THERE was a time when every stylish girl had a woollen bathing suit.

Usually knitted several sizes too small to allow for stretching, it was the height of fashion in the 1930s and early 1940s.

And it wasn’t only your swimsuit that was knitted.

From your best skirt suit and your shopping bag to the tea cosy, the bedclothes, the children’s toys and even your stockings, there was nothing that couldn’t be rustled up with a ball of yarn and a pair of needles.

All these woolly items and more can be found in Joyce Meader’s Chandler’s Ford home.

Canvas bags in her sitting room bulge with brightly coloured knits, while an errant ball of wall – needles and several rows of stitches attached – is a work in progress on a side table.

Joyce, 50, is an historical knitter, supplying authentic knitted garments to the UK’s museums and historical re-enactment groups.

She hands me a selection of items: berets from Jackie magazine, chic 1940s jumpers, opera capes from the 1800s, a surprisingly small First World War sweater and a collection of ‘experiments’ knitted from bamboo, sari silk and even recycled plastic bottles.

Joyce, first picked up a pair of knitting needles aged 12 and, under the careful tutelage of her grandmother, crafted a woollen tie for her grandfather.

Today her collection of vintage knitting patterns, spanning 1817 to the present, is thought to be the largest in Britain outside a museum (around 10,000 at the last count).

Joyce’s love of historical knitting began when she started selling knitted items online.

“I’d sold some military webbing (a kind of pouched storage belt worn by soldiers) on eBay and was curious.

“The customer was a member of a military reenactment group and asked if I could make him a pair of authentic First World War socks. I tracked down a pattern from the National Army Museum in Chelsea, found the whole thing fascinating and it grew from there.”

Joyce is now a hand knitter for the Great War Society, the umbrella organisation for all First World War re-enactment groups. Her items are on display in the Black Country Museum, a living history attraction in the West Midlands, and she regularly knits for Hampshire Museums Service.

“I usually have about eight or nine items on the go at once,” says Joyce who is vice chairman of the Hampshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. “The house is full of what we call UFO’s – Unfinished Objects.”

Her projects are as varied as they are ambitious.

She was recently approached by the Mountain Heritage Trust to re-create garments worn by mountaineer George Mallory on his ill-fated 1924 Everest climb.

Joyce supplied period long johns, socks, stockings and headgear for researchers keen to test them on the mountain. The clothes also featured in the documentary The Wildest Dream which re-created Mallory’s expedition and premiered at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival last year.

“I’ll knit anything,” declares Joyce, who gets most of her yarn and patterns online.

“Even the occasional fluffy thong for strippers,” she giggles.

Right now she is working on a private commission – some authentic long johns from the early 1900s for a climber who wants to try them out on Everest.

Some of the delicate scarves she shows me, though faithfully recreated from 19thcentury knitting patterns, look remarkably like those on sale in the high street.

“I see all the trends come round again,” she agrees.

“Nothing is new. One pattern I love is a big shouldered cardigan from the late 20s early 30s – it’s fantastic – very Prada and not unlike what we’re seeing on the catwalk at the moment.

“When you mention knitting, people immediately think of that ghastly jumper their Gran knitted but, because of the trend for natural fibres and make-do-and-mend, knitting is enjoying a surge in popularity.

“Patterns, trends and techniques tend to hang around for about 50 years.

They’re handed down through the generations and then fall out of use.

“My favourite period is the 1920s. The designs are very chic. They are also quite difficult to get hold of as people knew how to knit so didn’t need to buy patterns.

“I feel proud that my items are being used by museums and historical societies. Knowledge should be shared and if I didn’t keep this up, these techniques and traditions would be lost.”