Where my passion for knitting vintage patterns began...

When I was around 15 years old, I got completely obsessed with the 1960's mod fashion and started buying vintage dresses at my local market, local vintage shop as well as trawling all my local charity shops on a regular basis (and boot fairs).

I'm originally from Maidstone in Kent and there wasn't the huge selection of vintage shops that you get in Brighton.

I was also sewing vintage mod style dresses (with the help of my textiles teacher, Mrs Abrahams) who used to let me stay after school and use the sewing machines because I didn't own my own sewing machine at home.

At this point, I wasn't really knitting anymore because my spare time was taken up sewing, socialising and working jobs around school to pay for my vintage clothing and record passion.

However, my passion for hand knitting was about to start again when I happened to look through a haberdashery section of one of my local charity shops (as I would often look for vintage sewing patterns) and came across this knitting pattern designed by Mary Quant!

I was completely obsessed by this famous fashion designer and all the amazing designs I had seen of hers in my 1960's fashion books and on video documentaries.

The internet was still in it's infancy when I was a teenager so it wasn't easy to find or even be aware of these patterns back then.

What I really love about this pattern is that it has a stamp on it of 'The Key Wool Shop', 11 Earl Street, Maidstone. This would have been a wool shop that existed back in my home town during the 1960's when knitting was still popular (and often cheaper than buying clothes). I remember my mother-in-law telling me how back then you could buy yarn on a 'layaway' basis where they put enough of the yarn for your project by and you could pop in and buy the yarn in smaller quantities every week/month (until you finished your knitting project) to make it more affordable.

I originally knitted this cardigan in white acrylic wool when I first got the pattern. I had to knit it on a smaller needle size because the bust size was too big for me and I wasn't sure then (since I hadn't yet studied Knitwear Design and pattern writing at this point) how to convert the pattern to my size measurements. I wore it regularly because to me, I felt like I was wearing an original Mary Quant design.

As the internet progressed, I was able to collect a lot more of these patterns that I look forward to sharing on this blog.

I no longer have the original cardigan I knitted when I first discovered this pattern but I recently knitted this cardigan again as I discovered the original yarn for sale on Ebay:

I also had some cute flower buttons that I purchased in Liberty in London last year that I wanted to add to this cardigan.

I made a video documenting the make of this cardigan with the original yarn and you can watch it on my YouTube channel here: