Coronation Knits Interview and Giveaway

Today's the day when you can win yourself a copy of Coronation Knits, a classy and sassy new book by Susan Crawford celebrating the Queen's Jubilee. The book features fourteen stylish designs for women, men and children, inspired by the glamour and timeless elegance of the late 40s and early 50s. At this time Princess Elizabeth was wowing the UK and the world with her full skirts, cinched waists and fitted cardigans - ladylike chic just perfect for a princess.

I'm really pleased to be a part of Susan's blog tour, as I've always loved vintage clothes, especially those from the first half of the 20th century, when the crafting was often out of this world. Wearing cast-offs from another era appeals to me both aesthetically, ecologically and economically.  Today it would be impossible to find such fabulous pieces without patronising a couturier. Much vintage can be had for little more than what you'd pay for one of the badly-made rags ubiquitously offered by the high-street chains. Vintage is a leveller, making unique style at an affordable price available to all. What's great about vintage and knitting is that both empower people to create their own individual look. Why follow the pack when you can be creative and save the planet at the same time?

So... here are some of my faves from the book, which incidentally is photographed, styled and published by Susan too.

Crowning Glory
©Susan Crawford

Three crowns are always better than one...

Coronation Sleeveless Pullover
©Susan Crawford

...and why stop there, the more the merrier?

I've been to London to visit the Queen
©Susan Crawford

This lovely little coat takes me back to my own childhood when I wore a similar-styled scarlet model.

Embassy Gloves
©Susan Crawford

Embassy Gloves
©Susan Crawford

Love these images and the intricate lacy design.

I could continue but don't want to give away all of the goodies so early on in the tour. I'm always interested to hear about the lives of other designers, so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to ask Susan some questions.

Can you tell us about how your career as a designer of vintage knits began?

When I first began designing I wasn’t even really aware of the word vintage being used. I was just inspired by earlier decades and looking back to drawings as a child I always drew female characters with a very period feel to them. Then when I first tried to break into the hand knit design world I had difficulty having my designs accepted so for a short time found myself compromising and designing what I thought the market wanted. I have to say this didn’t make me happy as a creative person at all and I think had a big impact on my ultimate decision to self publish. But after trying for a few years and not breaking through I went back to my original aesthetic and began to feel much happier in myself. I had owned an original 1972 copy of Jane Waller’s original A Stitch in Time and in 2007 a chance meeting between myself and Jane sparked off a collaboration to bring the book back to life. As a trained pattern writer I was able to use my technical skills to rewrite the patterns - this was something I’d been doing since I was 15 and had never really appreciated that I had quite a unique skill being able to interpret ‘old’ patterns. And that really is what got people’s attention and which also was partly responsible for the recent interest in all things vintage. I think we were fortunate to be there at the beginning of a trend that I certainly hadn’t anticipated.

Who is your favourite royal style icon, either past or present and why?

I guess, predictably, it's the Queen and also a young Princess Margaret as well. When you look back at their clothes during the 1950s they are absolutely beautiful. But I also love how the Queen dresses when she’s just being herself. Tweed skirts, head scarves and twinsets. That’s just perfection to me! And there’s something that is so quintessentially British in that style, with the use of scottish tweeds and tartans and woollens, in colours that reflect the British countryside. She also wears great sensible shoes too and also most importantly of all, wellies.

I’ve seen the Queen knitting in photos, so if she was going to knit a piece from Coronation Knits, which one would you most like to see her wear, and why?

If it was for formal occasions it would have to be the Diamond Stole as it would work so well with evening wear and of course, a tiara;  but if it was for every day, it would be Silk Rose as this design was strongly influenced by the Queen's fondness of head scarves.

Silk Rose
©Susan Crawford

Diamond Stole
©Susan Crawford

Many of your designs look to the 40s and 50s, what is it particularly that inspires you about these decades?

I love fit, structure and shape, all of which can be seen in woven or knitted clothes from these periods. In the knitwear of the 40s and 50s, I particularly love the use of often quite un-realistic stitch patterns and slightly crazy design details. There is total freedom of expression in so many of the designs and yet in the 1940s this was done whilst yarn was rationed and colours limited and there were even style restrictions such as limiting the number of buttons that could be used, finished length of a garment etc. I really admire how such radical designs could have been created under such strict guidelines. I also love the styling of these decades and the very precise poses from each decade to the next, which can almost date a design as easily as a hair style. Also these two decades along with the 1930s intrigue me generally both as an amateur historian and as a fashion buff and also because of the movies of these decades which I watch regularly and have done since I was young.

