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Time for another free pattern! This one comes from a knitting/crochet booklet I bought without part of the cover. There isn’t a copyright date on the front cover, the back cover is missing, and I’ve never seen another copy of it with which to compare. Based on the model designer and the style shapes, I’m dating it to the early to mid 40′s, although it’s possible it’s a late 30′s booklet. I can find no copyright renewals for the copyright holder or for the designer. That all out of the way, the pattern is an adorable knitted bathing suit. No gauge is given, but I can tell you that the Shetland Floss would be a fingering weight wool or wool blend. Download the PDF here.

Tags: clothing, free pattern, knitting

This beautiful piece is by an artist, Helen Grant, who was regularly featured on the cover and inside Needlecraft Magazines from the early part of the century. It pictures matching mother and daughter dress styles, the patterns of which could be purchased by mail order. It is beautifully done, sweet and so characteristic of the time period. I think it would make a lovely embroidered item, decorations for stationary, or even framed art. Click on the picture to get a larger version.

Tags: antique, art, clothing, free graphic

Sunday’s Child focuses on happy children. The easy way out for a Sunday article is therefore a toy pattern. I’ve gone a step further and taken the exceptionally lazy way out by providing you with a scan of the pattern, but not even trying to enlarge it to useful proportions. The graphic is set at about 1 square = 1/2″ and should just fit on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet. It will then need to be enlarged by 400% for the sit-able size. However, the toy itself is sweet and whimsical, and is both stuffed animal and nursery furniture, and one can adjust the size to anything desired, from tiny to towering. My own child is outside the appropriate age group for this toy, or I’d make it myself. Added note: I love that it has a tattooed fin. So, without further ado, I present the Sit-on Whale from the Woman’s Day gift issue, November 1963.

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Tags: free pattern, sewing, toy, vintage

Saturdays here at Lothruin.com are all about frugal living. Saturday’s child isn’t the only one who works hard for a living, and we all like our dollars to go as far as possible. My favorite way to stretch the dollar is being a cheapskate in my shopping habits. I think everyone should be a cheapskate. The last non-grocery item I bought at regular price was yarn, and I got it with a gift certificate. I just do not buy things unless they’re on sale, and except for intimates, socks, bath towels and bedding (really, I think those are the only four categories) I’d be just as happy to buy used as new. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve bought bedding and towels used, and even socks and underwear, but you have to understand, I buy vintage and I buy for repurposing. Truth be told, I like to know I’m the only person who’s slept on my sheets, but I’m not above using a set of used sheets for the material. Every person will have a different level of comfort when it comes to using used items, but I’m a firm believer in getting over it. I don’t bat an eye at giving gifts of thrift store purchases at Christmas or birthdays, and I buy garments and housewares for myself and my family with regularity. I also occasionally resell items. However, it does take practice to do this well and make it pay.

OK, first, let’s look at the outfit to the right. I think I look pretty nice. The cuts and colors are flattering and not completely out of date. (I’m generally a little bit in and a little bit out, to be honest.) They’re comfortable, and the entire outfit, boots included, cost me about $25. The top is a dolman-sleeved sweater I picked up at an after-Christmas sale at T.J. Maxx (my favorite non-thrift place to shop) for $10. The skirt, vintage 60′s John Meyer of Norwich, wool herringbone tweed in a sort of cherry-tomato red, $1 at Goodwill. The belt, vintage 80′s, $2 at Goodwill. And the boots, $13 on clearance at Target a few seasons ago. Now look, I’m not one to brag about my fashion sense (not even a little bit, in fact I’m not sure I have it) but a quick scroll through the cool-weather sales at Neiman Marcus convinced me that this look was not outside the realm of fashionable, and I did it for $25 instead of $250. And look how skinny it makes me look!

So, it can be done, this tricky business of shopping at thrift stores. But it takes practice and it takes patience. I’ve compiled a list of the top 5 most important things you need to know to be an efficient thrift store shopper.

