Famous Knitters - Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman (August 29, 1915 – August 29, 1982)

One of the queens of the motion picture industry, and a knitter behind the scenes, too!

Lovely lacy pattern - a sleeve or could it be the back of a child's garment? There seems to be an armhole cast/bind off or is the knitting just falling that way, creating an indentation? One of those lovely puffy short sleeve pullovers or cardigans?

Knitted Pinball with a Ship Design

I am knitting a partial reproduction of this item:

http://www.malleries.com/a-continental-circa-1800-knitted-pincushion-with-ship-and-sentiment-i-19895-s-120.html?images=true&mall1SID=23cd46b2e18d1449c7f252a10a92ccf9#img3

The ship side of my pinball will be fairly faithful to the original but the reverse will be different. Letters and numbers but no animals or that text. Both sides are knitted flat and then stuffed (I will use fleece) and the two pieces are then sewn together with a cord or ribbon around the middle, and a longer one for attachment.

I drew a chart of the ship and the surrounding design from the photographs on the link. The original pinball was knit in silks and measures 1 ¼” wide; mine will be around 3” across – considerably larger. I am knitting on 0.75mm/6-0s needles at 22 stitches to 1”, with vegetable dyed crewel wool in a greenish-gold and natural from Textile Reproductions. The working and end strands can be seen hanging below the knitting. They will be trimmed and the remaining ends will be part of the stuffing.



It takes about ten minutes to knit a row on the right side but over twenty minutes to knit a row on the reverse side. Purling with such fine needles and such fine wool is more of a challenge than reading the chart backwards. Using a metal board with a magnetic strip for a guide is a big help. I did plan to mark in the chart with dark ink and then enlarge it but I was too keen to start knitting so I have been using the original sketch. In my rush, I also forgot to knit the extra rows at the bottom to match the side “hems” and the one that will be knit at the top but I can pick up stitches from the cast on edge and knit the lower hem later on.

The knitting so far is pinned onto an antique pincushion which is stuffed with very stiff fabric. The knitting rolls up on the needle and cannot be seen at all so I pinned it out for the photograph. The rolling, as I knit, also adds to the uncomfortable and time-consuming purling. If I ever knit another pinball, I will use strongly contrasting colours of wool or silk to better see the pattern and speed along those purling rows.

This kind of knitting also cramps my hands so this project will take some time to complete as I can only manage one or two rows a day.

Long Red Knitting

Katherine Bigelow (Mrs. Abbott Lawrence) (1855)
Chester Harding
(1792-1866)
American
Oil on canvas
(27 3/8” x 22 3/8”)
61.240
Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, Massachusetts
Gift of the Misses Aimee and Rosamond Lamb


Thanks to one of my favourite blogs, 19th century American Women (http://b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com/ ), I found this wonderful portrait with one of the largest pieces of knitting I have ever seen in a painting. By clicking on the following link, readers can zoom in on the knitting, work basket, etc.:

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/mrs-abbott-lawrence-katherine-bigelow-33681

What is Mrs. Lawrence knitting on two needles, flat/back and forth? She might be knitting something of her own design but she would, by the date given to the painting, 1855, have had access to numerous patterns for capes, shawls, lap rugs, counterpanes, pelisses, nubias, spencers, chest protectors, and hoods, perhaps one similar to the two I have featured on this blog. The copyright protection of printed materials was often difficult to enforce at this time and patterns were ruthlessly purloined and reprinted, sometimes with the audacious addition of the word “new” to the name.

The Illuminated Ladies’ Book of Useful and Ornamental Needlework by Mrs. Henry Owen (1844) contains a pattern for an Opera Hood, knitted in “Two-thread fleecy or double German wool” on “No. 3 needles” (6mm/10 US) With “ninety stitches,” knit in “rows of any light open pattern” (with a suggested pattern.) This hood is not a long piece but the pattern illustrates several clues to the knitting in the painting. Fleecy wool was a thin, fingering weight as was German wool, the latter also being used for Berlin needlework. The range of dyes or colour selection was enormous. One of my favourite examples of choice at this time is a pattern from Mrs. Cornelia Mee’s Exercises in Knitting (1846) in which knitted chair covers call for “Sixteen shades of scarlet, four-threaded German wool.”

Although I am always thrilled to see them, I don’t place much faith in accurate depictions of knitting in paintings as pieces of work range from fairly recognizable stockings (which could have been “modeled” by an independent piece of clothing that had nothing to do with what was on the needles or in the sitter’s hands) to a hazy group of brush strokes depending on the style of painting. This piece of knitting almost looks lacy or airy and is being knitted with two strands of wool seen emerging from the sweet little delicate basket with the interesting base, located on the floor beside the sitter. Is the darker wool, passed under the knitting, being used for a border, on the sitter’s left side, and the lighter shade for the body of the object?

If this is an accurate rendition, the wool is wrapped around Mrs. Lawrence’s right forefinger – a clue to her style of knitting? One of the “English” methods of knitting, the way I knit, in fact, although I use my middle finger to wrap and flick the wool. Mrs. Lawrence’s right hand is, however, too high, to be in the action of knitting; rather, she looks as though she has been interrupted, as so many knitters in paintings have been, and her right hand is arched above the right needle.

The needle on view is wonderfully thin but since its end is hidden by Mrs. Lawrence’s full sleeve, we cannot see if the needle is double-pointed or has a knob or flat end. This is odd if she is indeed knitting one of those airy items mentioned above as they are usually knit on rather large needles in contrast to the suggested thin wool or cotton in order to create the lacy effect.

