Knitting Traditions Spring 2013 brings together knitting traditions from around the world and across time. This issue features over 20 knitting patterns with inspiring and informative companion stories that frame the projects in cultural and historical context. Patterns include a vintage pucker-stitch knitted sweater, Orenburg lace scarves, gorgeous gloves and mittens, a miniature silk bag based on one from the 14th century, a sweet sweater and mitts for baby, and more! Plus, you'll find poignant stories about special knitters and a look at knitting schools in Elizabethan England.

Learn about the history of the Jack Frost Yarn Company and its popular, now-vintage knitted pattern books. Enjoy photographs of early Jack Frost pattern booklets and create your own vintage baby cardigan with the Jack Frost Baby Cardigan knitting pattern. Join Galina Khmeleva in an exploration of different types of Russian knitting needles and create your own set with instructions for personalized knitting needles. Try your hand at the challenging Honeycomb lace motif with Galina's knitted scarf pattern. Learn about the history of Waldorf schools and their practice of teaching children to knit in the first grade to improve hand-eye coordination, concentration, and creativity in students. Create your own Waldorf-inspired knitted horse toys to foster creative and imaginative play for a child in your life.

 Editor of PieceWork

This is PieceWork’s seventh annual Historical Knitting issue! A few highlights: Working with Priscilla Gibson-Roberts was a dream come true. Both of us are indebted to the Martin Fellows Hatch family for lending us the stunning Armenian sock (circa 1840–1860) for study and photography. Priscilla’s colorful adaptation of the original graces our cover; complete instructions and charts are provided. I’d always wondered about polka jackets. Were they named for the dance? Who wore them? When? All these questions and more are answered in Helen Bonney’s article on the polka knitting craze. By 1849, a polka jacket, a tiny waist, and a voluminous skirt covering layers of crinolines were the pinnacle of fashion. Helen transcribed instructions for a knitted polka jacket from an 1849 pattern. Carol Rhoades rewrote the instructions for today’s knitters and knitted our sample. Galina Khmeleva once again shares her extensive knowledge of and love for Orenburg knitting, this time with traditional mittens for men and boys. And when we learned of the adventures of the English Captain Burnaby on his unauthorized trip to Russia and his encounter with Orenburg knitting in 1875, we knew we had to include it here. There’s much more. Each article and project in this issue adds to knitting’s illustrious history. Have a glorious time discovering it. I certainly did!

     Editor of PieceWork

Here's a glimpse of what's in Knitting Traditions Fall 2012.  This is the 5th edition of this special issue from the editors of PieceWork.

Jeremina Robertson Colvin left her home in the Shetland Islands in 1885 for Cowichan Station in British Columbia, Canada. When Jeremina met Mary Edwards, a Cowichan, the two women formed a bond that remained steadfast throughout their lives: knitting played a major role in their friendship.
Jeremina and Mary's story is just one of many compelling accounts in this fifth edition of PieceWork's Knitting Traditions. Other passionate knitters whom you'll meet include Cornelia Mee, a nineteenth-century English author of knitting books and certainly one of the first knitting entrepreneurs, and the American poet and knitter Virginia Woods Bellamy, who received a patent for her "Number Knitting" in 1948.
You'll also learn how the surprise discovery in an antiquarian bookshop of a color illustration from a nineteenth-century French book led a designer to develop her Bavarian Leg Warmers project. Our nine vintage patterns (six sweaters, a hat and scarf set, and pair of mittens) were knitted using the original instructions from vintage magazines. They are reproduced here exactly as they originally appeared.

It seems that knitting traditions and connections are everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places.

Blue jeans, blue moon, Rhapsody in Blue, Colorado sky blue, "Blue Suede Shoes," Texas bluebonnets, cerulean, the Caribbean Sea, lapis lazuli. Blue can be striking or soothing. Royalty and religions have used the color for millennia as a symbol of power.

From ancient Egyptian socks to stitch-resist cloth in Mali, from "as true as Coventry blue" to Pueblo ceremonial leggings, the July/August issue of PieceWork is dedicated to the color blue. We examine its importance, how it has been used, and how some traditional methods of achieving the color are being preserved. It turns out that tie-dyeing cloth with indigo was introduced to the world long before the 1960s; Native American men knitted and wore ceremonial dark blue leggings; and Chinese embroiderers stitched symbols onto white cloth with blue cotton hand-dyed thread. Explore glorious blue in this issue of PieceWork!