Kinky Stockings!

Well, it’s fall. Oh, alright, technically not until 21 September, but leaves are starting to turn, die and fall off the trees (or turn, fall off the trees and die). Even here in Seattle, where it’s freaking 85 degrees and we’ve had only one day of rain since July 18th.

Those of you in the parade route of tropical storms are experiencing mid-monsoon season, from what I can gather. Hurricanes can show up through the end of, what, November? October? Nope, not gonna look it up. Sorry. But if you’re stuck at home, you might as well knit stockings.

I found these late summer stocking and sock patterns from the Australian Women’s Weekly dated 24 February 1965. (No, I’m not an idiot - their seasons are opposite of ours). The stocking patterns on page 18 are for some wonderfully lacy patterns. I haven’t knitted them - c’mon, if I waited to knit them before posting the patterns, we’d all be living in Keynes’ long run (i.e. dead). So I thought I’d post the patterns along with some other fun (!?!) stuff from that issue of AWW.

The cover shows a nice selection of stockings - none of them are actually included in the patterns to knit, but those brownish-stockings in the diamond pattern would be super-easy to make on ones own. All you need is a diamond pattern & you can make it garter or purl fabric. (Click to embiggen.)

More stocking/sock eye candy from this issue, and another diamond pattern that I like very much (Click to embiggen):

Now, I know everyone is anticipating the stocking patterns - but hold on. There’s some wonderful crap I found in this issue that I’m going to share. For example, there were labels and bookmarks for kids to put on their notebooks. Check out the first one - it has a proto lolcat photo. That cat looks like one surly drunk! The others pale in comparison to “Party Cat”. (I assume everyone understands to click on the photos to see a larger version - and you really do want to click on the next one.)

Here are some photos of the new ‘military look’ coming into fashion that year. I love the pointy plaid shoes, even though I’d never wear them. All that plaid... I don’t see anything exceptionally military by my definition, but I have no idea how the Australian military dressed in the early 1960s.

And some recipes - I love reading through old recipes. Sometimes they're almost Lovecraftian in the level of horror they can induce. This issue had a bunch of gingerbread recipes, some of them disturbing, and we all know I love to share disturbing.

The first page has some basic, decent-sounding recipes. The brandied-honey recipe sounds like a good idea and a nice thing for a chilly night.

The second has what I consider questionable entries. The coffee spice one, for example - coffee, chocolate and ginger... Or recipes that call for treacle (the Scotch gingerbread). And a pineapple upside down gingerbread - I don’t like anything pineapple upside down. Ugh.

I’m not sure about the lemon cheese pie, either - do people use gelatin in that way anymore? It’s made of hooves, you know.

Below is an interesting tale of Olde New Yorke, which sounded, well, rather like Olde New Yorke. No artisanal expensive crap in this story of the East Village. I liked the photos, too.

I love the description of the store on 14th; I always try to find stores like that. Big, sexy, rich cities like Seattle and Manhattan have done their best to eliminate those kind of businesses. Too bad - amazing treasures were to be had in that type of place.

Are you bored yet? Good. Here are the stocking patterns:

And finally, I want to make a product with the name “Dominex”. That’s a great name, whether it’s for pudding or personal ads (or both, I guess).

Seems wasted on a coat manufacturer, particularly since there are no leather straps and buckles and such.

Oh yeah, the Mary Elizabeth Braddon novel I was going to post is on Google now (in my defense, it wasn't 3 years ago when I last checked). So you can click on The Phantom Fortune if you wish to read it (this will take you to vol. 1 on Google books).

It's only been 10 months

Finally back on the interwebz, as they used to say somewhere at some point in time.

Apologies if you experience weirdness upon visiting the blog. I've been tinkering with a pre-designed template (because I'm too lazy to master html), but it came with some crap that I didn't want, and I haven't been able to disable it all yet. And I'm not entirely pleased with what I'm getting, but hopefully this is at least legible. Let us all pray to our various deities, or wish really hard (for those who eschew the gods) that I'll find it in me to fix it for once and for all.

The main reason for the long silence was that I was employed from September 2010 until April 2011. The job was a soul-consuming madness-inducing tribulation –but nonetheless I was working my ass off, in addition to the hellish commute (most of that time the round trip from the job was 2 hrs 40 minutes), simply trying to stay employed. All for naught, of course – everyone they hired in September they laid off just over six months later.

