A Bluestocking Knits

Thoughts on the Parley Cardigan, and Some Catching Up

My Parley was finished and worn exactly a month ago, to be honest, but it has been quite summery lately, really too warm to want a sweater, and I've been rather busy with other things as well, so haven't had the wherewithal to photograph it.  But the weather dropped about twenty degrees quite suddenly this past weekend -- I kid you not, twenty degrees -- and I wanted wool, so I am wearing the cardigan again today.  It is of course the Parley by Mary Lou Egan of Yarnerinas, from her book with Gale Zucker and Kirsten Kapur, Drop-Dead Easy Knits.  The book is full of good-looking knits that are fairly low on the concentration scale, which is great for those of us who tend to have -- cough -- numerous projects going at once.  This particular one comes in pullover and cardigan versions, with simple shaping and lots of stockinette, with a bit of twizzle at the edges to keep it interesting.

This is just four skeins of Briggs & Little Sport in mulberry, which I got from Penelope Fibre Arts in British Columbia, as it's apparently a rather small line produced in Canada, and not many US shops carry it, even online -- it's worth perusing the B&L website to see the "tour" section and how the wool is processed, from grading to shipping.  Mine is a lovely purply color, with hints of blue and red and black giving it a lively depth which is very difficult to capture with the camera!  The yardage on the Sport wool is quite impressive, as I still had a good-sized ball and another full skein left over -- I bought five.  The wool is a single-ply, so tends to worm a little while winding and knitting, but not frustratingly so, although it doesn't feel particularly pleasant to knit with since it is rather rough in itself and perhaps it is that combined with the single-ness that makes it feel a little like wire when wrapped around my fingers.  Much of the roughness does wash out, though, and so now it has a sturdy wooliness to it and a light sheepy smell which is not atal unpleasant.  I am a little concerned about the alarmingly frequent thin places as I went along, two or three of which were such a hair's-breadth, literally, that I broke and spliced them on the spot.  I was tempted to weave in a bit of extra wool as a reinforcement in the less-alarming places, and had at least a dozen safety pins marking them as I went along, but in the end I didn't -- although I do have so much wool left that at least there is enough for repairs if that does become necessary later on!

The buttons are La Mode no.214 (eleven, not ten, since the buttonhole band came out with that many, as it happened).

The purple is generally a bit darker than I could get in these photos --

The sizing is quite generous, and I probably could have made the next size down instead of the 42 for my US12 figure, but there it is -- it's a great no-fuss cardigan, and in this yarn is good for nicely-cool days, not too light, not too heavy.  It probably does look its best with a scoop neck underneath, not a collared shirt, to play up the slightly-rolled neck, which has a gracefully curving line to it that I really like.

We had a good bit of rain this past winter, much to everyone's relief.  The down-side is that all of the weed seeds that have been lying dormant for the past three or four years of drought have apparently all decided to sprout and grow now.  Our backyard, which has a gigantic pine tree in it and therefore little else, has been since February or so a veritable sea of stinging nettles and crabgrass, which I have been digging up -- with a shovel, mind, not one of those mild-mannered forks -- an hour or so every morning, filling usually two trash cans a week. 

Unfortunately for the butterflies, some of whose caterpillars subsist pretty much exclusively on stinging nettles, this is not good.  I fully expect the nettles to come back again next year (she said, weeping quietly into her tea), but this year for the bees and other insects in our little patch of wilderness in the middle of suburbia, I scattered around a packet of California wildflower seeds in the few spots that get any sun, and a packet of shade flowers for the more woodsy corners.  The photo above is the very first bloom, which is a baby blue eyes (Nemophila maculata).  It looks like a little bit of everything in the sunny packet has come up so far -- I am quite looking forward to the mountain garlands and the lupines!

This is something else that has been keeping me busy, albeit indoors -- a pair of Elizabethan venetians (which are sort of ur-trousers) for David's Renaissance Faire garb.  These have been a real pain in the neck, to be honest, but I am on the home stretch at last, and only need to do buttonholes and lacing eyelets now, which will mean that -- huzzah! -- David will for the first time have a complete period outfit, bar the shoes of course.  More photos to come.

We took the afternoon Saturday to go and see the "Dressing Downton" exhibit at Muzeo in Anaheim.  I have rather mixed feelings about "Downton Abbey", not as keen in the later seasons as I was at the beginning -- but from start to finish, the clothes are pretty wonderful.  This suit of Lady Sybil's, from season 1, is probably what I would choose if they were to say, "Yes, you may have one!" although Mary's red suit from the same season would run a close second.  Cora's court dress from season 4 would be my favorite of the fancier ones, I think, but, goodness, how often would I get to wear it?!  More photos later of this, as well ...

The weather has been cool enough too, this past weekend, for me to enjoy again the feeling of wool running through my fingers, so last night when I had three hours in front of the television (new episodes of "Call the Midwife" and "Home Fires", and a repeat of "Wolf Hall"), I managed to get the rhythm going and finished the thumb gusset and worked over half of the medallion of the first two-end mitten.  It puzzles me why this cast-on doesn't lie as smoothly as the first one, but I tried a different technique, so I guess it just does.  V. glad that these fit well, to be sure!

And, yes, there is a new petit-point carpet!  It's spring, how could I resist?  This one is the Flower Trellis by Sue Bakker from Venus Dodge's Dolls' House Needlecrafts.  I haven't yet worked a Bakker chart that was free of significant errors and this one is no exception, I'm sorry to say, and in fact has some real doozies.  The chart gives symbols for "red, light red, green, gold" etc. with the materials list specifying which colors of DMC floss are used, either by themselves or in combination with similar shades -- but although there are symbols for "blue" and "yellow" there are no indications in the materials list that you need any blue or yellow at all.  I had to just choose shades I thought went well with the other colors.  The chart has the full border and the "trellis" in the main field, but only one each of the flowers inside each medallion, so the stitcher must decide where to put what -- this is perhaps not a serious drawback for a more experienced stitcher, but a beginner may not appreciate this, nor the fact that one long edge of the "vine" is clearly marked with the symbol for yellow, not green. 

