Deciphering Victorian Knitting Patterns
- Shanna Hattaway
- Jan 18, 2021
- 2 min read
A few months ago I had the realization that I could find Victorian era knitting books on Archive.org FOR FREEEEEE!!!!!! I then proceded to download every single one that I could find along with books about dress making, tailoring, keeping a home, etc. etc. You get the jist of what type of rabbit hole this is. Give me all that historic Victorian lady's domestic goodness! I truly cannot get enough.
After combing through my newly aquired treasure trove of antique knitting patterns and translating a few into modern terms and charts, I set my project aside. Christmas was approaching fast and I wanted to knit my kids some gifts. But now that all the festivities have passed, I'm ready to get back at it and share my discoveries.
I really love hand knit lace and the Victorians REALLY loved hand knit lace, so I thought I'd start there. Seemed simple enough, right? Ha!
I'm really not kidding when I say "deciphering". Knitting terms had not yet been standardized at the time these books were published so you have terms like "take off" a stitch and "throw over" and "seam".
A Winter Gift for Ladies seemed like a good book to start with and it has an explanation of terms used in the patterns. It has a ton of patterns and zero pictures, so I'm basically flying blind here. This should be fun!
Since I want each pattern that I translate to be easily searchable, I'm not going to cram everything into one single post. I think that they all deserve their own time in the spotlight anyway and I have a ton of other books with Victorian lace patterns that I want to go through.
I may even try out some of the other patterns in these books. Who knows what the future holds?
I'm very nearly finished with the first chart and will be sharing it soon, so hold on to your hats.
If you would like to check out some of the books I've found, I shall link them below. Since they are all over 100 years old, you can download them for free.
Enjoy!
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