Bought a new pattern to add to my collection recently and from the hairstyle and thin eyebrows, my guess is it's from the 1930s. As I flicked through the pages I was horrified to see that a hole had been cut out! When I went to check the other side I realised it was a tension square that you placed over your knitting and could check that you had the correct amount of stitches and rows per inch. I have never come across that in a vintage knitting pattern before.
So far 60 people have added Jumping Hurdles Turban knitting pattern to their favourites on Ravelry, which may be a small number compared to other patterns on the site, but is still exciting to me. I've added a currency converter on the website so customers outside the UK can see how much it will cost in their currency. So far I've included Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros and US Dollars. If there are other currencies you would like included as a customer, let me know. Pattern is still available as a PDF download from the website
Earlier this week I released my first knitting pattern, the Jumping Hurdles Turban. It's a vintage design, inspired by a 1940s turban sewing pattern that I have done as a short on YouTube. It's knitted in double knit yarn on 4 mm needles and is a great accessory for bad hair days and looking chic and warm in colder weather. It is available as a PDF download on my website www.ultimatepinupvintage.com
someone recently asked how do you know which jumpers will unravel nicely and not become lots of one length pieces of yarn? The answer is the seams. Look out for seams that look like Vs going down the length of the jumper as shown in the first photo. This means the back, front and arms have been knitted individually before being sewn together. The seam to avoid is the one that covers or encases the seam as shown in the second and third photos. This is done on a serger or overlocker and means that the jumper arms, back and front have been cut out of a large knitted piece of fabric and have been sewn with this type of seam to stop it from fraying and unraveling. if you try to take apart this sort of jumper, you will end up with lots of individual pieces of yarn.
My turban knitting pattern is entering its final week of being test knitting and I now have a GPSR rep which means I'm able to sell to and share patterns with people living in the EU. To celebrate I have shared the Sweet Embroidered Jumper from Bestway on my blog. This pattern is from my own private collection and was one of the first knits I shared online that started all of this off. www.ultimatepinupvintage.com/post/knitting-the-bes…
Test knit applications are now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied
Test knit call - Jumping Hurdles Turban
Test knitters required to try out my first ever pattern! Inspired by a turban I made from a 1940s sewing pattern, I decided to recreate it as a knitting pattern.
Suitable for beginners looking to learn a new stitch pattern with simple increasing and decreasing, this turban is made in one piece and is worked back and forth on either straight or circular needles according to preference. Measurements are given in centimetres and inches.
The turban in the photos is knitted in acrylic yarn, however most double knit yarns can be used as a substitute. It is advised to do a test swatch to check that your tension or gauge matches the pattern gauge. The pattern is not suitable for fluffy or heavily textured or variegated yarn as the stitch definition would be lost.
Application window is open from Monday 8th December until Friday 12th December You can apply via my website www.ultimatepinupvintage.com/testknitting
Successful applicants will receive an email with further details from the week commencing 22nd December, with the test knit starting on 5th January 2026 and ending on 30th January 2026. Requirements - discretion, test knitters are expected to maintain confidentiality regarding the test knitting process and not share their work publicly until the pattern has been published; feedback on pattern and ease of use; share photos of finished project and review the pattern online (after changes have been made to pattern) Rewards - free final version of pattern; discount on future patterns; have photos of their finished projects featured online and be tagged in them; first refusal on future test knits; included in credits on pattern including social media handles.
As part of my personal curriculum to teach myself how to write knitting patterns, I set myself homework to find out how to work out the approximate length of yarn, especially if there was no label attached.
I came across a technique on the internet during my research and decided to do an experiment to see if it worked in practice.
You weigh the ball of yarn and then take a sample length from it. You then weigh the sample.
My ball of yarn was 25 grams. I took a 10 metre sample of this which weighed 3 grams.
To work out the length of the yarn, you divide the total weight by the sample weight and times that number by the sample length.
So for example 25 grams ÷ 3 grams x 10 metres = 83.33 metres.
To see if this calculation was correct, I physically measured out the length of the remaining yarn. It measured 87 metres, so the calculation seemed to work. The yarn I used was 4ply acrylic, so I'm going to test it out on different yarns with a different ply and from natural fibres like cotton and wool, to see if the result is different
For the next 2 or so months, I have set myself my own personal curriculum to learn how to write knitting patterns. Using Kate Atherley’s book ‘The Beginners Guide to Writing Knitting Patterns’, I will be reading one chapter a week and giving myself homework and questions to answer.