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Tags: antique, thrift, vintage

It’s Friday, which means free pattern time! We’ll start with one that’s been around for a little while. It is a knitted hat pattern I call Bedlam. It was born of a strange combination of lackadaisy and ambition. You see, it was cold out and I wanted to take my dog for a walk. I’d been knitting for about five years, and was actually quite startled to realize that I didn’t have a hat. I live in Nebraska, and it gets very cold here. I have a basement full of yarn and a wide variety of skills to use it. It seemed like the universe was mocking me. That’s when ambition struck. I could just make myself a hat. It couldn’t take very long, especially if I used a bulky yarn, and I had plenty of stash I could use. I dug out a skein of Brown Sheep worsted and opted to use it doubled, and then I started knitting. I knew I wanted something more complex than stockinette, and cables are an easy way to add interest to hat. But that’s where the lackadaisy struck. I hate counting rows. I know it’s something I have to do, but I still hate it. I don’t know why. But then I thought, who cares if I count rows? I don’t have to count rows if I don’t want to, so there. The results are interesting and attractive, I think. But my dog never did get a walk that day. By the time my hat was finished, it was also windy and turning dark. Poor dog.

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Tags: accessories, free pattern, knitting

For Christmas this year, my husband gave me a number of books from the Harper’s Library Edition of Mark Twain’s works (and filled me with a desire to possess the rest of the 25-book edition). I love Mark Twain, and my husband is possibly the most thoughtful gift-giver I’ve ever known. I’ve been reading Following the Equator this week, and thus was my topic for this edition of Thursday’s Child suggested to me.

Most everyone is familiar with Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Indeed, one need go no further than these familiar characters in any discussion concerning tales of travel and adventure, even if one isn’t aware of the further adventures of the two in Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective. But the theme of travel flows throughout Twain’s works, both of fiction and otherwise. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is perhaps one of my favorite of Twain’s works, and if you haven’t read it, you should.

Unfortunately for the public at large, few people these days delve much further into Twain’s work that those three novels. His non-fiction seems to have largely gone by the wayside, yet it delivers poignant and witty accounts of his personal travels, incorporating passages from his diary and commentary on politics and culture. In Following the Equator, his descriptions of the geography and people of Australia and India (and points between and beyond) are touching and beautiful, even though tempered by his often acerbic humor. In The Innocents Abroad he focuses more on his fellow travelers, casting the past-time of tourism in a shadow of the ridiculous. His writing in these works is very much a series of impressions; a catalog of the stream of thought his experiences suggested to him. It opens doors to his personal politics and morals that are much more difficult to uncover in most of his fiction, with the possible exception of Connecticut Yankee. As I read them, I feel more than ever that I would have liked to have this man in my circle of friends.

Tags: books

Wednesdays give us the opportunity to step over to the darker side of cool. As we’re still in the beginning of this venture, and I’m still collecting my resources and planning posts, I’m going to take the easy way out on this one today. Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to embroider the circulatory system? Ah, yes, I knew this would be a popular choice. Because I collect antique books, but don’t really have a ton of money to spend on them, I troll thrift stores, garage sales and the free book box at my favorite local used book store, A Novel Idea. I’ll buy very old books, even in fairly poor condition, because I can still utilize them, even if I can’t read them. Currently, my oldest book is from 1880, and is a German-language translation of a popular 19th century home medicine book. It is a wealth of graphics. Amongst them is this diagram of the arteries, seen at right. You can download a PDF containing the graphic at 10.5″ high right here and I’ll be uploading a high resolution, transparent-background copy very soon. Enjoy!

Tags: antique, creepy, embroidery, free graphic

If you are a crafty person, you may already be familiar with a paper craft technique called Iris Folding. The craft is most associated with greeting cards, but is also used by scrap-bookers and mixed media artists, and even quilters who duplicate the effect in fabric. Strips of folded paper are laid in a pattern resembling the iris of a camera, to fill the negative space cut from a piece of cardstock or other base. Any light-weight papers can be used for the folding, on a base of heavier cardstock, and there are numerous templates available for free online. All right, now that, spurned by my enthusiasm, you have rushed to the WWW to thoroughly familiarize yourself with this craft…

I’m afraid I’m a sort of rebel. The precision of iris folding appealed to me from the very beginning, and also the fact that it reminded me of a type of drawing I was taught in grade school to illustrate infinity. But I’ve tried my had at various methods of greeting-card making, and the truth is, I just don’t use them, and don’t enjoy making them. Also, I found a lot of the standard free templates a little too cute. It just wasn’t my style.

