My grandmother moved out of her house this fall, and her collection of knitting and crochet patterns were saved for me. It's quite a trove, and I love that she wrote out her famous baby sweater set. She preferred crochet (which I can't figure out), but there are a lot of knitting patterns too. The publication dates range from the late 1940s (when my eldest aunt was born), and go through the early 1990s. There's a significant, um, diversity, in style.
This book, from the early 1960s, does have some sweaters that I would make now, including this blue cardigan (rather dowdy-licious, isn't it?) and the kids patterns. With the exception of the bonnet-shaped hats, the kids patterns are all timeless and fresh. Oh, except for the bloomer/shorts things for babies. Those aren't so hip.
Isn't the sweater on the left just the cat's meow? In case you can't see the detail, you use a super-fluffy mohair for one of the cable twists. Isn't that hilarious? The pattern is very specific that you should use a VERY contrasting color for the mohair.
We went to a bar mitzvah on Saturday afternoon/evening, and when I was looking at these patterns on Saturday morning, I was very disappointed that I wouldn't have time to whip up one of these classy dresses for the event. However, Nephew #1's bar mitzvah is this November, so if I start planning now, maybe I can knit myself a dress. (Nephew #2 didn't want to sit next to me in the car when I was knitting. Too much potential for my dorkiness to rub off on him, I guess. He was really impressed by this site, though, and that one of the pictures he took at the Giants game was published.)
My grandmother moved out of her house this fall, and her collection of knitting and crochet patterns were saved for me. It's quite a trove, and I love that she wrote out her famous baby sweater set. She preferred crochet (which I can't figure out), but there are a lot of knitting patterns too. The publication dates range from the late 1940s (when my eldest aunt was born), and go through the early 1990s. There's a significant, um, diversity, in style.
This book, from the early 1960s, does have some sweaters that I would make now, including this blue cardigan (rather dowdy-licious, isn't it?) and the kids patterns. With the exception of the bonnet-shaped hats, the kids patterns are all timeless and fresh. Oh, except for the bloomer/shorts things for babies. Those aren't so hip.
Isn't the sweater on the left just the cat's meow? In case you can't see the detail, you use a super-fluffy mohair for one of the cable twists. Isn't that hilarious? The pattern is very specific that you should use a VERY contrasting color for the mohair. 
We went to a bar mitzvah on Saturday afternoon/evening, and when I was looking at these patterns on Saturday morning, I was very disappointed that I wouldn't have time to whip up one of these classy dresses for the event. However, Nephew #1's bar mitzvah is this November, so if I start planning now, maybe I can knit myself a dress. (Nephew #2 didn't want to sit next to me in the car when I was knitting. Too much potential for my dorkiness to rub off on him, I guess. He was really impressed by this site, though, and that one of the pictures he took at the Giants game was published.)
1 comment:
That's so cool that you received your grandmother's notebook. I just started keeping one myself for patterns that I re-write, so I wonder what will happen to it someday.
That green dress would have been oh so classy at the bar mitzvah, but only if you wore your hair in the same exact style as the photo!
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