Last week I read Chapter 1: Pattern Structure & Elements. This chapter goes into the elements you need to include in the pattern itself rather than how to write a pattern, such as title, photos of the knitted item, needles, yarn and tension etc. After reading this chapter, the main question that I had in my head is how to ensure that the knitter of my future patterns will have enough yarn to finish the project?
I mainly knit from vintage patterns, and the yarn specified in the original pattern has long been discontinued. The ply or thickness of the yarn is not always stated either, so I have to do some investigative guess work based on the needle size given and the tension to work out the best yarn to use. In the past, and is still the case now, patterns were used to advertise and promote new yarns, as spinning companies made more money from yarn sales than from the patterns themselves. As a prospective designer, I would like to write patterns that have longevity to them and are accessible to knitters who may not have direct access to nor the budget to buy a certain brand of yarn. I tend to buy yarn second hand from charity shops or from Vinted, ebay etc, and I also buy jumpers and sweaters that I unravel for the yarn. I then use the wraps per inch method to work out the ply, but have never yet had to work out the yardage or meterage as I’ve only had to knit for myself and my size, and since I knit patterns that have negative ease, so far I haven’t had the issue of running out of yarn or playing yarn chicken in the middle of a project.
So if I’m not going to suggest branded yarns with their handy labels stating the meterage or yardage length of the yarn, I need to find a way to give an accurate amount of yarn the knitter is going to need for my patterns.
I can’t just go off the gram weight of a ball or skein of yarn as even the same ply of yarns that are the same weight still measure differently in meterage/yardage.
So that is that homework for the next week, to find a way to measure meterage/yardage as accurately as possible and I’m planning to share my experiments and findings soon
This is taken from my blog at www.ultimatepinupvintage.com
Like so many knitters and crocheters, I have a stashes of yarn squirrelled away in boxes and bags in multiples corners of the house. Inevitably, labels get damaged or lost and then you end up with a pile of yarn and no idea what ply it is.
Ply is the term used to describe the thickness of the yarn, which can be very thin such as cobweb/lace weight, all the way up to super bulky thick yarn.
As well as mystery balls of yarn from previous shopping trips, I also buy jumpers and knitwear from charity shops to unravel and reuse the yarn. Again after unravelling, it's hard to tell what ply the yarn is.
An easy way to find out what ply your yarn is, is the wraps per inch technique or WPI.
And all you need is a ruler.
All you need to do is wrap your yarn around the ruler for 1 inch or 2.5cm and count how many wraps are within that inch or centimetres.
This number then gives you a rough idea of which ply your yarn is.
Below is a list of different yarns and their WPI numbers. The higher the number, the finer the ply.
Lace/2ply - 30-40+
Sock/3 ply - 18-30
4 ply - 14-18
DK - 11-15
Aran - 8-10
Chunky - 6-8
Super Chunky - 1-4
In the first photo, the green cotton yarn was from a jumper I bought from a charity shop. The wraps per inch numbered 17, so it's 4 ply.
In the second photo, the yarn is noticeably thicker. It's WPI was 11, so is at the thicker end of DK (Double Knit).
This green cotton yarn measured 17 WPI so falls under the 4 ply category
The cotton chenille yarn is thicker and measured 11 WPI so is DK
You can watch my short video on how to find out the ply of your yarn using WIP on my TikTok and YouTube accounts
Why does it always rain on a perfect hair day 😩 I recently made some adjustments to a vintage bed jacket I knitted earlier this year to make it fit better and paired it with this gorgeous nightdress I got from the charity shop. I can wear this out right? No one needs to know it's technically sleepwear #vintagehair#wetset#brushout#vintageknitting
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
Bought a new pattern to add to my collection recently and from the hairstyle and thin eyebrows, my guess is it's from the 1930s. As I flicked through the pages I was horrified to see that a hole had been cut out! When I went to check the other side I realised it was a tension square that you placed over your knitting and could check that you had the correct amount of stitches and rows per inch.
I have never come across that in a vintage knitting pattern before.
