Knitting in the Past

I am a process knitter. That is, I like to knit but I am equally interested in the construction of the garment/object, the diversity of stitches and techniques and materials. I knit to knit, rather than always to wear or use. Sometimes, however, this interest in a project only lasts as long as the novelty of any or all of the above. Hence I currently have more than sixty knitting projects in various states of progress or wips (works in progress.) From lace pincushions to handbags to cardigans to the full body Garment. As this has been a lifelong habit, I can assume that as long as I have breath and ability, the projects, as in the past, will all be eventually completed at some point.

Roughly half of my output is contemporary knitting, clothing and accessories for myself, friends and family, and charity knitting. The other half is historic knitting which is definitely a process exercise in many cases. Some of the knitting is from historic patterns but the word pattern is rather loosely used. These may vary from a suggestion of a stitch pattern (a few sentences of text without illustrations, needle size, type of yarn) to an illustrated (drawing or photograph) pattern with needle sizes and, sometimes, the kind of needle (steel, rosewood, bone, etc.) and the kind of yarn, quantity and colour. Other knitting is transcribed from extant historic garments or photographs in books or on the web from institutional collections. This means choosing similar materials from modern sources, and working out gauge/tension, needle size and actual size of the finished garment or object. Colour images are a blessing as black and white ones can be a tease. Scraps of information from diaries, letters, journals, merchant and runaway servant and slave advertisements are invaluable. Paintings and other artworks are less reliable as researchers are at the mercy of artistic whim or ignorance of the art and tools of knitting. By pulling all of the above together, I try not only to recreate a garment or object from the past but also sample the same experience of creation. The phrase "The past is a foreign country" is frequently heard in historic reenactment or interpretive circles. No one can truly understand what life was like for anyone, even the people of a generation ago, let alone a century or more, no matter how much we study or demonstrate in historic clothing. We can, however, at least get a glimpse into the past, as if passing by quickly, by recreating something in the same way, to the best of our knowledge, as it was done in another time.

18th and 19th Century Stockings

The 18th century child's gray/burgundy marled stockings (upper left), on 3.25mm bronze needles, are made of unlabeled wool of uncertain date from my thirty year old stash at a gauge/tension of 6 1/2 stitches/inch. The undyed ones below, on 3.25mm birch needles, are made of hand spun from the wool of a local flock of a Dorset-Wiltshire historic breed with a gauge/tension of 7 stitches/inch. The patterns for both are loosely based on stockings I have seen in photographs from books and various museum's and other institutions' collections. Both stockings have the traditional garter stitch rows at the tops, and the undyed pair has a series of openings worked with a Yarn Over/Knit 2 Together combination, so as to create an area where a garter or ribbon can be threaded through the top of the stocking.

The 19th century adult dark brown stockings are on 2.00mm metal needles knit in old, thin Dritz *sports yarn* (wool) that I would love to be able to precisely date. The ribbing (more commonly found in the 19th century) at the top is a *K3, P1* combination with 15 stitches/inch. Still in the design process, they will probably be partially based on a pair in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village (http://www.osv.org/collections/collection_viewer.php?N=26.17.92a-b).

19th Century Mitts

These elegant mitts are from a pattern published by Circa Knits (1995) based on ones (c. 1863) in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California. They were knit on 2.25 mm needles using ivory mercerised cotton. The picot edge is knitted. I intend to knit them again using a more historically accurate lace weight wool or silk.

Monmouth Caps

The Monmouth cap has been evolved over the last five centuries into the style many of us wear today. As Mara Riley explains, "Many of the surviving examples of the 17th and 18th century caps...were knitted larger than the finished size and then heavily felted to produce water-resistant headwear, though this treatment does not seem to have been universal...The term Monmouth Cap seems to refer generically to English knitted caps in the 18th century, some of which resemble Rutt's* cap and others which look more like modern stocking caps but without the ribbing." (http://marariley.net/knitting/caps.htm)

*A History of Hand Knitting"by Richard Rutt (1987)

The yellow one is knit in a vintage, unnamed 3 ply wool knit on 4.00mm needles, and somewhat resembles the 15th century acorn cap. The brim, however, rolls upwards. The light and dark grey ones are both knit on 3.25mm needles in 2 ply wools I bought so long ago I have forgotten their names. The dark gray one can be folded or pushed down at the top. The brim was folded over and knit into the body of the cap at 4 inches. This folding technique is found on some of the few extant caps such as the one in Heart of Oak* and the one worn by the late 17th century Gunnister Man. None of my caps have the *button* at the top or the loop on the brim found on many Monmouth caps.

*Heart of Oak - A Sailor's Life in Nelson's Navy by James P. McGuane (2002)

Stockings for Stephen Maturin

"'...and pull on your stockings, I beg. We have not a moment to lose. No, not the blue stockings: we are going on to Mrs Harte's party - to her rout.'

'Must I put on silk stockings?...Was I to put the silk stockings over my worsted ones, sure the hole would not show: but then I should stifle with the heat.'"

Master and Commander, Chapter Six

This is the second mention of knitted objects in the POB Canon. In the third chapter of Master and Commander, James Mowett is described as wearing "a striped Guernsey shirt, a knitted garment that gave him very much the look of a caterpillar." This garment may have been loom knitted. "Worsted," on the other hand, sometimes referred to hand knit objects so I decided to make Stephen's blue stockings. The debate over the stockings in Chapter Six is followed by the description of domestic chamber music and that its audience, "Mrs Brown and a white cat, sat mildly knitting, perfectly satisfied with the performance."

What was the cat knitting, I wonder?

I chose Blackberry Ridge lace weight wool, Dark Wedgewood, for this project. I like its wools for historic knitting as the colours resemble natural dyes and the texture is like fine hand spun. I will publish the yardage used when I have completed the pair of stockings as I have no idea at this point how much will be needed. I am using five 2.00mm metal double pointed needles with a gauge/tension of 11 stitches/inch. The top of the stocking has the 18th century style of garter stitch rows edging with a stocking/stockinette plain stitch area where the garter or band would go around, followed by another double series of garter stitch rows, hopefully preventing rolling down and slipping of any fastening, and then the stocking/stockinette plain stitch for the rest of the stocking. "S" and "M" will be cross stitched in red (typical colour used for this purpose) cotton (standing in for silk) thread in the upper part of the stocking using lettering common in late 18th century samplers. The body of the stocking is based on the 1765 one and pattern found in Sharon Ann Burnston's book "Fitting and Proper," (1998).

The Garment - The Sketch

It is painfully obvious that I cannot draw. Here, however, is my sketch of TG as I envision it. It will, of course, be a tighter fit all over.

Infant Wear from the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The infant cap and boots on the left are from Lace from the Attic (1998) by Nanci Wiseman and were knit on 3.00mm, and 2.75mm and 3.00mm needles, respectively. The infant cap, knit on 2.75mm needles on the upper right is from a pattern published by Circa Knitwear (1995) of a late 19th century cap in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California. The remaining cap in the lower left is a wool (and bulkier) version of the Baby Bonnet by June Ware, published in Spin-Off (Summer, 2000), knit on 2.75mm needles. All three infant caps and the boots were knit with Morehouse undyed lace weight yarn and with double pointed needles.