Treasures from my Mother’s Attic – the 70-s

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My aim for making the trip up to the attic was to get a few extra needles for the knitting course that started last week. My mother (84) used to be a seamstress and she really preferred sewing over knitting, but I knew that she had a stack of knitting needles up there and would be happy to part with them. Searching through the boxes I hit upon so many other surprises! She still had loads of old knitting & crochet magazines, not only from her own adult life, but also from my grandmother’s. The oldest crochet book I found dated from around 1910. My grandma was a young girl then and my mother wasn’t even born yet..

3 suisses restjes-colsBut let’s start with the seventies, the best decade for vintage fashion.

Cowls, a clothing species that is now extinct. But how practical and warm. I used to wear them with V-neck pullovers and loved them.
3 suisses restjes-teenage dolls

 

 

 

 

 

This is sort of Arne and Carlos avant-la-lettre. These two are called ‘teenage dolls’. Don’t miss the bell-bottom pants!

 

3 suisses restjes-pillows

 

And then these pillows. Aren’t the colour combinations beautiful? Why didn’t we just stop time in the seventies? The eighties were fun, but fashion-wise, what were we thinking? Not to mention the 90-ies.

 

 

3 Suisses Bags

 

 

 

Last picture: bags. These are crochet, not knitting, but aren’t they cool? I do not only have pictures of all this, I have the patterns as well. So contact me if you would like to make any of these. For the handles: saw two rings off from a piece of pvc pipe and crochet around them. I made something similar in macrame at highschool, but that’s another course!

Next episode: the 40-ies

Breien in Amsterdam – Knitting in Amsterdam

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Dear all,

As you know – or don’t know – I am going to develop a knitting course, to be given this fall in the East part of Amsterdam and I created this blog to practice making the website for this course: breieninoost.nl

This post is my very first attempt to publish something on-line. I am going through the WordPress instruction video, but am a little impatient and want to see results!

I think I also prefer learning by trial & error instead of going through all the instructions. I guess it will have to be a combination of both..

While I practice, I will keep a record of my experiences in this blog – until the real website goes live. There are a lot of new things to learn. I have made a start with collecting materials for my site:

  • images of self-made knitted materials
  • other types of illustrations
  • text for the site, in English and in Dutch
  • links to woolshops, other knitting courses and social knitting media

One illustration sample:

de nuttige handwerken

Useful handicrafts

This was the book that teachers used for handcrafts classes in primary school: “Useful Handicrafts”. Although I went to school in the sixties, the style and content of teaching was totally fifties – very old-fashioned. I found and ordered a copy of this book on internet and can’t wait to hear it drop in my mailbox! It will bring back memories of dropped stitches, sweaty needles and a mean teacher.

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