Shoulder shawl for refugees (1918)

The Junior Red Cross Activities Teachers Manual, published by the American Red Cross in October, 1918, includes suggestions ("not ... presented in detail ... but adaptable to the usual course of study") for a shawl to be knitted or crocheted by students for donation to refugees from France and Belgium, the countries hardest-hit by the fighting of the Great War, which had in fact not yet ended when the manual was published.  There were estimated to have been some quarter-million civilian Belgian refugees to Britain alone, and the American Red Cross helped to provide humanitarian relief to refugees there and in other countries.

It is interesting that the directions for the shawl request that the circular version at least be worked with  a permanent fold in the middle, an unusual feature.  Dark colors were presumed to be preferred by the recipients, Andrea of Unsung Sewing Patterns suspects because of their limited resources for laundering.

Note also that a first-year high school student would be expected to be capable of making the shawl, more-or-less without a pattern!

Knitted items included in the Manual with (basic) patterns are babies' caps (page 326), wash cloths (page 328), and scrub cloths "or trench mops" out of muslin strips "for camp and hospital use" (page 376).

Two "shawl-scarves" and a pelerine-collar (1861)

"On mete un boutonnière à chaque bout de chale, et un gros bouton à la pointe de derrière, atin de croiser le chàle, et d'en fixer les extrémités sur ce bouton; nous engageons toute nos lectrices à faire ce chàle-écharpe, qui leur évitera des rhumes, et peut-étre des fluxions de poitrine" = We put a buttonhole on each end of the shawl [pictured at left], and a large button on the back point, in order to cross the shawl, and to fix the ends of it on this button; we urge all our readers to make this shawl-scarf, which will save them colds, and perhaps chest inflammations.

 

 

The French fashion magazine "La Mode Illustrée" -- similar in content and intended audience to "Godey's" et al. -- published these three patterns early in its career, in January 1861.  The two "shawl-scarves" are knitted, while the pelerine-collar is crocheted. "The fashion for cloth coats, infinitely less warm than quilted coats, resulted in the adoption of the shawl-scarf, to which we are devoting two designs today" -- admirably practical!

The first shawl appears to be an early instance of a sontag -- a waist-length U-shaped garment that crosses over the chest and wraps around the waist to the back, and is fastened with buttons on the ends, or with ties that come around to the front.

The sontag (1860)

The December 1860 issue of the "American Agriculturalist" magazine gave a pattern by Marian M. Pullan for "a sort of woolen habit-shirt that ... makes a warm and not cumbrous wrapper under a mantle" (in those days when a woman's usual outer garment was a cloak, not a coat).  Note that Mrs. Pullan had to explain what a sontag was!

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!

Ladies' knitted square shawl (1892)

This pretty shawl from the 1892 "Delineator" magazine has a center field worked in blackberry stitch, still a popular choice for shawls etc. today. Somewhat unusually, a measurement for a finished section is given -- on the other hand, eighteen inches (45-46 cm) for the center, even allowing maybe half again for the borders, seems on the small side for a shawl, but perhaps it is meant for the shoulders.

Blackberry stitch is known by many names: trinity, bramble, raspberry, cluster. Slight variations abound, as one might expect!

Blackberry Stitch à la The Delineator

Over a multiple of 4 sts.

Row 1 (RS): *(K1, P1, K1) all in the same st, P3tog, rep from * to end.

Row 2: Purl.

Row 3: *P3tog, (K1, P1, K1) all in the same st, rep from * across. 

Row 4: Purl. 

Repeat these four rows for pattern. 

(A "Delineator" reader was apparently confused by this stitch, as a paragraph appeared in the "Answers to Correspondents" column of a later issue, viz., "[To] Miss M. R. : In knitting ladies' square shawl, first row knit 1, purl 1, and knit 1 out of 1 or next stitch, thus making 3, which you will find take the place of the 3 stitches purled together. This will neither widen nor narrow, but keep the shawl square. Treat the third row in the same manner" [v.41, p.xvi].)

"La Mode Shawl for Mourning" (1862)

This shawl for mourning wear is from Mlle. Riego's La Mode Winter Book (1862).  There were strict customs for mourning, with different garments, fabrics, and quantities of black as well as specific time frames depending on one's relationship to the deceased -- deepest mourning for an immediate family member, "second" mourning for a more distant one, with "half" mourning being the lessening before returning to ordinary dress.  (See "Mourning in the 1860s" at Sew Historically and "Stages of (Victorian) Mourning and Fifty Shades of Purple" at Lilac and Bombazine, among others, for examples.)

Mlle. Riego's pattern is for a half-mourning shawl, as mauve, grey, or white were the first colors allowed after the year during which a widow, for example, would wear deepest mourning.  An 1860s-era knitter could, of course, knit pretty much any garment in black and call it mourning wear, but this shawl is interesting in that it is designed specifically for that purpose.

