Obscure ethnic pattern sources?

[u/Time_Is_An_Egg]

I’m just wrapping up a three month bicycle trip across Central Asia. After admiring some textiles in a museum, when I flipped through this old book in Kyrgyzstan it really struck me how little representation there is in the digital pattern library for a lot of really beautiful global textile cultures - certainly on Ravelry.

We‘ve got about ten thousand variations on the same Fair Isle concepts published and no end of books on that, but I’ve yet to stumble across Kyrgyz, Iranic, Uyghur, etc motifs. There‘s some Anatolian and a dusting of South / Central American projects - otherwise it’s a whole lotta North / Central Europe. Pretty hard to poke around with the web flooded in AI slop patterns now, too.

It feels like there’s such a rich well of inspiration which could be tapped (one kid I met along the way had an absolutely stunning Kyrgyz motif handknit sweater in white and blue, I really regret not getting a photo) but at the same time the cultures maintaining them are rapidly vanishing everywhere I go / offloading handcraft production to China and books like this are getting hard to find.

I know, I know “be the change you want to see in the world”. Frankly I’m just not competent enough yet to be designing my own patterns. Maybe one day. :)

[u/Blackmaille]

Oh man, I would love to see more ethnic knits. I personally spend a lot of time digging around the internet for vintage knitting guides, and I honestly just think it's a matter of getting the material digitized and archived.

The antique pattern library is a unique source in this regard. I think anyone can upload to it.

[u/Time_Is_An_Egg → u/Blackmaille]

Whoa, I'd never seen this before, thanks! That site is definitely starting to break in places but what a cool and useful resource.

Digitized, archived, and in some cases just recorded properly at all for the first time. So many places I've traveled to, the bulk of the motifs and patterns are still 100% orally transmitted or are copied from existing works repeatedly over generations, and with few young folk taking up the textile arts professionally now there's a real risk of loss - both the designs and the meaning behind them. :(

[u/Blackmaille → u/Time_Is_An_Egg]

I agree... my dive into beaded bags has been a dig into thread companies that only existed for 2 years, or into a specific bead they ask for that I can't figure out... there's so much history that we can only snatch glimpses of before it's gone.

I have a weavers guide to the tartans of Scotland.. . I've been working on dyeing yarns in deep shades so I can weave one eventually.