About Weldon's Practical Needlework

From Interweave Press:

About 1885, Weldon’s began publishing a series of fourteen-page monthly newsletters, available by subscription, each title featuring patterns and instructions for projects using a single technique.

About 1888, the company began to publish Weldon’s Practical Needlework, each volume of which consisted of twelve issues (one year) of several newsletters bound together with a cloth cover.

Each volume contains hundreds of projects, illustrations, information on little-known techniques, glimpses of fashion as it was at the turn of the twentieth century, and brief histories of needlework. Other techniques treated include making objects from crinkled paper, tatting, netting, beading, patchwork, crewelwork, appliqué, cross-stitch, canvaswork, ivory embroidery, torchon lace, and much more.

From 1999 through 2005, Interweave published facsimiles of the first twelve volumes of Weldon’s Practical Needlework.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Project 7: A Cravat Knitted with Cockatoo Wool

I'm knitting a very simple pattern this week, using a pretty boucle yarn from Island Fibers on Lopez Island Washington, which Lorraine and the boys bought for me a couple of years ago:
This is a hand-painted mohair boucle yarn, and I have 100 yards.  I'll use size 8 needles.

My pattern this week is from Weldon's Practical Knitter, Twenty-Fifth Series (published in 1894, and reproduced in Weldon's Practical Needlework Volume 9):  "A Cravat Knitted with Cockatoo Wool".  There's no engraving of the cravat, but it's quite simple.  Garter stitch with crocheted "fringe".

Weldon's says "Cockatoo is a peculiar kind of wool spun in a series of little rings and done up in ounce balls; it is stocked by most fancy dealers, as it is useful for shawls, wraps, and other purposes."  I think my Island Fibers boucle will do nicely.

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