All of the patterns in this book except for the mourning shawl are in "tricot écossais," or what we now usually call Tunisian crochet.  

Note that the shawl pattern is written using British terms, that is, its treble stitch is equivalent to the American DC -- but it is otherwise very simple, being in what we now call, perhaps because of shawls like this one, "granny stitch".

"Spitalfields Nippers"

Today's post on the blog "Spitalfields Life" is another selection of photographic portraits by Horace Warner, about which the Gentle Author writes,

Around 1900, Photographer, Wallpaper Designer and Sunday School Teacher Horace Warner took portraits of children in Quaker St, who were some of the poorest in London at that time. When his personal album of these astonishing photographs came to light six years ago, we researched the lives of his subjects and published a book of all his portraits accompanied by biographies of the children.

A number of the children are wearing knitted or crocheted garments -- Jeremiah "Jerry" Donovan, aged about five, has a dark woollen chest-warmer knitted in horizontal ridges, Adelaide Springett, aged about seven, is wearing "all her best clothes," including a crocheted shawl in a simple net stitch.  Dolly (Lydia) Green, age twelve, is also wearing a crocheted shawl, this one with wide stripes, perhaps in a simple treble crochet (double crochet in US terminology).

Jerry's scarf would have been knitted something like this: K 1 row, P 1 row, K 2 rows, P 1 row, K 1 row, repeat to desired length, which on every 4th row of the repeat turns the purl "ridge" to the other side.

Adelaide's shawl is very like the Square Mesh stitch from the 1940s Complete Guide to Modern Knitting and Crocheting, available at Free Vintage Crochet (adapted here to include both UK and US terms):

Make chain foun­dation to desired length, plus 5 more ch for turning.

Row 1: 1 TC (US = DC) in 7th ch, * ch2, skip 2 ch, 1 TC (US = DC) in next ch. Repeat from * across row, ending with 1 TC (US = DC). 

Row 2. Ch5 to turn, * 1 TC (US = DC) in TC (US = DC) of previous row, ch2, skip 2 ch of previous row. Repeat from * across row, and end with 1 TC (US = DC) in 3rd ch of group of 5 ch of previous row. 

Repeat Row 2 to desired length.

Two sonntags

Sontags -- or sometimes, though rarely, "sonntags" as here -- apparently had a revival in the 1910s, when Lion Brand Yarns included two patterns, one knitted and one crocheted, in their 1912 book A Manual of Worsted Work. Both featured the faux ermine border so popular with their grandmothers in the 1850s.  It's a shame that this useful garment didn't catch on (again), but perhaps that is because in 1912 it doesn't quite suit the very-fashionable "pigeon breast" puff at the waist of the S-curve figure as modeled by Miss Crochet in these photos -- but historical knitters now might appreciate the Lion patterns for their more explicit instructions than the earlier generation's!

Miss Mary Campbell's Shetland shawl

Shetland shawl of cream wool, in the collection of the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The National Museums of Scotland write, "This shawl of handspun and handknitted wool was made in Shetland. It was given to Miss Mary Campbell of Jura on the occasion of her marriage in 1863 and is a copy of the shawl presented that year to Princess Alexandra of Wales by the Shetland Islanders."

The dimensions of the shawl are given as 2400 mm x 1230 mm (about 95 in. by 49 in.).

For a modern interpretation of this shawl, see "The Princess Shawl" by Shannon Miller.

(It seems to me, by the way, certainly not an expert on Shetland lace, that the triangular shape is rather unusual, perhaps even wildly so.  Most of the "traditional" lace shawls I've seen, and certainly the ones blocking in this well-known period photo --

are square, and so I will tag this post with the "earliest known" label until further notice ...!)

"Victorian Slum House"

Adrian and Wiebke Bird.

A portrait from episode 2 (1870s) of "Victorian Slum House" showing a crocheted shawl, worn by shopkeeper Mrs. Bird with the ends wrapped around her waist and tied at the back.

"London Eyre Shawl"

 

(There may have been two shawls used in the film, as this one looks considerably smaller than the one in the photos below.)

The London Eyre Shawl free pattern by Donna Strom recreates the shawl worn by Mia Wasikowska as the title character in "Jane Eyre" (2011).  Strom notes,

The London Eyre Shawl pattern was created and named solely by me as a replication/copy of a shawl which appears briefly in the 2011 Focus Features film production of "Jane Eyre" -- costume design by Michael O'Connor. According to Focus Features the original shawl was free-knitted by the owner of a company near London, England which produces custom pieces for period films. The name of the pattern is my way of paying tribute to the talented original knitter -- whose name is not known to me. To the best of my knowledge, no written pattern exists for the original shawl.

Note that Charlotte Brontë's novel was published in 1847, though is set somewhat earlier. Most film adaptations tend to use fashions of the 1840s for the main part of the story.

Short rows contribute to much of the shaping in this shawl.