Shoulder Pads & Puff Sleeved Sweaters

There's no need to sit like that; a good shoulder pad will keep your puff in place!

There is a lot to cover. First off, I ask that you shove all your preconceptions, jokes, eyeball rolls and Dynasty memories to the back of your mind. We are talking about a different era for starters.
Shoulder pads in the 30s/40s were a very different beast. They were not the Velcro disks that we immediately think of in a post 1980s world.

Shoulder padding falls into 3 main categories (at least for our purposes)
Pads
Sleeve Heads (Shaped and Rolled)
Supports

This is of no help to the home knitter.

Elsa Schiaparelli, perhaps best known to us knitters for her iconic tromp l'oile sweaters, pioneered an unbelievable list of fashion classics, among them the Shoulder Pad. The Schiaparelli shoulder is strongly associated with Hollywood glamour, and all the broadest of faux-broad broads, Crawford, Garbo and Hepburn were fans.  Her look is satirized and honoured in the fashion show segment of The Women (fashions by Adrian) Watch the clip below to see how these extreme silhouettes and shoulder styling are era specific. These pads were often triangles; soft cushions extending width. Her 1930s mainstreaming of adjustable shoulder padding into conventional women's wear ensured that the square shoulder of the 1940s was feminine, rather than a simple diminution of military uniforms and other customs of mens tailoring.

You must click HERE to watch on youtube proper.
Watch on Mute!  This is (clearly) not the original soundtrack.

Shoulder Pads are best suited to structural puff sleeves.  Puffed, or full sleeves that have been folded or pleated into the seam benefit most from this style of padding.  Military, kick-up, and elongated shoulder lines from the late 1930s up until the introduction of the New Look in 1947 were supported by shoulder pads and should be now.  The hand knitter working from patterns in this era would have taken this extra step for granted.

Know which look you're going for by reading Puffed Sleeves in the 1930's and 1940's.

Many Vintage Patterns include directions for knitted pads to be sewn to the inside of the sweater. A good example may be found in the V&A's collection: "For When You're off Duty". This little pad is more like a cushion; knit of jumper yarn (sock yarn is a good substitution) and stuffed to your taste. It rests on the shoulder and supports the apex of the puff. Make your own as you would a cell phone cozy. Two squares or rectangles sewn together, or one folded in half and seamed will do. For a softer, pre-war look, you may choose to make your pad out of two triangles rather than rectangles which have a more masculine feel.

Read 'Using Gauge Swatches as Shoulder Pads in the Vintage Style' for more on knitted padding.
Read 'Choosing & Placing Knitted Shoulder Pads' for further guidance.

Today, ready made shoulder pads may be purchased at most fabric stores. These objects are more like the power suit boosters we are used to. For Knitters' use they will most likely need to be trimmed. For this reason I do not recommend buying vinyl pads. Good companies provide different pads for different sleeve shapes i.e. Raglan, Dolman. The pad is sewn to the garment through the center, creating a spine for the pad. Baste this spine and try on the sweater. Working from the outside, still wearing the sweater, take small stitches with the sweater's yarn (de-plyed if necessary) to anchor the pad in place, or for heavy yarns, sewing thread.
For an extreme vintage look I recommend a "coat pad" (a pad used in coats) with a 1" thickness. For a blouse vs. a sweater a 1/2" thickness may be more appropriate.
The looks which large pads can provide depend entirely on their placement, so a great deal of experimenting will be needed.  It is best to do this while wearing the garment, whenever possible.  If trimming is necessary, use a fabric marker to note cuts while holding the pad on your shoulder (with a friend or a mirror).

This vinyl pad is not what we want.  Note the centre stitching along the pad, attaching it to the shoulder seam.  We do want this.

Ready to wear Shoulder Pads tend to come in white, nude or black. If none are available in an appropriate shade for your project they may be covered. For a nude look try using old nylons to cover a pad.
For an outrageous shoulder la Joan Crawford or House of Balmain, consider layering 2 or more pads. Baste them together through the centre spine, and then cover the pad using loose stitches or feather stitches and cover with fabric or nylons. This is a great technique to use if you can only find 1980s styled flat pads.
American football comments be damned!

Generally these kinds of paddings can be made at home with little sewing experience.  With a reliable sewing store in your area though, you may find it easier to purchase ready-made padding, and then alter it at home.  Pads may be opened up at the seam and the amount of wadding can be adjusted.  You may choose to add or remove bulk, or you may decide to push the stuffing to one side or the other, depending on your sweater style or body type.  If you are layering sleeve heads or pads use large feather stitches.  If you are layering fibrous padding stuffs, experiment with spray adhesives.  If a large shoulder pad's slope is to wide for your shoulder or if you have a petite shoulder line, cut your pad in half.  Trim as necessary, adjust the angle on your own shoulder, and then reattach the front and back of the pad using a baseball stitch.  Remember that few bodies are symmetrical, so treat each pad, each knitted piece, and each shoulder separately.