But, yes, it's a very pretty carpet now that it's finished, I must say!  I worked out before I started the flowers which one I wanted where, and whether or not I would reverse it (just to make each medallion a little different).  I also reversed the light and medium pink blends here and there, for the same reason.  I used a partial chart for the half-medallions, leaving a one-stitch edge between them and the gold border, to match the trellis-work -- some have worked it differently, I find from poking around the internet.  Mine is kind of busy as a result, but in an ordered sort of way -- quite garden-like.

I used the following shades of DMC floss (3 strands, on 22-count mono canvas) --

• dark gold = 680 and 420 (1 + 2 strands)
• yellow = 745 and 3078
• blue = 931 and 932
• pale pink = 223 and 224 (2 + 1)
• medium pink = 223 and 3372 (1 + 2)
• red = 356
• pale green = 3347
• medium green = 3347 and 3052 (2 + 1)
• grey = 646
• background = 3033 (instead of ecru)

Note that I needed 3 skeins of the background color, not 2 as on the materials list, and that the number of red stitches (the "tulip" stamens) is a mere six per medallion, so if you have a bit of a pretty red already, you really needn't buy a new skein!

Thoughts on Some Man's 17th-Century Stockings and the "Cheapside" Foot

These stockings have been finished for some time, awaiting the photographs, for which it has been a sort of ready/not-ready comedy -- David is out of the country, David's home but I'm sick, it's just too hot to even think about wool, the bathroom tap exploded, etc. etc. etc. -- so at last here they are!

After some internal debate about wools back in January, I chose Regia 4-ply, since I've used it before (on my Spey Valley socks) and those have pilled a little at the heels but are still in very good shape after over six years!  This color is Grey Heather (no.1991), which seemed to be a good "natural wool" shade, and goes well with the rest of David's Faire clothes.  I like the grey-sheepy homespun look of it, and the color is lovely.

These stockings took ages to knit as not only are David's legs quite impressive, but I miscalculated any number of times and had to rip the first stocking back (and occasionally out) in annoyance, and he was away on multiple business trips for so long that I didn't want to risk "hoping it would fit".  But of course once the first one was done and I knew it was all right, all I had to do was make the second one exactly like it!  (As it turned out, one was still a bit longer than the other when he put them on, but this must be due to the wool -- humor me, here -- since there really are exactly the same number of rows in each stocking.)

I liked the welt on the Carnamoyle re-creation by Lady Angharad Rhos ferch Rhain (Allison Sarnoff) so I started with that, although as it turned out the finished welt contracts so much that you can hardly tell that it isn't just reverse stockinette.  Because my math skills are mortifyingly bad, I depended heavily for the leg shaping on basic advice about stockings from Elizabeth Zimmerman's The Knitter's Almanac with specific math from the calculator at Let's Get Knitting.

 

I was very taken with this stocking foot now in the Museum of London (no.A13833), which I mentioned when I was planning these stockings at the beginning of the year.  I had already decided on the so-called "Barnim" foot, with its inverted gusset on the sole and then thought that it wouldn't be much of a step from the Barnim foot to this one, so I decided to follow the Cheapside lead, as it were.  The Museum writes that this foot is "the only example of its kind in England" and I can believe that, for I've not seen anything like it on historical-costume blogs, so I'm tentatively dating it, as the Museum does, "mid-16th century" with the stricture that it is "unusual" and therefore probably expensive (i.e. upper-class if not higher), though my version is considerably rougher than the original.

So in keeping with the idea that knitters in the past would probably have borrowed ideas from the finished garments of other knitters and not from patterns as such, and therefore could also have stood in front of a Cheapside stocking-maker's window and said to themselves, "Fifteen shillings!  Marry, I can make something much the same for a pittance, and from good English wool!" -- here is the Cheapside foot.

I am putting my first version of this foot pattern on a separate page, for other historical knitters to make suggestions on and, if I'm lucky, possibly knit and make suggestions for improvements.  I will admit up front, though, that the at-the-same-time shapings for sole gusset and instep gusset really defeated me, what with balancing different rates of converging increases and decreases, which occasionally came together with a whacking great clump.  As it turned out, I had to write down the instructions in a Word table with separate columns for the two gussets, so that I could keep them straight, and check rounds off one by one -- I did manage to get this into a fairly logical pattern-style format, but it was a lot to keep track of, so knitter beware.  The bright side was that I am positive that both stockings are knit exactly the same!

The decreases at the side of the heel flap, which are fairly clear in the Museum's photograph, are very elegant, so this variation has been incorporated here along with the garter edging, into the shaped common heel.  Unfortunately, the original heel of the Museum of London stocking seems to have disintegrated at the back, so it's impossible to tell, from the photograph at least, if it was straight or shaped, but certainly the shaped one is more comfortable and handsome.

I did err on the side of caution with the length of the sole gusset, and it is obviously considerably shorter than the original, but I'm not sure if I could have done it reasonably at this much-larger gauge anyway -- mine is 28 sts to 10cm, vs. an amazing 72 on the original (!!).  I started the "first draft" with the decreases further apart, but it just didn't look good.  The original sole gusset clearly continues pretty much all of the way to the point of the toe, whereas mine peters out about two-thirds of the way there -- this could certainly be "corrected" for a shorter foot, by simply using the same rates of shaping on the sole gusset, which would go farther on a shorter foot.

The garters are simply 7-stitch strips of garter stitch, about 34 in. long unstretched.  They stretch quite a lot, even when wrapped not especially tightly.

