• Exploring historic textiles in our local museums

    I enjoy reading about and researching historic textiles. For me, these vintage textiles provide a invaluable, tangible link to our past.  And as I work at reproducing old knitting patterns and recreating vintage knitted items, I find that the local museums hold a wealth of reference material in their textile collections, providing wonderful period pieces to help with pattern identification and reproduction. Recently I enjoyed the privilege of seeing (virtually, of course) textile items from the collection of the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre. I saw many wonderful, beautiful items, some knit, others crocheted, some embroidered, others sewn and so on. From knitted coverlets and clothing, cross stitch samplers,…

  • Online collection of Victorian knitting manuals

    If you are like me and love to look through vintage knitting and crochet patterns, I just recently stumbled upon an online resource that you might enjoy. The Knitting Reference Library of the University of Southampton includes the published works collected by Montse Stanley, Richard Rutt and Jane Waller. These comprise books, exhibition catalogues, knitting patterns, journals and magazines. The Victorian knitting manuals donated by Richard Rutt have been digitized and can be viewed online for free. You can search through the extensive collection here! Exciting stuff for pattern researchers!