Purl and Plain

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7079, 11 February 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 of 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 pair of knitting needles.

This year, (states a writer in the Manchester Guardian) their humour will have full scope for all th esigns are set for a knitter’s winter. Counters groan beneath heaps of multi-coloured and multi-priced wools and 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! I know someone who did that jumper. It looks awfully nice. Only she did it in rose and blue instead of brown and orange.” “I think 100 sounds a lot in four-ply. I should cast on 94 if I were you.” Coats, pull-overs, scarves, caps, 3oeks —the percentage per head of the population of Groat Britain must, one would imagine, already run into double figures. But still there would appear to be no woman who has achieved a beret to match every garment, or a jumper for very mood. In no place i 3 this outburst of energy to be viewed at a fiercer pitch than at the winter tennis club. Raindrops may' blur the window-pane and hail rattle on the roof, but what woman feels that hear time is wasted while her knitting has grown half-an-inch? In vain should one hope that the leisured tranquility of the knitting world might remain untouched by the speed mania. "Have you seen the jumper Rosalind has knitted?” passes round the awed whisper. “She only bogan it on Friday night and she was wearing it on Monday!” “Yes that new idea, ono fat ncedlo 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 tbe court. And now fashion’s latest novelty has yielded a fresh weapon to her hand. How sad that such passionate urgency should, lapse the moment the last stitch i's 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.”

Grouped round the pavilion, indeed, may he found knitters of every sort. There is the expert, whoso results are admirable but who is delightfully vague as to method. “Yes, but what do you do when you get to the neck?” you query. Oh, I don’t know. I just make it up as I go along.” And you take your questions elsewhero. There is the ‘unfortunate’ knitter, whose workmanship is beyond exception, but whose finished masterpiece, by some luckless cbance, 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.

counting labouriously in hushed tones, never deviating by ono slipped stitch from what the book says.

Against such an overwhelming force of example even the strongest resistance must at length give way. Shamefaceidly you creep into the local' wool

emporium, pick a pattern ("Something simple, please”) ,and savour the most delectable moment of tho knitter’s life when tho whole skeined rainbow lies at your choice.’ “I’ll take six ounces of this,” Tho instant of exhilaration has passed, and already forebodings cross your mind that eve tho three weeks havo passed you will loathe the sight of that now-so-pleasing green. And next Saturday afternoon, as the October shower passes away and the sun shines forth: “Wc’ro just going on. Are’nt you coming? Hallo, I thought you never knitted!” And already tho furrowed brow and the agonised reply: “Oh, wait a minute, I’ve just dropped a stitch!”