Just an Instruction Leaflet?

	Front of the pattern leaflet, showing pattern for four needles.

By Ingrid Murnane

Everyone reading this has probably used a knitting pattern. But what becomes of them after that initial garment or object has been made? Have you ever considered the 'social life' of a knitting pattern? I am going to explore and show you the social connections which a particular 1940s knitting pattern has attained in my family during the past 70 years.

Its widely travelled, far-reaching 'life' encompasses three generations and has come to mean far more to us than it being just a pattern to make some men's gloves. It reflects the interconnectedness of the life stories of both people and objects.

Myrtle Green in the early 1940s.

In 1940, my maternal grandmother, Myrtle Green was in her mid twenties and worked in a haberdasher's in Newport, Isle of Wight. Britain was in the grip of the Second World War and everyone was doing what they could towards the war effort. On the Home Front, women were encouraged to knit 'Forces Comforts' for the troops. It was a social activity and even Queen Mary 'did her bit' for the cause. Myrtle and her mother Lily knitted gloves and balaclavas for the allied forces in Europe and sent them to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight regiment

	Back of the pattern showing the pattern for two pins.

The pattern which they used was a Bestway design, a popular brand of the time, bought from their local yarn shop 'The Needlewoman'. It has patterns for gloves to be knitted on two or four needles and most strikingly to our 21st century eyes, seems to be advocating smoking! Perhaps not acceptable now but definitely popular then. After the war, the pattern was stored in 'the knitting bag', alongside many other patterns. It was occasionally used to make further pairs of gloves for Myrtle's family including her new husband George. The glove pattern was also lent out to others in her circle and became a social object, creating connections between people. It seems that it was part of a 'pattern swap' with other new wives. Myrtle's sister-in-law Joyce Francis borrowed it to knit some gloves for her own husband. In doing so, the 'social circle' of the pattern was widened and others were perhaps also becoming fond of it.

Myrtle (front left) and Grace (front right) in 1957

The life of the glove pattern became a little different soon after this as Myrtle taught her seven year old daughter Grace to knit. Together they made a pair of black gloves from the pattern for Grace's father George to wear to work as a railway guard. My mother Grace remembers a great sense of pride:

"It was the first 'big' thing that I made and it seemed terribly complicated. I was so proud of the gloves - I even helped to sew them up and I must have been only about 8 or 9...and he wore them to work everyday."

By now the pattern had been used by two generations and formed part of the relationship between mother, father and daughter, by their making the gloves out of love.

Grace in Singapore

Moving on another 15 years, Grace grew up, trained as a nurse, married and moved away to Singapore where my father Paul was stationed. In their free time, Grace taught her friend Liz to knit. As knitting patterns were scarce or written in Chinese, Myrtle sent her daughter patterns. These included the Bestway glove pattern which Grace and Liz used to make some gloves. In such a hot and humid climate, they knit gloves in dishcloth cotton to use for cleaning: they used the gloves for dusting and apparently started something of a trend! By now the pattern had made journeys, both geographic and through time. Another powerful layer of sentiment had been added for Grace, in teaching a skill to a friend; she described being rather attached to it by now as it reminded her of living in Singapore and the great times she had with her friend Liz. Grace and Paul moved back to Britain and I was born shortly afterwards. The pattern was returned to Myrtle at this point 'as she would use it the most'.

Ingrid showing early knitted doll's clothes.

In 1981, aged 5, the cycle continued and I was taught to knit by Myrtle, whilst on holiday at her house. As the only grandchild at that time, there was plenty of time to learn and I had all the usual problems with dropped stitches and holes in my garter stitch teddy bear scarves. Soon enough I began to use patterns and soon enough it was the turn of the Bestway glove pattern. I learned to increase and decrease from this pattern. After that I got pretty good at knitting dolls clothes too, which you can see in the picture. I am very fond of that glove pattern and am proud of the fact that some of my knitting skills came from using it with my Nan.

Skipping on to 1987, you might remember that this was the year when Thatcher and Reagan were in power, there was a terrible fire in King's Cross station, and Van Gogh's Sunflowers sold for $53.6m. But for me, what was important in 1987 was that I was in boarding school and needed a new pair of grey school gloves for the winter.

