Stitches in time

by Sue Bradley

Features knitwear designs that draw on different historical periods for their inspiration, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, Byzantium, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 18th century, the Victorian era and the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Genres: Knitting

173 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 1986

Reviews

[Abbey · Rating 2 out of 5]

BOTTOM LINE: Oh, dear, what *can* I say??? The write-ups of the history of fashion were very good; the pictures and illustrations were excellent, and the designs were, um, odd. Didn't find one design that even appealed a little bit.

This large softcover was published in the UK in 1991, and it's showing its age, sadly - the designs are clunky, over-sized, with peculiarly wide sleeves and bizarre color combinations for many of the designs. Luckily the author shows you not only her initial design for each pattern (there are 24) but also two variations on each one, with at least one being a fairly simple, stripped-down version of the original. Some of the concepts are interesting, but not something I'm ever likely to wear.

Ms. Bradley is a good illustrator, historian, and designer; I'll be looking out for some of her more current designs, though, in the hopes that they'll be more to my rather minimalist tastes. Not a useful book for me at all, alas, and that's a major consideration in my ratings for pattern books.