Crazy, Catty Stitching in 1884

In 1884 Mrs. Mary Haehnlen penned "A Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work".  In 24 pages she describes about 70 ornamental stitches, and combinations of stitches.  These combinations of stitches and their higglety pigglety placement is an extension of the art of crazy quilting, so popular in Mrs. Haehnlen's day.

Our friend Mary writes with a tone typical of craft publications from this period.  Assuming, and a little pompous, I really enjoy reading and working from these kinds of books.

From the Introduction:

"Where is no work more popular at the present time than Oriental or "crazy" work; though I don't think there has ever been a book printed with designs in stitches for ornamenting it.  I have tried to put all the prettiest ones I could design in this book, and do not think they will need much explanation, though for the benefit of beginners I will explain all I can.  Some very handsome work is being done in black silk pieces, put together the same as the ordinary crazy work, and the stitches put on in the same way.  

Have your pieces nicely pressed out and lay them out on new paper cambric****, then press them once more before you begin your stitches.  Be sure to overcast all the edges so they will not fray out.  

You will find a variety of stitches and designs on the coloured plate not in the book that will give you some idea how to finish off corners.  These directions are only for those who have not made any of this work.  The stitches on the following pages need very little work.  

The stitches on the following pages need very little explanation, as those that are numbered are all very simple, and are only put in that it may be more convenient for you to make the others by referring to them."

Her instructions are vague, and her first instructions are aptly catty:
"Nos. 1 and 2 are the common straight and cat stitches, and every one knows how to make them."

Ahhh, the cat stitch. Everyone knows that one, right? Well maybe everyone did in 1884, but not everyone would have the same stitch in mind. In the world of Victorian embroidery this stitch goes by a few different names: Cat Stitch, Brier Stitch, Coral Stitch, Catch Stitch, Feather Stitch and variations therein.


Unfortunatly, even in Victorian needlework, there are many other stitches that also lay claim to the name of Cat Stitch, and to the name of the other stitches I have mentioned.

In the case of A Book of Fancy Work for Ornamenting Oriental Work, 'cat stitch' is a modern herringbone stitch.  The 'feather stitch' it employs has nothing to do with Opus Plumicarium.

Instructions for more complicated stitches are only slightly more helpful.  Example:
"No 9, make the same as cat - stitch, only put the needle in up and down instead of across. No. 10 is made the same as feather stitch."

It is understood that the Victorian embroiderer would read this and substitute her stitch preference for any one of these stitches.

Still, the stitches themselves are simple, after some updating of terminology. It is the combinations of these stitches that are unique. Also surprising to a modern eye are the vibrant and contrasting colours used. New dyes introduced in this industrial era made many more colours available, and those colours were now much more saturated and were much brighter. Needlework became more lively as well, as can be seen in Berlin work and other needlepoint methods that used German Wools.


Despite the Victorian craze for the Oriental (thank you Mr.Vantine and assorted Mitfords) I was surprised to find that this 'crazy' style was considered Asian.  Because of their Quilting tradition, I had always associated crazy stitching with the American South and assumed that it's popularity in this period was due to the matereral shortages of the Civil War.
Oh Ashley!

-Reviewed for Antique Pattern Library's Collection

Choosing & Placing Knitted Shoulder Pads

Here are some examples of effects created by Gauge Swatch Shoulder Pads. These pads are generously stuffed; remember that the thickness or fullness of the pad is up to you. The pad shapes shown here are Square,
Triangular,
and Rectangular.
Read about how to make your own shoulder padding from gauge squares here. It is worth noting that the effect of the Rectangular pad is similar to that achieved with Sleeve Head Rolls.

1.

A Square pad tacked to both the shoulder seam and the inside of the sleeve head, rounding the shoulder line and supporting the apex of the puff.

2.

A Square pad placed halfway down the neck (at about the bra strap) so that half of the pad projects beyond the natural shoulder.The pad is sewn along one side, crossing the shoulder seam, with the inner corners tacked to the front and back of the garment. The free edge of the pad is weighed down by the sleeve, taking the shape of the puff. The seam of the pad, because it is located further down the neck avoids added height but still has a military feel.

3.

A Triangular Shoulder Pad with the fold (the longest side) attached to the shoulder near the centre top of the shoulder seam. The point of the triangle is left free floating to take the shape of the puff. With an overstuffed pad such as this one, a kick-up shoulder line can be achieved.

4.

(My favorite!) A Triangular Pad with the centre point attached to the shoulder. The folded side projects into the head of the sleeve, and dictates the end of the shoulder line.
The sleeve follows the shape of the top of the pad and then falls in a clean vertical drop. This is a good way to give structure to a drapey or lacy knit.

