News for Knitters

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 190, 13 August 1936, Page 11

News for Knitters

SHA WL-MAKING VOGUE

Just as "woollies'’ usod to pertain entirely to babies, so shawls seemed the attributes of old ladies only, or occasionally, in Dickens’s time, tophatted gentlemen wrapped shawls closely round their mouthy to keep out fog or the night air. The habit of heroines dying of consumption, as it •was called, was also an excuse for the shawl which had been worn freely by their forbears. While tho shawl proper has not yet como in again, shawl-making is enough of a vogue to extond far moro widely states an English journal. This is particularly the case as it also coin- j cides with tho knitting fever, and thoso who cannot be confined to tho limitations of scarves or even sweaters can plunge into shawls and, according to taste, go on knitting for evermore. Some of the most satisfactory shawls really serve as small rugs for the car or for resting on tho sofa. One size may entail putting on perhaps 240 stitches and knitting stocking stitch to and fro. The point of the shawl, is to work in a great deal of colour, on the line of the Italian rug, but usually deeper, if hardly less gay. Black makes a good foundation for the shawl, and after perhaps a beginning of black four or five inches deep may come red, blue, green, yellow, and any colours which are difficult to find and are only picked up by great good luck. The many are linked together by more rows of black of differing width. On the whole the more artificial colourings work out best —jade green instead of natural green; orchid pink or magenta instead of intrinsically prettier pinks. Tho shawl is warm and has the merit of looking distinctly unusual.