The Richmond Glove Found!

In June 2017 my sister and I embarked on a lovely adventure to Richmond with the very slim hope that we might find a particularly prized knitting pattern we were looking for. The Richmond Glove was a pattern written by Miss Henrietta Ryder, who lived in the town with her sister during the Victorian era. In terms of finding the pattern our trip was unsuccessful, though it was a very special experience. I wrote about it in a post at this blog. Some time later that post led to me being contacted by the editor of Piecework for permission to use one of my photos of the Ryder sisters’ home. It turned out that Lesley McConnell Edwards had found The Richmond Glove pattern in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and had written an article about it and the Ryder sisters for the magazine. They wanted to use my photo to illustrate the article.

Alas, Lesley’s article did not include photos of the pattern card, though it was accompanied by a modern write-up of the pattern so that readers could knit themselves a pair of Richmond gloves. Of course, I still wanted to see the original pattern. It was clear to me by then that this pattern was an extremely rare find, so I thought I would have to visit the Bodleian Library to do that. But then last September Judith Mansfield (an antique pattern and book seller for whom I am a regular customer) contacted me with the exciting news that she had found an original copy. So while at Yarndale I visited her stall and at last The Richmond Glove was mine!

Here it is: