Is anybody online on Christmas Day? Not many people. On the assumption that, if you celebrated Christmas, you wouldn't be surfing the'Net this morning, here is the long delayed end of a series I did a few years ago. I thought, "Oh well, New York fashions last one season at a time," but Eighties sweaters seem to be coming back into fashion more than ever. I've seen several on college chicks, some in department stores, and some in TV commercials this winter. So why not finish the series now? I started knitting in 1989, so anything I actually made in the Eighties, if still usable, is not for sale. But hand knitting is fashion-proof, so several things I've made in the Nineties or later used real 1980s patterns and/or yarns! Hand-knitted things are part of your personal style that may or may not be currently being copied in New York.
These are the Instant Gratification projects--large pieces, sweaters, shawls, or blankets, made from very simple patterns, often on extra-large needles, to be finished in one rainy weekend. Mary Anne Erickson and Eve Cohen traced the fad to Palm Beach, where they described knitters working with one ordinary needle and one extra-large needle to make longer rows of stitches that produced knitted fabric, albeit rather loosely knitted fabric, faster. Many people who learned to knit in the Eighties wanted to knit a sweater in a weekend. And they wore those sweaters, too.
While my feeling at the time was that pattern books like Condo Knitting and Weekend Knits pushed the idea too far, some delightfully Eighties sweaters were designed around the idea of "make it fast, without thinking much about it."
Most Instant Gratification projects were knitted for the knitter's personal use. Some of the Instant Gratification Sweaters I've made have stayed around a long time, but they do eventually find homes when the right person finds them. The one I wear most is my Blanket Shawl, a wonderful serendipitous thing I made when I had just the right mix of scraps to make it 50% shrinkable animal fibres and 50% stretchable acrylics, so on the whole it tends to stretch a little under its own weight when worn but snap back to size when machine-laundered. About half the people who comment on it say it looks like the blankets "homeless" characters wear in TV movies (real homeless people usually wear heavy, grimy overcoats), and half ask if I can do another one like it. I can do more Blanket Shawls, and have done them, but there'll never be another one quite like mine, which is not for sale. It used up the last bits of several authentic 1980s yarns.
Here are some Instant Gratification projects I am willing to sell.
The vest shape is an authentic Eighties one that Sue Bradley used for several of her designs. The denim look comes from mixing scraps and damaged yarns, including a big ball of damaged blue wool, with a durable white sock yarn. This vest will last for years, though it may show its age.
The shaping here was published later than the 1980s in a book by Laura Militzer Bryant, but the boxy, blousy shape and ribbed waist give it that 1980s look...and the "Spring" colors really were a 1980s fad but, as most people had been warned not to wear them, they didn't sell well and became hard to find. The main yarn I used was indeed sold in the 1980s, left over from a child's coat I'd made when the yarn was new.
If you could see the whole sweater you'd recognize the "batwing" shape. It really peaked in the late 1970s, as did the brown/sand/cream color mix, but designers were still using it in the early Eighties... until some dress-for-success expert warned that "batwings don't fly up the corporate ladder." There was a feeling that people couldn't keep their minds on their jobs if they found it easy to move and breathe. I earned a lot of money helping people reduce the pain being uncomfortable at the office caused, and I say that people not only can keep their minds on the jobs when they feel comfortable but have a right to sue the company if they don't. Whether people feel comfortable in drapey cardigans or snug tailored blazers or in their shirts with no toppers at all, in the office, is their business. Anyway, in the mid-eighties batwing sweaters were ruled un-businesslike, and suddenly people remembered that as a fashion fad they'd peaked in the previous decade. But they looked good on some people--not all.
I stumbled across the Eighties yarn in 2003, while shopping for books at the Teen Challenge store in Laurel, Maryland. Someone drove up to offer the store a donation, and one of the young workers recognized me and rushed out to interrupt my husband, who was reading a detective story in the car. "Aren't you the ones who were looking for yarn a few years ago? We don't have a yarn department but someone just gave us a load of yarn! Would you take it, free of charge?" My husband prudently did and I made a couple of sweaters out of it, including this remake of an Eighties design.
