Monday Vintage Craft Book Feature: Bee Bee Toppers (Netherlands ~1970's)

Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books.  Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm.  Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

This is the first of a new series of posts, sharing my fabulous book finds with you, so you too can keep an eye out for these gems on your crafting journey.

Bee Bee Toppers Breiboek - published between 1971 and 1980

The cover page featuring actress Joanna Lumley

I found this book in a local thrift shop, among a stack of other knitting books.  It is relatively small, 31 pages of color photos and about the same number of instructional pages in the back.  I could find no copyright date, but several of the sweater models are actors from the BBC TV series "The Onedin Line" which ran from 1971 to 1980.  The actors names are also nearly the only English words in the book.

Published in the Netherlands, and almost entirely written in Dutch, this book is nonetheless a trove of goodies even for someone who doesn't read the language.

In addition of British actors, this book also featured
racing driver James Hunt, Dutch footballer Rudi Krol,
 and pictures of Gali Atari with the singing group
Milk and Honey (which may date this book to 1979
when that pairing won the Eurovision song contest)

Despite, or perhaps because of, it's age, many of the sweaters are stylish and interesting without being cringe-inducingly retro.  I particularly like the jacket on the cover, and will likely be using a translator app liberally to try to figure out how to make it. 

The really neat thing about this book though, is it's 'Woolmeter'.  Illustrated on the front cover, the actual meter is included on the back, with both metric units and inches.  Instead of recommending a certain brand or style of yarn, each of the patterns gives a number on the meter for the size of the yarn used.  The knitter then takes the Woolmeter to the store and finds a yarn they like that matches the number.  Even with a modern pattern, you could take this Woolmeter and measure the recommended yarn, and then find an alternative that matched it's size and weight.

Not being a Dutch speaker, and not having used a translater app yet, I can't speak to the quality of the instructions, but they seem pretty thorough and include several diagrams.

As a bonus, there are a few pages that are worth the 1$ I paid for the book just for sheer giggle factor alone:

        

In all seriousness, if you happen to come across a Dutch knitting book like this, think about picking it up just for the Woolmeter.  If you aren't a Dutch speaker, translating the patterns may be more trouble than it's worth for some vintage knitting designs, but the Woolmeter made this book worth the space on my shelf.  I found it for cheap at a thrift store, and even just looking through the pictures of celebrities and old designs was worth the cost.  Having included a tool to easily measure yarn size and weight makes it far more valuable than just as a novelty.

Besides, who doesn't like diamond check stirrup pants?