It’s taken me a few weeks to get things sorted, and to get in the knitting groove again. So I’ll have some things to post over the next while -- I've had more time to look through Australian newspapers for lots of old crap, er vintage & Victorian knitting patterns and the like, as well as  some 1930s stuff (‘cause that’s when the best designs were done if you ask me, or even if you didn’t).

'The like' consists of a novel written by Mrs Mary Elizabeth Braddon, author of "Lady Audley's Secret", one of my favorite Victorian novels, a rather lurid tale. Elizabeth Klett does a wonderful reading of it that you can access at Librivox. I know that some of the Librivox recordings are painful - in fact, some qualify as torture, but I assure you, Ms Klett does a fine job of reading this tale. It was a wonderful thing to listen to during a cold winter, knitting up shawls.

Good grief, have I digressed and in a most meandering fashion! The point is, I found an 1883 novel of Mrs Braddon's in one of the Australian newspapers, so I'll be posting it over the next few weeks. I haven't read it - it could be a real dog. If so, I'll be sharing the pain with y'all fine readers.

I have also knitted up a couple of lace patterns found in various fine down-under fish wrappers. One is from the Launceston Examiner dated 28 November 1893; it's from a ladies' column. It looks like shark fins more than anything else. Yes, yes, a variation on sawtooth edgings... but if you hold it with the points pointing upward, it looks like a line of baby shark fins.

A Young Reader: The following is an easy edging suitable for Shetland or other wool shawls. By Butterfly.

Cast on 3 sts.
Row 1: Sl 1, k 2.
Row 2 & every even row: Sl 1, knit across.
Row 3: Sl 1, yo, k2.
Row 5: Sl 1, yo, k3.
Row 7: Sl 1, yo, k4.
Row 9: Sl 1, yo, k5
Row 11: Sl 1, yo, k6
Row 13: Cast off 5, k2.

To continue in this way, do not knit a 'Row 14' but instead start again with Row 2. The instructions said to repeat from Row 2, but didn't include that last bit, so my first time around proved quite entertaining. The slipped stitches at the beginning of each row do not reduce the stretchiness of the edging - indeed, I cannot emphasize enough exactly how freaking stretchy this is. I chose to knit it in garter stitch - many olde timey edgings were, and of course that helped with the stretchy. Sample was knitted on US 6/4 mm needles with some fingering weight yarn. I blocked the bejeezus out of this edging.

The next is from the North Australian Supplement dated Saturday, 28 April 1888, and was found in the "Household" section.

Imitation English Thread Lace

Cast on 9 sts.
Row 1: K2, yo, k3, yo, k2tog, k2.
Row 2: Knit plain.
Row 3: K2, yo, k5, yo, k2tog, k1.
Row 4: Knit plain.
Row 5: K2, yo, k1, k2tog, yo x 3, sl 1, k2tog, psso, k1, yo, k2tog.
Row 6: K4, k1-p1-k1 in the 3 yos, knit plain the remaining sts.
Row 7: K1 ,k2tog, yo, k2tog, k3, k2tog, yo, k2.
Row 8: Knit plain.
Row 9: K1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k1, i2tog, yo, k3.
Row 10:  Knit plain.
Row 11: K1, k2tog, yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo, k4.
Row 12: Knit plain.

Again, I worked this in garter stitch for the sample. The pattern calls for 'knit plain', which I generally take to mean stockinette, but again, since I've seen many older edgings worked in garter, I decided to start with that. Sample is worked in Knit-Cro-Sheen (probably - unmarked thread, but the same weight) on US 3/3.25 mm needles for that extra-lace look. Actually because that was the first size that came to hand....

I thought this was an interesting lace - I've seen lots with big holes, but the thread/needle combination created something fairly impressive. And I have no idea which is the 'top' and 'bottom' edge of the lace; no illustration was provided, so I chose the side with the most shape as the 'bottom' edge. I didn't try to get a straight edge on both sides; I suppose one could use it as an insertion but since the pattern is different on the two edges I chose not to try that experiment.

I've also pulled some recipes from the Launceston Examiner, and hints for a woman about to be engaged from the North Australian Supplement in case someone out there is seeking personal advice from 1888.

Woman's World (by Butterfly.) Pudding Recipe.

I am told that the pudding you require is an Austrian (...); its name is Weichzel(?) strudel. The paste is made with egg and flour, and rolled out to the thinness of paper on a clean linen cloth. Have ready cherries (stoned), and spread them on the paste; sprinkle with fine sugar, nutmeg, and a little cinnamon. Then roll as for a "roley-poley" until the roll is between 2-1/2 in and 3 in thick; bend or twist it into a coil; place on a baking-tin well buttered, and put a little butter on the roll. This is often made with apples, sliced and cut into small pieces, when cherries are not in season.  {NB - the type was difficult to read at the beginning of the recipe, hence the parentheses.}

I suspect one could simply go to the grocery store and purchase some filo dough to use instead of experimenting with pastry recipes, but I haven't tried this one, so experiment at your own risk, folks!

