Knitting Digest – the least digestible knitting magazine that I’ve ever happened across.
The 1970’s was not the best decade for hand knitting. There were too many ponchos, knitted bikinis and balls of burnt orange yarn for my liking. This June 1976 edition of Knitting Digest has all of these and more.
If you are a regular reader you already know my feelings about ponchos so I won’t revisit them here, and burnt orange yarn is just not something I want to spend any time with.
Any good feelings I might have had towards knitted bikinis evaporated when I was about five years old. I have vivid memories of wearing my blue and white knitted cotton bikini in the baby pool at the public baths. Knitted cotton does not behave when wet and when I stood up after having a splash around, the bikini bottoms stayed in the pool.
I don’t want to suggest that I’m emotionally scarred from losing my bikini bottoms in a public pool – I’m just saying that I know from experience that they’re not a good idea if you plan to go in the water at all.
Bikinis for five year olds aside, 1970’s knitting and crochet could be a bit – revealing. If you have a pattern for a lace boob-tube, chances are its from the 70’s.
The strategically positioned lace contraption below is possibly the high point of Knitters Digest June 1976. The rest of the patterns in this magazine include bikinis for toddlers (of course), revealing sun tops for women who wear too much eye shadow and a couple of knitted polo shirts for marvellously moustached men.
More alarming than the patterns are the extra articles – a bit of fashion, a few recipes and some diet advice. The same magazine that teaches you how to make ice-cream from icing sugar, double cream and a handful of raspberries also tells you that a single herring rollmop with lettuce and celery is a sensible lunch for slim modern girl.
I think it’s safe to say I will not be making anything from this magazine.
(Please note that I do not own the copyright to any patterns featured in Retro Monday. Unfortunately this means I can’t make or send out copies).
Everything on that cover seems logical to me… right up until the article about acupuncture. How does that relate to knitting? As an alternate use for your finer needles, perhaps?
Seventies crochet has a lot to answer for, really. On the up side, many of the patterns make for a good laugh, followed by a horrified thought that somebody might actually have worn them.
It’s a very weird magazine indeed. It’s officially a knitting mag, but the diet advice, acupuncture article and an agony aunt column seem so out of place. Strange, trashy and disturbing.
I have some friends who have made me look again at some of the styles of the late 1960s and the 1970s, but so much of the knitting is just not my thing.
I bet that burnt orange yarn is all squeaky acrylic too… (I like synthetics as long as they’re not pretending to be wool!)
I really struggle to like the 1970’s – I might set myself a challenge to find something agreeable from the 70’s on my next op shopping trip.