Oh, how I love to leaf through my old copies and sigh, remembering those days of knitting excellence, when knitters concentrated on mastering the craft and creating heirlooms using only the finest of yarns!
1. I wasn’t able to get a clear photo of this fur, but you can get an idea of the furriness in the image to the left.
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Lucia Liljegren: Copyright 2005-2007 Rights to all site content including knitting patterns, generators and haikus reserved.
I’m laughing out of my chair over here….
Comment by Carrie — 10/26/2005 @ 2:40 pm
Can you please make a pattern generator that will correctly chart “GAIL” (or any name) right smack in the middle of the weater? Preferrably with the G and the L right over each of my breasts. That’d be swell. Thanks!
Comment by Gail — 10/26/2005 @ 4:32 pm
Great idea!
Maybe if add duck, geese, watermelon and log cabin capability, we can recreate the beauty and wonder that was knitting in the 80s!
Comment by lucia — 10/26/2005 @ 4:35 pm
Oh, my god, it could have GAIL, with a big log cabin in front, with a geese flying through the sky!
(Kevin did order me a sweater from the latest Signals catalog that involves sheep and fences. But only because my old sheep sweater I bought in 1998 from the mall gave up its last ghost this year.)
Comment by Gail — 10/27/2005 @ 10:49 am
I think, with geese flying over mountains on the chest of sweater would be wonderful!
As I am somewhat flat chested, I think I shall settle for a field of intarsia corn stalks.
Oh, how I long for the past glories of the 80s!
Comment by lucia — 10/27/2005 @ 10:52 am