Rice Waffles. - One cup of boiled rice, one pint milk, two eggs, butter the size of a walnut, half a teaspoonful of soda, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one teaspoonful of salt, flour, sufficient to make a thin batter. Bake in waffle irons.

Chocolate Cake. - Beat up 1/4 lb castor sugar with two eggs, then add very gradually the yolks of six eggs, two small cakes of chocolate grated, a little lemon peel, 1/4 lb of ground almonds, the whites of six eggs previously whisked to a stiff froth and 1 oz of flour; pour the mixture into a buttered mould, and bake.

 I haven't cooked up these either - the chocolate cake recipe certainly isn't the typical modern chocolate cake; I'm certainly curious to make that one. As for the rice waffles - well, let me know how that one turns out, okay?

The advice for engaged women (jpeg on the right, bottom row) is rather long & fairly uninteresting unless you have a mind sufficiently dirty to render the phrase "with a servant behind" mildly entertaining.

Jpegs are included below in case you think I've made a typo (or in case I have made a typo).

  

Crochet Miser's Purse

{Articles from The Young Ladies Journal, January 1901}

Purse: Crochet

Purse silk and a medium size steel hook are used for this purse. The stitches must be tightly and evenly worked.

Commence at one end with 3 chain, join round.

1st Row: 2 doubles into each stitch.

2nd Row: Work 1 double in the 1st stitch, 2 in the next, and so on, till the end of the row.

3rd Row: 2 doubles in every 3rd stitch.

4th Row: Increase in every 4th stitch by worked (sic) 2 doubles into the stitch.

5th Row: Increase in every 5th stitch.

6th Row: Increase in every 6th stitch.

7th Row: Increase in every 7th stitch.

8th Row: Increase in every 8th stitch.

9th Row: Increase in every 9th stitch.

10th Row: Increase in every 10th stitch.

Now continue to work without increase until you reach the opening, that will be measuring 2-1/2 to 3 inches from the first row according to the size you wish the purse to be.

For the opening, work backwards and forwards with 1 double into each stitch for about 1-1/2 inch. When this is done, begin to work in the round again, and work the same length without decrease as you did for the other end, then decrease in the same proportion as you increased. Sew a tassel to each end and slip on two steel, silver or gilt rings. A simple design may be worked in on each end in cross-stitch with silk of another colour, or with steel beads.


Description of Fashion Engravings

Bodice - Mercerised spotted velveteen makes up well in this style. The chemisette of lace is threaded through with the narrowest black ribbon velvet; this is attached to the tight-fitting lining on the right side, and is hooked over to the left. No bust seams are taken up in the velvet; it is strained over the lining, and what little fulness there is is gathered and sewn to the lining. The right side crosses over to the left, and fastens under a bow of ribbon velvet on the bust, which is connected by a strap to another bow at the side. The edge is trimmed with rows of ribbon velvet in two sizes.

The sleeves are trimmed at the top by velvet threaded lace, over silk, the edge being trimmed with ribbon velvet. Ruffles of lace finish the wrists.

Materials required: 2-1/2 yds velveteen, 5/8 yds lace 18 inches wide, 3-1/2 yds narrow velvet, 2 yds wider width, 3-1/2 yds for bow and waistband.

Recipes

Baked Apple Batter Pudding - 1/2 lb flour, 1 saltspoonful salt, 1 pint milk, 3 eggs, 3/4 lb apples, 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar, 2 oz butter. Make a smooth batter with the flour, salt and milk, mixing the flour to a paste, and gradually stirring in the milk; when quite smooth, add 3 eggs well beaten, butter a pie-dish, and pour in the batter; take the apples, peel and cut them in slices, put them in the batter with the sugar; place the butter on the top in small pieces, and bake for 3/4 hour. When baked, sprinkle sugar on the top, and serve very hot.

Boiled Celery - Cut the celery in convenient and equal lengths; boil in salted water until tender, but not watery; drain, and serve with white sauce. Put in a small saucepan a tablespoonful of butter, and when melted stir in as much flour; add a cup of boiling milk, graduatlly, so that there will be no lumping, season with pepper and salt, and pour over the celery.