Just stumbled across a treasure trove of patterns. The Antique Pattern Library scans antique books, magazines, and articles full of patterns for crochet, knitting, tatting, embroidery, needle lace and other kinds of needlework. Their ongoing mission is to preserve and make available to the public (for free!) our needlework heritage.

The American Red Cross knitting book in their catalog caught my eye. It's got patterns for a U.S. Navy - Iceland sweater, a watchcap, and a child's sweater among other things like a pattern for a head bandage cap and a walking cast toe sock ! I'm not quite sure what the last two might look like, as there are no photos on those particular pages, but there are several photos on the other pages.

Some of the cataloged files are in French or German, but many have clear illustrations that you'd be able to understand even if you don't speak these languages.

There's a Yahoo group that supports this database of pdf files and they are always looking for wonderful old needlework books to add to the catalog. I'm going to keep this in mind as garage sale season gets underway. I love that there's a group out there preserving all this wonderful history.