Water nymph or the knitted bathing suit of the 30's

 

From sexy back details, fancy stitched eye candy, striped and checkered frolics, cute two-tone combinations and fun colour blocking, to matching accessories and simply ridiculous beret & pompon additions - you name it , the 1930's knitted bathing suit will have it. 

They also have their detractors, and I have heard them categorized as deeply unflattering, lacking the necessary support for the womanly attributes, and of course the wool content is frowned upon nowadays for being itchy and to do with concerns of how it behaves in  water. 

Whilst these are all valid points, in my book there's simply no hotter swimwear and there's no itch as itchy as the urge of owning a bathing suit such as the beautiful examples in these patterns.

cca 1934 swimsuit, via cemetarian etsy



 
1934 swimsuit knitting pattern via Pamoolah etsy


1938 bathing suit via thevintagepatternfiles.blogspot.co.uk


 via K D Wildflowers pinterest


1930's swimsuit via Baby Dee Vintage Knitting & Crochet.

 
 via gaskella.wordpress.com

via barbaraknitsagain.blogspot.co.uk
 

1930 knit swimsuit via cemetarian, etsy

via needlewoman.etsy


via atticmagpie etsy

via adeline'sattic.tumblr

Oranges, greys and another 30's knit

Here is another finished project, a 30's blouse inspired by the above image, fished from this blog, definitely one worth following if you're into vintage 30's to 50's fashions and knitwear, with the host often posting many vintage patterns for free.

I noticed that this specific pattern is actually available for purchase here inf anyone case is interested, my blouse is however only based on its visual clue.

Mother came pretty close this time, with a great trompe l'oeil approximation of a lacy design which is more than convincing. It worked really well with the beautiful mulberry silk yarn used (dk weight) which I'm over the moon with.

On the down side, some things still went wrong, like the arm length. Yep, don't know what happened there. 

Also mother is yet to conquer her fear that I won't be able to get things past my shoulders ( in spite of having been "gifted" with the narrowest ones one could get), and as a result a properly fitted waist continues to elude her knits, which can be a bit of a spoiler when it comes 30's blouses. 

A string has been added to compensate but psychologically speaking is counteractive :).  Still, the weight of the silk makes this fall naturally "blousy " so the result isn't too bad. 

I'm going to be happy wearing it as it is, and I think it looks great paired with the muddy greys of this modern jacket and skirt (nope, not trying to camouflage against dirty carpet, though I might need to come back to this idea in future posts).

Junior vest

Well, not too much time could pass without a knit post on this blog. Children's wear though is not sometimes that gets featured here at all, in spite of scoring very high on my list of very admired garments. And how could it? I haven't got children of my own, and I myself slide every day further from the blessed age of innocence, with the terrible risk of looking like a mutton dressed in lamb should I indulge my passion...Still, today is no such day.

 

This is due to to the fact that vintage children fashions of the 20's and 30's largely copied adult ones, to the extent that may times children looked like miniature adults. So, I thought, this could work the other way around too :). 

Then, discovering the same neckline in adult patterns from the 20's and early 30's, I realized that I was more than legitimate in my wishes, and nothing else stopped this one become a reality.

Here it is, pictured without the belt, I took this pic as in the ones where the vest is worn the texture is very hard to make out. 

The vest was knitted in Rowan Felted Tweed DK, a shade called Rage (?!), and the yarn itself is a mixture of wool, alpaca and viscose. 3 balls (150g) were enough for this. 

Mother reports an easy knit, she really enjoyed the yarn. Which is good, since I'm going to want the skirt next :)

Triangles and paprika

Here is the next one in the project pile, a blouse in paprika/rusty red and blue mohair. I have no idea what the original colour scheme was, I image something a lot tamer (pale yellow plus brown, or perhaps pale green plus dark green??), but I thought my choice was positively vintage, if  rather intense. 

It should suit an Autumn, but I must be careful with the blues. 

I long for blue, probably because I can't wear it much as most shades look disappointingly bad on me. Still, I thought I could risk an accent. In retrospect I am not 100% sure it was the right shade as the contrast seems particularly vivid, but I think it works overall. It kinda has to, now.

What about the comparison test? The original is crochet, but mothers talents and current eyesight don't go that far. Due to the texture of the mohair, my blouse looks bigger/heavier when in fact it is light as a feather. 

