Earlier today Carrie Schutrick made me aware of the University of Southampton's digital project, Knitting Reference Library, which has been added to the Internet Archive. This project brings some of the late knitting historian Richard Rutt's personal library to the Internet, particularly several nineteenth century works representing the earliest knitting books in English.
This sparked some discussion about knitting vintage patterns and using vintage yarns, which led me to scrape together the useful references I've squirreled away for identifying and approximating vintage yarns. I'm posting that information here as well, so I'll be able to find it again easily when I want it.
Here are a few links to sources for information on the exact sizes of various vanished yarns mentioned in vintage patterns.*
Vintage Yarn Wiki -- There's a Vintage Yarn Wiki!
Yarn and Thread Conversions -- at SandyJ's blog for exploring Mrs. Beeton's Book of Needlework
Misc. Discontinued Yarns -- "a list of older yarns, arranged by weight of yarn, by brand name, with fiber content and yardage (where available)."
Vintage Yarns -- "historical yarn names and modern gauge/needle size equivalents. Also some suggestions on possible modern yarns." Mostly from the period before the 1930s. SCA readers may recognize our own Countess Ianthé's fair hand here.
Discontinued Yarn Chart -- " a guide only to help you find comparable yarns today to substitute for yarn specified in vintage patterns." This list is itself "vintage," having been first compiled in 1965.
*Today's posting is brought to you by the letter V.
Good to see you posting again! Even though I do not knit. Still, these sites might be interesting.
ReplyDelete