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Category: Knitting

Free Knitting Pattern – Maurice the Monkey

Apologies for not having posted any free patterns recently. I’ve had vertigo for quite some time, so instead of posting new patterns on my site I’ll be showing some of my favourites from around the internet.

Maurice the Monkey is a great way to learn the knitted loop stitch.

Maurice the Monkey, with free knitting pattern

He’s made completely of rectangles so you won’t have to work out how to decrease while creating the loops, and he’s a real stunner. Make him for a little one or to keep your sock monkey collection company!

Maurice the Monkey from “The Land”,  Friday the 27th of March, 1936

I hope to showcase a new pattern daily, so feel free to sign up for notifications whenever I make a post.

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Learning to Knit – We’ve all Been There

At least those of us who know how to knit have!

Do you remember the times, when learning to knit, finding that your rows were ever widening no matter how you tried to keep your stitch numbers the same? Not much has changed in 80 years 🙂

A poem from the Sunday Times (Perth), October 27th 1935.

KNITTING.

Hush! You mustn’t speak to them,

Marigold and Joan.

Tip-toe past the nursery door,

Leave them quite alone.

They are, oh, so busy now,

For they’ve learnt to knit.

Perched before the glowing fire,

Solemnly they sit.

They are counting all the time,

“Purl, plain, purl – two plain; Purl once more – oh bother it!

Dropped a stitch again!”

Then the ball of wool gets lost,

Till at last it’s found

Twisted by bad Kitty-Cat All the chair-legs round!

What’s Joan knitting? Well, you know,

That is hard to say!

Though, it started as a scarf,

It has run away!

If it grows much more it will

Make a lovely rug!

Big enough – it seems to me –

To keep an army snug!

Make Your Own Knitting Needle Keepers from Nuts

I really want to make these. My stitches are always falling off the ends of my needles when I’m knitting socks. Probably because they sit in my work bag for several years at a time 😉

From Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, December 30th 1899.

Knitting.

Most people who knit have experienced at one time or another the annoyance of stitches dropping off the needles when the work is put down for a few minutes. Knitting-needle holders prevent this, and are extremely easy to make. Bore a hole, quarter of an inch in circumference, in the bottom of two hazel nuts. Remove the kernels, and with a red-hot knitting needle bore two small holes at each side of each empty shell. Run together (at both edges) two pieces of narrow ribbon, not quite half an-inch wide and three-quarters of a yard long. Then draw through the casing a narrow black elastic, two inches shorter than your knitting needles, and stitch each end of elastic to the small holes in nut, drawing the ribbon over the ends of elastic to hide the stitching. Tie a small bow at each end to cover fasten- ing, and the needle-holder is complete.

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Economical Knitting for Children

From the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, July 8th 1936

Knitting

When knitting pullovers for several children, use wool of one colour. When the jumpers are partly worn and shabby, unravel, and wind the wool from the strong parts, and use again. Children’s jumpers can be unravelled and knitted into a fresh-looking pullover for a boy of twelve, a pullover for a boy of five, and perhaps two smart berets for school for miss nine and miss eleven. There is usually enough wool left for darning these articles later on.