The 11 best places to get vintage knitting patterns

Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the sudden inspiration to knit and sew all of the vintage. I’ve even finally finished my most recent vintage sweater and a skirt from a vintage sewing pattern. I have to attribute this sudden burst of inspiration to Mad Men. I finally finished the last season, and although Don Draper makes my skin crawl most times, the fashion in it always reminds me of how much I love the 60s style trends. It’s not hard to imagine, that that has lead me to obsessing over finding all of the available. I thought it’d be useful to have all the links to my favorite sites in one place.

Free Patterns

When I first started out on my vintage knitting journey, I never thought there would be so many patterns available for free. Here are below are a few of my favorite sites that share from their stash.

Free Vintage Knitting
Subversive Femme
The Sunny Stitcher
Musing from Marilyn
Purple Kitty Yarns
Vintage Pattern Files

For sale

Sometimes you find a picture of a knitting pattern, or see someone knit from a pattern that isn’t available for free so you need to buy it. There are two options, you can either hope to find someone selling a PDF pattern or you can hope to find the actual physical copy.

PDFs
**Please note** I’ve never had any experience buying pdf patterns, so I can’t speak for the quality of any patterns from the below sites

The Vintage Knittng Lady
Etsy - Search for the name of the pattern, and you might have luck.

Physical
Etsy
Ebay

Secondhand shops or antique shops - This isn't something I'd do if I were looking for something specific, but most of my stash does come from antique shops
Estate Sales - Again, it's not something I'd do for something specific, but I have had luck finding piles of pattern booklets at estate sales.

Where are some of your places to get vintage patterns, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Don't forget I've been sharing vintage patterns on this site and I'm planning on sharing more over the next few months, follow me on Instagram and Pinterest to make sure you don't miss one.

Three Ways to Get Out of a Knitting Rut

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You guys, I don't know if it's the incredibly shitty news coming out of my home state, the warm weather, or maybe it's the way the planets are aligned, but I haven't felt like knitting at all for the last couple of weeks. This has really gone on long enough. I'm desperate for something to change, so here are some things I'm going to try over the next few days to snap myself out of this rut.

Scroll through Ravelry

I honestly don't know what spurred this rut that I'm in. I have a few not so fun projects going on right now, so that may be part of it. Maybe what I need is to start a new project. My thought is, if I go through all the wonderful projects and patterns on Ravelry, maybe it'll spark something in me and I can get excited about knitting again.

Organize my knitting binder

A few weeks ago, I talked about my method of organizing my knitting binder. At the time I really had no desire to go through old projects and organize them. But now I'm thinking if I take the time to go through my finished objects it’ll inspire me to want to create some more finished objects.

Go through stitch books

Sometimes I just need something small and a little challenging to remind myself what I love so much about knitting. I’m going to try to pick a few stitches and make a few swatches. Who knows, I might even come up with a fun sweater pattern while I'm at it.

Some of my favorite stitch books books are:
400 Knitting Stitches: A Complete Dictionary of Essential Stitch Patterns
The Essential Stitch Collection: Creative Guide to the 300 Stitches Every Knitter Needs to Know

Also I'm really enjoying the 100 Days of Stitches Jennifer from Brome Fields Knitwear is doing and can see myself getting some inspiration from there.

What are some of the ways you guys get out of a knitting rut? Let me know in the comments.

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What I'm knitting this summer

I don’t know about anyone else, but I always find it really hard to motivate myself to knit once the weather starts to warm up. I get very little knitting done in the summer. But once those cool September nights come back my needles are flying.

With all of that said, none that really makes much sense to me since I'm not an outdoor type of person. I tend to sit in my air conditioned house most days anyway. So, why am I not knitting?

This summer I'm going to try my hardest to get myself prepared for winter. Below are some of the things I’m going to work on.

Hats

I always have it in my head that I want to knit a new hat for everyone before winter comes. But I tend to start planning them way too late, and then by time I get to picking the pattern and yarn, winter is almost over.

Seaforth by Karie Westermann
“Once Upon a Time” Inspired Ruby Beret
Ravelry Hat Bundle
Pinterest Hat Board

Sweaters

I just don't have nearly enough finished handknit sweaters in my life. Plus I’ve promised my sister at least a dozen cozy sweaters and have finished exactly zero for her.

Beatnik by Norah Gaughn
Que Sera by Kristen Kapur
Ravelry Pullover Bundle
Ravelry Cardigan Bundle
Pinterest Sweater Board

Socks

I have so much Knit Picks Felici to knit through. And I like the idea of socks for when it's too hot to have thick yarn running through your fingers.

Bubbles Down the Drain by Staci Perry
Froot Loops by Kristi Geraci

Does the warmer weather tend to slow you guys down when it comes to knitting? What are some things you do to get over it?

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Free Vintage Pattern: 1940s Men's V-Neck Pullover

Look dapper in this classy 1940s pullover cable sweater. It could easily be worn to the office with a business casual look or on a lazy weekend afternoon in front of the fire with your favorite book and beverage of choice.

This pullover is knit in pieces from the bottom up with set-in sleeves. It features a cable pattern on the front and a simple 2x2 rib on the back. The pattern is written for one size with a chest measurement of 38”.

If you’d like to size this pattern up or down, I highly recommend Tasha’s knit-along on her website By Gum By Golly. Or check out some other sweater knitting resources.

Specs

Publication Date: 1947

Publication Name: Jack Frost #45 - Sweaters for Men and Boys 

Gauge: 6.5 sts = 1in

Sizes: 38" chest

Yarn

The pattern calls for 400 grams of sport weight yarn.