	Pattern instructions

The life of the pattern continued in its adaptation. Between them, my mother and grandmother adapted the Bestway pattern to fit a child's hands and knitted up a pair. They used the pattern for two needles and knit them up using double knitting yarn instead of the 4 ply that was specified: that made for a chunky glove! I think that the main thing here was that they knitted these gloves out of love instead of just going to buy some.

One of the grey school gloves adapted from the men's pattern.

However...
I was unimpressed. You might think that I would be grateful for this lovely handcrafted pair of gloves, uniquely made just for me. You would be wrong. I remember whinging that they were the wrong colour, they didn't fit right and they were just not cool! Being eleven, I wanted to have something the same as all my school friends, namely machine-knit ones from Marks and Spencer; not embarrassing ones knitted by my Mum and Nan. As you might imagine they were not impressed at my horror and refusal to wear them, and rightly called me ungrateful! I have to admit that at this point the gloves and pattern did not mean much to me at all, well, apart from abject horror. For my mother and grandmother they meant much more - the emotional gift of love, and the reinforcement of that relationship by knitting for them.

I refused to ever wear them and they were consigned to storage. Myrtle sadly passed away in 1994 and I inherited all of her needles and my mother kept some patterns, including the Bestway glove pattern. It was kept in particular because it was one of the last things that Myrtle had knitted for a family member. There is a tangible connection with Myrtle through the school gloves and this one pattern and my mother kept the two together always.

Teal alpaca glove made from the Bestway pattern for two pins.

To bring the story up to date, in 2007 as part of my master's degree I decided to research a little more into the story of the Bestway glove pattern. I knew that it had been used for wartime knitting and had always been fascinated with the smoking iconography. While I researched its background I realised how much it was part of my own family's knitting history; as you have read! I also decided that I should make a pair of the same gloves as the school ones, in order to appreciate the work and effort that goes into them. My Mum laughed an awful lot when I said this as you might imagine. In making the gloves, I had a lot of problems with yarn and gauge. I came to realise that if it was just 'any' pattern then I may not persevere but chose another instead. However I just could not bring myself to do this. This really proved to me that I have my own emotional investment in the pattern and the gloves myself; perhaps more than I had thought.

	Charting the social networking of the glove pattern.

The most interesting thing about this pattern for me is that it is such an agent of social networking as can be seen in this chart. There were three main ways that this worked. People that had knitted gloves using the pattern (green arrows), those who had learned to knit using it (yellow) and those who received gloves knitted from the pattern (pink). In addition to the many interconnections here, the pattern's geographic network could also be added here to encompass the Isle of Wight, wartime Europe, Singapore and Winchester.

I asked in the title, is it just an instruction leaflet? Well the answer is that yes it is, but there is much more to it than that. Yes, because you can knit a pair of gloves if you follow the pattern. But also, no. There is so much emotional investment in this one piece of paper: the tangible link to Myrtle; a link of skills acquisition and knitting together for Grace and Ingrid. It evokes powerful memories too: a nostalgic reminder of living in Singapore and knitting with Liz for Grace; of learning to knit on the Isle of Wight, and through the gloves, of being at boarding school for me.

Through studying the pattern's 'social life', geographically travelling the world, in both pattern and glove forms, and through time and generations has been possible to see how it has become much more than just an instruction leaflet, but an agent of social networking and a metonym in my own family for Myrtle and our learning to knit from her. It is much more than just an instruction leaflet: it is part of our family knitting history.

I wonder what you would all find if you delved deep into the history of your oldest knitting patterns, needles or yarn.

This article has been adapted from a lecture first given at the 2008 In the Loop knitting conference in Winchester.

About the Author

Ingrid Murnane is a graduate of the MA programme in History of Textiles and Dress at the Textile Conservation Centre in Winchester. She is a textile artist, craft skills researcher and very keen knitter.
Her website is http://ingridnation.wordpress.com.
Her folksy shop is at www.folksy.com/shops/IngridNation
and you can find her on Ravelry as IngridNation.