HAND-KNITTED FABRICS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25246, 26 July 1947, Page 2

HAND-KNITTED FABRICS

APPEARANCE OF WOVEN MATERIAL A new fabric, the creation of which has given employment to many people for whom full-time employment would not have been possible, has been perfected by Mrs Maria Szanto. a Hungarian woman who now lives in London. Fifteen years ago Mrs Szanto was the manageress of a tailoring business in Vienna. The difficulty of obtaining satisfactory knitwear for the suits made by her firm led her to experiment with knitting to find out why it could not be made to look like woven material, and to possess the cutting and wearing qualities of this material. Eventually she found that the desired qualities could be introduced into knitting by using different threads of wool, and yarn of varying thickness. When she went to England in 1935 she was able to continue her research with the wide range and superior quality of British yarns at her disposal. As the result of her further research she has created a fabric which is said to be representative of the best that Britain can produce. The fabric has the strength and durability of tweed, and the softness and elasticity of hand-knitting. Various patterns are introduced into the work to give the appearance of heathermixture tweeds, hopsacks and' other types of cloth. One of the great advantages of this material is that it does not lose its shape as many handknitted garments tend to do. This new industry keeps a hundred expert knitters busy in their own homes. One of the most expert of the workers is an incapacitated former policeman.