The details --

The Project: a pair of man's stockings, with garters
Year or Period: 17th century, possibly mid-16th
Materials: most of 5 balls of Regia 4-fädig Uni in color 1991 (Grey Heather)
Hours to complete: about two months
How historically accurate is it? the modern sock yarn is obviously not period, and I suspect that the shaping is more towards the end of the century than the beginning, but for that it is fairly accurate
Sources/Documentation: the extant silk stocking foot at the Museum of London thought to be from Cheapside (museum no.A13833), with modifications of the shaped common heel per Nancy Bush in Folk Socks, and of the "Barnim foot" as outlined by Anne DesMoines in her “Barnim-Style Stockings” in Knitting Traditions magazine, Spring 2014 issue

Knitting instructions for the Cheapside foot are here.

An Ytre Norskøya Hat, ca.1700 -- Part 2 (Knitting)

Without having the original Ytre Norskøya hat in hand, or at least a first-generation photo, it's difficult to do much more than improvise the shaping, and so this isn't really a pattern so much as a guideline.  You will need to adjust the shaping both to accommodate your yarn gauge and to fit the wearer, anyway.

A little less than 40 sts are visible in the photograph of the original hat, so there would be about twice that in the knitting. A circumference of 50cm at "1.6-1.8 stitches per cm" works out to 80-90 sts total, but remember that this measurement is after fulling.

As for shaping, Vons-Comis says that the stitches are "decreased regularly at two points in the cap which lie directly opposite one another", which is certainly how it looks in the photograph, where there are no decreases visible at all, even when by the shape of the crown they must surely be there!  It might be wishful thinking on my part, but it looks to me as though in the last few cm there really are some decreases spread (evenly?) across a decrease round, so for my reconstruction, I've used a slight modification of the round-toe shaping I used on my blue Smeerenburg hat.  There certainly might also be some shaping in the now-damaged parts.

I am a bit puzzled, I admit, by this description of only two shaping points lying directly opposite each other, since in my mind's eye this makes something more like a garrison cap, though perhaps the fulling and subsequent wearing of the Norskøya one makes it more rounded.  I decided to shape my version more according to the general shape in the photograph, than to the description --

In full, Vons-Comis’s paragraphs about the cap are as follows (all question marks in the original):

The deceased [in grave 579] wore a woollen cap on his head (fig. 20.3). This is a single thickness (red?) brown cap with a turned-up brim, with light brown (originally white?) and dark blue stripes. The cap is 26 cm long including the 5cm turned-up brim. The circumference of the cap at the junction from crown to brim is 50cm, with the greatest circumference, 60cm, reached at the lower end of the brim.

Knitting probably began at the lower edge, by casting on stitches with (red?) brown wool and knitting one row in plain stitch. After this, two rows in purl stitch were knitted alternately light brown (white?) and dark blue. There are 1.5 sts per cm, and 4 rows per cm (table 1) [which is a chart of the various twists, plies, thread counts, and colors of the Grave 579 textiles]. As the brim is felted it is not entirely certain whether the yarns are (Z-?) plied or not. The number of stitches is decreased regularly at two points in the cap which lie directly opposite one another.

After 5cm, one round was knitted in purl with (red?) brown, thinner wool. Then the cap was continued in the same colour using plain stitch, so that when the brim was turned up only plain stitch would be visible on the outside. Yarn composed of two 8-twisted threads which were not plied, or hardly plied, was used for the crown. The count also differs: 1.6-1.8 stitches per cm and 3 rows per cm. The cap is slightly felted inside. Some damage seems to have occurred in the coffin as a result of either the effects of the decay of the corpse or soil conditions. No patches or darns were discovered.

I have used Paton's Classic Wool because it was to hand and is 100% wool, so fulls easily.  After over 250 years in the ground, the colors of the original cap have apparently browned considerably, and Vons-Comis suspects though is not quite sure that its original main color is red, with dark blue and probably white (now light brown) rounds on the brim -- Classic Wool's "Cognac Heather" is a brownish red, which may at least roughly substitute.  I chose "New Denim" as a mid-range blue, and "Natural Mix" as a compromise between the original "white?" and the aged light brown.  At 20 sts per 10 cm, the gauge is finer, though, than the 15-18 sts of the original wools.  I have not tried to use two different weights of wool, as in the original cap.

You will probably want to work a swatch in your chosen yarn and full it, to get an idea of how much the knitting will shrink, though I did not.

By the way, I seem to be using "hat" and "cap" interchangeably.  Technically there is a difference, but it still isn't a simple matter to place the Smeerenburg/Ytre Norskøya ones on one side of the divide or the other.  "A hat has a brim, a cap doesn't, or only a bill" = this is a hat (though some of the other Rijksmuseum ones are therefore caps).  "A cap is usually made of [some] soft material, whereas a hat is grander" = this is a cap.  "A cap fits closely to the head" = this is a hat.  I don't know!

Ytre Norskøya Cap 1

The finished dimensions of the original cap -- after fulling, mind -- are 5cm for the height of the brim, then 21cm from there to the top of the crown, 26cm total, and 60 cm circumference at the cast-on edge, narrowing to 50 cm at the join between the brim and the beginning of the crown, though it is not clear if this is through shaping of the knitting or stretching of the fulled cap.

Use slightly larger needles than usual for the yarn, to allow for shrinkage later.

Cast on 80-90 sts plus 10, or desired number (also plus 10, to allow for slight shaping on the brim) using either the long-tail or Old Norwegian cast-on, in red wool.  Join for working in the round.

Work 1 round in red.

Work 2 rounds in natural in reverse st st, then work 2 rounds in blue in reverse st st.  Rep these 4 rnds 3 times more, or until brim measures about 5 cm; at the same time, dec 5 sts evenly on 5th rnd and 10th rnd.  Cut natural and blue yarns, and work on in red.

In red, work either 2 rnds reverse st st or 4 rnds garter st.  This completes the brim.

Work in st st.  The decreases in the original are apparently made at beg of rnd and at midpoint of rnd.  Work for about 16 or 17 cm, decreasing occasionally as desired at first, then more rapidly, to make a pleasing shape, until the piece will be about 24 cm after fulling.

In order to have the shaping start rather gradually, before starting the crown shaping proper, I worked [dec 4 evenly around circumference, work 4 rnds st st] twice, with the second dec round offset, so that the second set of decreases came roughly centered between the first set.

