#vintage knitting pattern

[the-mnp-club]

[dykes-who-stitch]

Picked up from the charity shop today

A friendly reminder that often charity shops store knitting needles behind the desk! There are so many for quite cheap and often good quality, sometimes even circulars too, consider checking there before buying a brand new pair of straights

I quite like these dpns I picked up and their packaging. I intend to use these for my sock wool!

Also, does anyone have any advice for sizing up infant patterns? The pattern I picked up here is for up to 6 months but id like to knit for 9-12 months

[umabloomer]

[professorpski]

Piecework, Fall 2022

Piecework magazine offers both historical articles on needlework and instructions with patterns for some of items featured. I must say I always feel the ones with patterns are the best although I have not yet made any of them.

For the instructions, we have the tatted doilies are drawn from an 1889 called Weldon’s Practical Tatting and Katrina King suggests more modern uses like earrings for the smallest motifs and wedding veil for larger ones. The long cream kilt stockings, from ones worn by men who wore breeches instead of long pants, are adaptations from 18th Century Cape Breton Island examples. Barbara Kelly-Landry offers full instructions and she and Annamarie Hatcher recount the history of such stockings and how men’s calves used to be an object of interest for their shape. Yes, women ogled men’s calves. Maybe that it why it is my favorite pattern in this issue. ;-) The other pattern is for the colorwork sleeves you see here which were a separate part of traditional Macedonian clothing according to Ali Giles-Damjanovska in one of two articles on that tradition. Plus an early American sampler pattern is included.

Then, there are historical articles with information and inspiration but without patterns. So there is one on bobbin lace from Puerto Rico by Diana P. Martinez Rodriguez from which this christening gown image is taken. I thought it was crochet at first glance which may explain the popularity of crochet trim in the late 19th and early 20th century: its ability to mimic lace. There are more articles including one on patchwork quilts from India, on early European couching stitch embroidery, and a dress created by someone in a mental asylum, and no, I am not making that last one up.

You can find it at your local bookstore or newsstand or online here: https://pieceworkmagazine.com/subscription/

[knithacker]

Cool Sweater Alert: Knit a Penguin TriBand Classic Paperback Featuring 1984 ... Or Any Book You Like: 👉 https://buff.ly/3roCnUp

[fewcanafford]

Patons Wallace & Gromit - Gromit [Full pattern PDF: Google Drive / archive.org]

[lightlyknitted]

Where to find free patterns

Vintage patterns can be a great resource for all sorts of knits and because many are out of copyright they are free to access. 

I have two websites I go to for free vintage patterns. They are freevintageknitting.com and freevintagecrochet.com. These are my first stop for newer vintage patterns because it collects old out of print pamphlets and makes them easy to read. The sites also have information on discontinued yarn, hook and needle conversion and more. They are a great start to historical (or vintage) knitting. 

For older books you can head to archive.org/details/knittingreferencelibrary. Books in this collection are simply photocopies so you would need to translate the patterns yourself. But it does contain Victorian to WW 2 books. 

Blogs and sites like Ravelry are also a good place to start looking for patterns. There are many free versions of vintage patterns and paid for ones can be helpful because the authors will do the work of updating the needles, yarn and pattern wordage. 

When working with vintage or antique patterns there are a few things to keep in mind. One is stitch definitions — always check what the pattern book describes as each stitch you’re making (this is very important for crochet!) Another one is to convert the needle size and find a good yarn substitution. 

Before you start transcribing or picking a new yarn, make sure it can fit you and if you’ll want to try grading. Vintage sizes are different than modern ones and it is best to use a guide to get an estimate. 

Here’s a quick chart with some measurements for vintage sizes https://purplekittyyarns.com/vintage-body-measurements-size-chart.

The next step is to start transcribing and depends on how old the pattern is. The older the pattern the more likely you'll want to read it through and decide if you need to transcribe it.

This can include typing up the pattern in a way which makes sense for you or to map it out on a chart. This can take a few tries and I like to start with smaller and less complicated patterns. Occasionally you might not even need to transcribe it. 

