Alexander Carse (c.1770–1843), "Self-Portrait with Two Women (Presumed to be the Artist's Mother and Sister)" (1795), National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
I received a postcard yesterday that was the cover of the Penguin edition of Persuasion, with a detail of a very Austenian painting which the caption informed me was Alexander Carse's "The Visit of the Country Relations". Little seems to be known about this earlyish Scottish genre painter, whose Wikipedia article is a decent length but manages to say not very much except a few details such as that he may have painted the earliest-known depictions of football (!) and that the "Country Relations" painting is regarded as his best work.
It is like a little novel in itself, so I'm very interested to see it in better detail and in color. Curiously for it being regarded as his best work, I can find only one single black-and-white image of it, with no indication of its whereabouts -- but I did appreciate finding another painting of someone reading, so I will have to be satisfied with that for the time being!
Here is my first historical knit of the year, and very timely it is, too, as the weather here can be quite cold at the moment (for southern California, mind), and in fact has gone all gloomy this morning, so a pair of warm cuffs is just the thing. I wanted to make something with that lovely Blue-faced Leicester wool, though at DK weight it is considerably thicker than the original "four-thread Berlin wool" (The helpful article "Everyone His Own Knitting Needles" by Colleen Formby tells us that four-thread Berlin is equivalent to modern fingering weight) -- but the British Blue is a pleasure to knit with, from start to finish, and I don't mind compromising a bit now and then, especially since I am also being economical by using what is on hand!
The Godey's page shows how very basic old knitting patterns were -- I mean, yes, it's pretty obvious that you would have to bind off at some point (!), but it doesn't tell you how long to make the cuffs, to put the top border on, or to sew it up. It's pretty generous of them, in fact, judging by a number of historical knitting patterns I've seen, just to tell the knitter what size needles to use.
The cuffs are fairly obviously knitted flat, by the double knitting instructions. But I really don't much care for seams on my hands, so I worked my cuffs in the round, since of course this was well-known in 1861. I can understand why this particular pattern isn't though, since double-knitting in the round nearly makes me tear out my hair. Knitting the first attempts -- and I made numerous ones, trying to get the sizing right in this gauge -- I said, "Gaahhh!" more times working these things than in all my life up to this point, I guess.
Over an even number of sts:
Round 1: *K1, sl 1 p-wise wyif, rep from * to end.
Round 2: *Sl 1 k-wise wyib, P1, rep from * to end.
For a long time, my brain just did not want to slip a knit stitch and work a purl one. This was not "mindless knitting," to be sure! I ended up having to stop murmuring to myself, "slip one, purl one, slip one purl one" since even though I was actually saying it, after a few minutes my fingers would just knit the stitch I was supposed to be slipping -- I had to stop thinking about the slipped stitches entirely, and just say "purl, [get the next one out of the way], purl, [get the next one out of the way]". It's also surprisingly difficult to tell which round you are on, since once you have moved the working yarn around to wherever it's supposed to be for the next stitch, the just-worked stitches compress and you can't really tell unless you really interrogate it whether you just worked it or slipped it.
I couldn't help remembering Elizabeth Zimmermann saying in The Knitter's Almanac that double knitting always seemed to her "though fascinating, a great waste of time," because each stitch has to be handled twice, either knitting it or slipping it, then vice versa on the next row. "The result is a rather charming tube of stocking-stitch, which occasionally sticks together where you made a mistake". She does admit, though, that double knitting is light and fluffy, which she of course would have understood is because of the slipping process, since it stretches the stitch a little bit lengthwise -- this makes one's gauge a bit larger than regular stockinette would be even on the same needles, but does give the fabric that soft fluffiness.
To compensate for this difference in gauge, Elizabeth always casts on far fewer stitches for the edging and increases to size for the double-knitted section. I suspect that the reason the Godey's pattern calls for such a large number of cast-on sts relative to the double-knitted section is because if you use a smaller number for the garter edges, you will have to work a more-than-usually stretchy cast-on and an exceptionally stretchy bind-off, otherwise you won't be able to get the cuffs over your hands! But I like a snug cuff, and so having learned the lesson early from Elizabeth, I went with her suggestion to cast on half the number of sts required, so that the cuff fitted smoothly but not tightly.
