Vintage love

This post on Suzy’s blog reminded me that I meant to blog about these vintage knitting pattern booklets that Donna of Chookyblue sent me a few weeks ago. Donna found these in an antique store and got them for me! Thank you again Donna, you’re so sweet!

I love these, I think the patterns are so charming. Donna sent me two booklets, these are the fronts:

And backs:

These booklets are so old, just holding them in my hands feels like holding a piece of history. They don’t have any publication dates printed on them, but the geeky part of me wanted to know just how old these are. They were printed in Australia, by Patons & Baldwin Wools, so they’re not one of the British Patons ones. The prices are given in the old currency, which means these were printed prior to 1966 (Australia adopted decimal currency in February 1966). Patons Australia started printing their booklets in colours in the 1950s, so these black and white booklets are older than that. My best guess would be sometime in the 1940s.

(My sources for these are this discussion on Ravelry and this informative post by Taphophile. If you know more, do let me know!))

Inside, the knitting instructions are pretty much the same as the way they are written nowadays. Except for this line that was printed at intervals throughout the booklets.

It says, “STOP.—Have you checked your tension?” (tension aka gauge). Very wise indeed.

These will be one of my treasured possessions I’m sure!