The September issue of Simply Knitting hits the shops today, and it's the one with the yarn tidy!


Click for a larger image.

As you probably know by now, we designed this handy ball holding yarn bag and were all set to give it to you as your gift on issue 40, but the ship they were coming to the UK on was severely delayed by really bad storms (apparently some of our readers caught the tail end of it, while holidaying in the region. We hope the rest of your trip was sunny!) We were pleased to report that the ship eventually made it safely to the UK, and here the yarn tidies are, at last!

We hope you'll enjoy using yours. You can use it to keep up to three different balls of yarn separate while knitting, so it's great for stripes, Fair Isle, intarsia – or even knitting two sleeves or two socks at once.

Let us know how you get on, and do drop us an email if you find any uses for it we haven't mentioned!

Of course, we've got lots of patterns you can try it out with straight away:

• Knit a yoga mat/rug and learn instarsia at the same time!
• Pretty summer dress with three coloured trim.
  
• Little girl's cardigan with dancing Fair Isle ballerinas.
• Cotton and linen blend men's cardigan.
  

We've also got lots of other things for you to enjoy, including Alan Dart's stunning scarecrow, an easy crochet bag, quick-to-knit belts – oh, and an interview with the Yarn Harlot herself, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.



And don't miss any of your usual favourites. This month, we've got a round up of World Wide Knit in Public Day, three great cable patterns for you to try, and lots of great books, patterns and websites for you to check out.

Do you like vintage books? I bought a copy of the 1953 Boys' Book of Cricket the other day, and was amused to see in one story that the schoolboy batsman hero was most ashamed to see his mother knitting while watching the match. Kirstie and I both have stashes of vintage knitting patterns. Mine go up to the 1960s - having lived through the 1970s and 1980s, I have no desire to revisit those fashions just yet, although I may inflict a crocheted kipper tie on my husband at some point!

Anyway, there seem to be plenty of knitters about who love vintage patterns, whether they're young beauties hoping to unleash their inner Lana Turner or 'classic' ladies looking for the sort of thing they've always enjoyed wearing. Converting patterns is tricky because you need to convert the Imperial needle size to the metric equivalent, unless you have a stash of vintage needles, and the yarns most older patterns recommend are invariably no longer available. Of course, you should make a tension square before starting any project, but it's absolutely essential if you're substituting yarns.

A lot of vintage patterns use lighter-weight yarns, with many lacy designs requiring 4ply. There are some good 4ply ranges available nowadays, including Stylecraft's new Life 4 Ply and Sirdar's Country Style 4 Ply. With all those nice colours to choose from – plus dozens more when Biggan Design launch their 4ply merino yarn – I could end up making something out of the Woman Week-End Book (1949) yet!

If you've already made something from a vintage pattern, we'd love to hear about it. How easy was it finding an appropriate yarn? And how easy were the instructions to follow? If you just like collecting vintage patterns, tell us about your favourite.