Showing posts with label cardigans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardigans. Show all posts

Monday, 20 June 2016

Foxgloves and vintage knitwear

Foxgloves are beautiful flowers and very easy to grow.  They look wonderful in gardens or growing wild in fields, where they can look amazing mixed amongst other wild flowers.

The foxgloves in the photographs below are growing at the bottom of a large garden, where they have self-seeded and are just growing as wild flowers.

Foxgloves growing wild at the bottom of a Suffolk garden
The beauty of the plants is that they come in a great number of shades of pinks and white.  I love their tall spikes.

Wild foxgloves in a Suffolk garden
These great flowers have also been the inspiration for designer knitwear - such as on this vintage hand knitted cotton cardigan.  It is covered with vases filled with flowers - jerberas, muscari and foxgloves - with climbing wisteria flowers twirling round the top part of the front and back.

Hand knit cardigan covered with vases of flowers and climbing wisteria
3-D foxgloves are growing round the lower part of the body and sleeves on another vintage hand knitted cardigan.  This time clematis twirls around the top part of the cardigan, with bees dotted between the flowers.

Hand knit foxglove and clematis cotton cardigan
The amazing group of tall, spiky, pale pink foxgloves in the photograph below was growing in the garden of a house I visited some time ago.

Flower bed full of light coloured foxgloves
Don't they just look absolutely incredible?

Monday, 25 April 2016

Christmas roses and roses on designer hand knits

Rose floral waistcoat
Model wearing Rose waistcoat and running along the Long Border
I love using floral images on my knitwear designs.  I am very fond of roses, but can’t grow my own as I don’t have a garden.  I do have a small roof terrace, which is over-populated with plants in containers, and now have a lovely collection of delicate-looking Hellebores (Christmas Roses).  Though not in such vibrant colours as garden roses, they do a great job of brightening my life and, when they first started flowering, reminded me that Spring was just around the corner - probably wishful thinking!
Christmas rose - mottled hellebore with double centre
Rose designs have been used on several hand knits in the past such as these vintage cardigans and waistcoat in 4ply weight mercerised cotton or wool.
Rose cardigan 1
Rose design white cotton hand knit cardigan with leaf-shaped pointed hem

Rose cardigan 2
Rose and lacy floral pattern panelled cardigan - navy cotton background


Rose waistcoat
Cream rose pattern wool waistcoat
I have added roses to a pair of fingerless mitts, which can be knitted by anybody who can do intarsia.  
Rose hand knit fingerless mitts

Rose fingerless mitt - left hand
The PDF pattern is available from Twisted Classics shop on Ravelry - rose mitts