I used the following crown decrease:

Rnd 1: K5, K2tog, rep to end [substituting K1 for K2tog 4 times because I had 74 sts total].
K 5 rnds.
Next rnd: K4, K2tog, rep to end.
K 4 rnds.
Next rnd: K3, K2tog, rep to end.
K 3 rnds.

and on in this manner until there were 11 sts rem, the previous rnd being all K2tog -- then K2 tog twice, K3tog (why? I don't know!), K2tog twice, then cut the yarn and draw through the rem 5 sts.

This made a fairly similar crown shaping, though as I said, without having the original in hand or photographs from different angles, I'm a bit puzzled as to its shaping.

I fulled mine in the sink, since the stitches in the original cap are quite visible, and it is easier to stop when the fulling is "done" if you can see it.  I did decide to safety-pin the brim to the body of the cap to keep it from rolling during this process, though, not having enough experience with it to know if it would lie flat -- this worked pretty well, and it stayed flat without markedly-obvious "waves" at the pin placement points (though these are a little more visible on the purl side of the brim, as in the photo just above!).  My version did shrink a bit more -- to the point of obscuring the stitches, I mean -- on the crown than on the brim.  Interestingly, the brim shrank only a fraction of an inch -- I noticed this as I was fulling it and worked at it a bit more than the crown, though as to whether this slow shrinkage is because of the different dyes in the wool, or because I'd pinned it up, or some other reason, I've no idea.

Dimensions before fulling: brim 3", total height 17", width 12".  Dimensions after fulling: brim 2.75", total height 10" (with brim folded), width (just above brim) 9.75". 

Let me add my praises, by the way, to the numerous ones already being sung in favor of Classic Wool's feltability!  It has a lovely, rather velvety texture after this mild fulling, and would have a bit more body (which this particular hat does need) after a bit more time in the hot bath, perhaps, but the ease of the process and the resulting hand of the fabric make up for that.

On the whole, I think this a fairly reasonable reproduction, though obviously not a strict one, of the original Grave 579 cap, with the caveats I've mentioned above.  Taking into account the differences in wool and in the unpredictable results from fulling -- mine is definitely more splayed towards the bottom than the original! -- I'm quite pleased. 

 

The Project: an Ytre Norskøya hat, based on the knitted hat from Grave 579 on that island in the Svalbard archipelago
Year or Period: ca.1700
Materials: 1 skein Paton's Classic Wool worsted (100g/3.5 oz.; approx. 192m/210 yds.) in "Cognac Heather" (MC), with less than 15g each in "Natural Mix" (CC1) and "New Denim" (CC2); US8 needles
Hours to complete: about a month of not-particularly-dedicated knitting, plus a few days for fulling/drying time (18 May-27 June 2016)
How historically accurate is it? fairly accurate considering the modern materials, but the lack of better photos of the original garment is a handicap
Sources/Documentation: "Kleren maken de man: zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwse kleding van Spitsbergen" by S.Y. Vons-Comis (pp.97-118 in the book Walvisvaart in de gouden eeuw: opgravingen in Spitsbergen, ed. by Louwrens Hacquebord and Wim Vroom, De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988); "Seventeenth century garments from grave 579, Zeeuwse Uitkijk, Spitsbergen" by Sandra Vons-Comis (pp.175-186 in “Textiles in Northern Archaeology”, NESAT III : Textile Symposium in York, 6-9 May, 1987); "Workman’s clothing or burial garments? Seventeenth and eighteenth century clothing remains from Spitsbergen" by Sondra Vons-Comis in "Smeerenburg Seminar" (Rapportserie, Norsk Polarinstitut, no.38, Oslo 1987), also containing the paper "Textiles from Danskøya" by Ingrid Lütken, plus others noted in the previous post

Thoughts on the Smeerenburg New Hat

Ever since I saw the Smeerenburg hats, I've rather wanted to make one.  I have a stash of deep-purple alpaca which I already I know that I can't wear because it makes my nose itch, so I wondered if I could felt it (or more properly, full it), but after working a few samples I realized that even the fulled swatch is probably too soft for this kind of hat.  Poking around in the remotest of my yarn cubbies, I found a bag of DMC Laine Colbert wool "pour tapisserie" which I'd inherited and completely forgotten about -- no less than eighteen skeins (360g!) -- which I couldn't really see myself doing needlepoint with, but it's about DK weight, and certainly knittable.

The wool is moth-proofed, and I wasn't sure how it would behave with either fulling or dyeing, so after I knitted up a swatch I dyed it with a packet of Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-Aid, which produced this striking but not very 17th-century turquoise --

so per the helpful and inspiring folks at Dye Your Yarn, I bought a small pot of Wilton food dye in Royal Blue -- I was aiming for a quintessentially-period woad blue, but luckily for me woad-dyed fabric comes in a wide variety of shades.  Dyeing with Kool-Aid couldn't be simpler, as the citric acid in it means that you needn't mess around with mordants etc., but the Wilton on its own does require that, so I decided that I would use the two together, and just darken the Blue Raspberry as much as I could.

David liked the shape of this hat --

with the smart little brim, so for a pattern, I bashed together the brim from the "Gagiana" barret (flat cap) by Mistress Mairghead de Chesholme and the crown partly from the "acorn" hat by Cecilia Rosa de Sancta Maria (Dani Lawson), (whose PDF with the actual pattern has since disappeared), and partly just with the same shaping as a "round" sock toe, cribbed from Nancy Bush, and all adjusted to accommodate the size and shape I needed.

(I did appreciate Dani Lawson's comment that "based upon [the fact that there are no extant knitting patterns pre-17th century and] the generalisations used in period cooking recipes, it is suggested that period knitters either passed their patterns to one another verbally, following the oral/practice tradition of other craftspeople, or crafted items without a pattern, merely adding and subtracting stitches as needed to shape garments," and that this is why she decided to improvise her own pattern instead of simply knitting one of the patterns given by other historical re-enactors, since surely this is what knitters all through history have done, adapting a pattern to fit their own needs and materials.  There is much to be said for historical accuracy, but when you are making something that a real person will be wearing, you want it to fit them!)

