Sizing of the clothing in Murray and Koster books

Bust size for a 'younger woman' in the Murray and Koster books appears to have been about 34 inches, with occasional variations by a couple of inches.  Nowadays the average dress size in the UK is size 16 - which varies depending on the manufacturer, but is about 41 inches.  Larger, older, women were catered for in the books by a few patterns in 38 to 40 inch patterns.  These were often clearly less fashionable, although the captions to the pictures often describe them as 'flattering', 'charming' or 'becoming'.

Younger woman's version

the same cardigan, for the 'older' woman

The fact that almost all patterns came in only one size was a revelation to me - being used to a range of sizes in knitting patterns.  I was surprised that books could be sold that only catered for certain sizes of people.  Why was this?  There may have been a greater level of knowledge, so that women could scale up a pattern to another size.  It may also have been that a letter to the pattern publisher would elicit the information required.  On the other hand, perhaps that was that young women really were a more uniform size than today, because of differences of diet and nutrition.

Knitting for All - Illustrated October 1941

In a couple of the books a cardigan, or even a dress, is duplicated in two sizes, as 'mother' and 'daughter' sizes, but in completely different patterns, and there are sometimes more than one size for a child's jumper - using the standard practice of showing different instructions in brackets.  There are also occasional versions of the same mens' jumper in two sizes, for 'father' and 'son'.

Most of the mens' clothing is made for 38 inch chest, with occasional patterns in larger sizes.  For example: in Knitting for All (1941) we have a 'Large Size Pullover - designed for the big man', which is designed for the 'six-foot man with a 44-in. chest.'  This reminds us that the average height for a man was less during the war than it is now, and fewer men would have reached 6 foot.  The caption to the bottom of the photo notes that the 'measurements will serve as a basis for all big men's knitted garments. For instance, you could knit it in one of the ribs on page 135'.

The books show several examples of different stitches for each garment, allowing the knitter to ring the changes on a pattern.

It is also interesting to note that some garments are for 'teens, with occasional reference to the fact that girls of this age can be a bit difficult about their clothing - something that must have been a trial for anyone knitting for them during the war.

 

Bed Jackets

Knitted Garments for All - January '44

I remember bed jackets from my childhood in the 60s.  They were the sort of thing that my granny wore, or Great Aunt Hilda in Liverpool who was confined to bed with rheumatoid arthritis.  As a girl I didn't wear them, despite the fact that the house was freezing for half the year. 

We had no central heating, there was a coal fire in one of the downstairs rooms, a paraffin stove in my disabled grandmother's room - the other downstairs room.  My parents had a gas fire in their bedroom, but there was no other heating.  When it was really cold my parents put a small paraffin stove on the landing, but it made very little difference and we were poor enough that putting an extra shilling in the gas meter to run the gas fire was fairly unusual.  My grandmother needed to be kept warm, so often that was the only warm room in the house.



I regularly woke up in the winter with 'Jack Frost' on the window.  We were cold a lot of the time, and vests and thick woollies were the order of the day.  

So I can understand the attraction of bed jackets.  A neat little top that you could wear in bed, so that you could sit up and read, or chat to 'girl friends' in those shared rooms and hostels that must have been common for women in war time.  You were even decent if you had to leap out of bed to head for the cellar, or the air raid shelter.

So, it wasn't just changes in fashion that were the death knell for the bed jacket, it was central heating.  I wouldn't wear one now, the house is warm enough for me to sit up and read in bed without needing a cosy jacket.

Murray and Koster - the series, and who were they for?

The Odhams knitting books by Murray and Koster were published over nearly a decade, starting in 1941, and must have been helpful to the war effort, teaching women to knit, and how to reuse old yarn to make new garments.

All the Odhams books were by  Margaret Murray and Jane Koster and published by:
Odhams Press, Long Acre, London, WC2



'glamgirl' on the Ravelry Historic Knitting Forum has provided the following information about the books:

January 1944

Practical Knitting Illustrated: The Key to Hundreds of Garments You Can Make Yourself
March 1941, and May 1941

Knitting for All Illustrated
October 1941 – handwritten D.V. Bartlett (1942)

Complete Home Knitting Illustrated
October 1942

Knitted Garments for All
January 1944

Modern Knitting Illustrated
January 1945, and February 1948

Practical Family Knitting Illustrated
October 1946, and Reprinted September 1947

Knitting Illustrated
February 1948

Complete Family Knitting Illustrated 
October 1949 

None of my collection of these books have a dust jacket, but I imagine that they may have done originally.

And finally: 

The Minerva Knitting Annual
1950
This final book was published by Andrews and Warburg, London

This last book is of a lesser quality, using thick cardboard  rather than the fabric bound boards and embossed design on the front cover - and is in a poorer condition because of that.  Many of the designs are modelled by British 'screen stars', several from London Films, and none of whom I had previously heard of.  