I would have like the blue triangles better defined and only stitched down on the one side, closer in that to the inspiration source, but for some reason mum decided to proceed otherwise.

They are not coming down either as much as in the 30's pic, this is partly to do with insufficient yarn (the blue being a remnant from another project) and partly with the fact that the waist line is really high on this blouse. I felt it was a bit too high to be correct as it sits right below the breasts, empire like, nearly mid way through the blouse. We usually encounter the opposite problem of not being able to place a waist high enough, but not this time :)

I wish I had taken pics without the belt for this to be more apparent - and to check if indeed it looks the way I see it in the mirror!. In any case, in order to correct what I believe to be a departure from the original style I used the belt - produced for a different item - and placed it slightly lower, at the base of the current waistline and where I think the waistline should be. It does the trick, but creates a bit more ruffle around.
The sleeves are slightly longer, and I had pulled them up to create puffiness around the upper arm, but they had slid down again by the time of taking the pics. All in all, it may not be perfect to a "t" but I am pleased. Hurray again to long distance knitting!

 Outfit:

30's inspired top, knitted in a blend of kid mohair and silk - 

the blue one is Debbie Bliss Angel in the shade 08 

(this was called anything from Denim to petrol, air force blue and soft navy !!!!)

70's wool pleat skirt, etsy;

70's rust suede shoes, bought at a vintage fair, because I love this shade 

and the style looks to me very 30's/40's.

The missing blouse

Remember this? It all spurred from the image above. I had started by planning to have the blouse done (left hand side), then naturally needed a skirt to go with it. When that was done too, there was just about enough yarn left for a 1936-1937 style cardigan which took the ensemble to the new heights of a trio.

Mine is not quite so wide at the base and sleeves as in the pattern below right due to the fact that there was a limited amount of yarn left. It came out like something in between the two shown here, and it has raglan sleeves too, though it's hard to tell in that pic.

When I first showed it on this blog last November I photographed the skirt and cardigan only (as above) and the left the blouse out as I hadn't put any buttons on it, and I was waiting for some vintage glass cuties to turn up in the post. Well, those turned up a bit of a disappointment, far too tiny and the wrong shade of green. I eventually abandoned the hunt for the shade of lime that I was fantasizing about in terms of an ideal contrast with the yarn, and settled for simple mother of pearl buttons, which, if less exciting, at least go with the detail in the long cardigan and do the job of keeping the short sleeve blouse closed.

 

As you can see mother had to slightly modify the design and while I still have the fitted waist band, my blouse fastens all the way down from neck to waist with functional buttons. We kept the sweet little pocket (I need a tiny pocket square to go in there), and the detail is repeated on the opposite side of the skirt.

It was mother's favourite yarn to work with so far, a mix of 75% wool and 25% silk that lent itself beautifully to the task at hand. 

As for me, I am loving the end product, it turned up pretty much how I wanted, looks and feels great, has a lovely texture while remaining fine enough, it's easy to wear and, as with most knits, I feel at my most natural while doing so.

Olive is coral and I'm crazy about vintage sportswear

 My husband calls me Olive. You can see why.

Knitted polo t-shirt in coral & cream mohair

Ah! aspirations..."far cry" comes to mind. None of the panache, none of the grace of the original model reflects on me in the slightest. 

So what if my keds actually match my sport top? My joy of owning both comes across, surely, if only rather disjointed...:)

Red seams

This is how my cardigan from the previous post was supposed to turn out.
Only that it didn't :).  It turned out like this:

Not only is it a lot longer but it forms an unfortunate gap in the middle of the bust. I will try and resew the buttons to see if I can overcome this problem.

Here I have folded it in on the inside to get closer to the wanted length.

I have actually taken these pics in order to prove to my mother, who has knitted it for me, that things are not really that bad (she wasn't chuffed when she saw it first time around) but I'm afraid I'm falling rather flat.
Mum is still not happy with it at all, and will redo it for me in the summer when I go home.

 

Since it seemed that I needed a little bit more than funny faces to "work" this, I thought I'd try these seamed tights I bought a while back but never gave a go. Not at all authentic, I know, but fun nevertheless.

Spring fashions

The spring is here, and so is this beautiful dress to go with it. There is a whole saga around this dress, and very emotionally charged too. I thought I'd share with you the sweet-bitter taste of this latest project that was to be the perfect dress...
Sure enough, every time I look at the picture that inspired it, I think that dress is perfect.

