I love finding vintage crochet patterns and I have a few places I frequent to find “new” old patterns 🙂
The patterns below are scanned by a fabulous group of volunteers at the Antique Pattern Library (New Media Arts), for personal use. You are allowed to copy and distribute these but you are not allowed to sell them.
Here are few newly scanned items you may want to take a look at 🙂 and if you have antique patterns to donate, or are interested in volunteering to help with the project (they are looking for trained Librarians and Scholars in the Humanities) you can find the details here on their main page.
Each cover image is ‘clickable’ and will take you directly to the PDF on the Antique Pattern Library’s site. To browse their patterns yourself, here is the library link: Catalog
Irish Crochet Lace Book No. 132
U.S., Spool Cotton Company, 1939, 30 pgs
Clark’s O.N.T. J&P Coats Pillow Cases Book No. 264
Decorative Crochet
[U.S., Spool Cotton Company, c.1945,] 11 pgs
Clark’s O.N.T. J&P Coats Bathroom Beauties Book No. 265
Decorative Crochet for Bath Towels, Guest Towels, Face Cloths
New York, The Spool Cotton Company, 1950, 14 pgs
Lily Design Book No. 79 Doilies
Shelby, N.C., Lily Mills Company, 1956, 15 pgs.
There are some fantastic patterns in each of these!
Check out the Irish Crochet Backgrounds on page-3 of Irish Crochet Lace.
I love Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, on page-7 of Pillow Cases.
Or, the Penguin Bath Set on page-15 of Bathroom Beauties.
So much to look at!
Many of the designs remind me of items we used to have in our home while I was growing up. Especially the doily on page-6 (Daisy Frills) of Doilies.
I hope you find something here you love too!
brenda says
I love vintage – thanks for sharing these
giovanna says
bellissimi lavori, brava ciao.
Rhondda says
Very welcome Julita 🙂
Julita says
thank you so much for the link.
Rhondda says
Hi Martha, It is in a PDF format so you will need to have a PDF viewer installed on your device or computer. Adobe Reader is an example of a free pdf viewer – this is the one I have used for many years. Hope this helps! and you are most welcome 🙂 Rhondda
Martha says
Hi!! Thank you so much for all the free patterns and your effort!
I can’t download the Irish Crochet book. To be more specific I can download it but for some reason it doesn’t open. Could you help me? I am a new crocheter and I am dying to learn this technique!
Martha
Rhondda says
Hi Angelica, I’m happy you love the embellishments 🙂 and my site. I am sure I have done the same before – and once you have a small collection of books it can be time consuming searching them for the one you remember but can’t find 😉 Good luck! Yes, I do feel a little bit better today 🙂 Thank you for asking! Have a lovely weekend, Rhondda
Angelica says
Again! Thank you so much…Very useful… I love the embellisments and they have inspired me a new idea 🙂 I love the site as well… pity I’m so ‘absent-minded’ that once saw something I loved but didn’t download, now I’m unable to remember which book was it so… I spend some time every day re-reviewing them, could you believe it?
Oh! Are you feeling better today? Hope so, <3
oombawkadesign says
Hi Michelle 🙂 You are very welcome! I love their site and could spend hours browsing the newly added patterns 🙂
Michelle N. says
Thanks for the link! I love old patterns. I download a couple of the books. TFS.