Historically accurate 1870's patterns??

[Nuno930]

Does anyone know where (online) I can find a historically accurate Victorian knitting patterns? I work at a living history museum that portrays 1875 America.  I know we have some patterns at work... but that is a really BIG hill I have to climb to get to the library and I am lazy...  Thanks!


ETA: Oh I guess I should add... something fairly simple since I have to put the work down often to speak with visitors (but that is NOT a dishcloth!)

[LimeRiot]

You could try digging through some of these. http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/completelist.htm

This pattern book looks interesting but it's circa 1840 so maybe too early??
http://antiquepatterns.dreamhosters.com/GaugainLady's.pdf

I'm excited to see what you come up with!

[LimeRiot]

I was just looking for a nice bookmark pattern for a swap and stumbled across this...

http://nequientinmode.blogspot.com/2008/08/charted-victorian-knitted-lace-part-i.html.

[Nuno930]

Oooh! Thanks... I think that would be nice.  I am going to take the pattern to textiles department for approval  

[espera]

Try Project Gutenberg or Google Books, and do a search for needlework (or knitting) books.  For google books filter the results to public domain books, to get the older stuff.  There's a ton of stuff that's been digitized (especially by Google).

Read the instructions, usually near the beginning of the knitting chapter or the beginning of the book, to figure out which terms they use.  For example, some of the books use the word seaming to refer to purling a row.  And they use various other terms to refer to a yarn over.  Unfortunately the terms are not standardized, so its best to check each book individually.

In terms of figuring out needle sizes, I was able to find one or two books that showed a sort of gauge in the book:  Mee's companion to the worktable.  I'm assuming it prints out accurately, but I haven't gotten around to testing that yet.

I've charted a few of the stitch patterns I was more interested in from one or two books, and posted a few of the ones I actually used, ages ago.  (Someone posted a link above to one of the posts on my blog.)  Unfortunately I don't think I ever got around to actually correcting the charts (to show only the front side, as opposed to the working side, so purling across the odd rows is actually written out).