I ended up casting on 30 sts in crochet cast-on with the white wool, working 6 rnds of garter st (not 4, it just looked better with another ridge), with purple Kfb on every st, then 50 rnds of double knitting, then with white dec'd every other st (with an SSK because it looked better, disguising the decrease rnd), then 5 more rnds garter, and finally a suspended bind-off to match the crochet cast-on. (It's curious that although the British Blue must be considerably heavier than a fingering-weight "four-thread Berlin", my double-knitted section is only 6 sts fewer than the original larger size!) And as it happened, I set this down for a few weeks, and then when I picked it up again my fingers seemed to suddenly get the hang of double-knitting in the round, and I managed to whip out each cuff in merely hours.
I was tempted, though in the end I did not, to make a vertical buttonhole a few rounds from the top of the double knitting section, so that the cuffs could be worn as muffatees if so desired -- I think this would also be an appropriate period variation, and I might make another pair later and incorporate the idea.
(Double knitting in the round with one strand of yarn, by the way, produces a tube except at the beg/end of the round. Because the wool must be moved from one side to the other, it will necessarily have to go across the inside of the "tube" at this point. There is also a slight ladder here, so I would advise taking these into consideration also, when deciding whether or not to work it in the round.)
The new badge is a painting called "Old Woman Knitting" (ca.1882) by Thomas Eakins. I don't find anything more about it online -- I wonder if it was an oil sketch for a proposed, more finished, painting, hence the grid. I like it very much the way it is.
The Project: "Winter Cuffs in Double Knitting" Year or Period: 1861 Materials: 2 skeins British Blue Wool (pure Blue-faced Leicester) in Milk (white) and French (greyish purple), 2.5mm needles Hours to complete: 29 January and 31 January 2017 (a day for each cuff!) How historically accurate is it? I think my modifications are quite within the bounds of what a period knitter might do with the wool she had in hand, except for the gauge of the British Blue and possibly the suspended bind-off Sources/Documentation:Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, no.62-63 (1861), p.164 (the pattern is reproduced in full in the image in this post)
Of course one can't be interested in the history of knitting, especially of Scandinavian knitting, without coming across tvåändsstickning, and I have seen it in my own books and here and there on the internet throughout the years, but I've always given a sort of not-for-me shrug and moved on. There is a short section about it in Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Knitting in the Old Way, and a rather longer one in Sheila McGregor's Complete Book of Traditional Scandinavian Knitting, to name just two on my shelf. I don't know why I kept passing it by -- perhaps because of the fact that both Roberts and McGregor imply, by saying that instead of working it the traditional way with the two yarns in one hand, they do with with one strand in each hand, that it's really difficult -- but the other day I came across a photo on the internet, and, to coin a phrase, it had me at "Ormsta". Something about it just made me think, I have to make that.
(The painting above is "Stickande Kulle (Girl Knitting)" (1901) by Anders Zorn, Mora parish's favorite son. This is one of the areas in Dalarna in central Sweden where many of David's Swedish ancestors are from, and so from that and having consequently spent quite a lot of time buried, as it were, in Mora church books, of course I feel a particular affinity with the place. The young woman in the painting is wearing the distinctive Mora green jacket, with the traditional green or red apron with simple colored bands near the hem. Apparently it is obvious to folk knitters that she is working two-end knitting by the way she is holding her right hand, especially the first two fingers.)
I have a stash of wool that has been stuffed in a drawer for, I don't know, twenty-five years at least, which I bought with prize money from a rather gratifying first-place win in the county fair some time ago, but --
it is in a parlous state, I'm sorry to say. It is Trendsetter Yarns' Micro Cashmore [sic], a superfine merino and microfiber blend, baby-soft and in a lovely pale lavender with a hint of grey. I loved it so much from the moment I saw it, that the project I would make with it had to be utterly perfect, and although I tried any number of times, it never was. Of course the yarn was rather battered after being knitted and ripped out and knitted and ripped out, but when looked at in a hopeful light, it is still whisper-soft and a beautiful color, and would be very pleasing as a set of mitts which could be worn under coat sleeves so that no-one would know how badly I've treated it, but could still be fondled for its amazing softness. And so, feeling so unsettled this past week that I just wanted to knit something and thinking of this long-buried stash of wool in the drawer, and seeing the Ormsta mitts, it all just came together like the tumblers of a lock quietly clicking into place.
I do not, though, know a single person who can do this technique, so I turned perforce to the internet with a set of 2.5mm needles and a ball of the Cashmore in my hands.
This is I think a fairly good introduction to the technique, starting with one of the simpler cast-ons, and no worries about not understanding Swedish because there isn't any audio at all. (I sympathize, by the way, with the translation "twined knitting" because the two strands of yarn twine around each other as you work, like ivy vines, but I rather prefer the more literal translation of "two-end knitting". The Swedish word is a bit of a tongue-twister for English speakers, but the pronunciation "tvoh-endts-stick-ning" isn't far off.)