I spent months hunting knitting silk that wouldn't cost a fortune, would be the right thickness, quantity and color etc. The dress in the inspirational pic is knitted in 2 shades of green: with the eyes of my mind I had envisaged this coral and cream beauty...Coral proved impossible to get, so I settled for cream with olive green. But olive green proved elusive too, so I thought I'd try a brick shade instead. The accent color I purchased and had delivered straight at my mother's proved to be too thick, and she bought something else herself, going back to the initial olive green plan, but in a shade that I didn't get to check out. 

Enough to produce major anxiety: I guess I am a bit of a control freak in these matters, because I know there are a very limited number of projects left in the bag, and I really don't want things to go wrong, so I am trying very hard to give them the best chance of succeeding.

Anyway, that was that. The dress was completed, mother tried it on my sister, she came to the conclusion that several things didn't work, she unraveled most of it and did it again. Once finished and happy with the result, she hand washed it - the yarn instructions recommended hand washing - and the silk changed color, lengthened and became shiny! She ended up putting it in the washing machine not knowing what else to do, which interestingly enough restored the length and the matte finish, but the color change remained permanent.

Now the trouble was the accent color purchased didn't work anymore with the new color of the main dress, so she had to improvise again, adding a bit of black to it. Personally I don't see how that helps, but then I didn't see that yarn knitted without the black in it, so it could have very well been worse. Perhaps a different shade of green would have worked better with the new pink...But the bottom line is that instead of a cream dress with olive accents I now have a pink dress with a green and black mixture in the cuffs and so.
Now this wouldn't be too bad if the pink suited me. Sadly, it doesn't. I look washed out and sallow. It's a funny shade as well, looks cold in some lights, warm on others. The green in it helps a bit, but not a great deal. I was told the new combination is far more authentic looking. While I agree the pink is more vintage sympathetic, that alone doesn't make it look good on me.

As you probably can tell by now, the yarn itself is very strange. Rosario, made in Portugal, it is 100% silk according to the manufacturer. I don't know if by any chance someone has tried this yarn as well? The fiber is very short, porous, matte, and bits kept flaking of as it was knitted and also now during wear. I really don't know what kind of silk this is, what exactly it is made of. From close up the knit looks as if I had the dress for years and years and washed it again and again - basically worn.

On the bright side it does mold to the body shape and drape well. Bearing is mind this was knitted from a picture! at long distance, based on my measurements only, without a pattern, I believe this dress is very near perfection in terms of fit. Sorry for the even more pics than usual, they are for my mother to see. As I said the fit criteria is fully met, and the dress feels absolutely lovely on and wears beautifully - I do actually believe it's better in reality than in the pictures from this point of view.
The other day when I wore it I received a ton of compliments, people stopped me in the street to say what a fabulous dress it was, and that who made it was an artist. Mum was chuffed about this!
It is a fabulous dress indeed, I just wish I would make it better justice.

In terms of actual comparison with the original pic, again things are sadly not to my advantage. Most to do I believe with the body shape difference between me and the model. She is very wide in the shoulders and quite a bit taller and bigger judging by the size and number of those buttons. My narrow shoulders don't quite fit the bill so perhaps this "to be perfect" dress was style wise a crooked choice from my part from the very beginning.
The dress I have appears also less wide at the bottom, and the general shape  of the original one is more straight up and down - I see no reason for not obtaining that on my ruler (if pear) shaped body- here perhaps a closer effect would have been obtained with a heavier yarn ans a slightly more A shaped skirt? Or really is  it all dictated by those shoulders? 

Everything else is rather minor: it is a bit too long, my fault entirely, worried that it wouldn't come out too short I went the opposite way. The centre panel doesn't have the same length as in the pic, but within being thicker than the rest of the dress that's probably for the best. I would have like the cuffs wider, and the mid panel wider too at shoulder level, more in keeping with the original. The belt is not right either. To some extent these aspects are correctable, and to me also very important, because I think details like these bring authenticity, so getting them right is no small matter.

So there it is, totally grilled by me in a manner that makes me look completely ungrateful. I assure you that I am not, and I appreciate it for what is is, a beautiful dress in its own right, beautifully executed,  a great result obtained in difficult circumstances. Which is even more daunting, as it tells me the vision I had could be realized...but it wasn't realized now.