What vintage knitting books teach us about getting garments to fit

Jun 05, 2026

Vintage knitting books

Are they useful today in getting knit garments to fit?

Curiosity led me to see what information a vintage knitting book would offer on achieving garment fit - both in style and size. Read on to see what I discovered.

I have a small collection of vintage knitting books that were given to me. This one, edited by Catherine Franks, was printed in 1939 by Odhams Press Limited, London, UK.

I'm currently in the middle of my Living your vest life KAL and have been thinking a lot about pattern adjustment to achieve style and fit needs.

At the start of the KAL, I told participants that I believe garment knitters are at minimum tailors and more akin to designers - or at least should be. To really get the style and fit we want, knitters need the courage and confidence to adjust a pattern to fit them, if for no other reason than the fact that a size chart cannot fit every body; we likely have to assemble size 'us' from across sizes on a pattern.

In our KAL, we have talked about ways to achieve fit and style beyond a pattern. Whether relying on details from an existing garment or imagining a new one, a useful tool can be creating a paper mock-up of a garment. We can use that mock-up to. . .

•try on a style and size to see if they match what we're looking for

•get shaping correct on necklines, shoulders, armholes, sleeves

Knitting garments - 1939 edition

Midway through this KAL and by chance, I glimpsed the vintage knitting books on my shelf and sat down to peruse them again with the topic of garment fit on my mind. I already knew that twentieth century knitting patterns offer scant detail in patterns, certainly not requiring the dozen plus pages inherent in knitting patterns today (more on this in a later post). But imagine my 'well look at that' moment when I found this page in my 1939 book.

Notice that on this page of instruction, the knitter is referred to the index of the book to find the sections on shaping - armholes, necklines, sleeves, etc. The whole purpose of this book, it seems, was to guide to the knitter to achieve personal style and fit, to have the understanding of how a garment is constructed, and to realize the knitter is the designer in the process.

Should I have followed my instincts?

The funny thing is that while I was preparing my KAL with the goal of encouraging this very notion, I thought to myself that it would be most effective to throw out the pattern and take participants through this personal design process without it. I did that at the start of the KAL to set the tone, but the pattern is still front and center.

Maybe my instinct was right, however. I'll have to ask the participants. One thing I'm sure of is that as knitters, we have become dependent on our patterns as tomes that give us every bit of construction information, each bit to be followed to the letter. When a finished garment doesn't fit or match our personal style, we wonder why and possibly even blame the designer. But a pattern is just one person's vision of a style and fit. We, however, are diverse in our physical shapes and personal tastes; a designer's singular vision can never accommodate all of us. For me, that is a wonderful thing - but it requires garment knitters to view themselves not as strict followers of a pattern, but rather as makers engaged in the creative and technical process.

There's still time to participate in the KAL as sessions are recorded. The pattern (all 14 pages) and KAL are included with purchase of 4 or more skeins of our DK cashmere or DK camel yarn. Find out more here: Living your vest life KAL