#vintageknitting #1930s #fashionhistory
1 day ago | [YT] | 15
View 2 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
So far 60 people have added Jumping Hurdles Turban knitting pattern to their favourites on Ravelry, which may be a small number compared to other patterns on the site, but is still exciting to me.
I've added a currency converter on the website so customers outside the UK can see how much it will cost in their currency. So far I've included Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros and US Dollars. If there are other currencies you would like included as a customer, let me know.
Pattern is still available as a PDF download from the website
www.ultimatepinupvintage.com/category/all-products
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 5
View 0 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
Earlier this week I released my first knitting pattern, the Jumping Hurdles Turban.
It's a vintage design, inspired by a 1940s turban sewing pattern that I have done as a short on YouTube. It's knitted in double knit yarn on 4 mm needles and is a great accessory for bad hair days and looking chic and warm in colder weather.
It is available as a PDF download on my website www.ultimatepinupvintage.com
#vintageknitting #vintageknittingpattern #newknittingpattern #1940sknitting #vintageturbanpattern
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 11
View 0 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
someone recently asked how do you know which jumpers will unravel nicely and not become lots of one length pieces of yarn?
The answer is the seams.
Look out for seams that look like Vs going down the length of the jumper as shown in the first photo. This means the back, front and arms have been knitted individually before being sewn together.
The seam to avoid is the one that covers or encases the seam as shown in the second and third photos. This is done on a serger or overlocker and means that the jumper arms, back and front have been cut out of a large knitted piece of fabric and have been sewn with this type of seam to stop it from fraying and unraveling.
if you try to take apart this sort of jumper, you will end up with lots of individual pieces of yarn.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 15
View 1 reply
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
My turban knitting pattern is entering its final week of being test knitting and I now have a GPSR rep which means I'm able to sell to and share patterns with people living in the EU.
To celebrate I have shared the Sweet Embroidered Jumper from Bestway on my blog. This pattern is from my own private collection and was one of the first knits I shared online that started all of this off.
www.ultimatepinupvintage.com/post/knitting-the-bes…
1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 16
View 1 reply
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
Edit 12/12/2025
Test knit applications are now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied
Test knit call - Jumping Hurdles Turban
Test knitters required to try out my first ever pattern!
Inspired by a turban I made from a 1940s sewing pattern, I decided to recreate it as a knitting pattern.
Suitable for beginners looking to learn a new stitch pattern with simple increasing and decreasing, this turban is made in one piece and is worked back and forth on either straight or circular needles according to preference. Measurements are given in centimetres and inches.
The turban in the photos is knitted in acrylic yarn, however most double knit yarns can be used as a substitute. It is advised to do a test swatch to check that your tension or gauge matches the pattern gauge. The pattern is not suitable for fluffy or heavily textured or variegated yarn as the stitch definition would be lost.
Application window is open from Monday 8th December until Friday 12th December You can apply via my website www.ultimatepinupvintage.com/testknitting
Successful applicants will receive an email with further details from the week commencing 22nd December, with the test knit starting on 5th January 2026 and ending on 30th January 2026.
Requirements - discretion, test knitters are expected to maintain confidentiality regarding the test knitting process and not share their work publicly until the pattern has been published; feedback on pattern and ease of use; share photos of finished project and review the pattern online (after changes have been made to pattern)
Rewards - free final version of pattern; discount on future patterns; have photos of their finished projects featured online and be tagged in them; first refusal on future test knits; included in credits on pattern including social media handles.
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 8
View 4 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
As part of my personal curriculum to teach myself how to write knitting patterns, I set myself homework to find out how to work out the approximate length of yarn, especially if there was no label attached.
I came across a technique on the internet during my research and decided to do an experiment to see if it worked in practice.
You weigh the ball of yarn and then take a sample length from it. You then weigh the sample.
My ball of yarn was 25 grams. I took a 10 metre sample of this which weighed 3 grams.
To work out the length of the yarn, you divide the total weight by the sample weight and times that number by the sample length.
So for example 25 grams ÷ 3 grams x 10 metres = 83.33 metres.
To see if this calculation was correct, I physically measured out the length of the remaining yarn. It measured 87 metres, so the calculation seemed to work.
