"A Winter Gift for Ladies" (1848)

"In [this] little work, all the different species of knitting, netting, and crotchet [sic], are so carefully explained, that a person totally unacquainted with their mysteries, may become a profient with very slight pains" -- from the introduction.

A Winter Gift for Ladies "by an American Lady" -- "being Instructions in Knitting, Netting and Crotchet Work, Containing the Newest and Most Fashionable Patterns from the Latest London Edition" -- published by G.B. Zeiber  of Philadelphia in 1848, is available to view as a PDF free online courtesy of the Antique Pattern Library.

The APL notes that this is "one of the oldest American booklets with crochet patterns".  The author includes a glossary of knitting terms, though no illustrations; patterns include muffatees (both knitted and "crotcheted") and mittens, a variety of purses, and bags, "quilts", stockings, comforters (scarves), shawls, etc., and a cephaline.  Some of the knitted muffatees are worked in the round on four needles and some are worked flat on two needles then sewn up.

Notice that all of the crochet patterns appear to be worked in the round -- it was assumed in the early days of crochet that this had to be done for the correct appearance of the stitches, so that working a crochet piece flat necessitated a surely-tedious cutting of the wool at the end of every row and reattaching it at the beginning.

There is no evidence, unfortunately, that the Winter Gift's "American Lady" is the same as the "American Lady" of Lonely Hours a year later.

Knitting terminology in the 1840s

Here are glossaries from four early knitting-book writers, three of them English and the other American. 

Note that Mrs. Copley is the only one to not use or even mention the word "seam" for the purl stitch!

From My Knitting Book by Frances Lambert (1843), using English terms --

Explanation of Terms used in Knitting. 

To cast on.—The first interlacement of the cotton on the needle. 

To cast off.—To knit two stitches, and to pass the first over the second, and so on to the last stitch, which is to be secured by drawing the thread through. 

To cast over.—To bring the cotton forward round the needle. 

To narrow.—To lessen, by knitting two stitches together. 

To seam.—To knit a stitch with the cotton before the needle. 

 To widen.—To increase by making a stitch, bringing the cotton round the needle, and knitting the same when it occurs. 

A turn.—Two rows in the same stitch, backwards and forwards. 

To turn.—To change the stitch. 

To turn over.—To bring the wool forward over the needle. 

A row.—The stitches from one end of the needle to the other. 

A round.—A row, when the stitches are on two, three, or more needles. 

A plain row.—That composed of simple knitting.

To pearl a row.—To knit with the cotton before the needle. 

To rib.—To work alternate rows of plain and pearl knitting. 

To bring the thread forward.—To bring the cotton forward so as to make an open stitch. 

A loop stitch.—Made by bringing the cotton before the needle, which, in knitting the succeeding stitch, will again take its own place. 

To slip or pass a stitch.—To change it from one needle to the other without knitting it. 

To fasten on.—The best way to fasten on is to place the two ends contrariwise, and knit a few stitches with both together. For knitting, with silk, or fine cotton, a weaver's knot will be found the best. 

To take under.—To pass the cotton from one needle to the other, without changing its position. 

Pearl, seam, and rib-stitch—All signify the same.

 

From Miss Watts's Selections of Knitting, Netting & Crochet Work (1844) -- English terms.

From Lonely Hours: A Textbook of Knitting by "An American Lady" (1849).

From The Comprehensive Knitting Book by Esther Copley (1849), using English terms. The explanation on p.12 for "take in from the back" reads, "By reversing the right hand pin, so inserting it in two stitches, not in front but in the back of the left hand pin, and knitting them off as one" -- a modern K2tog tbl, or "through back loop".

"Lonely Hours" by An American Lady

"The need which the writer has felt in common with many others, of a work on Knitting, adapted to American usage,

 combined with several years experience in and close attention to that beautiful and useful art, has emboldened her

 to place before the public, the following little book, with a sincere wish that it may be found to meet the wants

 of her fair country-women" -- from the preface.

Beth Chamberlain, knitter and librarian/historian, has tracked down what may be the first American knitting book -- not the first knitting book published in America (which was a reprint of Mrs. Lambert's The Hand-book of Needlework in 1842), but the first knitting book written in America for American knitters.

This is Lonely Hours : A Text Book of Knitting, by An American Lady, published by E. Gaskill of Philadelphia in 1849 -- you can read Beth's post about her research and discovery here. What is distinctive about Lonely Hours is that the patterns seem for the most part to be completely original to the author, not re-workings of existing ones.

There are not many libraries in the U.S. that own a copy of this book (see which ones do here), but happily, the Boston Public Library has digitized their copy, which can be viewed online at The Internet Archive.

Being an inveterate librarian myself, I followed one trail among the clues uncovered by Beth, and surmise that "E. Gaskill" was Edward Gaskill of Philadelphia (1811?-1866).  Sharp eyes will have noticed that unlike the copy that Beth located, the Boston Public Library's copy was published by M. Bywater, also of Philadelphia -- Maurice (or Morris) Bywater (1817-1870) was in fact Edward Gaskill's brother-in-law, who had married Mary Matilda Bywater (d.1879) in 1843.  It is unclear why the book would have two different publishers in the same year.  (The meaning of the title is also a bit of a mystery.)

It is certainly possible that the "American Lady" was Matilda Gaskill -- although sources indicate that she and her brother were born in Wales -- though of course it is also possible that the "Lady" was someone unrelated to either Edward Gaskill or Maurice Bywater.

 

Authorship aside, there are curiosities even at a first glance throughout the book -- see for example page 52, in which an "opera cap" is defined, either simply or dismissively depending on how you read it, as "merely a long and wide scarf, one hundred stitches wide, and two yards and a half long" in what would now be called a light fingering weight wool.  Also on page 52 is instructions for "zephyr balls" in what is still a common way of making what are now known as pompoms (the earliest-known use of the latter word is 1873!)

Note that the author has included a page of her knitting terms at the back of the book -- it will be interesting to compare, in a future post, these terms with those of other writers of the same period!