AUNTY LILLYBETS BLUE CARDIGAN.

My Great Granny Gladys seemed to only knit in blue. She left the odd ball of blue/ green or blue/ purple, but mostly it was blue. So most of the family wore blue. She started to knit Aunty Lillybet a cardigan or a jumper. Lillybet lived with Gladys on a farm in Windermere, in the Lake District. Lillybet farmed Jersey cows from an early age and won many prizes for her cream. Lillybet drove a brown escort estate, and always wore a headscarf. She grew raspberries and sweetpeas and made fabulous jam. She had rough hands because she worked so hard, but she could make the most delicate brandy snaps to hold her cream.

These pieces are worked in good quality DK. I sent the pieces to Judith in Leighton Buzzard. This is what happened- Judith said,

"When I received my UFO I studies the pieces and the accompanying history before I decided what to do. The pieces were a left front and the lower part of a right front of a raglan garment. Some of the yarn had faded and there were two moth holes. The body of the knitting was stocking stitch, but the rib sections were in the less common 1x1 twisted rib. The decreasing on the raglan edge was also a little out of the ordinary as the decreases were set three stitches from the edge and sloped towards the seam. I decided to use these details too.

The history told of Great Granny Gladys and her daughter Lillybet. Lillybet sounded as if she was born in the late 1920's; the Queen, born in 1926 was known as Lillybet. That might make Gladys a little younger than my own Grandmother who was born in 1888. I deduced that both Gladys and Lillybet would have experienced the hardships of the depression and World War 2, and both would be used to "making do and mending', and using up all their oddments one way or another.

I decided that Gladys would have liked her garment finished and wearable. I would make one sleeve raglan and the other a set in sleeve to give the garment a slightly unusual shape. I am sure Gladys and Lillybet would approve of me using up some of my stash, most of which is oddments. I would make Dorset Crosswheel buttons with curtain rings and plastic rings saved from medicine bottles.

As Gladys usually used blues and sometimes purples so would I, but I would also use sweet pea colours, and make textured raspberries and cream to reflect Lillybet's interests."