“Layette or Small Shawl”
The Brisbane Courier, 16 April 1925
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/20915016

TRANSCRIPT

MATERIAL.

• Two ounces wool;
• half-reel of Floss, pale blue;
• two No. 6 (=5 mm) bone needles with ends, and five No. 8 (=4 mm) without.

CENTRE SQUARE.

Cast on to the No. 6 needles 100 stitches in the wool. Moss stitch five rows. The four stitches on each side of the 92 are in moss stitch.

On the 92 stitches, work as follows:
K 2, m 1, k 2 tog. Every row is the same.
(The second stitch of the “k 2” is the m1 of the previous row.)

Repeat this row till 60 pattern holes long or till required length. Finish with five rows in moss stitch. Cast off.

BORDER.

(Knitted in the round.)

Pick up all the edge stitches on the No. 8 needles, using a needle for each side. The stitches must be divisible by 6, with one over for each corner. This corner stitch is not included in the following instructions, but in every other round is increased by two, i.e., in the pattern rounds; m 1 at each side of the corner stitches, and in the uneven rounds knit these corner stitches plain.

1st round: Knit off from back of loop (this round only).

2nd: K 1, k 2 tog, m 1, k 3, and repeat to end of round.

3rd and every alternate round, including the 5th: knit.

4th: K 2 tog, m 1, k 1, m 1, slip 1, k 1, pass slip stitch over, k1.

6th: M 1, k 3, m 1, s 1, k 2 tog, pass slip stitch over.
(Or modern version: slip 2 stitches together knitwise, knit next stitch, pass both slipped stitches over together)

8th: M 1, k 4, k 2 tog.
(I think there’s an error here because it’s not symmetrical. Try: m1, SSK k1, K2tog, m1, k1

10th: Join in the blue silk and knit once around in blue.

11th: Purl once round in blue.

Repeat the 10th and 11 rounds once more.

Break off the blue silk, and with the white wool, work from the first pattern round of the border once more.
(I’m not sure why they have a pattern row here, where it’s hidden by the bind-off. I recommend knitting this row plain.)

Cast off in blue, not too tightly.

Note: The 6th round will begin with k 1 and end with k 2 tog on each of the four needles, and the 8th round will begin with k 1 on each needle.

Funding for digitisation contributed by State Library of Queensland

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MY NOTES

I used sport-weight white yarn (actually 3/9 weaving yarn) and my “blue silk” was actually four strands held together of size 3 perle cotton.

I do think there is an error in the border instructions, but most of the problems I had with it (aside from making my full share of random mistakes!) are due to the fact that it mostly doesn’t use the more modern style of paired decreases that slant in opposite directions. (K2tog and SSK). So to a modern eye it looks lopsided. I couldn’t resist tinkering with it, so here’s what I did. Note that in the full project, this border is knitted in the round, which the central square is not.

1: knit 5, yo, k1, yo
2: knit (or purl, if knitting back and forth!!)
2: K2tog, k1, SSK, yo, k1, yo
3: knit
4: CDD, yo, k3, yo
5: knit
6: yo, k1, yo, K2tog, k1, SSK
7: knit
7: yo, k1, yo, k5
8: add the blue silk and go on from there…

For the border, I found it really helpful to put stitch markers after every 6th stitch to keep the pattern correct.

…and now that I’ve knitted the original border, I can see that it does have a sort of zigzag of lace holes — although it’s uneven and a bit scattered. It’s not what I would have chosen, and I’m uncertain which was intended by the pattern writer. It does slant considerably more on the bias, probably due to the many K2tog decreases with hardly any SSK.