Sometimes a knitting tale is a pattern designed to evoke or speak to a particular place, time, or object. Many of Ron Schweitzer’s patterns are meant to evoke locations in Shetland, Maryland, and beyond. One of my favorite cardigans, Karie Westermann’s Incunabula (Ravelry link) was, in her words, “… inspired by Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and takes its name from early modern printed books.”
But a knitting tale can also be the creation of a piece of knitting to illustrate a story. Vera’s Vest (Ravelry Link) is my illustration of a small part of the story of a woman to whom I am connected through the chain of family but never knew.
Vera Elkan Morley was my grandmother's first cousin (making her my first cousin twice removed). She was born in 1908 in colonial South Africa to a father of German Jewish origin and a mother of a similar background who had been born in South Africa. Vera grew up moving between Europe (Germany and Switzerland) and South Africa. After studying photography in Weimar Berlin, she moved to England as a young woman. There she was (among other things) a photographer in the Spanish Civil War (with the International Brigades) and a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) during World War II. She also published a book, Bunty and Bianco based on photographs of her beloved dogs.
My grandmother’s family was large and as a result of the Nazi policies became very dispersed. Growing up in the U.S. I was aware of family who had settled in England after leaving Germany, but I never met them (though my father did). In recent years, I found online at the Imperial War Museum the recordings of an oral history conducted with Vera when she was 88. It was fascinating and combined with the few pictures I could find; I began to feel like I knew her. That feeling deepened when she made a passing reference to knitting.
After talking about growing up and her time in Spain, the focus of the interview shifts to her enlistment in the WAAF. She describes what happened when she enlisted.
Whereupon they said, you will be sitting in a field all by yourself. This was their words. And it’ll be very cold—you better go home and knit something, and we’ll call you up very quickly. And this was soon after the fall of Belgium and Holland must have been about May, and I should think this was in July 1940. And you won’t have to wait very long. So…. I bought myself some Air Force-colored wool and a pattern and I spent an air raid night in an air raid shelter opposite where I was staying in Great Cumberland Place knitting myself a waistcoat in nice, thick Air Force-gray wool.
That is the first and only time she mentions knitting and I have no idea if she is what we would call now “a knitter” or if it was a skill that she had and that she used when needed and not otherwise. But I recognized something in the way she talked about that waistcoat (what we would call a vest). She is so matter of fact about it. She needed something warm, its wartime, so the way to get it is to make it yourself. And while I have, thankfully, never had to knit in war time, I know that feeling of “just go ahead and make it.”
After hearing this and reading the transcript of the interview, I found myself wanting to make a waistcoat like the one she made. I started down the rabbit hole of vintage patterns. found several collections of patterns that were marketed as knitting for the forces and official RAF patterns. This one (Ravelry Link), described as an official W.A.A.F pattern seemed like a possibility. There was one hitch though.
Based on the needle called for, this pattern was clearly made for what we now call a fingering weight, and Vera described her work as “thick”. But I decided to move ahead as I will not be sitting in a cold field and a thick vest would be much too warm.
All of this happened last spring, so finding the right grey became the objective for my Maryland Sheep and Wool shopping. By the end of the day, I had looked at lots of grays, and selected Lana from Green Mountain Spinnery, took it home and began to swatch. The pattern is a very easy Broken Rib that is worked over a multiple of four stitches, with three additional stitches. Once I had a swatch I liked I set about adapting the pattern.
Fast forward now from May to August and I finally was able to start. So here are the details.
I had to upsize. Like many patterns of its era, it was written one size only, 32-34 inch bust. Suffice to say, that is not my size.
I eliminated the K1, P1 rib at the bottom. The original pattern was written at what appears to be no ease for an hourglass figure much smaller than my body. The broken rib makes a very nice bottom line on the garment and gives a looser fit,
I used a hack from Romi Hill that has you apply a crochet chain to help close the gap where stitches have been picked up for the neck and armhole ribbing when you don’t have a selvedge stitch.
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I am very happy with the results and as with all my summer knitting, I am ready for fall to come. I also feel just a little bit closer to Vera and her story.
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