Tuesday, August 07, 2018


Andrew & Andrea turned up today, as hoped. Their interviewee, Louise Harding, isn’t to my taste, designer-wise, but she had a good many interesting things to say, including a distaste for cardigans which button over the bosom. She prefers a single button at the top.

She set me thinking – a good deal of what follows is probably absurd – about the two great 20th century trends in knitting which are now more or less coming together: traditional/peasant knitting, and “couture”. EZ can be credited, along with much else, with bringing much of traditional knitting (e.g., knitting in the round) into the mainstream. Harding is firmly in the “couture” camp, believing – as does Andrea, and many others – that knitting needs firm seams.

The fascinating thing about Susan Crawford’s Vintage Knitting Project is seeing how traditional knitters, there on the edge of the world, were influenced by fashionable designs.

Kate Davies, I would say, straddles these two strands brilliantly. As does Jared Flood and his team – meticulous designs; not too many seams.

Harding said that it was Rowan who first put designers’ names on designs. We take it for granted. I have, as really devoted readers will remember, a complete collection of the British Vogue Knitting Book from its inception in 1932 until it faded away in whenever-it-was. In the first decades photographers are credited – and there are some still-famous names among them – but designers, never. Kaffe was one of the first designers whom I was aware of by name -- and he worked for Rowan, of course.

Here at home, I am grateful for your comments about the Drama Channel. I think I have been missing out there. When my husband was alive, he spent an industrious half-hour daily combing the newspaper for anything we might want to watch – and he found some good ones. I do it in 5-8 minutes, confining myself to Channels One-Five plus BBC Four. I’m going to add Drama.

Next week promises well, even without: Jamie’s new Italian series (my husband would never let us watch cookery programs); Sylvia Plath (myself, had things turned out differently and had I been a genius); and a new episode of Fake or Fortune.

Internet problems seem to be obstructing the sock pictures I have ready for you. Tomorrow.



10 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:34 PM

    I'm sure you were genius enough to be Sylvia Plath, but I'm very glad you weren't. I'd rather you you, and here, than her and wherever she is.

    Beverly in NJ

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  2. What a truly enigmatic remark, Jean! What can you mean? Or is it one of those roads not taken things, over which a veil is best drawn?

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  3. If you are now allowing yurself the privilege of watching cookery programmes. please allow yourself the pleasure of Nadiya's offerings - bracketed in the hour that contains University Challenge. She is a natural presenter with such a winning smile - and the recipes are good as well.

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  4. Re: TV viewing. Here in Seattle we get Channels 9 and 12 which offer (over time) Father Brown and Foyle's War. Great husband grumbling over the lack of a Radio Times to tell us what is on when. One depends on the menus shown each day on the TV.
    By the way, the Great British Baking Show is not one of his favorites - but he does
    "allow" me to watch it.

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    1. TV guide has an app and a website. No radio times for sure but it has listings.

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  5. I looked up Sylvia Plath with great curiosity and then wondered, What? I think you are going to have to explain yourself here. :)

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  6. Somehow blogger was not letting me post. I had a long lovely post all about tv shows to watch and it disappeared. Will have to recreate it another time.

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  7. Anonymous2:29 PM

    Button-down cardigans are okay to me if there is the right amount of ease - not too small and tight nor too large and sloppy. To me it's another opportunity for a long vertical line in my clothing. But I see Harding's point. I agree with Beverly in NJ. re Plath. Chloe

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  8. About your Sylvia Plath remark: I've always thought it a particularly Northern European trait to be able to be grim and (dryly) funny at the same time. Perhaps you gravitated to the UK because of a shared sensibility? Or absorbed it over the years? And as for cooking shows, we don't seem to be getting "regular" ones anymore in the US, the kind with a single cook or chef in a home kitchen; they all seem to have morphed into reality shows, and the only one of those I like is the Great British Bake-off.

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    1. Here in Maryland in the US, I've enjoyed dropping in on shows hosted by Nigella (charming as ever but show over-produced), Lidia Bastianich and Ina Garten on PBS--in addition to TGBB. Would love to re-watch some of Jamie's shows but I guess I'll have to dredge them up online.

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