I was a bit puzzled by the dimensions of the hats given by the Rijksmuseum, which average about 60cm "width" (presumably circumference, as the average man's head size is said by Google to be 57 cm around) and range from 22cm to 30cm, so I decided to aim for around 25cm, not wanting it to be more Seussian than anything else. 

My gauge on US7 needles was about 18 sts and 24 rows to 4 in./10cm, and the swatch shrank by an astonishing 45% in height, and about 20% in width.  So the instructions are basically to calculate how many stitches you'd need to fit your wearer, multiply that by at least 45, and add 67 for good measure -- and I am almost serious.  That thing was huge.  I could have hidden a baby in it, easily -- could probably have carried my laundry in it. 

The brim is started on waste yarn, shaped, then folded and knitted together before continuing up the crown.  I suspect this is not strictly period, but the original Smeerenburg hat has no obvious join or seam at that point on the outside, so it's difficult to tell from the photos.

I was charmed, by the way, to find that the Laine Colbert had on every skein a très utile metal clamp holding the two ends together -- no tangles here!  I've never seen this in knitting yarn.

I did offset the shaping on the brim on alternate increase/decrease rounds, since I wanted a nice, smooth curve to the brim, not the "octagon" effect of stacked shaping -- you can see this staggered shaping most obviously in the "before" photos.  I suspect that the smoother edge is more historically accurate also.  Most of the reconstructions I've seen just stack the shaping without comment.

The top of the crown is basically a round toe, with the decreases starting at every 10 sts (K8, K2tog, with a couple of K3tog to get the stitch count even), and with the decreases staggered as on the brim.  The last sts are drawn together with the end of the wool -- I did pull them down a bit as I wove in the end, since I didn't want that little nipple that sometimes shows up, but more of a sugarloaf effect.

This is three packets of Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-Aid on the left, and on the right that mixed with about a teaspoon of Wilton Icing Color in Royal Blue (which I added in 1/8-teaspoon increments until I thought it was about dark enough).  The streaks are just reflections on the surface of the water.  The color wasn't as dark as I would have liked, but I wasn't sure how much I could add in without changing the chemical properties of the stuff, and I had a hard time getting the gel to dissolve as well, so I decided to stop at "acceptable"!  It took off most of the artificiality, at least.

The Wilton Royal did "break" a little -- which is when the component colors separate -- and this was apparent early on in the dye bath, with faintly purple splotches on the fabric where the red had come out.  Luckily the results were fairly gentle, and I think the fulling tended to integrate it a little more, though you can see in the finished hat that the color is not completely uniform.  It is, on the whole, much more woad-like than the Blue Raspberry Lemonade on its own, though, as I said, so I am pleased.

The texture is on the bouclé side, to be sure, but I wanted to full it pretty thoroughly, not knowing how much body the finished hat would need -- it has to be fairly sturdy to hold itself up, I suspect, the taller it is -- and I'm not experienced enough with fulling to know how much is "enough".  This is after one cycle on a front-loader washing-machine, regular setting, before it got to the spin stage.  It is obviously fulled considerably more than the original hats, most of which still have the stitch shapes clearly visible -- but there it is.  In future I might try knitting at an even looser gauge, and maybe it won't spaz quite so much.  I stretched the lower part of the crown a bit before drying, as it seemed a little small on my head, which is why the crown does not rise straight up from the brim.

The finished size is about 8 in. (20cm) high and 9 in. (23cm) in diameter.  I'm actually glad it shrank so much, as it's already teetering on the edge of silly-hat territory! and this way it's merely amusing.  I might try blocking the brim again to get that snappy tilt to it, though I'm pretty sure that a hidden pin would also do the trick.

To my pleasant surprise, David is so delighted with the hat that he spontaneously showed it off to visitors the other day!

Details (with a nod in the direction of The Dreamstress' "Historical Sew Monthly") --

The Project: a "Smeerenburg New Hat"
Year or Period: ca.1650-1700
Materials: about 220g DMC Laine Colbert tapestry wool (approx. DK weight), not counting swatches
Hours to complete: about 3 days of knitting and fulling, plus another for dyeing with blocking/drying time before and after (5-10 May 2016)
How historically accurate is it? points off for using stash moth-proofed tapestry wool (!) instead of something more appropriate, and possibly a point off for the brim being knitted-together instead of sewn, and points off for using Kool-Aid instead of woad (!!), but on the whole I think it's a fairly accurate reconstruction
Sources/Documentation: extant whalers' hats from Smeerenburg (which I posted about here), plus tips from reconstructions of the "Gagiana" barret and the "acorn" hat as mentioned above

Remaking the Green Jerkin

This morning I finished replacing the sleeves of David's Tudor jerkin with wings.  When I made this three years ago, I didn't think to put in some extra ease to accommodate the shirt sleeves, which are rather voluminous -- so the jerkin was always snug in the arms, which was not only a little less than comfortable in itself, but a little warmer in Southern-California-Elizabethan climes than David quite liked.  He didn't complain, as it happens, but when I offered to remake the jerkin, he said, "Yes, please!"

First, I carefully picked out all of the stitching and removed the sleeves.

Since I needed just the one pattern piece and I am still not very good at drawing curves freehand, I scanned the pattern from the Tudor Tailor book, cropped it to the surrounding gridlines, then resized the image so that each square was more-or-less one inch, and printed it out.  Luckily, I had scraps of the same fabric exactly the right size!

I folded and pressed the new wings, pinned them into place -- made sure they were symmetrical -- and sewed them to the armholes.

I graded the seam allowances this time, which I hadn't before as it was only the one turning of the outer fabric and lining each, but now it's three layers of the outer.  Since I'd clipped the lining quite a lot around the armhole curves, I had to press all of the little resulting tabs, because they were more than a little wonky after three Faires and laundering, but I wanted to understitch the lining, and so it needed to be fairly smooth.

