An elegant hat (ca.1850)

The Royal Victoria Knitting Book : containing an assortment of the most elegant patterns for hats, hoods, feathers, and bonnets, published in London by W. Clark, possibly in 1850, gives patterns for some very charming knitted hats and bonnets indeed.  The Victoria Knitting Book was published in installments; the copy at the Internet Archive linked above contains pages 85-96 (breaking off right in the middle of a pattern!); the full book can be seen here, courtesy of the Richard Rutt Collection at the University of Southampton.  Other installments focused on lace edgings and insertions, cuffs and collars, doilies and antimacassars, polkas, stockings, shawls, etc.

Here is the pattern for the exquisitely lacy hat No. 40, at top in the image above --

The "curtain" is the part of a bonnet or hat that covers the back of the wearer's neck. 

"Mary Isabella Grant Knitting a Shawl" (ca.1850)

"Mary Isabella Grant Knitting a Shawl" (ca.1850) by Francis Grant.

This lovely painting of the artist's daughter is also one that clearly shows that the artist knows what a piece of knitting looks like.  Mary Isabella is holding fabulously long needles (not "parlour style"), with the ball of wool in a little basket on her arm.  The knitting looks like a brioche stitch, very popular in the 1840s and 50s!

"The School-Girl's Hymn" (1859)

"The School-Girl's Hymn" by William Holman Hunt (1859). 

"The School-Girl's Hymn" by the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt, described as a "pot-boiler" by the Ashmolean (presumably on Holman Hunt's authority!), shows "'a girl going to school in a smiling summer Sunday morning, singing her hymn as she walks along'. The model was Miriam Wilkinson, a labourer's daughter Hunt met while staying with Thomas Combe at a farmhouse near Hastings in Kent in 1858."  It is rather unusual in clearly showing the sitter wearing a knitted garment -- two in this case, as she has a knitted muffler as well.

Since a significant characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites was an intense realism, it comes as no surprise that the stitch used in the girl's jacket is meticulously depicted, almost certainly brioche stitch. A similar jacket pattern is the one below, from The New Guide to Knitting & Crochet by Marie Jane Cooper (Cooper, 1847).

Note that the number of stitches to cast on should be 225, not 25.

A POLKA COAT, FOR A CHILD.

Cast on twenty-five [sic, 225] stitches, which will make seventy-five ribs, in the Brioche stitch, which is done by bringing the wool forward, slipping a stitch the purl way, and knit two together; bring the wool forward, knit twenty-four rows, or twelve turns of white; then commence the scarlet, by leaving eighteen stitches on each side, knit twenty-four rows, or twelve turns of scarlet; then begin to take in, which is done by knitting the first thirty on each side, without decreasing; then bring the wool forward, slip one stitch, and knit five together; repeat this till within thirty on the other side, which, knit without decreasing, until you have only forty ribs, or one hundred and twenty stitches; knit forty-eight rows, or twenty-four turns, in this manner, still leaving the white on each side; put thirty stitches on another needle for the front, knit those backwards and forwards for thirty-six rows, or eighteen turns; then knit all the stitches but one rib, turn back, and finish the row, and so on, leaving one rib more each time, till it is the proper length for the shoulder. Cast off, but be particular that the slanting side is not in front; finish the other side in the same way, then take up the stitches for the back; knit thirty-six rows, to correspond with the fronts for the arm-hole; then knit backwards and forwards, leaving one rib each way, until it is the same length as the slanting part in front, which are to be joined together; cast off; now take up the white stitches on each side, and knit till it is long enough to go up the sides; for the sleeves; cast on seventy-two stitches, knit thirty rows, then twelve more, leaving one rib on the one side to form the wide part; for the collar; cast on seventy-six stitches, and knit twelve rows, leaving one rib on each side; then sixteen rows of white; cast off; cast on eighteen stitches for the cuff, and knit till it is long enough to go round the bottom of the sleeve; twist a cord of the same coloured wool, and put in the waist behind, with a tassel at the ends; the same under the collar. These may be done in four-thread fleecy, but they look much better in double Berlin wool, No. 9 pins, by the Eagle gauge. For a lady's, you must cast on stitches in proportion, and larger pins.

Another online version of Cooper's book is available through Google Books.

"Polka Jacket Trimmed with Imitation Ermine" (1856)

The term "polka jacket" is rarely defined in period sources, but derives not from the dance but from the military jacket of the same name.

The General Regulations for the Military Forces of the State of New York (1870) describes their version, one of the two "Uniform Coat[s] for the Non-Commissioned Officers, Musicians and Privates of the National Guard Infantry" as "differing from the chasseur jacket [described meticulously in the article's previous paragraph], in being without skirt, but extending without seam five inches below the hip; without opening or buttons behind, and round edge in front" (p.252).  Women's knitted polka jackets seem to be fairly consistent in their details -- a single-breasted close-fitting jacket, usually collarless, with long sleeves and smooth skirt with rounded fronts, often trimmed, as this one is, in faux ermine, and apparently always worked in brioche stitch, possibly because brioche's inherent stretchiness made it easier to fit smoothly.

Here is the full pattern from the January-June 1856 issue of "Godey's Lady's Magazine" --

 A similar polka jacket from an 1849 issue of "Family Friend" was transcribed by Carol Rhodes and appears in modern-pattern format in Helen Bonney's article in the January/February 2013 issue of "PieceWork" magazine.

"Melon hood for summer wear"

"Melon Hood for Summer Wear" by Mrs. Jane Weaver, Peterson's, August 1859

A melon hood looks from the illustration to be similar in general effect to this opera hood from Godey's a few years later --

Godey's lady's book, v.65, (Jul.-Dec.1862), p.122