Cross-over (1886)

 

 

The 1886 edition of Mrs. Croly's Knitting and Crochet gives a pattern for a "cross-over," which anyone who does even a little bit of historical knitting will recognize is the same garment as a sontag.  This particular pattern will result in a triangle with a blunted bottom, which will be the back of the garment, with  opposing right-angle triangles worked at the sides forming the "cross-over" pieces, more-or-less the standard sontag shape.

Curiously, Mrs. Croly gives instructions to trim the garment, but not how to secure it while wearing.

Note also that the method of increasing the size is simply to use larger wool and needles!

"Needlework for ladies for pleasure and profit"; and, What is a penwiper?

The 3rd edition -- "revised and enlarged" -- of Needlework for Ladies for Pleasure and Profit by "Dorinda" (London : Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, 1886) is available online at the Internet Archive courtesy of the generous folks at the University of Southampton Digital Library.

The book is geared towards ladies who find themselves, through no fault of their own, surely, in distressed circumstances, and need a respectable source of income.  (The "pleasure" part of the needlework is clearly subsidiary to the "profit", but it is kind of the author to emphasize that pleasure can be taken in work done well.)  The first part of the book discusses the practicalities of making and selling various kinds of needlework, including which kinds are more marketable than others due to fashion trends, etc., and the last part lists work societies across Britain that sold needlework on commission (some of whom required references -- "one from a clergyman" -- this being 1886, after all), some by post, others in person.  The middle part of the book is patterns for knitted items, crochet, and "miscellaneous items" -- fringes, balls and reins for children, penwipers*, etc. etc.  While the knitting "recipes" do not give much idea of gauge, they do at least give needle sizes along with the suggested wools, so that the knitter does get some idea of the intended gauge.

There is, alas, not a single illustration in the book.

*When one finished writing with either a dip pen or a fountain pen, it had to be wiped clean so that the leftover ink didn't dry up and clog the nib.  Penwipers could come in a dizzying array of forms, from ones very like brush boot scrapers to folded fans to a (rather frightening) doll's head or felted or sewn animals atop the circles of fabric that were the actual wiping surface.  (And, yes, the succulent Kalanchoe marmorata is called "penwiper plant" due to its resemblance to the folded and stacked circles of fabric out of which penwipers were often made!)

A child's chest protector

Ann Budd updated the pattern for this child's chest protector from vol.7 of Weldon's Practical Needlework -- her version is published free on the "Piecework" magazine blog.

Budd's version is whip-stitched together at the sides, probably more practical for a modern child than the tabard-like original -- presumably it tied so that it would fit over however many layers in which the Victorian child was dressed that particular day, before being sent outdoors!

"Each rib of the design measures about half an inch"

"Lady's Knitted Under-Vest" from Harper's Bazar [sic], 10 December 1870, pp.789-790.

Anne L. Macdonald, in her No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (Ballantine, c1988) writes that

The first mention of gauge seen by this author, in Harper's Bazaar in 1870, was a "Lady's Knitted Under Vest ... to be worn under high-necked dresses instead of a vest."  Instructions called for "heavy wooden Needles in the common patent* stitch," the needle size to be determined by whatever produced this result: "Each rib of the design measures about half an inch, 8 rounds in length being 1 1/4 inches."  In 1885, "Jenny June" finally advised knitters to make a swatch (though she didn't use that term): "Knit a few rows, and then measure them carefully.  You will see thus how many rows of your work make an inch and can calculate exactly how many stitches will be needed."

The bibliographic note on p.390 gives the citations as 10 December 1879 [sic], p.789 for the Harper's Bazaar, and "Croly, p.14" for the Jennie June (the pen name of Jane Cunningham Croly), though the only title by Mrs. Croly in the bibliography is her Sorosis: Its Origin and History, and I confess I cannot find the quotation there.  It does, however, appear in her Knitting and Crochet: A Guide to the Use of the Needle and the Hook (Ingalls, 1886), on p.14 --

Gauge, or more accurately the lack thereof in period knitting patterns, is probably the bane of historical knitters' existence -- as it was very likely to many knitters in the past, as well. It seems astonishing now that it took some thirty years' worth of knitting "receipts" and books before a pattern writer took pity enough to include a note on gauge, so let us send a grateful sigh of thanks to the unnamed Harper's Bazaar author who not only included an illustration of the finished piece but gave an idea of gauge!

* For "patent knitting," note Mrs. Croly's "No. 37a. BRIOCHE, OR PATENT KNITTING. Cast on a number of stitches divisible by three. First (and every) row.— Cotton forward, slip 1, knit 2 together," which is not the modern "brioche" stitch but produces a similar thickly-ribbed fabric.

"Knitted Legging for Children from One to Two Years"

"Knitted Legging for Children from One to Two Years" from Babyhood : the mother's nursery guide, ed. by Marion Harland and Leroy Milton Yale, v.3 (1886-87), p.99.