Vintage Knitting Patterns: Bucilla Blue Book 1918–1920s

I’ve been going through my stash of vintage knitting patterns, and I wanted to show off four volumes from the Bucilla Blue Book series. This series was published in New York City by Bucilla Yarn Co. to encourage readers to use their yarn. The series appears to have begun in the 1910s and continued in some form to the 1960s. The originals that I have in my own collection range from 1918–1923. You can guess which two are the 1920s just from the cover below. The ice skating cover and the cover with a woman in front of a car show the evolving ideal of womanhood from the waning Gibson Girl era of the 1910s to a more sporty and independent woman of the 1920s. To our modern eye, one thing that stands out in all of these pattern pamphlets is that they are focused on the white middle class and upper middle class experience in the United States.

The oldest of these four Blue Books is Volume 19B, published in 1918, featuring sweaters for women. It was 15 cents. Anyone who is into vintage knitting patterns knows there is frequently very little instruction and frequently no gauge. Volume 19B actually shows line drawings with measurements for each of it patterns. The line drawings also help you understand construction techniques for the time. The introduction in this volume discusses fit and shaping techniques. See an example of a line drawing below. The introduction gives specific information on how to use these line drawings and gauge to adjust the sweater to your own body! Oh how I wish 1950s vogue knitting magazines provided line drawings with measurements—my dream!

My other favorite volume out of this bunch is the “sports and college volume”. It has such charming pictures. It was published in 1922 and displays the increase in college enrollment in the 1920s (both women and men) and the enthusiasm for college sports. These sweaters feature color blocking so knitters could personalize with their school colors or were fairly plain so a monogram or sorority letters could be added.

I’m finishing up this post with a random assortment of other pictures from these volumes.