After a couple of attempts at using two balls of wool, by the way, I realized that it is much easier to untwist the two strands -- which you will have to do regularly, there is no way around it -- if you are working with a center-pull ball, because you can just hold either the ball or your knitting in the air and let it unspin itself, which is harder with two balls plus knitting.
This method makes a nice, soft, center-pull ball, though after a while, when I wanted a second one and the first was still in use, I thought I might as well learn another Scandinavian technique while I'm at it, and try a nostepinne ("nohst-uh-pin-nuh"). I don't actually have one, but thought of a reasonable substitute borrowed from the girls --
I haven't got this technique at all yet, understanding it in principle -- which is brilliantly simple -- but not in practice. My first ball is much more ovoid than anything I've seen come off a nostepinne in other people's hands, but I suspect it's really worth figuring out.
I decided to work a beginning section on my first sampler with the yarns held one in each hand, so that I could see the difference between the two techniques, and I'm glad I did because it is quite clear. This is the outside --
and this the inside --
I expect the wobbliness of the stranded portion would smooth out a bit with blocking, but even without you can see how much more firm and dense the twisted portion is. There is also a distinctive slight angle to the fronts of the knit stitches, so I'm a bit puzzled by Roberts' and McGregor's assertions that you can work it stranded and have it come out "the same" -- oh well. McGregor says that she likes the fluffier (and thus theoretically warmer) texture of the two-handed version, which is fine and logical, of course, but I'm exploring the technique here, so wanted to try it the traditional way.
Rather surprisingly, I could find little information about how to work the various stitches, only lots of examples of them. One of the helpful places was spinnity's "Larus and Ardea" set of fingerless mitts on Knitty, which describes (in words only) the basic variations. I also found this post helpful, from Rebecca at The Fiber Bug.
When I decided that I wanted to try a three-strand cast-on, the only illustrated tutorial I found online was from Kitty at Knit Buddies, though I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it right, as mine looks quite different from hers --
I don't know if I've "unvented" something or if I've just put the back side at the front, but it looks quite tidy at least, so I carried on. It's firm and yet quite stretchy and it doesn't curl, though obviously I should also figure out the "real" method!
So here is my sampler so far --
with the “easy” two-end knitting (two-handed) for 10 rounds at the bottom and then 10 rounds of properly-twisted two-end (one-handed), then a twined purl round which makes a distinct braid-like line, then isolated crook stitches, a "chain path" of two rounds of crook stitches, and then what I thought I was doing with the isolated crook stitches, the little O's like in the Ormsta mitts, which is actually a two-round process, making the crook stitch (which is a P, K, P combination with the two yarns held on their respective sides of the fabric) in the first round, then a sort of reverse-crook (K, P, K, again with the yarns held on their respective sides). Yeah, it's a little complicated, but I think I'm getting the hang of it! though I can certainly imagine a quiet "Nej, min vän, garnet går det så här" if I were to knit in Swedish company! I felt confident enough last night to start another sampler, which I hope will actually be a wearable wrist-warmer before too long.
Progress on the Faire stockings. I started these over when after a few inches I admitted to myself that my attempt to use dpns for their "historical accuracy" was more trouble than it was worth -- because although at eight inches apiece my steel 2mm set is long enough for all of these stitches, it is also long enough to poke my hands at regular intervals, get caught in my sleeves, require frequent juggling of stitches to avoid a wobbly line between needles, and just be generally cumbersome -- so I gave in and got out my 20th-century circulars.
I consoled myself by making this button for my historical-knitting projects this year, since apparently I have a weakness for blog buttons and Girl Scout patches. On the bright side, the circulars increased my knitting speed by as much as 75%!
I found this on my pincushion the other day -- Julia, I suspect. A cynical child, but with much more sensitivity than she lets on.
I had a bit of a lost weekend, when I discovered last Friday afternoon that FamilySearch has the Pennsylvania probate records microfilm available online. It took me a bit of time to figure out the indexing system, and I'm still baffled by the page numbers that run not in a single sequence but a series of them with no apparent reason or -- more importantly -- no note at the beginning of the book to tell the searcher where each sequence starts and stops. ("So is that the first page 1501, or the fourth??") But, yeah, I looked up and it was Sunday. I did not, alas, break down a single brick wall, of which I have a number in Pennsylvania, but I found some interesting things.