5.A Rectangular Pad attached to the shoulder at the centre of the pad's long seam.  Small stitches tack those inner corners to the front and the back of the garment.

The folded edge of the pad extends the shoulder line and supports the fullest part of the puff sleeve.The outer edge of the shoulder becomes rounded.

6.

 A Rectangular pad attached to the shoulder at the sleeve seam with the long seamed edge pointing up into the puff.  The fullness of the sleeve is kept aloft by the pad's seam.  This is suited to a twin set because of the seaming difficulties.  The determined could tack the lower corners to a bra strap or a under shirt to prop up a knitted jacket.
The outer edge of the shoulder line is supported for a softer war time look.

A Final Note:

Use a seamless join like mattress stitch or grafting at the top shoulder seam in preparation for this type of padding.
 Use a 3 needle bind off if you plan on using modern, store bought shoulder pads; the ridge created by the seam will provide a spine useful for stitching the centre of pads to the sweater.
You are reading "The Quest For Puff" ©Morgan Forrester

Up next:

Padding Vintage Sweaters with Sleeve Heads

Coming Soon:

Vintage Sleeves: Puff Pleating

Vintage Sleeves: Seaming for Puff

Creating Puffed Sleeves Anew

Using Gauge Swatches as Shoulder Pads in the Vintage Style

Even before rationing made reusing and recycling wool necessary, clever knitters were repurposing their gauge swatches (tension squares) as shoulder pads. A swatch can be made into several different styles of pad. We'll be looking at three: triangular, square, and rectangular.

NOTE: The average swatch is knit to 10cm (4"). The examples in this tutorial are each of 24 stitches; a neat display device I tried at The Loop. These swatches were of various worsted weight yarns resulting in 18-22 stitches per 4 inches. The average size of swatch was 5" square.

Because they were for display purposes, each swatch was knit with a garter stitch border 3 stitches on either side and 3-4 rows top and bottom. This is an excellent format for a swatch destined to become padding. The garter border allows for easy stitching and stuffing, and also creates an ideal flat surface for placement and stitching to the garment, particularly useful if the pad is to be removed or used in multiple applications. These worsted weight swatches make a big statement but for a more subtle look, use a fine yarn. The point of this technique is that you will have already made the pads by swatching for your project, and since most of your vintage sweaters will have been knit with a fingering or sport weight yarn your pads will be less cartoony than my examples.

Triangles/1930s

As we know, shoulder pads first became necessary to the home knitter in the 1930s so that the shoulder line could be extended gracefully, and girlish puff sleeves could stay aloft. The first shoulder pads were triangular, a perfect job for the typically square gauge swatch.

Your swatch is unlikely to be a perfect square, but this does not matter much. Fold the swatch in half and pin one side as you begin work on the other. Any waste yarn will work for this project; it need not be the same yarn as the gauge swatch. Using the garter stitch border as a guide, stitch generously. Tiny stitches are nice, but not necessary. Do not seam these two edges as you normally would a knitting project. Grafting or Mattress Stitch will ruin the affect. Backstitches, or even a Running Stitch, if you're inpatient will do the job.

Place these stitches in from the edge. The stitches in the photo were placed in the middle stitch of the 3row/3 stitch Garter border. This works to about .25" from the edge. If your swatch does not have a border like the example pad does, place your seam .5" in from the edge. This will create a ridge you can use to attach the pad to the garment.

Stop stitching your pad together an inch or so before the second corner. Use this opening to stuff your pad. Do not cut your working yarn or unthread your needle.

You have several stuffing options. I stuffed the examples above with raw fleece, but only because it was the easiest thing to hand. Polyfilla, cotton baton and fluff will do just as well. Followers of Make do and Mend may take a tip from WWII and fill their pads with scraps of waste yarn....or even sawdust.

Note: If you are using flat sheets of wadding you should cut these to the shape of your swatches, leaving a .5" seaming allowance along the sides to be stitched. In the case of a triangular pad this means that along the third side the wadding should reach the fold of the swatch. In a square pad you will need to leave a seam allowance along all four sides. You will layer the filler to taste, depending on the thickness of the wadding, but start with just one layer.

Whichever material you choose, resist the urge to overstuff.

Pick your needle back up and finish stitching, closing the stuffing gap, and backstitch to secure. To finish, bury your yarn by inserting the needle into the pad and stuffing and bringing up through the middle of the pad's fabric as pictured further down. Now clip the yarn close to the surface.

