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, October 21, 2012

Project 26: Emigrant's Vest


From Weldon's Practical Knitter Nineteenth Series (1892) and republished in Weldon's Practical Needlework Volume 7.

"This vest is fashioned from a long strip of plain knitting, which when properly joined, with sufficient space left for armholes, will assume on the figure the shape of a Zouave, as shown in the engraving, and may be comfortably worn as a house-jacket or as an extra bodice under a cloak"

The original pattern calls for 5 ozs. of best fingering wool, or Berlin fingering, a pair of No. 9 needles, and one or two black bone buttons.

I will be trying this pattern using US #5 needles and probably sport or DK weight yarn.  You work a long strip of garter stitch ("for a stout person, about 46 inches") and do some tricky sewing to create the shape.  the Scalloped Edge is crocheted.
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1 comment:

  1. Momma LynneOctober 22, 2012 at 7:02 AM

    This will be a great addition to the shrug options that are so fashionable right now. Great find and good luck.

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