American Needlewoman, November 1925, part 2

 This is the other tatting pattern from the November 1925 issue, a doily edging by Marie Haase.  She was also a contributor to Needlecraft and Modern Priscilla magazines.  I suspect she was related to Clara Haase, another designer of that era.

In defense of American Needlewoman, with its small handful of patterns on poor quality paper, you get what you pay for.  In 1925, its yearly subscription was only 25 cents, while Needlecraft was 50 cents, and Modern Priscilla was a whopping 2 dollars.  Modern Priscilla was the oldest, having started in 1887, and had many more pages on much better paper.  Needlecraft had started out as a Vickery & Hill publication, but in April 1914 changed to Needlecraft Publishing Company.  I suspect this was still a division of Vickery & Hill, but as the magazine was improving its content and paper quality to look more like Priscilla, perhaps an attempt to distance itself from all those cheap newsprint magazines.  Oops, I digressed.

American Needlewoman, November 1925 part 1

I recently obtained a handful of issues of The American Needlewoman, another Vickery & Hill Publishing Company magazine.  I was a bit disappointed as there was far more fiction than there was needlework.  The average issue had an installment of a serial, 3 more short stories, and around 4 pages of needlework, usually one of which having embroidery patterns that had to be ordered separately.  On the other hand, tatting usually made an appearance.

The magazine began around June 1890 as American Woman, and in May 1923 changed its name to The American Needlewoman. In May 1927, it changed again, to The American Homemaker.  I wonder if the name changes were to make it appear useful to the casual observer while the reader could enjoy the romantic stories.

The November 1925 issue had 3 tatting patterns, 2 of them by a Mrs. D. A. Davis.  Note that in this context, beading has nothing to do with beads, and is instead a trimming designed to have a ribbon threaded through it.  As before, I have cropped and pasted to put the parts of the patterns closer together, click to enlarge.  I'm still playing with resizing to find the smallest file size that will still be easy enough to read. 

  

Hearth and Home April 1923 - Edging or Collar

The Vickery & Hill Publishing Company of Augusta, Maine produced many inexpensive magazines on poor quality paper beginning in the late 1800's.  One of these was Hearth and Home.  The issue I have has 2 pages of rather nice needlework patterns, 4 fiction stories, and lots and lot of advertisements. 

Here is the  tatting pattern, by Mrs. Anna Knight of Hudson, Michigan.  Originally it was spread across 3 columns on 2 pages, but I have cropped and pasted it into a single image, click to enlarge.

One of the ads was for Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound.  You could also order remedies for almost any ailment, books, dishes, watches, dolls, flower bulbs, a bicycle, or an an automatic revolver.

 

A Hanky Pattern from New England Homestead 1926

I've been actively collecting vintage magazines, especially Needlecraft and Modern Priscilla.  Sometimes some other random magazines will be included in a batch I purchase, and sometimes, they will have some patterns in them.

Here is, hopefully, the first in a series of old tatting patterns.  This one is from New England Homestead, February 6, 1926. No designer name is given.  We will have to forgive (or not) the writer of the caption, who thought both edgings were crochet.  The pages are very badly yellowed and I have cleaned up the background of the text, but only lightly touched up the image lest all the detail be lost.  I hope you will be able to click to enlarge, or to print the image so that you can read it.

Meanwhile, Leigh at Somethingunderthebed.com is in the process of posting online all the tatting patterns from Needlecraft magazine, and will later do Modern Priscilla.  It looks like she has gotten as far as 1919 right now.  This LINK will take you to her Needlecraft bibliography page.

 

Yay for Ebay!

Here is part of my latest win from Ebay.  With multiple balls of the same color, I can see some large size 80 projects in my future.  Yes, large and size 80 makes an oxymoron, doesn't it.