That was the easy part -- then I pinned the lining and outer fabric back together at the original fold lines, with a lot of pins, and sewed it all up by hand.

The wings look a bit newer than the rest of the jerkin, but I'm sure this won't last long!

Understitching was a must, since despite a thorough pre-washing, the unbleached muslin I used as a lining fabric shrank more after sewing, and some of the hems are pooching rather unattractively.

I couldn't seem to find any information about historical methods of understitching, so I just worked a line in a zig-zag, so that what is visible are the zags, as it were -- thought it might hold down all of the little clips in the lining seam allowance better than just a straight line, but also I rather like the little slants!

There will be some more fiddling with this jerkin, as the Venetian hose (sort of ur-trousers) stay up not with a belt but with "points" or ties to the inside waist of the jerkin -- I'm not sure yet if I'm going to just tack on this eyelet-infused lacing strip or take the waist apart altogether to sew it in, and take the opportunity to fix that saggy hem at the same time.

What is the difference between a doublet and a jerkin?  Not much, to be honest, but the Tudor Tailor calls this a jerkin, in both of its forms, viz. with sleeves or without.  The Renaissance Tailor says that a jerkin is much less fitted than a doublet, which makes sense in light both of the Tudor Tailor's pattern's shape and in the jerkin's frequent appearance in period clothing as a garment worn over a doublet.

Did the Tudors Smell Bad?

The other day I was delighted to see in our local bookstore a stack of Ruth Goodman's new book, How to Be a Tudor.  I enjoyed very much her How to Be a Victorian, a sensible and very readable description of the daily life of the average Victorian, and although I am fascinated by the Victorian period, I admit that -- like Ruth herself -- I can hardly get enough of the Tudors/Elizabethans.

Like her Victorian book, Ruth has organized this new one according to the daily routine of the average person of the period, "from dawn to dusk" -- that is, getting up from bed and saying one's prayers, getting dressed, having breakfast, and so on.  I have noticed, in my own explorations of the Tudor period, quite a lot of sources insisting that the people as a rule smelled bad, so I was interested to find that one of the first things Ruth does is refute this, not only with her historical research, but with the personal experience she has had in living, for months at a time, as the Tudors would have done, in her series, "Tales from the Green Valley" and "Tudor Monastery Farm".

It is generally known now to be correct that the Tudors didn't bathe, but what is misunderstood is that just because they didn't actually get into a tub of hot water doesn't mean that they didn't keep themselves clean.  Since it was commonly thought in the period that disease entered the body not only by breathing noxious vapors but also through the pores of the skin, the importance of maintaining personal cleanliness was widely accepted, and one of the surest ways to do this was to keep the filth of the outside world and of one's own body from contact with the skin through clean clothing, most especially the layer closest to the skin.  Since the outer garments were usually of wool, and sometimes silk, and therefore difficult to launder, the clothing that was next to the skin was generally made of linen, and changed and washed as regularly as possible.  You would have a linen smock or shirt, under-breeches, hose, cuffs, coifs and caps (to wear under a hat), and so on, which meant that essentially everything in contact with your skin or hair could be fairly easily cleaned.  In addition, many authorities of the time also recommended that one's daily routine should include a vigorous rub-down with a linen cloth, since linen's absorbent properties were well-known, with the added benefit of the light roughness of the weave gathering up the sweat and dirt from the skin.

What about the less well-off people?  Wills and probate inventories, even of non-nobles, seems to indicate that most people had two or three sets of undergarments -- presumably one to wear, one in the laundry, and a "best" for Sundays -- though of course nobles sometimes had several dozen shirts or smocks, and changed at least once a day.  Was two or three changes enough?  Allow me to quote Ruth at length --

Did people in the Tudor era stink to high heaven? ...

I have twice followed the regime [of linen undergarments and a daily scrub of the skin with a linen cloth].  The first time was for a period of just over three months, while living in modern society.  No one noticed!  It helps, of course, if you wear natural-fibre clothes over the top of your linen underwear.  I used a fine linen smock, over which I could wear a modern skirt and top without looking odd, and I wore a pair of fine linen hose beneath a nice thick pair of woollen opaque tights (these, of course, did contain a little elastane).  I changed the smock and hose daily and rubbed myself down with a linen cloth in the evening before bed, and I took neither shower nor bath for the entire period.  I remained remarkably smell-free -- even my feet.  My skin also stayed in good condition -- better than usual, in fact.  This, then, was the level of hygiene that a wealthy person could achieve if they wished: one that could pass unnoticed in modern society.  While we know that some people did follow the full regime outlined above, we have no way of knowing how many.  Several advice books that include some form of early-morning hygiene regime don't mention the rubbing cloth at all, stopping short after telling young men to wash their hands and face and comb their hair.

I have also followed the regime in a more Tudor context while filming a TV series, during which I wore all the correct period layers and head coverings.  I was working on a farm, so this entailed a much heavier coarse linen smock, woollen hose and far fewer changes of underwear.  Although I was working mostly outdoors, often engaged in heavy labour and also lurking around an open fire, I found that just changing my linen smock once a week proved acceptable both to me and to my colleagues -- including those behind the camera, who had more conventional modern sensibilities.  The woollen hose I changed just three times over the six months; the linen parts of the head-dress I changed weekly along with the smock.  There was a slight smell, but it was mostly masked by the much stronger smell of woodsmoke.  Once again my skin remained in good condition.  This, of course, was much more representative of the majority of the population's experience in Tudor times, in the frequency of changes, the lifestyle and the types of material that the underwear was made from.

A friend and colleague has also tried it the other way around, washing his body but not the underwear.  The difference between the two was stark and revealing.  He continued with a full modern hygiene routine, showering at least once a day and using a range of modern products, but wore the same linen shirt (and outer clothes) for several months without washing them at all.  The smell was overpowering, impossible to ignore.  He looked filthy, too.

