The Knitting Vintage Tutorial Series covers everything you need to know about how to knit from vintage patterns and alter them to fit – without losing one bit of vintage style. While it’s geared toward the vintage knitter, the information in these articles will help you alter any pattern – vintage or modern – with clear explanations of all the finessing and all the math involved in knitting pattern alteration. The articles include:
Knitting Vintage Part One: An Introduction – Understanding & Evaluating Vintage Patterns: includes a list of common abbreviations found in vintage patterns, as well as information on how to find and evaluate patterns from which you might like to knit
Knitting Vintage Part Two: Crash Course in Fashion History – the 1920s – 1930s and Knitting Vintage Part Three: Crash Course in Fashion History – the 1940s – 1950s: a whirlwind tour of the history of early 20th century fashion as it relates to knitwear design, written so that you can better date your patterns and identify key design elements to preserve when making changes for fit
Knitting Vintage Part Four: Determining What Size to Knit & Ease in Vintage Patterns: helping you start your vintage knitting project out on the right foot by looking at how sizes and ideas about ease and fit have changed, and by showing you how to choose the size that will make the best starting point for any necessary alterations
Knitting Vintage Part Five: Altering Patterns to Fit Without Losing Vintage Appeal: how to develop a detailed working blueprint that you can use to make the right alterations, based on the original pattern as well as on your own measurements
Knitting Vintage Part Six: The Mechanics of Altering a Pattern to Fit: Length & Width: step-by-step instructions on adding or subtracting the inches you need to alter any vintage (or modern) pattern so that it fits you like a glove
Knitting Vintage Part Seven: Mechanics of Altering a Pattern to Fit: Asymmetric Changes: a hands-on guide to adding vertical or horizontal darts to any vintage (or modern) pattern, in order to add or subtract inches only in the places where you need them
Knitting Vintage Part Eight: Mechanics of Altering a Pattern to Fit: Altering Neck, Shoulders & Armscye: step-by-step guide to all the math involved in how to make those difficult changes to a vintage (or modern) garment that are necessitated by other alterations to length and width
Knitting Vintage Part Nine: Yarn Substitutions for Vintage Patterns: a guide to understanding the properties of vintage yarns, and how to choose a yarn that will best emulate the original intent of the designer when knitting from a vintage pattern
Knitting Vintage Part Ten: A Final Word on Copyright & Vintage Patterns: a brief explanation of copyright issues relating to vintage American knitting patterns published before 1964, and tips on how to research your own vintage patterns to determine if they are in the public domain
…Check the blog for other tutorials coming soon, too!
