Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Knitting and Crochet-Sunsuits from 1948


From Smart Knitting, 4th Edition, published 1948. Matching sunsuits for a pair of little girls, but one is knitted and one is crocheted. Two pages of instructions can be downloaded from my Flickr account.

5 comments:

Amy said...

oh well, I guess hey would be ok for kids, I was thinking grown ups wearing crochet swimsuits? (not) :-)

Packrat said...

The suits are cute, but the little girls steal the show.

Are the scratches on your leg, okay?

Lisa said...

absolutely adorable!

Shay said...

I have a couple of Vogue Knitting magazines from 1947-1953 and there are a handful of knitted adult bathing suits among the patterns.

One wonders what the wearer did after she came out of the pool and that water-logged wool started slowly but inexorably sliding southward toward her ankles.

Sisiggy said...

Back in the day, wool was all that was available for swimming for women. I remember my mother and aunts talking about driving from the city (Newark) to the (Jersey)shore and begging their father to drive faster than 35 because their wool bathing suits were so itchy in the heat and they didn't have the money for both the gas for the car and a cabana to change in. And, yes, the suits were incredibly heavy when they came out of the water but, being of natural fiber, dried very quickly.

Fortunately for these girls, this is presented as a sun suit, which meant it was designed not to get wet.