Rooster from 1949 Workbasket Magazine
Identifier
2025.008
Title
Rooster from 1949 Workbasket Magazine
Creator
Thompson, Suzann
Date
2021
Format
5 1/2 inches tall, 5 1/8 inches at widest point, 3 1/2 inches wide at base
Description
The Center for Knit and Crochet invited members to join a What’s Your Favorite Vintage Make-Along in the summer of 2021. The make-along kicked off with two online maker sessions. For the first session, then CKC Board Member Mary Claire Phillips, “…archivist, historian, and vintage knitting enthusiast, gave a quick tour of online resources for free vintage patterns, and shared tips for searching Ravelry’s pattern library for vintage patterns by year.” (Quote from CKC’s newsletter, In the Loop, August 2021.)
During the convivial meet-up, Mary Claire showed attendees how to select for patterns from the 1940s in a Ravelry.com search. A pretty and interesting crocheted rooster appeared on the first page of search results. I really wanted to crochet it.
By November, the rooster was finished. It needed to be starched. While the rooster was still damp with starch solution, I began pinning it out flat. I realized each loop on its comb and tail would need to be pinned. Starching often requires pinning a lot more loops and picots than a person’s optimistic original estimate.
One of the photos shows the rooster after I pinned it out onto a piece of cardboard. I left the rooster to dry overnight, and then removed the pins.
I used No. 10 crochet cotton to make the rooster. My hook was a treasured Susan Bates aluminum hook, with a beveled point, in what we normally call steel hook size 3. I may use the finished piece in a quilted wall hanging.
The Rooster pattern was in Workbasket Magazine, August 1949, Vol. 14, No. 11, pp. 12-13. No designer credit was given for the pattern. The August 1949 issue of the Workbasket is at https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/pub/PDF/I-WB14B.pdf
For a list of Workbasket Magazines available for viewing and download, visit Antique Pattern Library at
https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/workbasket.htm
During the convivial meet-up, Mary Claire showed attendees how to select for patterns from the 1940s in a Ravelry.com search. A pretty and interesting crocheted rooster appeared on the first page of search results. I really wanted to crochet it.
By November, the rooster was finished. It needed to be starched. While the rooster was still damp with starch solution, I began pinning it out flat. I realized each loop on its comb and tail would need to be pinned. Starching often requires pinning a lot more loops and picots than a person’s optimistic original estimate.
One of the photos shows the rooster after I pinned it out onto a piece of cardboard. I left the rooster to dry overnight, and then removed the pins.
I used No. 10 crochet cotton to make the rooster. My hook was a treasured Susan Bates aluminum hook, with a beveled point, in what we normally call steel hook size 3. I may use the finished piece in a quilted wall hanging.
The Rooster pattern was in Workbasket Magazine, August 1949, Vol. 14, No. 11, pp. 12-13. No designer credit was given for the pattern. The August 1949 issue of the Workbasket is at https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/pub/PDF/I-WB14B.pdf
For a list of Workbasket Magazines available for viewing and download, visit Antique Pattern Library at
https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/workbasket.htm
Provenance
Suzann Thompson
Collection
Citation
suzannthompson, “Rooster from 1949 Workbasket Magazine,” Center for Knit and Crochet Digital Repository, accessed July 21, 2026, https://digital.centerforknitandcrochet.org/items/show/41024.
Added by suzannthompson
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