The quality of the Odhams books remained remarkably consistent over the war years, with little decline in quality.  They were hardbacked books, with a high quality paper, and the earlier ones at least had attractive end papers.  Undoubtedly this quality has been a factor in the survival of so many of these books from more that 70 years ago.  The fact that many have survived suggest that many of them must have been printed in the first place.

 
The discussion I started on the Historic Knitting Forum on Ravelry raised several questions.  A number of respondents said that their mothers had never owned knitting books, but only pattern sheets.  Which raises the question of who might have owned such a book.  Comments on Ravelry suggest that they were probably not owned by working class knitters. As I said in my last blog post there are similar types of patterns in each book, but there would have been few people who might have needed to use more than a few of those patterns.   Were they owned/kept by some key person in the social group?  Were they shared by knitting groups?  Were they a wedding gift to the young bride?  

One Ravelry respondent says that she owns one that is still in mail order packaging, sent directly from Odhams, which gives part of the clue.  I believe it is possible that they were advertised in magazines for mail order, possibly by a series of payments.  I have yet to trace any of these advertisements, but I will be continuing with this search.

Margaret Murray and Jane Koster

THE ODHAMS SERIES

During WWII, and for some years afterwards, Margaret Murray and Jane Koster wrote a series of knitting books, which were published by Odhams.  There were, I believe, 8 in the series.

My Ravelry bookshelf

These are a fascinating window into those years. There is little mention of war, but there are notes at the back on how to take apart old and shapeless garments to produce new 'smart' clothing.  There are also 'blouse fronts' - shirts without a back for wearing under a suit.  The description says that these are for when you are in a hurry, or don't want to spend the time knitting a whole shirt - the reality must have been that sometimes you only had enough yarn for half a blouse.  There must have been plenty of embarrassing occasions over the years when a woman couldn't take off her jacket despite the heat because she was wearing only the front of a blouse.

I have had two of these books for some years - purchased at a 1940s reconstruction weekend, and found two more in our local Oxfam bookshop last week. I've now added another two bought on line, but the final two will have to wait until I can find them at a price that I'm prepared to pay.

There are common themes:

• Shirts or blouses for women; 
• pullovers and cardigans for women in two sizes: normal, and 'mature';
• pullovers, 'tank tops' and cardigans for men; 
• underwear for both sexes; 
• childrens garments including underwear and warm pullovers;
• baby garments;
• scarves and gloves;
• other garments - mostly for women: hats, dresses, skirts, etc.;
• household items: doilies, runners, etc.

Yarn was much finer than today, making it difficult to get yarn to knit up some of these garments, however, because of the very much smaller size of people in those days the sizing of the womens' garments has a normal size of about 34 inch bust. 'Mature' would have been 38 ish, relatively small by today's standards.

All illustrations have bracing comments under them.  These seem to be designed to encourage the knitter (female, of course) that the garment would be very acceptable to the wearer.  I don't imagine that people had a lot of choice.  Yarn was rationed too, and many garments must have been made up from older worn garments unpicked and re-knitted.

Over the next few blog posts I'm going to look at some of these themes, and consider what changes you need to make to be able to knit some of these garments today.



 

Stashbusting

What on earth was I thinking when I bought some of those yarns?

I have a stash, like many people it is hidden in a variety of places. Under the spare bed, in drawers, cupboards, etc. The honest truth is I really didn't know what was lurking in the "gentleman's cupboard" in the spare room. I knew it had some yarns, but my idea of what they were was very hazy.

A month or so back I'd gone through some of the stash to strip it down a bit, sending a load of oddments and unused acrylic to a friend who does knitting for charity. I have at least tried to keep the fibre stack manageable, but what was lurking in those plastic bags in the cupboard?

I knew about the many cones of machine knitting yarn (I really must dig that out sometime), but the rest of it....


A lot of it was an education. There was a lot of synthetic chunky and even mega chunky. Lots of 'astrakhan'. I think that some of these things were bought for peg weaving, but the mega chunky was bought because I had some hare-brained idea of knitting or crocheting hats with beards, and it was cheap....

Then there is the pompom yarn. I've knitted one scarf of it, but why did I think I needed another three balls? Cheap I suppose. 

The eyelash yarn? In multicoloured? (two balls) and orange? (five!) What on earth can I do with those?

The 'funky fur'. In flame colour, walnut brown and black. Again, what can I possibly make with those?

The 'firefly' ribbon yarn. Very pretty, but somewhat dated now, and not easy to knit with.

So what else?

Oh yes, the pink and pink that I bought to try something for a friend. The barely started 'illusion' rug in grey and blue.  

Over the next few months I'm going to try to bust this stash, one  way or another.

My promise is not to buy any more yarn until I've stripped it down significantly. 

UPDATE:

Well, I did strip some of the stuff out, I sent some to charity, friends took some.  But...

The stash is no smaller than it was - perhaps even larger.  I can't resist the lure of quality yarn in a sale.  I might have nothing planned to knit with it, but I can always find something, I have far too many knitting books too.