Really old stuff
A tip on one of the Ravelry forums let me to search Google books for knitting related items. I confined the search to "out of copyright ", because I was interested in the old stuff. There's a wealth of material out there.
For instance, there's Ward and Lock's Home Book of 1882, which bills itself as a companion to Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, which was one of the best selling books of it's day. I wasn't clear from the preface whether this came from the same publisher, or whether Ward and Lock were just trying to cash in on Mrs B's name.
The book is a wide ranging compendium covering the house and it's furnishing, "children and what to do with them", and, finally, needlework. Here are just a couple of tidbits from the section on knitting.
also
Well slap my wrist! I guess knitters have had strong feelings about their work since at least the 1800's.
I could sit and read this kind of stuff for hours. I've already downloaded The Lady's Knitting and Netting Book, and How to Knit Socks. But I've barely scratched the surface.
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And speaking of old stuff, here's a perfectly wonderful blog: Bibliodyssey. The header sums it up: "Books~~Illustrations~~Science~~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart." (Found thanks to a link on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish). Of course the blog isn't old, but it consists primarily of fascinating illustrations from old books (some of them very old indeed). I've only begun to scratch the surface of this one, too.
Ain't the Internets wonderful?
4 comments:
I absolutely love these. Now, can you send some of them this way? I definitely need help along the lines of the "children and what to do with them" variety. (And I promise to never offer to do a row for you. Not that I could...:-)
Since the advent of the email and texting, people are writing again. Well, composing their thoughts in written/typed words, anyway. That's something that hasn't happened in decades.
Love the warning to "Officious persons." As if a person who could be so defined would admit to being one!
I like those old needlework books-the Weldons. It dawned on me that it was likely my great grandmother looked at the same patterns. THAT is cool.
Love old cookbooks too. My mom had the Japanese translation of Fannie Farmer-no wonder she never learned to cook-it's not very good!
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