Next you’ll need to find the yarn substitution which will give you needles as well. If the pattern includes a gauge use that as a guideline to find a substitution. For a more in depth read visit https://knitpal.com/blogs/knitpal/how-to-substitute-yarn-for-vintage-knitting-patterns. 

And once you've found the size you'll need, made the pattern readable and found your replacement you're ready to start knitting. Happy cast on!

[briscrochetunderground]

Reminder that almost any truly vintage and antique knit or crochet pattern can be found FREE on many sites including:

On both internet archive and project gutenburg it helps to know what book or magizine you are looking for but you can still do a regular vague key word search and find something.

Even your local library and ravelry might have antique pattern books on file! On ravelry you will have to exclude all purchasable patterns instead of just looking for free for some reason, then get past the first page or two of patterns people thought "looked antique" but once you get to the black and white photos you are golden!

So please don't buy an etsy shop's antique pattern when there is really no reason to, and if you are one of those selling these patterns, know I am judging you big time!

[knittinghistory]

In 1985, Kate Bush created the music video to her song "Cloudbusting." In the video, Bush wears a knitted cardigan made from the c. early 1940s Bestway 1491 "Fair Isle Cardigan" pattern. It is not known who knit the cardigan, or if it was made in the 1940s or in the 1980s.

The original Bestway pattern (to fit a 36"-38" full bust) has been scanned and put online for free on the 1940's Style For You blog.

The designer Susan Crawford has also created a modernized, size inclusive version (28"-60" full bust) called "Cloudbusting" as part of her Stitch in Time, Volume 3 book. The pattern is available to purchase here on Ravelry.

[kleinergeist]

"Are you wearing the C-"

"The Cesare the Somnambulist sweater from Das Kabinet des Doktor Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Weine? Yeah, I am"

[the-mnp-club]

[sas-afras]

the reason skill magazines are consumed after you read them in fo3/nv is because they’re printed on 200 year old paper that disintegrates the minute you finish reading a single article. your sweaty little gamer hands are destroying antique artifacts

[k3rn3lpan1c]

Non sono granché a stirare ma il maglione è finito, giusto in tempo per la primavera.

[professorpski]

How Hard is a Baby Bonnet?

A friend of mine who is a beginning knitter wants to make a baby bonnet and asked if there were any vintage patterns I could recommend. And I soon found myself once again considering the assumptions built into vintage knitting patterns. This set appeared in Elizabeth Laird Mathieson’s The Complete Book of Knitting from 1947, a book which seems to assume you don’t know how to knit when you start reading the book.

The first steps to knitting are laid at the beginning with pictures and explanations, and then the first project is a garter stitch scarf with pom pom and then next a rib stitch hat that is merely an open-ended tube decorated with 3 pom poms. You can see either satisfying a sixth grade girl. But the next project is a cardigan and after that a lace stitch pullover for evening wear which is one steep learning curve. 

Paging through the baby knit patterns, often dubbed woolies for babies, I realized many of them were complex. There were matching mother and baby bed jackets with lace stitches, cabled baby onesies, and all sorts of challenging items. I looked for what was simple. My friend would either have to work a six-row knit-and-purl pattern explained for a little sweater and then applied with modifications to the bonnet, which you see above. Or she would have to add the yarn over to her repertoire of stitches and do a very simple lace stitch.

Which one was less likely to break her spirit? This may sounds silly but many a budding artisan has been crushed by some overly demanding skill that seemed impossible to master. I opted for the very simple lace pattern as its cuteness to effort ratio seems better.

And as I shut the book I marveled at how much vintage knitting patterns demanded from their makers. No charts save for stranded color knitting, and stitch patterns that went on for row after row after row. These patterns demanded and thus trained spatial imagination as well as manual dexterity. Which is why we are often awed when we inherit one of these vintage creations.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

TERROR FISH LIVES!!!!

To tide you over until I get to the library to scan, here's passable photos. I'll get the whole booklet into an album on my drive in a bit:

[knithacker]

Torture Your Dad With These Hideous Knit & Crochet Ties - Retro At It's Funniest! Get The Patterns! 👉 https://buff.ly/2TDDK4Y