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.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Project 22: Lace Edgings

I'm going to chart a series of lace edgings and insertions, which were originally published in Weldon's Practical Knitter, Twenty-Seventh Series (1895)

When I've finished, I will have an e-book available with the charts.

Edging #1 is "Leaf and Lace Border".

"This handsome pattern, knitted with Strutts' knitting cotton No. 8 and steel pins No. 15, measures about 4 1/4 inches in depth.  Worked in wool it forms a suitable bordering for shawls, coverlets, etc."


That leaf motif seems to have been very popular with the Weldon's pattern writers.  I've seen it used many times in their patterns for quilt squares and other lace projects.  I like it too.

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