Click HERE to see examples of Vintage Sweater Pattern Photos that put Shoulder Pads to good use.

You are reading "The Quest For Puff" ©Morgan Forrester

Up next:

Choosing & Placing Knitted Shoulder Pads

Coming Soon:

Vintage Sleeves: Puff Pleating

Vintage Sleeves: Seaming for Puff

Creating Puffed Sleeves Anew

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

WWI Red Cross Sleeveless Sweater

RED CROSS TELLS HOW TO KNIT FOR SOLDIERS

WASHINGTON, September 22- [1917]

Here's how to knit a sleeveless sweater for a soldier, according to official Red Cross instructions:

Get two and a half hanks of yarn.
Also one pair of Red Cross needles No. 3.

Cast on 80 stitches.
Knit 2, purl 2 stitches for 4 inches.
Knit plain until sweater measures 25 inches.
Knit 28 stitches, bind off 24 stitches for neck, loose.
Knit 28 stitches.
Knit 7 ridges on each shoulder, cast on 24 stitches.
Knit plain for 21 inches.
Purl 2, knit 2 stitches for 4 inches.
Sew up sides, leaving 9 inches for armholes.

Now if you are still interested in going further with the war knitting brigade, go to your local Red Cross chapter and ask for one of the official knitting circulars.

Five hundred thousand of these circulars have been sent to local chapters everywhere by the Red Cross.

Each contains full information on how to knit the wight standardized articles: Sleeveless sweaters, mufflers, helmets, socks, wristlets, wash cloths, bed socks and bottle covers.

Recent cables from Major Murphy, Red Cross commissioner with the American boys in France, emphasized the need for the warm knitted articles for the soldiers who face the hardships of winter in the trenches.

Army officers request that these articles be forwarded to France as soon as possible. The severity of winter on the battlefields and a rising tuberculosis rate to combat the demand, they warn, that several million of these articles reach France before Thanksgiving.

Socks, [unreadable word] knitters are warned that knots ridges or lumps must be avoided, as they blister the feet.

-Berkeley Daily Gazette, September 22, 1917

Note: I have altered the original typesetting for readability.

A Little Modern Help From Morgan:

There was no illustration or schematic in this newspaper article, but basically this is a sweater knitted flat, in one piece. Today, North Americans would call it a vest.

"Get two hanks of yarn" is kind of hilarious, but remember that the Red Cross had depots in most cities providing official yarn to be used with their official patterns.
If you were to chose a modern Double Knitting or Worsted Weight yarn, these are the sizes you could achieve.
At 5 stitches to the inch the sweater would measure 32" at the chest.
At 4.5 stitches to the inch the sweater would measure 35" at the chest.
At 4 stitches to the inch the sweater would measure 40" at the chest.

There is a reason why the Red Cross did not provide gauge or desired sizes.
They had discovered, in wars passed, that there was no point!
They found that one set of instructions and materials could provide many different results, and conveniently, a bevy of sizes!

The sweater is knit in garter stitch with a ribbed waist. It is knit from the front (or back, I suppose) upwards, to a neck created by casting off the centre 24 stitches.
Two shoulders will be worked either side of this cast off, so new yarn will have to be attached to work the first shoulder (the shoulder located at the beginning of the neck cast off row).
Work one shoulder, and once the 7 ridges are knit ('ridges' refers to the effect created by 2 rows of plain knit in garter stitch) you will place those 28 stitches on waste yarn or a holder.
The casting on of 24 stitches replaces the centre 24 stitches cast off, connects the two shoulders, and creates the neck of the sweater.

The remainder of the pattern echos the beginning of the pattern, as you work the 2nd side from the neck down to the waist, ending the project with the second half of the waist ribbing.
I would suggest using a mattress stitch to sew the sides of the sweater together seamlessly, remembering to end the stitching at the desired underarm location (9" from the shoulder if you are sending this to the 1917 Red Cross!)

Let me know how it goes!

.

Shoulder Pad Intro

Peggy Cummings in 1950's Gun Crazy

Shoulder Pads: You Don't Gotta Love Em. I do. It's a compulsion. I love their various forms, their little ways and quirks. I love that shoulder pads can be used in more than one way, regardless of their shape, and that subtle shifts in their placement can result in very, very different fits and effects. For these posts we'll assume that we're going for a full-on vintage look from the 1930s, 1940s or '50s. That said, we can do things authentically (the way these jumpers would have been made and worn in real life) or we can mimic the ideal modeled in the pattern (or an ironic exaggeration of the look). It's easy to switch between the two goals.

It is also important to note that the way we remember things isn't always the way they really were, especially if like me, you have no business remembering 1930. The way we romanticize an era gradually changes the way it is remembered, and soon a few singular looks or trends come to represent a period. We cannot help but bunch these into decades, and in time the handful of looks and ideas which we now associate with periods like the 1960s or 1970s will be whittled down to one image as it has been in preceding decades. Look back beyond the turn of the 20th century and the average person will have one outfit which they associate with each century. What on earth will come to represent our current time? Well this is a completely different topic now...

