10. Knitted Edging

This week's pattern appeared in The Inter Ocean, a Chicago newspaper published from 1872 to 1907, under the title "Making Knitted Edging." A row of faggoting along the very top forms a tiny scallop of eyelets above a row of "ladder" holes. Large eyelets arranged in triangles are interspersed with solid garter stitch squares set on their points, forming a saw-tooth lower edge. The stitch count increases from 14 to 20 before the added stitches are bound off in the final row of the 12-row repeat.

You can download the full-size chart, verbal instructions and notes here.

This pattern is one of two contributed by "S.G.H." of Monmouth IL and published in the same issue of the newspaper. The editor shares some of the letter accompanying the submission, in which the writer addresses another contributor to the paper with whom she appears to have corresponded:

I hope you will try these patterns, as they are speedy to knit, and I think you will like them. F.M.S., your pattern is very pretty. Would be glad to hear from you again. I hope our kind editor will give the bees of our home a chance. It is strange how many blue-stockings and reformers are in our family.

"Bluestockings" can be characterized as early feminists, particularly in the area of education for women. The name comes from the Blue Stockings Society, a literary group formed in 18th Century Europe. I think "the bees of our home" might refer to women who are industriously occupied with homemaking pursuits-- such as knitting-- and if that interpretation is correct, S.G.H.'s remarks may be commentary on the debate still ongoing today on the role of women in society.

Next time: Another Pretty Pattern