Vintage Knitting

So a few days ago this is what my spare room bed looked like:

In case you can't work out what's going on here, I'm blocking a baby cardigan I've been working on.  Plus, I'm organizing my vast collection of vintage knitting patterns.  And one actually leads from the other, as the pattern I used to knit the sweater is this one:

Unfortunately a lot of vintage patterns have no dates on them, but my best guess is that this one was originally published in the late 60s or 1970s.  See, the price is printed on it 9d, which means 9 pence.  Since this was published in Britain, that is the price it sold for in England.  If you look closely the 9d is crossed out and the price it was sold for here in New Zealand is written on as 12c (12 cents).  New Zealand currency switched to the decimal system of dollars and cents in 1967, so assuming this pattern was fairly new at the time it was first put on the shelf here in New Zealand, it would have had to have been after that.

Anyways, I love vintage anything, so needing another baby sweater for my soon to be born niece, I decided to tackle this pattern.  Vintage patterns can be tricky, as yarn weights were kinda different, and there are often errata that you have no way of finding out.  But this one worked perfectly!

And tonight i pretty much finished it.  All I have to do is sew on ribbons for the tie at the neck.  I'm not going to bother with trimming the edges with the gathered lace.  Too floofy for me.

One thing I had a problem with was sewing on the collar.  I had the same problem this time as I had that last time I had to sew a collar on a sweater.  I didn't know how to do it without it having a big ugly ridge showing.  So I took it along and asked the lovely and most talented knitter Joy of Kazzalblue and she set me straight.  Which just goes to show how much I still have to learn about knitting, even after 8 years!

But look at what a good job I did!

One of Joy's adorable creations - a Harry Potter themed finger puppet set - is the prize in a giveaway being run over at New Zealand Handmade right now.  Get over there for your chance to win!