Here is a dry-fitting of the kitchen dresser for No.16. The top section is not glued to the bottom yet, as I haven't done the drawers. To be honest, I think I'm just going to glue the drawer fronts in place, and not fiddle with working drawers -- I can certainly understand the appeal of working drawers, and I'm not ruling them out in future, it's just that I found myself vexingly klutzy gluing the rest of this thing together, and I would rather just have a pleasing finished piece, and I only want to put stuff on the shelves anyway! David has been in Shanghai for three weeks, so instruction has perforce been by e-mail, which isn't terribly convenient.
I got a very generous gift card from my in-laws for Christmas, and still had enough on it last week to buy these on Ebay --
The candle-stand and fire-screen came in a single lot, minimum bid $3.99. I was the only bidder, as it happened, but I still hate Ebay auctions. I can understand the thrill some people get from it, but it's just not for me: my heart started pounding anxiously even as I was only logging in. (The first auction I lost, I discovered that they send you an e-mail afterwards with the subject line "Got Away!" and the pictures of what you didn't get, like "what a loser you are!") The Connecticut table was a "buy it now" and although at $13.99 wasn't as triumphal a bargain, it was a much less stressful purchase!
(How can the 1980s be "vintage"? This is not possible.)
I made a pair of "portraits" -- not for anything, really, just to figure out how it works. I found images of a husband-and-wife pair from some online auction house, reduced them to about the right size and layered a cutting circle on top to save myself some fiddling, printed, and stuck them on to these purchased charms. Perhaps I didn't wait long enough for the glue to dry after this photo -- they seemed stuck to the metal fairly well, but although Mister's "glass" went on perfectly, the one for Mrs. slipped a little and of course the picture stuck to the adhesive on the underside, so that now there is a noticeable sliver of silver showing near her hands. If I can find another set of the charms, I might take the trouble to do them again, as I've got rather fond of the faces -- unknown sitters, unfortunately.
The D.E. Stevenson list is reading Listening Valley, a story that begins in the early 1930s and follows Tonia, a shy girl with a sparkling older sister and indifferent parents, through the next fifteen years or so of her life. It is not really a major part of the story, but Tonia has some undiagnosed problem with her hands, making her "butter-fingered", by which her parents are uninterestedly mystified but her sister and Nannie make generous allowance for her clumsiness. A number of Stevenson characters in other books are seen knitting, but I suppose that this problem with her hands would mean that Tonia doesn't knit herself, but surely Nannie would make this jumper for her, because the quiet and withdrawn Tonia wouldn't have chosen zigzags down the front for herself but Nannie would think they add a little sparkle to her cheeks. This late-thirties tuppenny Stitchcraft pattern leaflet is a scan from the British Library collection, generously available free from The Sunny Stitcher.
Talking of Yahoo lists, I joined the Petitpointers list the other day, which as you might tell from the name, is for needlepointers in smaller gauges. The carpet above is my first from Frank Cooper's book Oriental Carpets in Miniature, which I got for a song from a used-book seller. This is the Shirvan 1 -- even though I am reducing it a bit from Cooper's 18-gauge canvas to 22, it's still going to be easily twice the size of any miniature carpet I've done before, but the picture is really lovely, so I'm looking forward to it. These are Paternayan wools, wh. I haven't used in an age.
I'm also taking another FutureLearn course, entitled "Literature and Mental Health". Jonathan Bate and Paula Byrne are teaming up to explore "how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with deep emotional strain". I enjoyed immensely Bate's "Shakespeare and His World" course -- he's an engaging and level-headed instructor -- and there are already lots of interesting discussions going on in the comments, plus with this first-run course the instructors are commenting and responding to comments as well, which makes it even more appealing. There was a sort of attempt at the beginning to maintain an air of academic neutrality about the subject, but of course anyone who reads a lot will already feel, fairly strongly I suspect, that literature is a balm in times of stress or depression, so the outcome is already a foregone conclusion. I didn't know beforehand that the professors would be talking to such luminaries as Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry, among numerous others, so that's a bonus! I had to rush through another course, finishing six weeks' worth in less than three, in order to clear my slate for the Mental Health one, but I'm glad I did, as it is rather intense and deeply thoughtful at times, even in the first week.
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop -- The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Photographs of Welsh women in national dress were wildly popular in the late 19th century, partly as tourist souvenirs, and partly I think as a record of rapidly-disappearing country life. One of the three most common occupations for the subject -- the other two being going to market and having tea -- was knitting. I happened across one of these images this morning as I was searching for my ancestors in Breconshire, and quickly found myself utterly absorbed in the genre.