The yarn I used was 4ply acrylic, so I'm going to test it out on different yarns with a different ply and from natural fibres like cotton and wool, to see if the result is different
4 months ago | [YT] | 1
View 0 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
Week 1 of My Personal Curriculum
For the next 2 or so months, I have set myself my own personal curriculum to learn how to write knitting patterns.
Using Kate Atherley’s book ‘The Beginners Guide to Writing Knitting Patterns’, I will be reading one chapter a week and giving myself homework and questions to answer.
Last week I read Chapter 1: Pattern Structure & Elements.
This chapter goes into the elements you need to include in the pattern itself rather than how to write a pattern, such as title, photos of the knitted item, needles, yarn and tension etc.
After reading this chapter, the main question that I had in my head is how to ensure that the knitter of my future patterns will have enough yarn to finish the project?
I mainly knit from vintage patterns, and the yarn specified in the original pattern has long been discontinued. The ply or thickness of the yarn is not always stated either, so I have to do some investigative guess work based on the needle size given and the tension to work out the best yarn to use.
In the past, and is still the case now, patterns were used to advertise and promote new yarns, as spinning companies made more money from yarn sales than from the patterns themselves.
As a prospective designer, I would like to write patterns that have longevity to them and are accessible to knitters who may not have direct access to nor the budget to buy a certain brand of yarn.
I tend to buy yarn second hand from charity shops or from Vinted, ebay etc, and I also buy jumpers and sweaters that I unravel for the yarn. I then use the wraps per inch method to work out the ply, but have never yet had to work out the yardage or meterage as I’ve only had to knit for myself and my size, and since I knit patterns that have negative ease, so far I haven’t had the issue of running out of yarn or playing yarn chicken in the middle of a project.
So if I’m not going to suggest branded yarns with their handy labels stating the meterage or yardage length of the yarn, I need to find a way to give an accurate amount of yarn the knitter is going to need for my patterns.
I can’t just go off the gram weight of a ball or skein of yarn as even the same ply of yarns that are the same weight still measure differently in meterage/yardage.
So that is that homework for the next week, to find a way to measure meterage/yardage as accurately as possible and I’m planning to share my experiments and findings soon
4 months ago | [YT] | 4
View 0 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
This is taken from my blog at www.ultimatepinupvintage.com
Like so many knitters and crocheters, I have a stashes of yarn squirrelled away in boxes and bags in multiples corners of the house. Inevitably, labels get damaged or lost and then you end up with a pile of yarn and no idea what ply it is.
Ply is the term used to describe the thickness of the yarn, which can be very thin such as cobweb/lace weight, all the way up to super bulky thick yarn.
As well as mystery balls of yarn from previous shopping trips, I also buy jumpers and knitwear from charity shops to unravel and reuse the yarn. Again after unravelling, it's hard to tell what ply the yarn is.
An easy way to find out what ply your yarn is, is the wraps per inch technique or WPI.
And all you need is a ruler.
All you need to do is wrap your yarn around the ruler for 1 inch or 2.5cm and count how many wraps are within that inch or centimetres.
This number then gives you a rough idea of which ply your yarn is.
Below is a list of different yarns and their WPI numbers. The higher the number, the finer the ply.
Lace/2ply - 30-40+
Sock/3 ply - 18-30
4 ply - 14-18
DK - 11-15
Aran - 8-10
Chunky - 6-8
Super Chunky - 1-4
In the first photo, the green cotton yarn was from a jumper I bought from a charity shop. The wraps per inch numbered 17, so it's 4 ply.
In the second photo, the yarn is noticeably thicker. It's WPI was 11, so is at the thicker end of DK (Double Knit).
This green cotton yarn measured 17 WPI so falls under the 4 ply category
The cotton chenille yarn is thicker and measured 11 WPI so is DK
You can watch my short video on how to find out the ply of your yarn using WIP on my TikTok and YouTube accounts
5 months ago | [YT] | 6
View 2 replies
Emily@Ultimate Pin-Up
Why does it always rain on a perfect hair day 😩
I recently made some adjustments to a vintage bed jacket I knitted earlier this year to make it fit better and paired it with this gorgeous nightdress I got from the charity shop.
I can wear this out right? No one needs to know it's technically sleepwear
#vintagehair #wetset #brushout #vintageknitting
6 months ago | [YT] | 4
View 2 replies
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