The other day, I mentioned that the Kaura and Druid Mittens patterns together evoked a 1950s ski chalet feel for me. Hot chocolate, heavy wool sweaters, berets, wooden skis, ski poles you could use as a weapon should the Abominable Snowman pay you a visit on your snowy adventure in the mountains (or hills, if you grew up skiing in the midwest like me).
By good fortune, about two weeks ago I did a trade with someone in the Selfish Knitters group on Ravelry. I had a few skeins of handspun, hand-dyed yarn that I simply was never going to use, and I wanted to find a good home for it. Did I say I was never going to use it? That’s an understatement. If you put me in a yarn shop with a bunch of yarn and I had to spend hours lining up each yarn in my order of preference, these yarns would be down at the end of the list. Not because there was anything wrong with them; they were all gorgeous in their own right. But really, what possessed me to ever think that I would want a loopy boucle in shades of tan and brown? My own mother is probably spitting coffee on her monitor at the thought of that. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn brown in my life.
Then there was the thick and thin yarn, like this skein in muted shades of pink, purple and peach. Shades, I might add, that I would never, ever wear. Replace “brown” in the sentence above the picture with “purple” and “peach” and, well, you get the picture.
Like I said, lovely yarn. Me? No. So we traded, and each got something we wanted and everything worked splendidly.
So what does this have to do with ski chalets and Bing Crosby, you ask?
That’s the cover of a 1957 knitting pamphlet, “Men’s and Women’s Hand Knit Winter Sport Fashions of Bear Brand and Fleisher Yarns”. This was the prize in my end of the trade! Each page is better than the last, full of amazing vintage sweaters, each outfit topping the last. I think this one might be my favorite:
I have a fondness in my heart (perhaps the word should be obsession?) for all things vintage, but those outfits had even me cackling. The allover crown print, matching kerchief for her, each hand knit sweater neatly tucket into matching ski pants. But wait! What if you smoke? There’s nowhere for your cigarettes in that sweater!
So if you smoke, why not knit yourself a ski sweater with a convenient little pouch for your Chesterfields, like this swell gal?
Speaking as her mother, I can verify two things.
Tan-and-brown? Nope, not in her lifetime. It’s just not our gene pool.
Me? Sitting here covered in coffee (which is, yes, brown) which I did, in fact, spit at the monitor.
comment by Tasha's Mom on January 22, 2009 at 07:58 am