"Mrs Edwards knitting in Welsh national dress, c. 1875" (Gathering the Jewels/Casglu'r Tlysau). Mrs. Edwards, bless her, appears to have cataracts.
It was not unusual for Welsh countrywomen to have bare forearms, so as not to get their sleeves dirty as they went about their daily work. They would then wear separate half-sleeves for Sunday and best.
Photographed by John Thomas. (WalesOnline) This woman, and some others I've seen, has attached the ball of yarn to her apron with a spare needle. I can't quite tell if she has ringlets or if her goffered bonnet is dyed black for mourning.
(Victoria's Rusty Knickers [sic]) The source identifies this as a "Welsh Lady knitting a Scarf," but I think it's more likely a sock. Curiously, I've seen a number of sources say that Welsh countrywomen knitted "socks and scarves" for sale, but all of the images I've seen are pretty obviously socks or stockings.
These last three photographs also appear in a Flickr group entitled "Welsh Fashions" consisting almost entirely of late 19th-century photographs of Welsh women, a very great many of whom are knitting. Notice how many of them are wearing exactly the same betgwn, petticoat, and apron?! Yes, apparently the clothes were provided by the photographer. There is some debate about how widespread, even how "traditional" the so-called traditional Welsh dress really was, though most people now seem to agree that it was usually worn for Sundays and best, not everyday.
There was a resurgence of interest all over Europe, it seems, in the 19th century, in national dress, and in some places (Norway, for one) the lack of local interest in it -- because the country women would rather wear more fashionable clothing like their city cousins' -- led to varying degrees of outright invention. That said, some of the photographs here don't look staged, and even though I know it is at least in part, I really love this one --
Here are two paintings by the Dane Michael Ancher -- "A Young Girl Knitting (Maren Brens)" (1887) --
and "Skagen Girl, Maren Sofie, Knitting" (1882). Socks, I think -- pretty certainly in the first painting. The shawls -- or is it the same shawl? -- look intriguing too. I love the quiet homeliness of both of these. Thanks to Wendy of Spinsjal for writing about her trip to Skagen, and for reminding me of the Skagen painters, whose work I admire tremendously.
These two kirtles are made to patterns from The Tudor Tailor in Sew Classics Linen-Look from Jo-Ann's, respectively "Potting Soil", a much nicer-looking color than it sounds, a lovely chocolatey-brown, and "Natural" and "Clear Lake", which is a rather tealish-green. I like this fabric a lot - - it is a linen/rayon blend, machine-washable and dryable, and looks and behaves halfway between linen and wool. The rayon keeps it from wrinkling as easily as 100% linen does -- in fact it is pretty much wearable straight out of the tumble dryer sometimes. (Curiously, the brown has a slightly different hand from the tan or the teal, which looks the most linen-y of the three.)
Julia's smock is from an old top sheet; I was hoping to be frugal and not buy something when I had this nearly-endless supply of white cotton, but it was perhaps not the best choice, as it turns out to be a bit stiff when made up into a smock, and the underarm gussets are rather more ungainly than my usual middling attempts. I used a "simple smock" pattern found on the internet, but made the sleeves short for Julia's comfort, and added a bit of chain stitch embroidery both to disguise the neck facing and to pretty it up a bit. The neck is too big, I'm afraid, but there wasn't time to make another one.
My inspiration was mostly this,
Bouguereau's 1884 "Little Knitter". Not the right period, of course, but not completely wrong, either -- and as it happened, the idea was reinforced by a woodcut in a book of an Elizabethan toddler in a similarly short-sleeved smock. I figured that Julia would certainly be much more comfortable on a California summery-spring day in short sleeves!
The trim is some "antique blue" grosgrain ribbon, which went on surprisingly easily - - 3/8-inch on the bodice and 7/8-inch around the bottom of the skirt. I really like the blue and brown combination, which is one of the reasons that I chose the dark-blue quilting cotton to line the bodice as well, giving it a little secret dash of color in relief from the brown.
The bodice is interlined with some drill-like stuff I had sitting around, much of which I used to make a sloper for the same kirtle, but there is no boning as Julia is still slim enough not to need it.
My sewing machine was absolutely not up to buttonholes through two layers of linen, two of muslin lining, and one of drill interlining, and I did not listen to either my own inner voice or my husband telling me that something was wrong with them, so I cut them all open and watched, dismayed, as the stitches popped right and left. I sewed around them with zigzag stitch and, on some of them, used some extremely wonky hand-sewn buttonhole stitch, to little avail. Luckily, they are at the side and under Julia's arm, so perhaps will not be noticed except by the more eagle-eyed viewer. The cord is made of some I hope distractingly pretty sapphire-blue crochet cotton, five very long strands twisted for hours until they folded back upon themselves and made a very handsome lacing cord.