Looking ahead to Me Made May 2018

For the past three or four years, I've been wanting to participate in Me Made May. Me Made May is when you wear clothes you made yourself. Every year, May just sort of comes at me with no warning and I realize I've done little to no sewing since the previous May. Of course, I can wear the sweaters I've made, but May really isn't the most knit sweater friendly month.

One of my life goals is to have a completely Me Made wardrobe. One of my 2017 goals was even to sew more. Which honestly won’t be hard since I haven't even looked at a sewing machine in over a year. Really the only thing stopping me from having a decent sized Me Made collection is just sitting down and getting some sewing done. I have more than enough fabric and patterns to have some really great pieces.

As this May is coming to a close, I’m making a pledge right now to plan for next year’s Me Made May. I'm going to challenge myself to create at least one wearable sewn object each month from now until then. Starting in June, I'll be sharing at least one sewn garment each month here on the blog. Hopefully by time May 1, 2018 rolls around I’ll have enough pieces to fill most of the month.

Here's to hoping this is exactly what I need to get me motivated to actually sit down at the sewing table and get some work done. What are some things you guys do to get yourself motivated to accomplish a goal?

If you want to see my progress make sure to follow me on Instagram and Pinterest.

Freebie: Knitters Unite Coloring Page Printable

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I’m back today with another free coloring sheet! This is pretty much the same story as my last coloring sheet. I created this to be a little journal cover. I'm thinking this would be great as a cover for my blog binder.

I've been thinking about some hobbies I can experiment with besides knitting and sewing. I've always been interested in learning to draw, I've found a ton of tutorials online that will help learn. I can manage to create some good things digitally, but haven't quite gotten the hang of pen and paper art. So, I'm hoping that if I experiment with coloring in some of my digital art, it'll help me with creating more traditional pieces. Plus, I think getting used to drawing will help me down the road for if I ever decide I want to start designing knitwear.

I haven't had a chance to mess around with any color techniques, but I really do want to invest in some good Copic Markers, or at least some Copic type markers, like the much cheaper alternative Ohuhu Markers.

If you don't really feel like coloring I have prints, notebooks, t-shirts and mugs available through RedBubble.

What’s Included
[1] 8.5” x 11” coloring page in a PDF format

Printing tips

• Print on high quality for best results

I do have a couple more coloring sheets I plan to share, make sure to follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest to make sure you don't miss any.

If you like this printable and find it useful, please consider buying me a coffee so I can continue to bring you guys free printables. For more information about what it means to buy me a coffee click here.

The Ultimate Guide to An Organized Knitting Binder

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A couple weeks ago, I shared my Knitting Binder Printable. I've been doing test runs on it for almost a year, and during that time I had the chance to figure out what the best way to use it is. Today I'm going to share my process with all of you. Hopefully it helps at least one person out there become more organized.

Step One : Print and fill out the project page

Supplies:
Knitting Binder Printable
White cardstock
Flair Felt Tip Pens
Juice Gel Pens

I print all of my project pages on cardstock. I do this because it really helps separate the project page and the notes that are associated with each project. I also like to have something a little more sturdy for when I add a DIY folder to the back. More on that in a bit.

My only tip for the actual printing process is to make sure that you have the “actual size” option checked in the print dialogue box before printing.

After I have the page I want printed out, I fill it out. I like using the felt tip pen for project name, patterns used, size, made for, needles, gauge and yarn. Then if I have any notes I want to add to the notes section I use the gel pens. I just like to have all the important information in a bolder pen for a quick reference. Also, this is totally optional, I like to color code my pen colors with the colors of my project. I just think it looks nice.

Step two: Where to start

One of the first things I had to do was figure out what projects I was going to include in the binder. Like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I have one mess of a binder with some relevant notes and a notebook that I use to jot things down in when I'm knitting a project. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through that mess and reorganize or just start fresh with my current WIPs. Really, my only deciding factor was whether or not I wanted to take the time to reorganize. I decided I didn't, so I started from my current FOs.

Step three: Make folders 

Supplies:
Scrapbook paper
Glue stick

One of my major goals for my new binder was to have a place where I had my notes and my swatches in one place. More times than I’d like to admit, I make project notes on whatever fun notepad is nearby. To keep all of these in one place, I create folders for the back of each project page. This is why it’s important for me to print each project page on cardstock.

To make the folder :

1. Fold the piece of scrapbook paper in half (hamburger style)
2. Glue each side together (see above picture)
3. Glue the finished folder to the back of the project page

It's a perfect place to keep my swatches, and other random notes I have floating around. I also like to keep my yarn labels in here, if I remember to keep them that is.

Another option would be to print the page out on regular paper and put it in a page protector. And put all of your notes and swatches in the back of the sheet protector.

A post shared by This Gal Knows (@thisgalknows) on Jun 1, 2017 at 11:25am PDT

Once I have my folders made, I get all my notes and patterns together, three hole punch them and put them in my binder behind my project page. See the video above for a clear demonstration. I like doing this because it gives my projects a definite starting and stopping point. With my old binder, I'd have notes and patterns all thrown in together and it'd be nearly impossible to figure out which notes went with which pattern, especially since not all my notes were associated with a printed out pattern.

Step 3: Decide how to organize projects. 

Honestly, I haven't decided on how to do this one yet. On one hand I want to organize them by project type i.e. Sweater, Socks, etc. On the other hand, I want to have them go in order chronologically. Currently, I have them in order of when I finished them Oldest to newest. It’s working for me now, but I’m not sure how it’ll work when I get more projects in there.

This method has been working out really well for me. As I get more projects in there I'm sure I'll have to revise my method. Do you guys have any thoughts on how you’ll use these in your binders? Let me know in the comments.

Over the next few weeks and months, I'm going to share more tips on how to use my knitting binder printables follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest to make sure you don't miss anything.