Stocking Cap Redux

Thanks to the comments on the first post (http://historyknits.blogspot.com/2012/08/19th-century-knitting-from-painting.html)  about this project, I finished this as a double stocking cap, one that is folded inside of itself.  The first half, when I was not sure exactly what I was knitting, measured 29 ½” long, with a width of 16” around. I doubled the length, knitting the second part in the natural/undyed yarn as in the original painting.

 

The cap was knit on 5.5mm/US 9 sized needles using Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in Winter Blue, Natural, Red Fox, Charcoal, and Lullaby. I put it through two laundry cycles with bed sheets in the washing machine on hot water, and dried it by air over a rack. The cap fulled in terms of width but not all that much in length, losing only 9” (down to 20 ½”) and  only 4 ½” (down to 11 ½”) around.

I based my original measurements on a comparison with the body of the young girl knitting in the painting, using a child of a similar age as a model. Shrinking the cap down by hand might have produced a cap that would fit a child but I think I really needed to have twice the width, and have worked on larger needles. As it is, my cap would fit a baby’s head but then I am not going to re-knit the whole cap to make it about twice its size to allow for fulling. It was just fun to reproduce knitting from a painting.

{Apologies for the two sizes of font. I cannot seem to correct it.}

Re-Footed 18th Century Stockings

These stockings would fit a four year old child and were made for demonstration purposes. I chose a child’s size as they would knit up quickly, and because people always love small versions of clothing.

The stockings, first of all, show how a pair that might have the foot or parts of it worn out, could have a new foot knit onto it or just parts of the foot replaced. I used different colours of wool to show that, in the passage of time, the stockings’ original wool might not still be in the knitter’s possession, and to illustrate the different parts of the foot. The heel, especially, stands out since this is a major point of discussion in the history of stockings. I also wanted to draw attention to the drawstring toes, which are easier to see in these two shades of yellow than most of the other stockings I have made in darker colours.

 

The completely re-footed stocking had its foot knit with a slightly larger needle which, in a demonstration, will lead to the discussion of 18^th century needles, what they were made of, and their non-standard sizes.

The stockings were knit on 2.75mm/2 US and 

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3mm/2 ½ US double pointed needles with Harrisville Designs Shetland wool (which I just adore working with) in Zinnia, Marigold and Mustard. They have several purl rows at the welt and the seam/purl stitch down the back of the legs.

Semi-Historical Summer Knitting

 I returned to my favourite knitted 19th century sampler for two presents this summer. Susanna E. Lewis’s book, Knitting Lace*, has provided me with so many patterns that transfer gracefully to 20^th and 21^st century garments, accessories and objects.  This baby cardigan was knit on 3mm/2 ½US and 3.25mm/3US needles in a nameless soft pale green cotton that I have had in my stash for decades. This yarn is thicker than a sport/double-knitting weight but finer than a worsted, and the lace stitches stand out clearly in it.

The bookmark is knit in Aunt Lydia’s Classic Crochet Cotton No. 10 in white on 2.75mm/2US needles. It measures about 5” long by 2 ½” wide.

I used pattern number 48 from the sampler for both projects, one set of the pattern for the cardigan and three for the bookmark. I always enjoy seeing how different effects can be achieved with these patterns, not only by using different textures but by concentrating on particular parts of the patterns. The cardigan's lacy sections remind me of little trees whereas the bookmark has dominant diamonds, flanked by lacy inserts.

*Knitting Lace – A Workshop with Patterns and Projects, The Taunton Press, 1992

Egg Cosy, Fluted Pattern

This pattern comes from Weldon’s Practical Knitter, Number 49, Twelfth Series (1890). It is also published in Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 5, Interweave Press, 2001.

The original pattern called for “single Berlin wool,” and “Four steel knitting needles No. 16” (modern equivalent 1.75mm/US 00.) “The edging should be worked with “a fine bone crochet needle.”

I first started this egg cosy in Paternayan crewel wool, but ran out of the blue, which, along with white, were the colours, “used in our model,” even though it is a black and white illustration. The project was then abandoned for a few years until recently, in this Year of Completion, when I started second one in Knit Picks Palette’s Whirlpool and White on the same sized needles as suggested in the pattern.

This is fairly easy and quick to make but the open-weave interior is the key to its structure. The pattern clearly states that in the body of the cosy, the alternate strands of wool in the knitting “must be rather tightly (but not too tightly) drawn in, just sufficiently so as to make the knitting sit in “flutes.”  I quite like the idea of the knitting sitting in flutes.

A “tuft” or pom-pom was made after threading through the stitches and closing the top. Since I cannot really crochet, I did not follow the pattern for the crocheted edge but simply worked a double line of single crochet around the bottom of the cosy.

At the conclusion of the pattern, directions are given for making a matching tea cosy.

