The 11 best places to get vintage knitting patterns

Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the sudden inspiration to knit and sew all of the vintage. I’ve even finally finished my most recent vintage sweater and a skirt from a vintage sewing pattern. I have to attribute this sudden burst of inspiration to Mad Men. I finally finished the last season, and although Don Draper makes my skin crawl most times, the fashion in it always reminds me of how much I love the 60s style trends. It’s not hard to imagine, that that has lead me to obsessing over finding all of the available. I thought it’d be useful to have all the links to my favorite sites in one place.

Free Patterns

When I first started out on my vintage knitting journey, I never thought there would be so many patterns available for free. Here are below are a few of my favorite sites that share from their stash.

Free Vintage Knitting
Subversive Femme
The Sunny Stitcher
Musing from Marilyn
Purple Kitty Yarns
Vintage Pattern Files

For sale

Sometimes you find a picture of a knitting pattern, or see someone knit from a pattern that isn’t available for free so you need to buy it. There are two options, you can either hope to find someone selling a PDF pattern or you can hope to find the actual physical copy.

PDFs
**Please note** I’ve never had any experience buying pdf patterns, so I can’t speak for the quality of any patterns from the below sites

The Vintage Knittng Lady
Etsy - Search for the name of the pattern, and you might have luck.

Physical
Etsy
Ebay

Secondhand shops or antique shops - This isn't something I'd do if I were looking for something specific, but most of my stash does come from antique shops
Estate Sales - Again, it's not something I'd do for something specific, but I have had luck finding piles of pattern booklets at estate sales.

Where are some of your places to get vintage patterns, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Don't forget I've been sharing vintage patterns on this site and I'm planning on sharing more over the next few months, follow me on Instagram and Pinterest to make sure you don't miss one.