If you were setting the mood for a catwalk show of your work, what would the story, music, food and colours be?

I have done catwalk shows with my knits but mainly when Volume 1 of A Stitch in Time was first released and these involved music from the likes of Al Bowly, a slight cheekiness from the models and lots of period styling and posing. For the first fashion show I did we had a 'faux' 1930s BBC presenter doing the commentary in fabulous clipped english. It was fantastic.

If money was no object I would love to do a catwalk show just like that in the original version of The Women starring Joan Crawford. The audience are sat either side of the runway in gilt chairs and the models pose like mannequins before gliding through the audience. The most amazing feature of this scene though is that the rest of the film is completely in black and white and then just for the section of the fashion show it seamlessly moves into colour. If I could come up with a way of recreating that, I would be very happy!

I’m interested to see that you have done the editing, styling and photography for Coronation Knits, as well as the designing. It’s great to carry the vision you have for a book all the way through to the publishing. Can you expand a little on the pros and cons of being an indie publisher?

As I’ve started to mention earlier, I struggled initially to break through into the traditional areas for hand knit designers when I was first starting out. At this point the internet was only in its infancy and selling patterns as pdf downloads had not even begun. However, within a few years the tools to enable a designer like myself to work independently became available and back in 2005 my husband Gavin and I started an online knitting magazine. I was still lecturing at our local art college and Gavin had his own full time career so it was only a part-time venture but the response it generated told us that we were heading in the right direction. Gavin is a graphic artist so when the opportunity came to recreate A Stitch in Time, I don’t think it even occurred to him or to me to look for a third party to be publisher. We knew the hours of work the project would entail would not make it an economically viable project for a commercial publisher and that we would probably lose control of the project and it could well become something we didn’t want it to be. So we made the decision that we (Gavin and I) would fund the venture, do the work ourselves, have the books printed and learn how to distribute and to be publishers! 

I wouldn’t have it any other way as I am able to work and obviously, control, all parts of the process. The styling and photography is a very important part of the process for me as the images tell the story and set the theme of the books. I also love styling and Art Direction so so much. Being an indie publisher isn’t easy though. It involves wearing so many diverse hats. In one day I am everything from designer to marketing staff to distribution to accounts then photographer. We can’t take holidays and we don’t earn enough money to keep the two of us! There are also much greater financial risks as we fund each project from conception to print and then marketing the books. This is the part that keeps me up at night and don’t enjoy at all, but I get to make the choices, take the risks that I choose to take and ultimately publish the books that I really want to write, so for me it works and I love what I do. 

Susan has kindly offered to donate a copy of Coronation Knits, so if you'd like to go into the draw just leave a comment here before next Tuesday 19th June, telling me which of the designs in this post is your favourite and also, if you could chose a design period to be born into, which one would it be?  If you're already itching to get your hands on this Jubilee treasure, it's available for sale in both print and ebook versions here.

Next stop on the tour is the lovely Jen Arnall-Culliford on 16th June.

12th June 2012   More Yarn Will Do The Trick  Jean Moss
16th June 2012 JenACKnitwear   Jen Arnall Culliford
18th June 2012 The Icelandic Knitter  Helene Magnusson
20th June 2012   Knitting Institute  Knitting Magazine
24th June 2012   Ingrid Murnane Investigates   Ingrid Murnane
28th June 2012   Domestic Soundscape   Felicity Ford
29th June 2012   Sheep To Shawl   Donna Druchunas
7th July 2012     Fourth Edition   Karie
2nd July 2012    The Making Spot   Simply Knitting  
6th July 2012     rock+purl   Ruth Garcia-Alcantud
10th July 2012   By gum, by golly!   Tasha Moss
14th July 2012   tomofholland   Tom Van Deijnen
18th July 2012   Woolly Wormhead   Woolly
22nd July 2012  Crinoline Robot   Mim
25th July 2012  Sexyknitter.com  Sarah Wilson