I have been researching knitting

patterns from the Victorian era.
It is part of an idea for our state's Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society Show next year. This is of course all my own fault because I was silly enough to say, "Next year is the bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth. Perhaps we could do something to celebrate it."
Did I mention this idea somewhere before in this blog? Possibly.
I have done a bit of work on it....some weeks of work on and off and in between other work.
I headed off to a favourite site of mine - the "Antique Pattern Library".  Every time I log on to that I am amazed by the people who keep it going. It's an immensely valuable resource of out-of-copyright patterns in a wide variety of crafts from Basketry to Woodworking. Crochet and knitting both appear. There are some items in knitting that are yet to be put up that I am impatient to see but give the people who do it time. It's not easy to get old patterns scanned and processed in ways that make it easy for others to download them.
But, I was interested in some "classics" of the knitting world such as, 

Gaugain, Jane. Lady's Assistant for Executing Useful and Fancy Designs in Knitting, Netting and Crotchet, Illustrated by Fifteen Engravings, Showing Various Stitches in the Art of Netting. Edinburgh, I.J. Gaugain's, 1840, 210 pgs.  and

Watts, Miss 
"Miss Watts' Selection of Knitting Netting and Crochet" 
London, J Miland, 1843, 96pgs.  

At the time these were published there were very few "receipts" or patterns around. They were not written in the form we now expect. Instead of telling us what sort of yarn, what needles, what tension (gauge to you in the US) and how many stitches to cast on the instructions tend to go along the lines of, "Take up sufficient stitches...."  Oh, right. Nothing about the sort of yarn, the size of the needles or how many stitches to aim for so that the item doesn't fall out of shape immediately it is used.
I think this is one of the things which is of the greatest interest to me. It is the assumption of so much knowledge - or perhaps the availability of it from other sources. You were taught how to knit. It was a skill it was simply assumed you would acquire. It was passed down from one generation to the next and it was an essential part of your schooling - along with other "needle arts". 
I say essential because clothing yourself and others depended, for the most part, on being able to do these things. It really wasn't until the mid-20th century that mass produced clothing became so common that it was possible to avoid learning something about sewing and knitting - if for no other reason than to mend items made by others. The very wealthy may have had their clothing made for them but women still knew about those things and they could still do "fine sewing", "embroidery" and "other needle arts".
Yesterday I was taking a closer look at 

"The knitted lace collar receipt book" 
Mrs G Baynes, fourth edition; London, Simpkin and Marshall 1846

	This small book has, as the title suggests, patterns for lace collars. I also looked at a book of Japanese patterns for similar items. The contrast could not be greater. The patterns in the first book are of the most basic nature. There are no charts and really very little information for a modern knitter. The Japanese book on the other hand  has a chart which is constructed along the strictly uniform lines the Japanese knitting industry has insisted on. I don't read the Japanese language but I can read the chart. The Pacific leap between the two is extraordinary.
	But I am going to spend some more time on those old patterns because I know I can still learn a lot from them.