A Stitch In…Camping

This weekend, while it was raining pretty much everywhere within 120 miles of Chicago, we were enjoying the 80 degree temperature and sunny skies camping in Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. We just went for one night but got up super early Saturday morning to leave, so we were already setting up camp by about 11 am. I swear once we were home Sunday afternoon I felt like we’d been away for days. It was perfect!

I even got a bit of knitting in. It’s a pattern from the book A Stitch in Time 1920-1949, Vol. 1, by Jane Waller and Susan Crawford. This is a republication of a book that was published in 1972 with knitting patterns from the 1920s through 1940s. A Stitch in Time, oh how I love thee. Let me count the ways.

1. Jam-packed book. Not 5 patterns, not 10 patterns, 60 freakin’ patterns.

2. Beautiful, glossy color photos.

3. Artsy but useful photos. Not stupid angles that don’t show you how the garment actually looks on a human being.

4. Not only do you get the revamped version of the vintage pattern with a modern photograph, you also get the original vintage pattern and original photograph! This is priceless, as you get a modern and historically accurate version of the fit and you can be left to your own devices to interpret that as you will.

5. Ease information is included in the pattern, as well as what size the model is wearing. While it doesn’t always seem 100% accurate (the pattern I’m knitting supposedly calls for 10” of negative ease for my size, yet it does not really seem to be modeled with 10” of negative ease), it’s a good starting point and more information than many patterns offer.

6. Some of the people involved in the book are on Ravelry! Well that’s just neat, if you ask me.

You can order it directly from them in the UK on their website. It took about a week for mine to arrive.

That’s several inches of the pattern, called It Cannot Fail to Please. I mean now really, how can you go wrong with a name like that? I’m looking forward to more camping (and knitting) (and knitting while camping) this summer.