The skirts are knife-pleated along the waist, and the Linen-Look, which is very forgiving of amateur stitching anyway, takes this beautifully.
Laura's smock is also made to the Tudor Tailor pattern, with bleached muslin and lace I knitted from crochet cotton. Now, this last is absolutely not "period", as knitted lace didn't come into general use for a couple more centuries, I think, after the Elizabethans, but well, it's just too pretty not to do it. I suspected that Laura would be a little disappointed not to get a gown like, say, this --
and she would certainly not mind as much as I would that her smock is not strictly period, so I went for prettiness and a vaguely-historical look instead. This is the pattern for the lace:
Faggoted Picot Edging
Cast on 6 sts.
Rows 1, 2, and 3: Sl1, K2, yo, K2tog, K1. Row 4: [K1, P1] 3 times into 1st st (6 sts), sl the 5 sts just made (beg with first st) one at a time over last st -- 6-st picot, K2, yo, K2tog, K1.
Rep rows 1-4 until desired length.
I cut the sleeves for Laura's smock to the "narrow" version -- these are pleasantly full, but not "puffy," which Laura said she didn't like. The sleeve and collar ruffles are about 1 1/2 times the length of the cuff and collar, to give a nice fullness but still show off the lace.
The bodice took about 2/3 of a yard of the tan fabric, and the skirts two 45-inch lengths of the teal, using the full width of the fabric. The bodice is lined with unbleached muslin. The pattern is really splendid -- the V-back is very flattering anyway, but the extra seams make it much easier to get a really snug fit, darts not being historically accurate.
Laura's bodice is also unboned, but I used a slightly different method of interlining, following a suggestion in The Tudor Tailor. I used a piece of quite heavy chambray from my stash, and sewed it to a piece of muslin (which I also topped with a piece of the tan linen to keep the blue from showing through) -- this made a pleasingly stiff bodice that when laced up is quite supportive for Laura's slim figure.
The hand-sewn eyelets on Julia's bodice were such a failure that I didn't even try with Laura's, but took it straight to our local shoe-repair shop and had them put in grommets. I still feel strangely guilty about this, having read for years, I guess, those more historically-rigorous costumers who decry with various levels of vociferousness the wench/Ren-Faire look more suited to Oktoberfest than historical re-enactment. "No grommets!" Oh, well. If I'm up to it, I might sew over them with thread to disguise the tell-tale glint of aluminum. I put in a piece of boning (actually cable-tie, trimmed) at the very edges for stability -- of course, the use of boning at that place is historically-accurate, though cable-tie not so much!
I took someone's suggestion of setting the grommets a half-inch from the edge of the fabric, making it easier to lace the bodice tighter or looser as needed.
The lacing is a pretty sort of taupe cord, whipped at the ends with regular sewing thread to compensate for not having aglets. The whipping might not be sturdy enough to take much abuse, so I coated it quite thoroughly with Fray-Check.
Laura's skirts are also knife-pleated. The girls' hats are from Cora Hendershot of Wheat Goddesses, at the Faire.
A Parisian fashion plate from 1810. The caption, Google Translate assures me, reads, "Bonnet trimmed with tulle. Fichu on the shoulders." It looks as though there is a kind of overlayer of tulle on her cap, or perhaps it is just around the edges -- interesting.
Those are some massive knitting needles -- and she looks pretty smug about it, too! A blanket, I wonder? What else could it be at that scale?
Someone on the HistoricKnitting list posted this today, surmising that the woman's cap is knitted. The pleats could have been achieved in fabric, of course, but the edge does look like a cast-on. The top, too, looks like a straight tube that has been folded and sewn (or knitted) together.
I wonder if there is a back view of a similar cap in something by Bruegel or Hieronymous Bosch ...?
The face you would not be surprised to see on some small-town parson, and so it is a little disconcerting to see it surrounded by delicate ringlets and fine lawn. Is the look in those black eyes gentle or stern? What is she knitting that is so red against her severe black dress? Her face is rather hard and her back unforgivingly straight, and yet her feet sticking out like that give her a curious casualness. The Gothic chair and the homely little dog-like workbasket only add to the ambiguity.
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business; it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability; it is essential for human survival.”
