1940's knitting

Over the years I have been collecting old knitting books and the advent of Ebay and Amazon has meant an increase in my acquisitions. These Paton's Woolcrafts date from the 1920's to WW2.

I also have several books by Jane Koster and Margaret Murray, published between 1940 and 1950.



All these books are a wonderful source of patterns showing the fashions of those years.
My visit to the Bantock Park 1940's weekend showed little in the way of knitted fashions, so I thought it would be a good idea to knit some of the patterns from these books with the view of putting on a display next year.
The main problem is finding suitable yarns. Most garments were knitted in 3ply, 4ply was considered heavy-weight. There was a little double knitting, but this was extravagant to use as 2 ounces of wool used up one clothing coupon, 2ply was popular for underwear. These days 3ply mainly comes in baby colours, and of course there were no synthetics except for Artificial Silk (Rayon). Also I'm finding getting the tension right is quite difficult, however I'm working on it. More later.