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!

"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.