Retro Knit Sunday!

It was beastly hot yesterday and today (108 degrees), but the fog is coming in tonight, so I am staying up late to keep the doors and windows opened to let the cool in. I am hoping for a nice cool morning tomorrow because we picked the apples over the weekend, and I have a lot of applesauce to put up. The spouse has a huge ladder that stands at least 10 feet tall, and I think climbing up high to pick the apples is fun. We start out with the spouse holding the ladder while I pick, and then I hold the ladder while he picks. Our patience wore thin, though, and the spouse took to shaking the tree so that the apples that were way too high for us would fall down. They did fall, on my head mostly. The picture above shows the first apples to be picked.

The retro fashions I am showing today are still from the Spinnerin Volume 132 from 1955.

This fitted, one-piece dress with the flared skirt has striped ribbing on the skirt and yoke. It is knit of dress yarn on Size 2 needles at 7 sts/inch.

The next fashion is a two-piece dress that is knit on Size 1 needles at 8 sts/inch, and it features a sparkle yarn that is used to make the yoke and fringe. The fringe is knitted into the yoke, not applied afterwards. The skirt appears to be slightly A-line, and starts off with a cast on of 544 sts for the largest size. It would take you days just to cast on for the skirt. Most skirts were started at the bottom and knitted up, decreasing at intervals.

Here's what the booklet has to say about the next two-piece garment: 'Round-the-clock knitted dress has a ribbed skirt and a two-toned top with an excellent neckline.' The top is knit in a slip stitch pattern in two colors.

The next dress is crocheted in filet crochet, and after the sections are completed, strands of yarn are woven through the lattice to create the plaid pattern. It looks as if the fabric created was on the heavy side, but the yarn used for the weaving was silk organdy ribbon.

I just checked the thermometer in the living room, and the temperature in the house has dropped at least 10 degrees, so time to go shut everything up. If it is cool enough in the morning, I am going to bake an applesauce cake for the spouse.