In Denver, we had snow yesterday morning (yes, in October!).  Happily, the ground is still too warm for it to stick much and within a few hours it had melted. 

I am not a fan of winter weather and snow reminds me that the holidays are not far away…a time when I like to knit.

I met my husband while knitting.  It was winter then too. The best decision of my life was visiting the girls in my knitting group that day.

I digress…

I consider myself to be a novice knitter.  I finished a tube sock once and that has been my singular knitting accomplishment claim to fame.  That doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about becoming a better knitter and there are plenty of vintage knitting patterns out there to drool over. For example:

This crocheted 1940’s fedora pattern is available for sale on several sites around the internet. At around $3.00, it’s very tempting.

Or, you could go the free route:

Several years ago, I found the above J&P Coats – Clark’s knitting pattern leaflet, Everyone Wears Sweaters at a garage sale and fell in love with the patterns and art.  Oh, the art…

Some lovely person has posted the art and patterns from this leaflet on their site, Free Vintage Knitting. There is even a link so that you can download a digitally restored, public domain pdf of the whole leaflet. There are a lot of advertising links in the margins of the Free Vintage Knitting site, so I urge you to be careful what you click on, but I think most everything else about it is legitimate.

When Coats & Clark say “Everyone”, they mean Everyone. The leaflet also contains the above dog sweater pattern. Couldn’t you just die from cuteness? Free Vintage Knitting has loads of downloadable public domain knitting pattern books besides mine, so, if you’re in the mood to knit up something vintage-y, I urge you to check it out.

Grumbling that you don’t have a size 0 waist with a large bust like the gal in the above pattern?  That’s okay, neither do I. Don’t stress! Plus size vintage knitting patterns -do- exist as evidenced by this pretty 1940’s pattern:

It takes a bit of searching, but vintage knitting patterns are out there in all shapes and sizes.

Still not inspired? Maybe an afghan is more your thing. This one is pretty and it shouldn’t be too difficult to knit a big rectangle, right?

What do you like to craft during the holidays?