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!

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!