More Roger Moore

Missed this delightful photo of Roger Moore from my last post - it was tucked away at the back of Stitchcraft magazine so I didn't see it. He's modelling a "workman-like" brioche rib jumper, "for odd jobs in the garage and garden".

How times have changed. If I'd taken the time and effort to make a man a brioche rib jumper, and he then went and wore it while changing the oil on his car, I wouldn't let him back into the house. Even if he was Roger Moore. But here's this lovely pattern in Stitchcraft, just for men to use for messy jobs in the garage or garden.

To make brioche rib:

1st row: K1, * wool forward, slip 1 purlways, K1, repeat from * to last st, K1.
2nd row: K1, * wool forward, slip 1 purlways, K2 tog; repeat from * to last st, K1.

Second row forms brioche rib and is repeated throughout the jumper.

Roger Moore, licensed to model knitwear

Before making it big as The Saint and James Bond, a fresh-faced Roger Moore used to earn a crust by modelling knitwear. He was rather good at it, actually. Check out The Man with the Golden Cardigan pose on this Mens Book by Stitchcraft cover from the 1950s.

Same double-knit, button-up cardie, only in moody black and white. He's laughing because the creative team have made him stand in Teddington Lock and a fish has just gone up his trouser-leg.


Probably my favourite, a "country cardigan in a manly cable and rib pattern" with obligatory 1950s nonchalant pipe-smoking pose. That's Canterbury Cathedral in the background, ecclesiastical architecture fans.

More Roger Moore here.

Machine-wash at your own risk

Here is Britain's most unhygienic family, proudly boasting about how many times they have had a bath in the last year. Father leads the dirty stakes - he's "washed twice". Mother isn't far off with a paltry "washed 4 times". Only the dog lets the side down, he's "lost count".

Wait. Hang on - I've read the small print now: they're talking about how many times they have washed their Patons Flair jumpers. It all makes sense now. "Now you can knit and know that the good-looking things you will make will stand up marvellously to the rough and tumble of family life".

In a brilliantly confusing manner, the advert ends, "These handknits were machine-washed and spin-dried. Machine-wash your own handknits if you must, but hand-knitting does deserve hand-washing". In other words, don't do what we did, kids.

From Stitchcraft magazine, 1964.

Boil your own embroidery

From a Pearsall's embroidery yarn advert in Stitchcraft magazine, 1952: "Embroider in real silk... for worthwhile work which will not lose its lovely colours even when boiled."

Yarn and fabric were obviously made of sterner stuff in 1952. I'm always nervous of putting hand-made items in the gentlest of washing machine cycles, let alone giving them a good old boiling.