19th Century Knitting from a Painting

Figure (1856)

John Dawson Watson

(1832-1892)

English

Oil on wood

Atkinson Art Gallery Collection, Southport, Merseyside, England

Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/figure-66419

I like this painting for many reasons. The details of the girl’s clothing and hair, the lush green in the background, the cloudy weather, and, most of all, that very intriguing piece of knitting, which, with its bright colours, leaps out of the painting. So much so for the knitting, that I searched through my stash and found similar colours of wool as I just had to recreate that piece of work.

What is she knitting though? It seems to be a long bag or sack, knitted in the round, in a pale custard yellow, red, blue, cream or undyed natural light coloured wool and a dark brown or grey natural, undyed wool. Could it be a long workbag or a storage bag for wool, not yet carded or skeined or rolled into one of those very large balls at her feet? Even that is odd as in many paintings I have mostly seen (but not always) wool wound into smaller balls, the size of a large orange or smaller, sitting on laps, in workbaskets, rolling on the floor, etc. The one in this painting is such a gorgeous, loosely wound shape, barely even a ball.

Was the bag be intended as a market wallet but with only one end open? Or was it to be a long snap sack, with a belt or strap attached later?

Just how long this bag was going to be, we do not know. I knit an eyelet row, with a hem of four more rows and then the cast/bind off row, for threading a ribbon or cord through for closing. The finished length is 29 ½” and the width is 16” around.

The needles in the painting are double pointed and look homemade or well used, one with a distinct curve to it. I can only see three needles – perhaps one is tucked under her arm, although they are rather short for that but then the girl is young and small. The work is also bunched together in her hands, rather than having the needles splayed – the whole technique portrayed with more artistic license than a comfortable method of knitting.

 I have studied and studied several images of this painting that are available on the web. The stitches seem very large, too large for the size of needles being used unless the girl was a very loose knitter. Based on her physical dimensions, I estimated the size of each section by colour, and experimented with several sizes of needles to get a loose gauge but not overly loose so as to sag or be too lacy. Even so, I probably have at least twice as, if not more, rows per section in my version.

 

This bag was knit on 5.5mm/US 9 sized needles using Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in Winter Blue, Natural, Red Fox, Charcoal, and Lullaby.

{Please read the comments attached to this post.}

Summer Knitting in Art

Leisure Moments (1874)

James Lawton Wingate

(1846-1924)

Scottish

Oil on canvas

Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling, Scotland

This painting has the hazy light of a bright summer day although I wonder if the colours are brighter in person.  In this image, from Wikigallery.org, there is so much brown, in the clothing, boots, and knitting, that it makes me think of late summer with a suggestion of the golds and browns that are to come with the next season.  The version found here, http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/leisure-moments-127814, is sharper, and has more of the green of summer.

Of great curiosity is, of course, the knitting. It looks like – well, a stocking with rather odd shaping and a white toe section? A sleeve, perhaps an undersleeve with a white cuff, then a wide lower arm section, followed by an elbow section and then the narrow, tighter top section which is on the needle section? There seems, however, to be a brown/grey section under the white one. So is that a toe section or a brown cuff on the lower part of the white?

Or is just more fanciful, artistic knitting?

Extinguisher Penwiper

 As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I like playing with ink, pens and paper as much as I do with yarns, fabric, threads, needles, stitches and frames. Here is another knitted penwiper, this time from Weldon’s Practical Knitter, Number 125, Thirty-First Series (1896). It is also published in Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 11, Interweave Press, 2004.

The original pattern calls for “Strutt’s No. 8 knitting cotton (any colour but white) and four steel pins No. 16” (modern equivalent 1.75mm/US 00.) The handle is knit separately and sewn on. A small amount of tapestry/needlepoint yarn is also needed for the interior, and a ribbon for decoration. The penwiper’s outer shell, in the shape of a candle extinguisher, is knit from the wide rim upwards and rolls backwards on itself.

I used the pattern’s needles’ size at a gauge/tension of 12 stitches to the inch, and two skeins of DMC Mouliné Spécial 25 embroidery floss, No. 208 which is a mint green. The shaggy interior, made up of a tassel that is sewn to the top, is in Patons Kroy Socks 4 Ply, Black. The pen’s nib is inserted into the extinguisher and the excess ink wiped off, or, the extinguisher wiper could be used before or after swiping with a rag. Either way, this little object is a decorative addition to one’s desk.

The penwiper measures 3” long from top to bottom and about 1 ¾” across the bottom rim. A five stitch band of 3” in length (for which instructions are given in the pattern) makes up the handle.

This was one of the most delightful historical patterns I have ever worked on. I don’t know why it lay abandoned, rim only, on its needles for over a year. It knit up very quickly and was finished off quickly, too, unlike three or four lacy, larger items that are doomed to languish on their needles for some time to come as after the first forty repeats or so of the pattern, they have become unbearably dull. Nevertheless, I like knitting lace in cotton in the summer – or so I keep telling myself……………….