Mama's Little Man

The hand-knitted motif on a little boy's jumper provides an adorable launching point for his imagination. 

"What's that, darling, a choo-choo train?"  Instantly he is an engine driver, chugging around the living room, so proud of his responsibilities.

 

Perhaps the motif echoes, or inspires, what he thinks he wants to be when he grows up.

 

 

But what happens when he has grown up . . . and loving hands continue to produce aspirational motif knitwear?

 

Frankly, it becomes a little embarrassing. 

 

Even disadvantageous.  While his smirk tells us that he believes himself implicitly to be the high-flier his mother's knitting needles proclaim him to be . . . others remain unconvinced.

Ninepence well spent - this one is too lovely and my particular favourite, perhaps because the props point to a lifetime of knitted motorcycle motifs having achieved the status of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sir, not with those sleeves.  In fact probably not at all.

The decoration on the upper right was not part of the original knitting pattern.  It's what happened when he wore this down to his local on darts night.

Twins are guaranteed at least one source of empathy and support.

Some poor fellows never work up the courage to tell their mothers that enough is enough.  Said mothers are renowned for their long life expectancies.

447 is actually his prison number.  But his mother doesn't see a gangster beneath the brim of that hat . . . he's her little dancing cowboy, and always will be.

Knit One, Purloin One

Today it's my pleasure to share some images from a Villawool Hand Knits booklet from the mid-60s (don't you love the "knitted" Villawool logo?).  There are some pleasingly odd pictures and delectable vintage woollens herein, but what initially struck me was the face of the model on the cover, who appears to be stealthily tip-toeing out of a waiting room, clutching a purloined magazine.  Does she remind you of anyone?

 

Seems that her accomplice is left pondering how to slink past the receptionist without attracting attention to the massive modern painting she's lifted from the wall.  Don't worry honey, just a little more swagger and the hypnotically swaying red fringe of your stunning jumper will be all she notices.  Why not take the cherub wall plaque while you're at it?

Having a decoy dressed nearly identically is always useful when it comes time for the police identity line-up.  

"The woman I saw stealing the book was a blonde in a sweater.  Yes, I'm certain of it.  But... just a moment... she could have been a red-head... or was it a cardigan she was wearing?  I'm sure it was some sort of Aran style knit. Yes, no, I'm almost certain of that. Officer, I can't think... could I have a glass of water?"

It's Nerida's first day on decoy duty and after forty minutes of attracting every eye to the very window she was doing her best to shield, she wonders whether she should have asked the girls what "unobtrusive" actually meant....

We find Jocelyn standing guard at the back door, wrapped in an oversized orange marle sweater with dauntingly massive pom-pom trimmed collar, and impenetrable dreams of revenge. 

Meanwhile, Delores having finished the last few rows of her suit has used her crochet hook to pick the lock of the liquor cabinet.  No icon of sobriety came up with those daringly chic half-concealed buttons.

Back at headquarters, religious door-knockers are easily deterred if you greet them clutching a mock-up coven manual and invite them in for tea and sacrificial goats.  

Australia in the 1960s was a lovely place, so very far from the rest of the world that a major pattern company could describe a suit as "Chanel Style" without fear of litigation.  Looking at these trompe l'oeil pockets it's safe to assume that the worst Chanel's lawyers might have done was to spray their colleagues with café au lait as they spluttered with incredulous laughter.  Not even the models could contain their mirth at the optimistic description.

Okay, any takers on a look-alike for Suspect Number One?

I thought she could easily masquerade as The Thunderbirds' Lady Penelope.  Perhaps it's not the facial resemblance so much as her disquieting air of being not - absolutely - human.

 

(Note: if any of these designs totally grab you, drop me a line and I'll be 

glad to email you a scan of the pattern.  Have your llama wool ready!)

Once Apron A Time

I was in Murwillumbah yesterday, which is a treat in itself.  Ornate Victorian, Edwardian and unspoiled Art Deco shopfronts stand shoulder to shoulder with later, stranger, examples of architecture like kids in a school photo taken on mufti day. My dear husband came out of the St Vincent de Paul Society op-shop, telling me that there were no cricket bats to be found there that day (and therefore, implicitly, it was barely worthwhile going in).  Somehow he had walked right by the front window and managed to avoid being struck motionless with awe.  

The entire, massive window was garlanded with vintage aprons.  It was a sunshiny morning so please excuse the reflections, but you get the idea - winsome florals with complementary or contrasting plain pockets and ties, gingham decorated with embroidery and threadwork, unapologetically psychedelic prints and - the one which held me transfixed - a mid-century apron printed with sailboats.

 
 

Now, the sad fact with which I had to come to terms, is that the aprons weren't for sale that day - but they would be available for sale in a couple of weeks time.  To someone else :(   

So I took some photos to remember them by, and gave more thought to aprons than I ever have before, pondering the hypothesis that, like dreams, aprons may sometimes work by contraries.

When I left the beachside village where I grew up, friends sent me gifts of kitchen textiles printed with shells and lighthouses which seemed to bring subtle breaths of sea air to the humid hinterland galley where I hung them.  So I wondered about the women who had worn these aprons when they were new - did the hands which worked these butterflies in green thread have the chance to tend a flower garden and watch the butterflies drift through it, or was keeping moths away from the cabbages as close as they came?

And my soul sister, whoever you were, keeping this beauty immaculately for so many decades - did you wake confused from dreams of the water, only to find yourself interminably becalmed in an inland life?  Was this apron the antidote to years of drought and a landscape without where ripples of blue never relieved the endless dusty brown or cloying claustrophobia of green?

I hope of course that I'm quite wrong, and that their lives were as colourful, charming and fascinating as their aprons.  I also hope that whoever is fortunate enough to be in town when these are offered for sale will appreciate them just as they are, and for what they are - which is, perfectly lovely.

A Couple of Kinks in 60's Fashion

For weeks now I've been searching for just the right words to accompany the dreamy improbability of these mid-60s images. But I think after all they can do most of the talking for themselves.

The Kinks' drummer Mick Avory, endearingly wooden and the most ham-handed of dandies, models for Carnaby Street's John Stephen:





(Seen here with singer Kiki Dee.)


And teenage lead guitarist Dave Davies, adapting to the singular lack of props with leonine grace, notches up this Terylene campaign on his tally of adventures - sartorial and otherwise - in Swinging London. You could just tell that Dave would spend the remainder of the sixties not chatting up dollybirds, but assessing their outfits for Terylene content (doesn't it make you want to rush out and buy something in Terylene?)




Notice the intriguing ghostliness of his face in the middle image. I'm sad that the last picture had been cropped of text, and have also seen an ad from this series featuring a member of The Hollies. (Do you know of others? I'd adore to see them!)