Secret Garden

Today I want to talk about a project that I've thoroughly enjoyed working on over the last year. Normally my designs are simple, brightly coloured and quick to knit. This one is the complete opposite of that.

As you can see, this is a highly textured blanket, knitted in thin, cream yarn. My camera hates taking pictures of cream coloured things so I apologise for the poor quality of the photos in this post - I did the best I could.

Anyway, back to the knitting. This baby blanket is called Secret Garden and has neatly laid out flower beds, moss stitch paths and a brick patterned border. It's named after the book of the same name The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett in which orphan Mary Lennox discovers a neglected garden hidden behind a wall.

Patterns for blankets like this were very popular in Victorian times. Often featuring leaves and other designs from nature, they were knitted in fine cream or white cotton, using thin needles. They were commonly made up of diagonally knitted squares which, when put together, revealed complex patterns.

'Weldon's Practical Knitter' featured patterns for these sorts of blankets - or quilts as they were sometimes known. You can still come across original editions of Weldons like this bound collection which I bought some years ago.

In between the many patterns for baby clothes and what can only be called substantial nether garments are some absolutely beautiful blanket patterns. This one is from a special edition titled 'How To Knit Pretty Designs For Quilts And Borders', published in 1891. It's called Corinthian pattern.

In the same edition there's this 'Open Bay-Leaf Pattern for Quilt Square' - lots of leaves on this one.

Or, for something more modern looking, what about this one?

It's referred to as a ridge hexagon but I have seen blocks of this shape called Sexagons in early patterns too.

Should you want to get some of these old magazines for yourself, I can thoroughly recommend buying the digital editions from Interweave Press. They sell them as individual issues or in collections. I buy new ones every so often and then print them out and keep them in files; I need to get some more I think, they've got lots I haven't bought yet. They also have digital editions of Weldon's Practical Crochet and Weldon's Practical Stocking Knitter, as well as lots of exciting modern titles too. For those interested in knitting history the Knitting Traditions magazines are excellent. I used to order these as actual magazines but the UK stockist had so many problems getting them from the US that they gave up in the end. Maybe I should fill the gaps in my collection with digital issues? 

I should warn you that Victorian knitting patterns are not easy to follow and there may well be mistakes in the instructions so be prepared to do a bit of work to 'translate' them. If you prefer your vintage patterns re-worked and tested then another excellent resource is this book, Knitting Counterpanes by Mary Walker Phillips. 

In the introduction to this Dover edition Meg Swansen refers to Phillips as one of the 'Big Three' in the knitting world, together with Barbara Walker (she of the wonderful Treasuries of Knitting) and, of course, Meg's own mother Elizabeth Zimmermann - she who must be named whenever knitters gather together.

This book talks about the history of this sort of knitting, as well as providing lots of lovely patterns and advice on designing your own unique blanket. I particularly like this swirly circle ...

... and how about this beautiful octagon?

After all that wonderful inspiration, would you like to hear a bit more about my own blanket? I based my design on the 'Garden Plot'square in Mary Thomas's 1943 Book of Knitting Patterns. 

I wrote about the start of this project about a year ago in Woolly Plans but, basically, what I did was to take the original square and translate it into something smaller and more to my taste. I've kept the original corner leaves but have replaced the line of leaves with bells and added moss stitch paths. 

There are 24 squares in the blanket, each one has about 100 rows and takes several hours to knit.

This is knitting that shouldn't be rushed, it needs to be taken steadily, enjoying the process of creating something beautiful. When you start sewing the squares together you see more of the pattern. First this ...

... and then this ...

I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed knitting the border on to this blanket - yes, even with all those hundreds of stitches on the needle. It actually didn't take that long and makes all the difference.

Honestly, it looks much nicer in real life (and is actually cream coloured, not dirty beige). I hope you'll be inspired by this to start your own garden blanket, either mine or another one. These really are heirlooms for the future.

Now I can get on with one of the many other blankets I'm working on ... like the new Ten Stitch for example. I'd really like to finish that soon.