Historic needlework books digital archive
September 25, 2009 by Noreen Crone-Findlay
Filed under crochet, lace, tatting
Several of my readers and I have been talking lately about NOT recycling needlework and craft magazines so that a valuable ethnilogical, anthropological, historic and sociological resource is not lost. (Besides, we just plain like old needlecraft magazines and books!)
photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright
First of all
check out the
lace behind
the bunny
tatting
shuttle….
It’s a fragment
of needle lace that
I bought 20 years
from a lace collector.
I am fascinated by fragments of interesting lace whenever I come upon them, as I feel that they are a valuable resource that have clues to the history of needlework.
Anyhow… check out the tiny flowers… aren’t they gorgeous? Bear with me… this gets a little convoluted….

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright
So….
I was doing some
web searching into
Lux knitting books,
because Leslie
sent me a list of
Lux knitting books
that her mother
had cherished
and collected over the years.
I tried all over the net to see if I could track down more about the Lux Knitting books. I am thrilled to have found a 1951 copy that now keeps my grandmother’s 1958 copy company.
Well… in the search for information about the Lux Knitting books (no luck so far, although in a previous post, I listed the links that another reader had sent in for patterns from New Zealand versions of the Lux Knitting books)-
anyhow… as I was searching, I went, of course, to the Arizona University site, to see if they had any pdf’s of Lux Knitting books. nope…
BUT…. I did find the most WONDERFUL pattern for a crocheted doily that has little flowers that are dead ringers for the flowers in the needle lace fragment in the bunny pic. Isn’t that cool? Here’s the link: 1915 crochet pattern on page 10.
This may not be a thriller for some people, but I am sure that there are lots of us who just LOVE historic needlework, so what can I say, except: Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

















They don’t have these books either (still in copyright, I assume), but are you familiar with the Antique Pattern Library? http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/completelist.htm
Lots of nice stuff.
Oh, yes, isn’t it wonderful! Thanks so much for the reminder!