Painted with her knitting in her hands, seated on a fashionable Gothic Revival chair beside a table covered with books and what may be her correspondence, and lovely fresh flowers, (perhaps from her garden?) as well as the bucolic view beyond the curtain we see a woman who is devout (the cross), elegantly but modestly dressed and an industrious member of a comfortable level of her society. To find out more about Mrs. Lawrence, go to http://bigelowsociety.com/rod/kat69521.htm

As always, I walk away from this kind of painting with new information but many more questions, too.

Another Peterson's Hood and Princess Royal's Scarf

A second, much lighter weight Knitted Hood from Peterson’s Magazine, September, 1861. I knit this one in Templetons’s H&O Shetland Fleece in Dusky Blue and White on 6.5mm/10 ½ US needles. The monotony of knitting this hood was greatly relieved by the fact that I love this wool so I was quite happy to have it flowing through my fingers.

My other hood turned out rather heavy but was so very warm during last year’s bitter winter. I had used a thicker wool than the original pattern’s 19th century’s “Shetland wool,” which is closer in weight to the Templeton’s. Two separate, identical pieces are to be knit and then sewn together but for this second hood, I only knit one piece and folded it over to sew it up. I kept to the original number of rows but added stitches on both sides to the long bands for tying so I could wrap them around my neck and then tie them in front. I made tassels again, as suggested in the text of the original pattern, and used blue and white wool as stated in the pattern.

The photo below shows another Princess Royal’s Scarf from Godey’s Lady’s Book, March, 1856, knit, again, in KnitPicks’s Palette, this time in Edamame and Mustard, on 4.5mm/7 US needles. I had to add thirty-two stitches to each side again to make it long enough and to match the illustration. I went with long tassels again, and not the spikey pompons (called "tassels" and "balls") as in the illustration. Although I modeled the last scarf I made, I gave it away so this one is for me!

Knitting in a Summery Picture

La Tricoteuse
Lionel Percy Smythe
(1839-1918)
English
Watercolour on paper
Trustees of the Royal Watercolour Society
London
RWS137244
Source: WikiGallery.org

This painting, undated (late 19th/early 20th century?), is full of hazy summer light and a gentle breeze which blows the skirt and apron of the knitter forward, along with the wool. She seems to have paused in working on a stocking or a sleeve, which, though knit in the round, has only two needles visible in the painting. I hope the other two or three needles are just out of view. I would also have liked to see where the wool is coming from – a basket, workbag?

Gentleman’s Drawers – Finished!

This is the summer of completion – I hope! Another project is off the needles at last, the Gentleman’s Drawers from Weldon’s Practical Knitter, Eleventh Series (c. 1880s.) I worked from Interweave Press’s facsimile edition of Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume Four.

The drawers were knit in just under six skeins of Nature Spun Worsted, Silver Sage and one skein of the same in Red Fox on 4.5mm/7 US needles. The legs were knit in the round, and the hips to the waist back and forth on straights.

The original pattern called for “light grey or natural colour wool” and “one skein of scarlet wool,” both in “petticoat weight” knit on “four steel knitting needles No. 12” (modern equivalent 2mm/2.5US.) “Should petticoat wool be considered too heavy 5-ply fingering may be employed.” These drawers are described as “very thick and warm.” Petticoat patterns from earlier in the century, however, usually called for the equivalent of fingering weight wool. Hence my choice of Nature Spun Worsted which is a 3-ply wool, perhaps coming closer to the 5-ply fingering. I would have, however, have had a very difficult time knitting with the 3-ply on 2mm needles and if I had knit in a fingering weight wool on 2mm needles, the drawers would have come out in a size to fit a boy and not a man. Swatching in the beginning was essential when playing the all too frequent guessing game of wool equivalency weights during various eras, even within the same century.

This pair of underdrawers measures 49” from waist down to and including the red border of the ankle cuff, the inside leg is 27 ½” and the ankle cuff, including the red border, 3 ½”. The button band is 11 ½” long. The legs are is 20” at the upper thigh, 15” at knee, and 8” (unstretched) at ribbing of ankle cuff. The hips are 40” as is the waist. The drawers were knit in two separate leg and hip pieces and then sewn together up the back. The roominess in the seat of the drawers was created by half rows every sixth row on each side or leg/hip piece. Stitches for a square gusset were picked up from one of the inside crotch sides and sewn onto the other three sides when completed

The final touches include knitted eyelets in the waistband (for braces/suspenders), red flannel lining at the waist down to the hips, scarlet tape and braid for trimming, and stitching in silk thread around the flannel/knitted buttonholes as well as the decorative stitching in the front from the button panels outwards as seen in the original illustration. I did not do any of the above.

Bastille Day and Knitting

Madame Sans Culotte
Lesueur/Le Sueur Brothers
French, 1789
(Stipple engraving?)
Musée de la Révolution Française, Vizille , France, 88.179

I have no French blood in me but I have spent most of my life studying the late18th-early 19th century so July 14th always puts me in mind of literature’s most famous knitter, Madame Defarge (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859). The knitting on the needles in this image is a Bonet Rouge. I have seen versions of this image with more vivid colour at (http://www.bridgemanart.com/image/French-School-18th-century/Madame-Sans-Culotte-c-1789-colour-litho/f8e7f97fc3f746abaa037908e76ff4e1?key=knitting&filter=CBPOIHV&thumb=x150&num=15&page=207) and a larger, sharper image at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/ucl-views/0801/madame

For an interesting analysis of this print, see
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/essays/hickman2.html