I guess I was trying to point out that the look a knitter is looking for within the patterns of a period may not even exist within those years. It may only have existed in the Hollywood send-ups of period films and costume dramas, or the time-machine fantasies of fashionistas. That does not mean, however, that the look can't be achieved. This is another reason to experiment with padding. A cleverly chosen shoulder pad, well appointed, can change an everyday and historically accurate sweater pattern into the imagined silhouette of any fashion fantasist.

A variety of garment shoulder pads available at diytrade.com

A shoulder pad is not an accessory for a jacket or sweater; it is part of the internal structure of a well constructed garment.

Also, pads are not the whole padding story.  There are many ways in which the home knitter can support a full or puffed shoulder.  Shoulder pads are just the most familiar tool in a post-1980s tool box.  A vintage-enthused knitter should acquaint herself with all forms of padding before completing her puffed look.
Learn about your shoulder pad-ding options here.

You are reading "The Quest For Puff" ©Morgan Forrester

Up next:

Shoulder Pads & Puffed Sleeved Sweaters

Coming Soon:

Vintage Sleeves: Puff Pleating

Vintage Sleeves: Seaming for Puff

Creating Puffed Sleeves Anew

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

Make it a Manos Christams

-Manos Del Uraguay Ad from Vogue Knitting, Winter 1987

What do you know? The Loop has received Manos Del Uruguay Wool Classica and Maxima just in time for Crimbo.  Not in time, unfortunately, to make this holiday jumper.  Can you imagine it made in Manos' 2011 colours?

Christmas Shop Window 2011

Downtown Halifax is hoping for snow this Christmas week!


PS It's proving to be a bit of a Rorscharch test, but I love my Yarn Ball Tree with Niddy-Noddy Trunk!

Stitchcraft Christmas #1

Christmas Shop Window Phase 1

George's Favorite Sweater of All Time #7

George's Sweater ft. Paul Simon's Vest

The American War Board Puts Their Foot In It,1942

Loud Protest Follows Sock Knitting Ban

WASHINGTON-

The new war board last night proved its reputation for bold, fearless action by making a definite pass at the millions of knitting needles clicking off sweaters and socks for soldiers.

Claiming that the wool can be better used elsewhere, the board bluntly stated that the products knitted by the millions of well-meaning mothers, wives and sweethearts usually wound up as gun-cleaning or shoe-shining rags. Wool being on a class with rubies and twice as valuable to the war effort, the board took steps to call a definite halt to voluntary amateur knitting.

HANDS OFF CRY

Fighting for women's right to knit while the men shoot, the women's section of civilian defence, headed by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, came back with a violent hands off action. For the sake of civilian morale as well as that of the soldiers, OCS said knitting must continue for the duration. Take the needles out of the ladies' hands and the co-operative spirit and high morale on the home front will collapse, the defenders of the hearth maintained. While their husbands, brothers, sweethearts and sons are far away fighting for world peace, the girls must click or be doomed to discontent.

The war board's answer to this barrage of counter-fire is now in the hands of the Red Cross. In a concise, unmistakable order, the board asked the Red Cross to discourage knitting except by specific order from military commanders. The War and Navy departments refused to reveal whether or not the commanders have any plans to place orders for hand-knitted cozies.

TRADED 'EM FOR WINE

During World 1, according to the war board boys, the AEF had several uses for the things knitted by loving hands at home. One of the most popular ways of getting some wear and tear out of the amateur woolies was made to trade them to French barmaids and housewives for wine. The soldiers got their cup-that-cheers and the French women unravelled the sweaters, reknit them. Everyone was happy, including the little woman at home.

But in World War II, the board explains, the wool shortage is not going to be made shorter by dainty fingers dabbling with the previous skeins. Sweater-knitting, they insist, will be strictly on official order, and the sewing circles will have to think up something else to do with their hands.

All this and the stern order now in making, will mark a mile-post in America's war history. American women have always knitted ferociously while their menfolk fought at the front. The knee-warmers, mittens, mufflers, sweaters and other plain and fancy purling products have always been carefully patted down into boxes and sent off to the men in the trenches with enormous satisfaction.

Knitting has provided women with an excuse to gather and gossip. To feel useful and brave, to mark them as courageous ladies who have courageous men at the front.

The home knitting industry speeds up to a pace envied by many a munition industry during war-time. Debutantes and ribbon clerks take it up with a vengeance. Knitting is hauled out at the theater, in night clubs, at meal times and in doctors' offices. The office of civilian defence stoutly maintains that the sore feet, discomfort and hangovers resulting from amateur knitted goods is outbalanced by the spiritual and morale uplift gained in knitting.

-St. Petersburg Times, Jan 25, 1942

This article astounded me so many times that I had to rest between paragraphs. I still don't quite know what to say. You really must read this article.