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THE Mary Maxim Thread

Discussion in 'PUBLIC Show and Tell - Share your treasures' started by lindapoirier, Nov 21, 2017.

  1. Midge

    Midge Super Moderator Staff Member

  2. poppysvintageclothing

    poppysvintageclothing VFG Board Member Staff Member VFG Past President

    That target sweater you got from Japan is amazing!
     
  3. MagsRags

    MagsRags VFG President Staff Member

    I would call it "restoration" and not frown a bit. You did not alter the original design, you did your best to recreate it. And you didn't destroy anything in the process.
     
  4. poppysvintageclothing

    poppysvintageclothing VFG Board Member Staff Member VFG Past President

  5. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    That's interesting to me too! I'm a keen knitter.

    Embroidery over knitting has a long history. There's a technique is called Swiss Darning, also known as duplicate stitch, where you sew wool over knitted stitches, creating stitches that are the same shape as the knit stitches. It's fairly common technique in colour knitting, when you want a detail of a few stitches, that would be fiddly to produce in stranded or intarsia colour knitting. Sometimes a whole design is created in duplicate stitch over a plain sweater, and sometimes it's used for a small detail over a colour design.

    I think yours isn't exactly duplicate stitch, because the angle of the over stitches is different to the angle of the knitted stitches, but it's similar.

    I have a 1940s Scandinavian knitting book, that has traditional designs created entirely in duplicate stitch, after the sweater is knitted. It has other embroidery techniques too.

    You did a great job!
     
  6. amandainvermont

    amandainvermont VFG Member

  7. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    That's a gorgeous sweater! for some reason I can't see the image now from my laptop, though I could see it on my phone. To me that looks like some other kind of embroidery, not Swiss Darning.

    I'll show you some illustrations from my 1940s book. It was originally published in Danish, but I have an English translation. You can just about see on the close up, how it looks like knit stitches. On the full garment, only the thin stripes at the hem cuffs and pockets are knitted in, everything else is Swiss Darning.

    Instructions on Swiss darning
    Swiss darning 1.jpeg

    Close up
    Swiss darning 1 1.jpeg

    Full garment
    Swiss darning 1 2.jpeg
     
    poppysvintageclothing likes this.
  8. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    Here's some more examples of Swiss Darning, as well as decoration, it's also used for repair.

    This is a decorative example, the yellow and white motif being entirely worked on top of the plain knit, in Swiss darning. Photo credit Karen Barbe
    [​IMG]

    Here it's being used to cover a thin patch - the contrast colour shows the work, but in the same colour this would be a near invisible repair
    [​IMG]

    And here it's being used to repair a hole - first the long vertical threads are added, then Swiss Darning recreates the knit stitches -
    another near invisible repair

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2020
    Metro Retro Vintage likes this.
  9. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    Looking back, I'm wondering if the musical notes on your hoe-down sweater are embroidered on top. And, the green V's on the Caldwell jockey sweater.
     
  10. poppysvintageclothing

    poppysvintageclothing VFG Board Member Staff Member VFG Past President

    So glad it was you who got that Wolf sweater from me, Linda! I would love to visit you and your collections sometime!
     
    Retro Ruth likes this.
  11. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    The English version of the book is called Continental Knitting by Esther Bondesen published circa 1946. It's long out of print, but you can find copies second hand, try Amazon or Abe books. It's very much a knitters books, lots of patterns. If you just want to learn Swiss darning as a repair technique, there's loads of information about that online.

    Here's a ravelry project for the sweater below, from the same book - I'm planning to knit this one sometime. It's stranded knitting, no swiss darning here.
    https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Zetamamman/lusekofta

    [​IMG]
     
    amandainvermont likes this.

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