Among the treasures in my vintage needlework book collection, are my Peace Dale Yarn books. I have 5, spanning 1920 through 1924, plus two yarn sample books with dozens Peace Dale yarn samples in each one. These sample books are helpful when gauging the weight of vintage yarns and when you want to reproduce the patern in the original colours and fiber content!
The earliest that I have is 1920. This book has the layout appearance of earler books - say, 1910 - rather than the usual flapper look that I'm used to from companies like Fleisher. But the styles are adorable! Most are crochet, again more like early 1900's Fleisher Company yarn books.
My next edition is the 1922 Spring, and here we see the expected "marceled" hairstyle, the crocheted resort hat and flapper fashion, as well as the very cute pen & ink illustrations:
As we move to 1922 winter, we finally see a cloche hat, in crochet (leaf brown and apricot):
a crocheted slip-on in Sicilian Floss (a rayon blend) in Camel, Periwinkle, Jade:
and a knitted U-neck sweater with an interesting stitch pattern again in Sicilian Floss "in the new Mirabelle shade", which is plum colour...
In the 1923 winter edition, coat sweaters dominate. The frontispiece shows the
Coat and Cap combination (pattern on pg 30) using 9 skeins of Sicilian Worsted in Tan & White Mixture with 2 skeins of solid golden brown. It is knitted, with edging in crochet.
The Coat Sweater trimmed in cross stitch is a particular favorite of mine because of its flared sleeves and embroidered pockets. It uses 10 skeins of Sicilian Worsted in grey & white mixture and 2 skeins of solid golden brown as well as cross stitch embroidery done in Sicilian floss of black, orange, and jade. Embroidery embellished knits of this type were common styles of the 1920's.
My last Peace Dale book is 1924 spring, with its beautiful line drawing: "New Sweaters for Spring":
One of my favorite designs from this booklet is the knitted and crocheted Slip-on with Novelty Sash made from Aolian floss in tan, tangerine and delft blue. This shows another fine example of the sweater with embroidered, rather than worked, design.
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So there you have it - all the reasons I need to keep knitting and crocheting for years and years!
5 comments:
Thanks so much for posting these photos. They're just wonderful.
I'm glad you like them! :) I was planning to post some patterns if there was a lot of interest, but no one seems that crazy about them except me (and you, but I don't know if you'd be interested in actually making them)...
I envy you! Adorable books you've got in your hands :-)
Oh, so wonderful! Hold on to these beauties!
I really like these. I want to ask your permission to use one of these pics in a deviantArt project I am doing. I would give you full credit and I get no monetary gain.
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