Some patterns from the mid-1800's

I've been adding some patterns to Ravelry's database of historical mid-1800's patterns. What is frustrating to me, is that they don't have a historical, or Victorian or vintage attribute that can easily sort old patterns out. Luckily, I figured out how to add the old engraving prints to the pattern while still giving credit to the original authors, so people looking for old patterns can see them for what they are. However, it would be nice if they could maybe put in an attribute that allows you to search for historical patterns- preferably by year, or decade even!

This is a really interesting pattern to me, for a "leggin" which appears to be a sort of legwarmer/spat combo- with ruffles. Awesome! I haven't seen any other pattern that resembles it, to date. It's from the December 1859 issue of Peterson's Magazine. I created a really nice, easily printed-out .pdf version of this pattern, and it is available at the The Wooly Spider site. http://woolyspider.com/2010/06/knitted-leggin-1859/ 

It's nice to have an online place for patterns that I put together to "live" since I can't create downloadable .pdf's and house them with blogger's free blog- which this blog is. 

The other pattern I added to Ravelry was this pattern by Isabella Beeton (1870) for Knitted Braces.

This is from Beeton's Book of Needlework. Awesome book!! I'm not really familiar with vintage knitting cotton sizes, so I don't know the modern equivalences for Walter Evans and Co. Knitting Cotton No.8 or 12. It says it is a "coarse" cotton, so maybe regular dishcloth cotton would work. I need to do some more research. It also doesn't recommend a needle size, but I would imagine that small needles, for tight, non-stretchy stitches is what would work best for a pair of suspenders- or rather, braces. :)

I also made a .pdf of this pattern at this url: http://woolyspider.com/2010/07/knitted-braces-1870/

Enjoy!