Some time after my introduction to iris folding, I was leafing through a book I’d been given; an old sample book of hand-made Japanese papers. The papers are all so beautiful, but of each there was only a 3″ x 6″ sample page, with writing printed in several places and holes punched in. I considered various ways I could use this paper in a sort of patchwork effect, to get the most bang for the buck, and eventually I hit on iris folding. It uses only small amounts of paper for the folded bits and with only a few exceptions, the Japanese papers were a good weight. But if I was going to use these very special papers, so precious because of their rarity, at least in my world, then I wanted a special project, and nothing I’d seen online would do. I understood the basics of the craft, so I set out to design my own template, and what could be more appropriate for Japanese papers than a Japanese koi?

It worked. It turns out I knew exactly what I was doing. I used a wide variety of papers, even for the white bits, to lend the fish the variety of texture and color of a real koi. Rather than leave it in a flat cardstock frame, I hand-painted a coffee filter to be reminiscent of water. The entire effect is subtle and pleasing, and it does a good job of showcasing the papers themselves.

If you’d like to try the koi, I’ve written basic instructions and drawn out the template. You can download it here. But I encourage you to spend some time squirreling away a little stash of special papers (if you don’t have one of these already) and then strike out on your own in a way to best showcase what you have.

Tags: art, craft, free pattern, home

Ruth and Ruthie

Ruth was my mother’s mother. She was a beautiful Bavarian woman, dignified and aristocratic, with refined tastes. She spent her childhood in the elegant environs of Nuremburg, Germany, the only child of wealthy parents. WWII changed many things about her life and her lifestyle. The years following saw her in love, the wife of a rancher in Wyoming, and just a handful of years more saw her a widow struggling to raise her three children in a somewhat inhospitable clime. But she did not lose her appreciation of fine and beautiful things, and that appreciation and recognition were gifts she passed to her children. Like most women of her generation, my Oma crocheted and knit. Many photos from her youth feature gorgeous and skillfully-wrought knits, and in her later years, when she was no longer able to handle her needles or hook, she was still inspired by luxurious yarns and fibers, beautiful colorways and the craftsmanship of knitting.

For our first Monday’s child, in honor of that love of beauty and elegance, I’m resurrecting my very first knitting pattern; a bolero jacket. Inspired by a photo from a Norwegian knitting magazine, I designed and knitted the jacket for myself out of Joann’s Sensations Licorice in a beautiful red colorway, and I wore it twice. The second time, my Aunt Marge told me my Oma would love it, so I slipped it off and gave it to her to take to Oma with my love. At that time, Oma was wheelchair-bound due to advanced MS and was often chilly. Sweaters either were too bulky and got bunched in the chair behind her or were too light to keep her warm. She loved the jacket and was delighted that I had learned to knit. She asked for another in shades of blue and green to compliment the other half of her wardrobe, and I knitted it for my Knitting Olympics project in 2006. My Oma passed away two days after Christmas in 2007 and the original red wool jacket was not found among her things, but my Knitting Olympics version in blues and greens was returned to me. Wearing it is like getting a hug from Oma. In her honor, I’ve named the bolero jacket Ruth. The modification for a shrug is Ruthie

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Tags: free pattern, knitting

With the switch in hosts, somehow my blog database was deleted. This is great sadness. The blogger blog from bygone days is still around, but everything from the switch until now (not that there was a ton) is gone like Nicolas Cage in a Shelby Mustang. I’ll be working on rebuilding project posts from yesteryear, beginning with those pertinent to available patterns and Ravelry projects. I’m hoping to make a blogging comeback… we’ll see.