Squares/1940s

Square shoulder pads are made in much the same way and will thrill knitters of 1940s patterns. In the sweater patterns of the 40s we see instructions for shoulder pads start to crop up and although some of them are unique to a single sweater, most are simple bean bags of the same yarn as the main pattern. Remember that under WWII's military influence pads were required to both extend the shoulder line, and raise it. In more extreme puffed sleeves, the sleeve head would be totally unsupported but for padding. This is one reason for disappointing, deflated puffs in home knitting.

In this example the two swatches are of slightly different sizes. This is almost always likely to be the case, and it doesn't really matter for this project. Simply pin the two squares together so that the edges match. The centre of one of the swatches will bulge, but that's what we want anyways.

Don't overstuff the square pad either. The amount of filler in the photo above was a good starting point; you may find that you need less padding than you thought. Remember that placement of the pad is going to be very important. Extreme vintage looks are created when the shoulder pad is stitched in. Overstuffing will actually give you less options and control.

A sticky material like raw fleece will tend to ball up in the middle. We want an even stuffing so use your fingers to distribute the filler evenly.

Bury your yarn as pictured.

A single square can also be made into a rectangular pad by folding a swatch in half and stitching. In my knitting I find this to be the most useful pad. The truth is, it has a bit more in common with another type of padding; a 'sleeve head' or 'roll'. This is because its short sides will follow the curve of the shoulder and support the front and back of a round puff. The term sleeve head is problematic! Read more about this in the intro to this padding series:here.

The rectangular gauge swatch can afford to be stuffed generously. The most important aspect to this pad for knitters, is the top seam. If your swatch does not have a garter stitch ridge remember to place your stitching well away from the edge. Along the long sides of the rectangle sew at least .5" in, creating a flat strip. This is what you will use to attach the pad to the garment.

Next we'll talk about the placement of these pads and the different looks they can achieve.

This post is a part of The Quest For Puff Series. Read it from the beginning HERE.

Why I'm Bringing Macramé Back...Knitting with the Archies #3

.......after some macramé bashing from Veronica & the gang....

I love Archie.

When Words are Not Enough

This was a regular column in a short lived craft mag from the mid 1980s:

This was one of the questions asked:

This was the drawing below:Genius.

Around the World in 80 Tiny Crocheted Dresses

Pinwheel Pillow

This classic crochet project is very pomo. It's also totally The Loop. Our store in Downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia sees my business partners and I, in turn, perched on quite a hard little bar chair for most of the day. It seemed silly not to try and create our own pillow, and I have always wanted to stitch one of these nostalgic pinwheels. I was surprised that I could not find a pattern, even amongst my vintage books and pamphlets, so I reverse engineered a pattern from a 1970s pinwheel pillow I had in the house. I didn't much care for what I ended up with. This new pattern is modernized with simplified shaping. It is also streamlined by omitting one feature; most of these cushions, in decades passed, were worked with a hard circular centre covering the join, much like the centre of a flower. With this new pattern it is no longer necessary to cover the centre join. I think it looks much more modern this way. It's comfier too. I have included instructions for a centre though, in case you're feeling nostalgic.
There are also optional finishing instructions for 'couching' the pillow.

This pattern was designed for The Loop and directions can be found on their Free Pattern Page, as a pdf file. Post your projects on Ravelry and see other crocheters' results.

This is the Colour Sequence I finally set upon for the store's pillow. I used my good friend Cascade 220 wool. The colours are inspired by The Loop. If you would like to use your own sequence, I suggest trying The Random Stripe Generator. Of course, you could just dive in, changing colours when you feel inspired to do so. Don't forget that you can change the number of colours used to amazing effect, and that this project is a great stash buster; just change yarns when you run out of each colour.

Biscuits & Jam's Random Stripe Generator can be found here. I use it all the time. I find it difficult to come up with colourways and sequences that look random. Mine always look laboured. What I really like about the online stripe generator is that it not only shuffles colours, it allows you to program in a range of rows over which the colours are spread. I asked for a sequence for 6 colours with rows ranging from 1 to 4 rows. The pillow could be worked with as little as 2 colours to amazing effects. Of course a hard candy inspired pinwheel would be striking as well.
Questions or Comments? PM me on Ravelry, or post a comment here (you don't need a login to do so). If you are in the Halifax area and want to try this, or any of The Loop or Pomoboho patterns drop by the store. Sundays are always good.

Holiday Knitting 1940's Style

Pretty, cream-coloured slub linen is the material used;

it washes splendidly.

We chose jade green striped with white for this new idea in beach suits. Close-fitting pants are worn under the wide swinging skirt which you can also wear in casual fashion as a shoulder cape.

-Stitchcraft Magazine, Holiday Issue