Patterns of Perfection

In 1771, George Washington sent his stepdaughter, Patsy, a chest of gifts from London to Mount Vernon, which contained pins, laces, and a prayer book. It also contained issues of a new monthly women’s periodical that was to become one of the most popular publications of its day: the Lady’s Magazine; or, Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex (1770 to 1819).

“An Elegant Pattern for a Waistcoat Shaded Properly for Working,” Lady’s Magazine (April 1772). This was the only colored pattern sheet the magazine produced.

What Patsy thought of the magazine remains undocumented. Perhaps she enjoyed its essays on philosophy, history, geography, science, and religion or its fiction, biographies, and poetry. It is also possible that she liked its travel writing, illustrations, or news section—a section in which George Washington would soon feature prominently.

A clue to her interest might lie in the pins and laces that accompanied the magazine. Patsy’s mother, Martha Washington, was a keen embroiderer, as was Patsy before her tragic death at age 17 in 1773. For two generations of women who were interested in fashion and needlework, the Lady’s Magazine had much to offer.

Lady’s Magazine (October 1798).

In addition to fashion reports and plates, it was the first publication of its type to include patterns for embroidering things like gown borders and waistcoats for women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing, accessories (from caps and cravats to shoe vamps), and household objects (including fire screens, pincushions, and map samplers). From 1770 to the end of 1819, the magazine published around 650 pattern sheets containing over 1,000 designs. (In 1820, the patterns were dropped without explanation.) Collectively, the sheets form the most important print archive relating to women’s needlework of the Georgian period.

“A New and Beautiful Allover Pattern for a Lady’s Apron,” Lady’s Magazine (June 1771).

The patterns revolutionized how domestic embroiderers accessed needlework designs. Prior to that time, printed patterns were available in pattern books or as individual sheets sold by haberdashers or stationers. The latter option was cheaper but still involved a reasonable outlay of cash.

Working to a different economy of scale, the Lady’s Magazine was able to offer patterns at a lower cost. Printed in monthly runs of 10,000 to 15,000 copies, the magazine was sold at just sixpence an issue. For this modest sum, readers obtained 56 pages of entertaining and educational reading matter, a music sheet, and a needlework pattern.

A pattern alone would cost double that (a shilling or more) from a haberdasher. Unsurprisingly, professional pattern artists were furious that the magazine was undercutting them, and a war of words ensued. But the magazine was a huge hit, and within a few years rivals such as the Fashionable Magazine and, later, La Belle Assemblée began to issue needlework patterns as a standard practice.

Affordable and accessible, the designs were used throughout Britain and overseas. Governess Ellen Weeton documents sending for her copies of the magazine when she needed to embroider mourning clothes. Garments and objects made using Lady’s Magazine patterns can also be found in museum collections on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Charleston Museum in South Carolina.

From Paper Patterns to Finished Designs

A challenge in identifying surviving items made with the designs is that no two renderings of the same pattern are identical. Unlike patterns in Victorian women’s magazines, those in the Lady’s Magazine and its early followers did not provide written instructions. Instead, editors relied on women having the skills to parse the patterns and gave them creative license to choose their stitches, decide whether they worked white-on-white or in colors, select their own fabrics, and scale the designs up or down.

Fancy pattern. Date unknown.

“A New Fancy Pattern,” Lady’s Magazine (August 1782). This pattern, with the exception of the scrolling frame, closely resembles that in the stitched picture above.

The other challenge in identifying garments and objects made using the patterns is that, until recently, few were known to have survived. Most extant copies of the Lady’s Magazine in research libraries are annual volumes that were compiled at the end of the year when subscribers took their monthly issues to be bound in leather boards. At this point, the covers, advertisements, and patterns (if they hadn’t already been used) were usually removed. Where they have occasionally survived in bound volumes, the patterns are accidents of history.

“A New Pattern for a Lady’s Muff, for Tambour or Embroidery (half the size),” Lady’s Magazine (October 1775).

In 2015, I serendipitously acquired a copy of the Lady’s Magazine with six needlework designs in it. When I published these designs online, they went viral. This resulted in a non-competitive stitch-off, in which crafters and professional textile artists recreated the patterns in both historically faithful and modern reworkings. Some of the results were featured at an exhibition commemorating the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s Emma at Chawton House Library, United Kingdom, in 2016.

Four years later, embroiderer Alison Larkin and I published the book Jane Austen Embroidery, a history-craft book with 10 Lady’s Magazine designs accompanied by the step-by-step instructions that the magazine lacked. Since then, I have made it my mission to track down every pattern the Lady’s Magazine produced. I now own about 250 and have located an additional 300.

Many are publicly available, at no cost, on my website, Patterns of Perfection. Every month, people send me photographs of their interpretation of an eighteenth-century pocket or apron design on items ranging from handkerchiefs to baseball caps. It is thrilling to continue the magazine’s efforts to democratize access to needlework designs and to see these designs come to life again 250 years after their first publication.

Jane Austen Embroidery was published in 2020 by Dover Publishing.

Jennie Batchelor is Professor and Head of English and Related Literature at the University of York, United Kingdom. She is an avid embroiderer and is learning how to crochet.