The Garment - Upper Section

The Garment has really taken on a personality of its own. Like Stephen Maturin, it is polite and pleasant company but also like Stephen, it often seems to have secret missions of its own.  It leaves my lap of its own volition and loves to tangle the three working balls of wool no matter how much I work at keeping them all separate. It is also now taller than I am which is the first time I have made anything so large. The two blankets I knit years and years ago were only 5' and 6' long, respectively. 

Here is The Garment's upper sections being measured from the waistband up. I pinned the back and fronts together from the underarms up and then pinned the whole upper part to the bed.  Also on view are some of the many ends which will have to be woven in when the knitting is finished. 

The Garment - Stretching Upwards

I am up to the underarms where I split off for the back which is now knit up to the base of the neck. This photograph shows The Garment about halfway up the back. It has become rather unwieldy to knit, the creature! There is now so much of it, I have to lay it alongside me if I am sitting with my feet up or have it almost sitting next to me if I am sitting upright when knitting. It has also just about outgrown its cloth water bucket home. I have been taking advantage of the change in weather and although it is still chilly and windy, I can now sit by the water and knit in the glorious sunny daylight, listening to the waves and doing some long distance eye exercises.

The Garment - Double Waistband

 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I have decided that a double waistband would be deeply rational as well as a more supportive link between the upper and lower parts. To do this I knit the outer waistband with the button hole and then ran the stitches onto the red wool as seen in the photo. Using a 1.50 mm 40 inch circular needle, I picked up the stitches of the waistband on the inside (purl side.) At this point, The Garment was sent to my model for a fitting, hence the red wool. Upon its return, I knit the inner waistband on the regular 4.50 mm needles to match the outer waistband (upper photograph, outer waistband curling forward) and afterwards ran the 1.50 circulars through the stitches on the outer waistband (lower photograph) so I could knit the two together and close the gap. The result is a nice firm waist area from which the upper part of The Garment is growing.  I had, sometime ago, began to knit an upper part with live stitches at the bottom but did not like its shaping so I ripped it out and am now knitting this part directly from the double waistband, increasing twice at both sides every inch. 

The Garment - The Lower Half

The main part of the lower half of The Garment is finished and has been sent to my model for a fitting. He is 6’2”, hence the long legs. The foot sections will be knit down from the ankles.

The photo at left shows this part of TG in its final stages, minus the fall. The legs were knit in the round but then I switched to back and forth for the upper part. The open (not yet sewn) inner seam is just visible. Following the pattern of men’s breeches at that time, the seam is on the inside of the leg. There was an outside seam, too, but "it don't signify" in this case. This photo also shows several sets of needles on TG. The fall (front flap) is on a small circular needle and green wool, holding the stitches until the needle was put on but left on for clarity in the photo. This was knit back and forth with two garter stitches on either side and across the top to flatten the edges, and with a button hole at either upper side. Decreases were made on both sides for the waist as I knit up the hips, also, at this point, back and forth, with stitches both cast/bound off and some replaced, at the front for the waistband. The waist area shows two pairs of long circular needles. The larger, wooden set is knitting the outer waist band, including the stitches added for the front of the waistband which will also have a button. The thin, metal long circular needles are holding the stitches at the base of the waistband which will become the inner waistband, offering double support, therefore, to the upper part of TG which will be knit upwards from the lower part pictured here and from both waistbands, incorporated into one knitted row.

The Garment - January 2009 Update 2

The Garment - January 2009 Update

I know that I am taking a long time working on this project. One of the reasons is that I keep adjusting the design. The legs have been knit several times as have the rows which join the two legs and sides at hip level just below the fall. I think, however, I have finally got it right this time. There are the legs, hanging out of the cloth bucket which makes a perfect knitting bag. That photo also is the most accurate representation so far of the shade of brown of the wool.

The other reason I am moving slowly is that I adore this wool. It is strong, feels good in the hands and on the needles, and rips and re-knits beautifully. The colour is gorgeous with flecks of lighter wool that show up from time to time.

2009 Knitting Resolutions

It isn’t as bad as it looks and it is, in fact, much more organised. There are currently no socks on the needles in the sock/Crabtree & Evelyn bag, the latest pair being finished last night and posted on Ravelry tonight. The contemporary wips number about five at the moment with the reproductions far outnumbering them:

1. Lady's 19th century garters
2. Cord and tassels for a completed sontag
3. Knitted counterpane shells (one a day or at least five a week – they only take twenty minutes each to knit) and design the sides and corners and think about the edging
4. THE GARMENT – finished as a birthday present for Stephen Maturin (March 25th ) which that is the goal
5. Child's handspun 18th century stockings (one foot and a complete stocking)
6. Child’s marled 18th century stockings (same as above)
7. Handspun gauntlet gloves (one down, one to go)
8. Lady's 19th century fingerless gloves (second one)
9. Vanity Fair purse
10. 1918 Dutch baby cap
11. Infant's 17th century jacket
12. Gentleman's 19th century underdrawers (only the top on the second side)
13. Stephen Maturin’s blue stockings (peeking out of the 18th century pockets)
14. Lady's mid-19th century brown stockings

Planned reproduction projects include

1. Lady's 19th century underbonnet cap
2. Man's 19th century nightcap
3. Child's 19th century nightcap
4. Lady's 18th century mitts
5. 19th century purse (yes, another one!)
6. 1918 boudoir cap
7. 17th century red stockings to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Washington Irving’s satirical first book, A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by Dietrich Knickerbocker in which he describes the stockings (also blue) of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam.
8. 18th century stockings with re-knitted foot
9. Lady's 19th century undersleeves
10. More Aubrey-Maturin miniatures

I would also like to reproduce one of the little knitted shawls from the television production of Cranford.

Well, that’s the plan. Finishing is not difficult. Resisting starting new projects (contemporary and historical), including the unplanned, will be the challenge!