Thursday, June 14, 2007

KNITPICKY

Knitpicky - a picture of anything to do with wool!!

Now back from a lovely long weekend with SIS, I thought I would start off with some wool-related pictures. Though these are not the treasures picked up from the weekend just yet...they will be in the next post.

Below we have the famous Bendigo Woollen Mills.



This is the reason for many a trip to Bendigo, where we (Susan and I) have happily shopped for fabulous wool. Where we have happily admired all the "piles" of glorious wool. Where we have happily wallowed and rolled in wonderful wool - well, perhaps I am getting carried away a bit! .....and below is the actual sales shop with a fantastic back room of bargains. And there is Susan who has just finished loading the car.



Now if you classify a "wool collection" as a "stash", I suppose you would say that the following is the oldest yarn I have. The reason for showing these is because of the post by SIS - Susan in Stitches regarding the oldest yarn in your stash.


Chris (hubby) bought this vintage yarn some time ago and I have kept it in the freezer for a few weeks. "Why on earth **###!!*#+=**!!?" .......I hear you say. Well, it is an old teddy bear trick. These had obviously been "stored" in someone's shed for many years where goodness knows what has been happily feasting on them, so they had to be debugged. Sadly the yarn is badly deteriorated and nothing more can be done with it, but I will be keeping it nonetheless.
Now someone I know thought I was crazy to be collecting wool labels (on top of everything else that I collect) but the labels do have great graphics, especially the older ones, as seen here. To date these properly, I need to do some research and look up all my vintage knitting books (and old advertisements are good too) to work out when these labels and wool were produced. But for now I am estimating the 1920's. If you know for sure, please let me know.

The next two pictures shows some more vintage wool that I purchased last year and is in wonderful condition.


There are two balls of Patons Nimbla Knitting Wool , skeins of - Daphne Crochet Wool from Lincoln Mills, Patons Super Scotch Fingering 2 ply and 4 ply, Azalea Crochet and Knitting Wool.


Next picture shows the label on the end of a wool shop storage box.




Lastly, for spool knitting enthusiasts, there is a great article in the UK Simply Knitting magazine Issue 28 May 2007 on a London-based artist Francoise Dupre. For copyright reasons I dont want to give details of the article here so you will have to look up the magazine.
















Okay, stay tuned for more.........and dont forget to CFLI (click for larger image)!

Later Knitpicky additions........



The above Wool Poster Board found its way into the collection last weekend. It measures 19 X 32cms and would most likely have graced the wall of a fabric shop.

Below is another Poster Board 37 X 45cms, advertising yarns, books and needles for TV Knitting from Patons - around late 50's, note the beehive knitting needles - this also arrived last weekend. It has the extra cardboard piece attached to the back so that the poster can stand on its own probably on a Wool Shop counter top.










3 comments:

catsmum said...

Very well crafted post. You are definitely getting the hang of this blogging lark [ and I found out yesterday that at least one of my friends from up here is now reading you regularly - Marcie leave a comment sometime okay ?]and I never said you were crazy for collecting vintage wool labels !!

crazyhaberdasher said...

Okay, not crazy, but it is what I call myself, it is another thing to add to the evergrowing list of the vintage sewing collection. And I tried to do the link thingy but I got it wrong...obviously...another lesson please!

crazyhaberdasher said...

Got a lesson from Luke and now I can do the link thingy.......