Vintage Rosebud Twin Dolls and their knitted clothes

I was delighted recently when the British woman’s magazine Women’s Weekly gave me permission to access the doll knitting patterns of the 1950s, to update them for modern knitters and publish in a new format. I am now scanning in all those lovely old patterns, giving the photos improved resolution and updating the needle sizes and knitting yarns for a new knitting public. The 1950s decade was an era of Elegance, Neatness and Well-Dressed Dolls. I was 8 years old when these patterns were first introduced and they were an immediate success. Little girls at school collected the patterns which were introduced fortnightly, and we learned to knit to give our little dolls outfits which were a reflection of the clothes we were wearing ourselves. In the 50s, when rationing was still around, school uniforms for the under-11s did not exist in state Primary Schools. Most of us had at most just two or three outfits so these little designs let us give our dolls lots of colourful clothes made from those little balls of wool left over from our mothers’ projects. I have huge admiration for the un-named designers and photographers who gave my own generation of little girls such a lot of fun. We took our dolls to school and admired each others’ wardrobes! I lived in Whitefield, Manchester at the time. There was a local mum who always had an admiring crowd of small girls on the pavement outside her window watching her sew little outfits by eye for these dolls on her treadle sewing machine; and waited patiently until she was ready to hand them out to us all, quite free. I asked her once why she did not tie knots on the end of each seam (as I had been taught to do by my own mother) and she patiently showed me how to run backwards and forwards a couple of times at each end of a seam. I ran home to tell my own mother and Mum never tied any more tedious knots! I have a great many of these patterns, and have begun the huge task of recreating the six-and-a-half-inch doll designs into four or five collections. Then will follow the seven-and-a-half-inch dolls …

“Our Twins in Fair-isle” from the 1st Collection

Striped Guernseys of the 19th Century

When I was small, children's comics would feature burglars wearing striped jerseys with masks over their eyes. Apparently, back in early Victorian times, an infamous crime was committed as reported from an historical source by Penelope Hemingway in her Knitting Genie blog: "DARING BURGLARY … It appears that the house was forcibly entered by three men, armed with pistols and long pointed knives; one of the men was very broad set, dressed in a Guernsey frock, with stripes across the body… the other two were similarly dressed….” Since that time burglars are often shown as wearing striped guernseys. There is a theory that burglars chose these garments as they allowed them to run faster than the chasing policemen who would have been wearing tailored suits; or was it just that in those days working people only had one set of clothes and guernseys were the working clothes of many labouring men!

I also have been unable to find any mention of an actual striped guernsey in any collection or museum. Maybe no-one thought to save one for later knitters to view, especially as they would only have been discarded when in a badly worn out condition, but I have found photos of such guernseys. When the first formal football clubs were formed 150 years ago, footballers played in their own sports clothes, it was soon realised that it was difficult for both the sportsmen and the spectators to distinguish between the two teams. So Clubs invented themselves uniforms which the players then devised for themselves. Here is a photo of the famous Queens Park Rangers team of the 1870s, one or two wear shirts, and others have knitted guernseys - see far left!

Another famous early club was Sheffield Wednesday and here is their 1878 strip which includes a few hand-knitted striped guernseys:

Look at the drape, the varying stripe arrangements at the shoulders of the two photos. The treatment of neck fronts, shoulder buttons and some disparity in the width of the stripes indicate a hand-made non-standard guernsey. It wasn't long before companies such as Bukta were formed to machine knit these uniforms. Incidentally the knitted form of kit retained its popularity in rugby and football, albeit a more modern and small guage knit, perhaps because knitted fabric is more forgiving of rough handling than woven fabric. I am indebted for much of the above detail to David Moor of Historical Football Kits who would appreciate any old football kit information that you can pass on. His pages also indicate that many football clubs played using recognisable modern rugby rules, while sometimes teams would favour a game we would recognise nowadays as soccer. It was many years before these games were standardised. David wishes me to state that the photos are not his own property.