Many modern writers have presumed that without hot soapy water being regularly applied to bodies, Tudor England must have been a place inhabited by people who smelt like the long-term homeless.  Much play has been made about the difference between beautiful clothes on the surface and an imagined filth and stench on the inside.  I would refute that reading of the situation.  The sixteenth-century belief in the cleansing power of linen turns out in practice to have some truth in it.  The laundry makes a vast difference.  The smell of the past undoubtedly was not the same as the smell of the present, but we need to be aware that cleanliness and being neat and sweet-smelling were important issues for Tudor people.  Charitable institutions were eager to ensure that their inmates conformed to the social norm, and masters wanted their servants to be so attired.  There must of course have been the occasional "stinking beast" among those having a particularly hard time, but it appears to be the absence of laundry, rather than the absence of washing the body in water, that has the biggest impact upon personal hygiene.

[From chapter 2, "To Wash or Not to Wash". Photos from "Tales from the Green Valley" and "Tudor Monastery Farm".]

Progress

The miniature carpet and the Elizabethan stocking are running neck-and-neck, as it were, although I confess that the carpet is a little more interesting to me at present -- I could have been a lot further down the stocking, I suspect, if I'd given my mind to it.  Oh, well.  I am finding a lot more inconsistencies in the carpet chart, which is annoying, and working from a photocopy of the finished carpet is like a game of Needlepoint Telephone, in that sometimes I work what I think I see, which may not always be what Cooper actually did (wh. wasn't like the chart anyway!).  But, as it happens, now that a good portion of it has been worked completely and I can see the patterns and colors, I remember why I fell in love with it in the first place, so despite all of the irritations regarding the chart, I'm still delighted with the carpet itself.  I have just realized that I miscounted on the little white triangle at upper left, so after I post this, I am going to have to go and pick it out.

I'm really tempted to take my steam iron to the thing -- it's a poor workman who blames his tools, but the canvas is warping a lot, and I'm tending to blame the thick/thin irregularities of the Paternayan, as sometimes the coverage is a bit thin and other times it is so thick that it squooshes out that section of the canvas.  Or it may just be me, that I chose a canvas gauge that is just slightly too small for the wool -- there is always that to be considered.

As for the stocking I've moved it off of the circular needle and onto dpns.  Am amused to find that the irregularities in the stitches have smoothed out noticeably in the two inches or so since I did, as common knowledge has it that your knitting is smoother on dpns!  Some of the irregularities are due, I suspect, to my catching a few hairs of the easily-splitted yarn in previous stitch, which makes them pull out of shape -- hope this will not be too obvious once worn.

Some More 16th-century Stockings

The Renaissance Faire is coming up in April and May, which sounds a long way off unless you need to make some more garb, in which case it's uncomfortably close.  I am the only one who has a complete outfit that still fits -- Julia grew out of hers and into Laura's, and is now edging her way out of that one, and David never has had period nether garments (no, he just wore some old Dockers!), so since knitting I think will take me the most time, I am going to start on a pair of knitted stockings for him, to go under a new pair of Venetians.

David doesn't really have a "persona" since we aren't deeply enough into Faire-going for that, though I did originally start his garb thinking "Swedish soldier" (since he wants a sword!), but as his green jerkin is a little snug in the arms, I am thinking of re-fashioning it -- so I don't have a definite style in mind for the ensemble, but luckily for me there are only minor regional variations in stockings, if indeed there are many at all.

There are in fact a number of good and excellent reconstructions of 16th-century stockings available, and one could either recreate a known stocking or cobble together bits from different ones.  This, I suspect, would be the best route since of course a stocking knitted for a particular person would have to be adjusted anyway.

Being not only of natural fibers, generally wool (and therefore vulnerable to time and the elements), but everyday (and thus not "worth" saving), extant 16th century common stockings are fairly rare, but here are two from the Museum of London --

One of a pair of stockings (nos. A26851 and 2), found at an archaeological site in Worship Street, Finsbury, EC2.  The stockings are described by the Museum as "knee-length wool" with a vague date of "1501-1599".  This is obviously a very basic stocking, with little or perhaps even no shaping until about halfway down the foot, where there are a couple of decreases, presumably preparatory to narrowing the toe.  It isn't clear in the photograph, and perhaps the stocking is too damaged now, to tell whether there is a round toe or a wedge, but apparently both were known at this time.  I suspect that the strange angle of stitches at the heel is a darn, not shaping, but it would be interesting to see the other of the pair to be sure; unfortunately an image is not posted on the Museum website.

Stocking foot (no.A13833).  The Museum writes, "This skilfully knitted silk stocking-foot is the only example of its kind in England. A highly fashionable garment, it was probably imported from Italy or Spain. It may have been sold in one of the luxury drapery shops in Cheapside," and gives the gauge as a very fine 18 sts and 30 rows per inch.  They date this "mid-16th century" but allow that stockings began to appear in England during the reign of Henry VIII, though they were rare and expensive at that time.

This particular stocking foot is clearly related to the "Barnim foot" with its inverted gusset opening from the center bottom of the heel outwards to the toe along the bottom of the foot.  This knitter has neatly edged both the instep gusset and the foot gusset with garter stitches, making a very elegant foot indeed.  The heel appears to be a common heel, possibly even unshaped, much like the Exenterata stocking of 1655.  Interestingly, there appear to be decreases narrowing the heel flap towards the bottom ---- would these be meant to pull the heel flap more snugly against the wearer's foot?  I'm puzzled by the other line of what appear to be holes, running just about parallel to the bottom edge of the foot in this photo -- they seem unusually tidy for damage, but I can't explain them otherwise.

So I have thought and thought and changed my mind any number of times -- Carnamoyle?  Gunnister?  Johan III?  Barnim?  English?  Swedish?  Anglo-Scandinavian? Scottish-Anglo-Irish-Scandinavian?? -- but David is off on another long trip at the end of the week, and I'd like to have a good bit of the first stocking knitted before he leaves, to make sure I'm on the right track shaping-wise, so I'm going to cast on right now ....

