PURL AND PLAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 2

PURL AND PLAIN

THE CLICK OF THE NEEDLES Lives there a man with soul so dead who never to his wife, sister, aunt, cousin, niece or female acquaintance has said: “What, knitting I know, two purl, two plain!” All the horrors ol gift tie and handkerchief have been more than obliterated by the fatuities uttered by men at the sight of a woman with a ball of wool and a paii of knitting needles. This year (states a writer in the Manchester Guardian), their humoui will have full scope for all the signs are set for a knitter’s winter. Coun ters groan beneath heaps of multicoloured and multi-priced wools an J silks. Red, yellow, green and blue, the slim and pliant needles lie ranked in readiness for the active fingers as yet unprovided. In trains, buses, and offices, round fires, and over bridge tables, patterns are discussed and exchanged. “Oh! 1 know someone wlr did that jumper. It looks awfully nice. Only she did it in rose and bin instead of brown and orange.”. “I think 100 sounds a lot in four-ply. 1 should cast on 94 if I were you.' Coats, ’pull-overs, scarves, caps, socks —the percentage per head of the population of Groat Britain must, one would imagine, already run into double figures. But still there would appeal to be no woman who has achieved a beret to match every garment, or h jumper for every mood. In no place is this outburst ol energy to be viewed at a fiercer pitch than at the winter tennis club. Rain drops may blur the window-pane and hail rattle on the roof, but what woman feels that her time is wasted while he.knitting has grown half-an-inch? In vain should one hope that tlie leisure-i tranquility of the knitting world mig!. remain untouched by the speed manin. “Have you seen the jumper Rosal in-I has knitted?” passes round the awed whisper. “She only began it on Fri day night and she was wearing it on Monday!” “Yes that new idea, one

fat needle and one thin one. You get along marvellously quickly.” Driven by some strange necessity to complete the garment in hand, Rosalind knits doggedly at tea, between sets, almost on the court. And now fashion’s latest novelty has yielded a fresh weapon to her hand. How sad that such pas sionate urgency should lapse the moment the last stitch is cast off! When you meet her three days later she is still knitting—something new, something exciting, and, “I must finish it before next week-end."

C>.'ju]»cd round the pavilion, indeed may be found knitters of every sort. There is the expert, whose results are admirable but who is delightfully vague as to method. “Yes, but what do you do when you get to the nock?” you query. Oh, I don’t know. I just make it up as I go along.” And you take your questions elsewhere. There is the ‘unfortunate' knitter, whose workmanship is beyond exception, but whose finished masterpiece, by some luckless chance, never quite fits its destined recipient. “Yes, it is a little wide across the shoulders," she exclaims cheerfully. “Oh, well, perhaps it will shrink the first time it is washed." There is the impatient knitter who hurls off 18 inches, decides abruptly that it is wrong, and tears it ruthlessly to pieces One moment, there is an almost finished jumper in her hands; the next you come across her winding up an unhappily crinkled ball of -wool.

Against such an overwhelming force of example even the strongest resist ance must at length give way. Shame facedly you creep into the local wool emporium, pick a pattern (“Something simple, please”), and savour the most delectable moment of the knitter’s life when the whole skeined rainbow lies at your choice. “I'll take six ounces of this.” The instant of exhilaration has passed, and already fore bodings cross your mind that ere the three weeks have passed you will loathe the sight of that now-so-pleas-mg green. And next Saturday afternoon, as the October shower passes away and the sun shines forth: “We’re just going on. Aren't you coming! . . Hallo, I thought you never knitter!” And already tlie furrowed brow and the agonised reply: “Oh, wait a minut n . I’ve just dropped a stitch!" PALAIS DE DANSE. To-night (Saturday), dancing will be held from 8 till 12 midnight in the pleasant surroundings of the Druids’ Hall, by the Palais'’ de Danse, where a programme of old-time and modern numbers has been arranged for the enjoyment of patrons. The Gaiety Dance Band, together with coloured lighting effects, a good floor, good supper, and good Monte Carlo prizes, combine to assure the everrfng’s success.