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How to Read Vintage Knitting Patterns

When you are checking out a knitting pattern, you should see if there is an explanation of the terms and abbreviations used in the pattern. Most books and magazines have such a section. Single patterns tend not to.

This check is especially important if you are looking at a knitting pattern from long ago (where “long ago” could be just a few decades ago or over a century ago).

There are several vintage knitting books at Project Gutenberg, an organization that transcribes old books into digital form.

The information in this article comes from the book My Knitting Book by Frances Lambert.

And it’s an oldie! It was published in London, England, in 1843.

The most useful part of this book is the chapter titled “Explanation of Terms Used in Knitting”. Without this section, there would be a lot of guesswork.

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