Knitting in the Movies (and TV): "Outlander"

There is a thread currently running in the Historic-Knitting Yahoo group, prompted when someone asked, "So, the 'Outlander' series -- is the knitting accurate?" and the numerous replies came back with a resounding "No!" 

The first photo (above) is a lovely look, with all of the soft greys, and the gown is pretty accurate, historically speaking, except that it probably should have a separate stomacher (instead of what is apparently all one piece), as well as at least a lace or linen "tuck" peeking out from the neckline. But knitted shawls didn't appear until the early 1800s (Shetland shawls in the 1830s) -- even though it seems not a far leap to us now, knitted garments remained pretty firmly in the region of caps, stockings, undershirts, and gloves until some decades into the 19th century.

Part of the problem here seems to be that the designer of the "Outlander" costumes, Terry Dresbach, quickly became self-defensive (and sarcastic) when others started questioning the historical accuracy of the knitted garments, and seemed to want to have it both ways when she said that her work is extensively researched and plausible if not authentic (e.g. the gowns are not hand-sewn, certain French fashions are apparently not documented in Scotland at the time but could have been there because of the close Franco-Scottish relationship, etc.), and that leeway was taken due to budget and time constrictions.  Those who are sticklers for historical accuracy -- which admittedly isn't always possible with costumes for either theatre or movies, for different reasons -- feel that Dresbach can't have it both ways.  It seems to me that with the sewn garments Dresbach has done a wonderful job in synthesizing the requirements of film and the historical record, but, surprisingly, then dropped the ball as to the knitwear.

The gist of the rebuttals on the Historic-Knitting list seems to be that the knitted garments are in styles that are not appropriate to the period, and far too coarse, when most knitting of the period was done on fine needles with fine wool, or by machine, except for a few items such as sailors' caps and seaboot stockings.

This garment, for example, is a fairly logical jump from "worn-out cloak cut down to a shoulder-warmer" to "knitted version of that", but I don't think there is any documentation that anything like this was ever knitted, in Scotland or anywhere, in the 18th century.  Claire is, however, obviously wearing appropriate stays, so kudos for that.

This looks very good on the face of it, especially because she is wearing a kerchief over her neck and bosom, and there is a lot of evidence for fingerless mitts of this kind -- just none of them knitted.  Again, it seems a short jump to us, especially when you know that knitted stockings were common, but at this period fingerless gloves were sewn out of fabric.

No, no, no.  The gown is very good, and is an excellent choice of colors, fabrics, and patterns (though I think the stomacher is too long), but the chunky knitted cowl practically shouts "late 20th-century!"

This cowl puzzles me, as I suspect that it is knitted, since fur wouldn't drape quite so beautifully (but then, I don't wear much fur, perhaps someone else could offer an opinion?).  This simplest kind of tubular knitted wrist-warmer did not make its first appearance until the beginning of the 19th century, and then was knitted with fine wool on small needles, not chunky stuff like this.  (We tend to think that Aran knitting, for example, has been around for centuries, but Aran jumpers were in fact invented around 1900.)  Again, the gown is very good -- and closes with pins, or perhaps hooks-and-eyes -- but not the knitting.

This is so obviously a modern shrug that I don't need to say anything.  Again, this gown is good, but she needs a kerchief over her bosom.

I'm a little perplexed by the fichu -- which to my eye looks exactly like a worn-out high-necked smock cut off and used as a fichu, an excellent and frugal use of worn-out garments.  Did it happen?  Maybe -- probably.  Is it accurate?  I don't know.  But the muffatees -- no.  The earliest known reference to knitted muffatees that I can find is 1813, when an officer in Wellington's Foot Guard wrote home asking for some; they were obviously being home-knitted by then, but again, that's at least fifty years after the "Outlander" series is set, and they would have been worked with finer wool on smaller needles than these, comfy and warm though these doubtless are.

Too chunky, and it's apparently not a flat piece of knitting, but shaped?

This looks so much like the shawl worn by Mrs. Forrester in "Cranford" that it's hard to believe it isn't the same one reused, but either way, "Cranford" was set in the 1840s when knitted shawls were starting to become more widely made at home.  The mitts almost work for this period.

Now if I were a cook wearing thick knitted wristwarmers, I would certainly do what Mrs. Fitz has done here, and turn them up out of the way, or they would look like the dog's breakfast after only a few minutes' of work, but if I really was a cook in the 1740s I would far more likely be wearing sewn woollen wristwarmers.

This is the only knitted garment I've seen that works in its historical period -- Claire in the 1940s wears a knitted slipover.  Lots of documentation for this, and any number of patterns still available.

I think, actually, that the problem resides not in Dresbach's choices as a costume designer, but in her insistence that the costumes -- that is, the costumes as a whole -- are historically accurate.  If she had said, which as far as I can tell she has not, that the "leeway" is specifically with the knitwear, then it would not be so jarring to those who never saw a Moebius cowl before Elizabeth Zimmermann's in 1983.

"Sliten och Lappad Tröja"

This is sad and fascinating at the same time -- sad obviously because it's in such a decrepit state, but fascinating because it must have been quite charming in its day, and of course because its day was in the 1700s.  That's a long time for a piece of knitting to survive!  I find it very poignant that the museum titles it, "Worn and patched sweater" as though those adjectives are now more significant than any other -- and indeed, they give no information about colors, fibers, size, which on other pieces they can be very meticulous about.  The only other information is that it is from the Årstad district in Halland, which is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden, on the western coast in the southern part of the country.

The "carnation" pattern will be familiar to those with a penchant for Scandinavian knitting -- a chart in Sheila McGregor's Complete Book of Traditional Scandinavian Knitting is I think almost exactly the same, and similar carnations appear in Britt-Marie Christoffersson's Swedish Sweaters.

This jacket is in the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm (inventory no. 134916, and apparently also NMA.0041484), by way of DigitaltMuseum.