In the 1960s The Beatles made a film of their magical Mytsery tour- featured in the film , and worn many times afterwards- is a wonderful granny square vest waistcoat worn by Paul McCartney.
Its made in wonderful muted colours and we feel that it would be a great garment to wear today, and so we have created a pattern for you to make it yourself
You can find the pattern to purchase in our ebay store by clicking here-
| | | |
| | |
We have just sourced 2 more vintage christmas reindeer design jumper vintage knitting patterns. They are so popular for the festive season and as these are knitted in DK and aran then they don't take too much time to make!
You can choose your own colours- you can have green or red as a background and the reindeers as cream or fawn perhaps- or you could make them the other way around and have the background as cream or a pale colour with dark red, green or even classic black reindeer....
This one is made with DK and has a very handsome stag design
This one is made with a chunkier aran and has pretty snowflake designs too
There is still time to knit these for your loved ones or as gifts for the festive season- you can find the patterns to purchase as printouts here (DK) and here (aran) and we hope to have them on the VIntage Visage website soon as pdf downloads for those of you who don't like waiting for the postman! Enjoy!
| | | |
| | |
Here is another of our wonderful fair isle design vintage knitting patterns. This one is particularly handsome as it uses the most beautiful range of colours.....
It dates from the late 1940s , early 1950s and as written fits a 37-39 inch chest. We think you could use 4 ply for this as it uses old number 9 needles which are equivalent to 3.75mm modern needles- but please do check your tension by making a tension square before starting!
If you have never knitted a fair isle design before but would like to make one then don't panic- its actually very easy as there are only ever 2 colours in each row. There are 2 secrets to successful fair isle. The first is in the colours you choose- if you are a nervous colour picker then its probably wise to stick to the colours given in the picture as that is most likely to have attracted you to the design in the first place.
If you would like to choose your own colours then bear in mind that you will need a main colour (traditionally the main is a neutral gray, beige/cream or black) and a selection of other colours. Colours can be chosen by placing balls or skeins of yarns together and then choosing the colours that you think go well together, or you can find a colour scheme from a picture you like from a magazine or a photo (landscapes or sunsets are good) and look at the colours that make up the photo and choose similar coloured yarn.
The second secret is how you knit the two colours across the row- the secret to fair isle is to make sure that the yarn not used in the stitch is not carried too tightly across the back of the stitches being knitted- in fact it should be quite loose. If it is tight then the knitting will 'bunch' in places and the design will look odd and distorted. try a tiny square before starting to practise.
If you like fair isle patterns and designs do check our our fair isle section of the blog which you can see at the right hand side of this blog in the long list....the patterns and more can be found by clicking here to browse and purchase at our Vintage Visage website...enjoy!
| | | |
| | |
This is a downloadable vintage knitting pattern for a mans Christmas reindeer design zipper jacket. Its made with chunky yarn and so knits up fairly quickly and easily.
It was originally made in grey, cream and black, but we think it would be wonderful with a festive red or green background instead of the grey......you could also make the reindeer design in red or green too!
Its a lovely winter warmer jacket, and would make a great gift to open on christmas day. And why not knit a chunky easy pull on hat to match!
The pattern is available at our website by clicking here, along with many other festive patterns too! Take a browse around......
| | | |
| | |
We have found 2 more wonderful 1930s mens 'onesies' one piece knitted swimming costume knitting patterns.....these patterns when knitted up make such fabulous outifts for period dramas and are also a real talking point if worn on the beach today! As with hte last ones we posted, just a word of warning to the uninitiated with knitted bathing costumes- when knitted wool gets wet, it absorbs water and so gets heavier.....and so the costume can droop (probably in all the wrong places!) if your tension isn't really tight!
Besides downloads from the Vintage Visage website, we also sell the patterns printed on lovely thick ivory coloured paper and sealed in a clear cello envelope from our Ebay store- it does cost more than the automatic download but they are perfect to give a little gifts and these patterns in particular should raise a smile from those who recive them! As with all our posts, we have given you a link to the patterns- this time on ebay, at the end of the post.
Enjoy these fab pics!
This one is made with stripes of colour and is reminiscent of an athletic strip...
This one is a plain colour with lovely thigh length shorts- we also give the instructions for a smaller 36 inch chest too.
Find the printed versions in our ebay store here - you will also find other mens and womens swimsuit patterns to download as pdfs here
| | | |
| | |
Vintage Fair Isle knitting pattern designs are another of our favourite types of knitting patterns. They were made popular in the 1930s in the UK when the then Prince of Wales started to wear them (he later became King and abdicated in 1937....).
They stayed popular in the 1940s as war broke out and rationing became widespread in the UK. Yarn and wool were in very short supply so ideas and designs were inspired by using small amounts of yarns. One of the best ways of doing this was in multicolour or 2 colour knitting and as Fair isle patterns change colour every couple of rows they were excellent for this.
Women often unravelled old jumper to get the yarn for the background main colour. There was an art to this- they unravelled it, then made it into hanks and steamed it to make it smooth and get rid of 'kinks'.
This is one of my favourites- I love the duck egg blue background colour and the lovely yellow and mauves which were quite unusual for the time. Many fair isles in the 1940s used quite natural colourings like the beiges and green and browns in the first photo. In the early 1980s, a small firm in the UK called 'Edina and Lena' successfully reproduced and had handknitted old fair isle jumpers with a range of pretty pastel colours which were very fashionable and sold at very high prices in exclusive shops in London and around the world.
Back to the 1940s though, fair isle designs popped up in may items- gloves, and even slippers- 'salvage your scraps' was one of the straplines of the time and these items helped women do just that, whilst of course provided the function of keeping warm when heating was in short supply too.....
More on 1940s designs and other fair isle patterns and designs soon- just click on the fair isle category if you want to see more.
| | | |
| | |
We love the range of old vintage mens swimming trunks knitting patterns. We have lots of different versions from the one pieces of the 1920s and 30s (I guess nowadays they would be called a 'onesie')
to the more dashing trunks of the later 1930s, 1940s and 1950s
What we especially like are the photos which show dashing and well honed chaps in an array of knitted swimming trunks which, as we have stated in the former blog about womens and children's knitted swimming costumes, look great for posing on the beach but may not stand up to inspection after they have actually been in the water...... Vintage knitted swimming trunks and beach shorts really need to have the tension pretty tight on the stitching as otherwise they can stretch as the wool can absorb the water and become heavy. But they can look fab- as can be seen by these pics
All of these and more can be found on our website- heres the link
Vintage mens swimming trunk patterns
- have fun browsing!
| | | |
| | |