This pattern was published in the 1980s but, so far as I know, only in French and only on the imported yarn wrappers. It may well have appeared in a company magazine I've not found! In real life the sleeves and sides of the sweater do match (although the stripes are different), the wrapper tied to the front border is meant to be untied once you've absorbed the manufacturer's instructions for washing this fancy brushed acrylic, and the long turn-back cuffs and stand-up collar were Eighties fads, as were the Autumn colors.
Elizabeth Zimmermann first published the instructions for this child's jacket and the matching hoodless woman's jacket, not shown, long before the 1970s, but they were reprinted in her books and used in the Eighties. In real life the sides of both jackets match. (Some of these photos were snapped by an impatient college kid whose mother had "volunteered" the student's services without consulting the student...)
This scrap-yarn tabard wasn't really an Eighties fad; designers continued to play with a revival of "tabard" styles (fastened down the sides rather than the front or back) that really took place in the Seventies. I actually made it in 2005. It's meant to be worn as an easy-on, easy-open, never-too-heavy cover-up to throw over your pajamas on a chilly morning. It's mostly mohair and is not meant to be machine-laundered. (It's not at all like the "feel the pattern" natural-yarn shawl e-friend Elizabeth Barrette had a character knit in one of her Terramagne poems, but since you can feel the pattern in the different textures of the yarn, it came to mind as I read the poem. You can see EB's poems, and sponsor more of them, at http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com. You can also commission a real-world version of the triangular "feel the pattern" shawl, either in all-natural undyed yarns, which will be expensive, or in a mix of cheaper pale-colored scraps, which would cost $50.)
This cardigan is more than half cotton, so it shouldn't be as stifling as some Instant Gratification Sweaters were. It also contains a fair bit of wool and mohair, so shrinking and stretching should in theory balance and stabilize the size of the piece even if it gets wet. It should fit an average woman, maybe a tall one depending on how you like your cardigans to fit. I tend to like a cardigan with room to fit over a hoodie, which is how this one would fit me. Things designed for children in the 1980s, when sweaters were meant to have "positive ease" measured in number of inches they were wider than the wearer's chest, have been bought by young, tall, busty women who say a stretched-to-fit look is more fashionable these days...the sweater is about 40" around.
The main yarn here is a mohair blend, and mohair tends to fluff out to fill in the spaces in extremely loose, fast knitting. The irregular stripes are formed by an open mesh stitch. This is a very large (late 1980s "fit" for a 38" bust or chest measurement, so the actual sweater has about a 50" bust/chest measurement) jacket that should have room for anybody; sleeves are to roll back, waist is to hang down like a coat. Actually the size is up to the owner. If you want a smaller jacket, wet it and let it shrink--almost all the yarn is wool or mohair, so it will. If you want the same size or wider or longer, wet it, pin it down to shape, and let it dry on a board.
One reason I like making clothes for sale is that it allows me to look at all those pretty Summer pastel colors that look so good, to me, on a shelf and so bad next to my sallow Winter face. This cardigan was designed for a "cropped" look, which was more fashionable in the 1990s but was sometimes seen in the 1980s, on a tall woman. It comes right down over my waistline for a maximally unflattering look on me. It would have a very 1980s look if worn by a tall, thin, blue-eyed woman over a beige or light blue, knee-length, boxy skirt, with either a wide belt (preferably in a shade of brown or beige that matched some of the stripes in the sweater) or a close-fitting blouse.
Black and white striped tops were an early 1980s trend that stayed popular. I can afford to offer this vest for $10 plus shipping charges, which was a bargain even in the Eighties. It should fit up to a 42" bust with room for a shirt underneath, up to a 40" with room for a sweater or sweatshirt.
There's not really a book I can recommend as containing only Instant Gratification patterns. This is partly because many of the best ones don't have patterns at all. Take some yarn you enjoy looking at, make a gauge swatch, work out how many stitches make the width of what you want, cast on that many stitches, and knit until you reach the length you want. Add borders, collars, patch pockets, etc., if you want them. It really is that easy. If you want to use up a lot of scraps, use multicolor patterns. If you have enough of one color to make what you want, use that. However, most pattern books and magazines contain a few very simple designs, often made with large yarn and needles, to encourage beginning knitters. After you've made a few sweaters these will be Instant Gratification projects.
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