The Jenny Lind collar

 

Jenny Lind, 1850. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-38268). Lind was noted for her modest clothing and demeanor, in the days when women on the stage were thought to be little better than prostitutes.

 These collars are all of the "Jenny Lind" type, named for the wildly-popular Swedish soprano of the 1840s and 50s.  Note the slight differences here and there, which may be due to local fashion, the date, or the ladies themselves.

Said to be dated 1852.

 

Maria L. Smiley, Philadelphia, 1851. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) 

 

 This young woman has gussied up her collar with a wide ribbon underneath.

 Mrs. Warren published a collar of "Swedish lace à la Jenny Lind" in her Point Lace Crochet Collar Book (Second Series) in 1847 --

The Amazons' red caps

"Swallows and Amazons" (1974)

In the classic series of children's books by Arthur Ransome that began in 1930 with the eponymous Swallows and Amazons, the Blackett sisters usually wear distinctive red knitted caps.  The caps aren't described much, only that they are knitted and that the red color can be seen for miles, as when the four Walker children aboard their beloved "Swallow" can easily recognize "Amazon" as she tacks across the lake, by the red caps of her crew.

"Swallows and Amazons" (2016). Peggy has somehow got hold of a striped cap here, instead of the usual red one.

Because Ransome was so vague about the style of cap that Nancy and Peggy wear, we have more leeway in choosing a pattern.  In 1920s England, a watch cap pattern would be a logical choice, and would certainly have been available to a knitting mother or grandmother who had a relative in the merchant marine or the Navy, who had knitted for servicemen during the recent War as so many women did, or who simply had sailors in the family, as do both the Walkers and the Blacketts.

"Crow's Nest Cap" pattern, probably from the 1910s, from "The Needle-Worker" magazine's booklet Comforts for Sailors, and How to Knit Them. Note that the cap is worked from the top down.

One could also get a bit more elaborate than a simple watch cap, as the costumers did for these two filmed versions -- the 1974 Blacketts wear a longer version more like a ski cap with pompom, while the 2016 Blacketts' caps look very like the voyageur style.

"Girl with ice skates," 1917

 "Girl with ice skates, interior from the school household, Falun" (1917) by Carl Larsson.

Larsson conveys the texture of knitted wool wonderfully even in a small watercolor -- though as knitters we'd perhaps like to see that interesting hem in more detail!  This looks like a typical 1910s jumper, possibly with a finer one in cream underneath, or the grey has a cream collar in addition to the cream band around the wrists and possibly the hem as well.  The cream color matches with the girl's hat, probably a felted knit much like this timeless one from Knit Picks.

"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.

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!

What is a cephaline?

Esther Copley, in her Comprehensive Knitting-Book (1849), writes of the cephaline, "A very simple and useful article of this kind is merely a straight piece of knitting worked in wide ribs, and gathered in at the ends to ribbon strings, by which to tie it under the chin. It suits equally well as a ruff for the neck.  It may be made merely as a wide band to cover the ears, or to spread out as to cover the head.  The only difference is in the number of ribs" (p.146).  A netted version in Miss Lambert's 1840 The Ladies' Knitting and Netting Book ("second series"), notes that it is "to be worn on the head on leaving heated rooms", and various encyclopedias of the day (such as Alden's in 1888 and the Columbian of 1897), presumably having copied wholesale from each other in those days before copyright, defined it as "a knitted woolen band passing round the head and over the ears, as a preservation against cold, worn by ladies" (though note that these two at least were long after patterns for a cephaline disappeared from knitting receipt books!).

I have found a few instances of "Cephaline" used as a first name, for American girls born here and there throughout the 19th century (all in Southern states) -- in one instance at least, it was possibly a feminized version of her grandfather's name, Cephas, a Biblical name meaning "rock" in Aramaic.  However, the prefix cephalo-, used in another definition of "cephaline," means "head" -- Dictionary.com gives "<Greek kephalo-, combining form of kephalḗ head; akin to gable," so this seems the more-likely origin of the word for this particular garment.

The cephaline sounds quite like a melon hood or an opera hood except that the latter, at least in Godey's 1856 version, is longer, sort of a cap/muffler combination (though, to add to the confusion, sometimes it isn't), where Mrs. Copley says that the cephaline is tied "under the chin", much like Mrs. Weaver's melon hood of 1859.

In addition to Mrs. Copley's pattern, one for "A Sontag, or Cephaline" (sic!) can be found in Frances Lambert's My Knitting Book of 1843 (Ravelry link here), and one in Miss Watts's Selection of Knitting, Netting & Crochet Work (1844).

"A Manual of Worsted Work" from Lion Brand Yarns, 1912

An "automobile or aviation turban" (pp.74-75) for those exciting new modes of transportation! Note, too, this early use of chunky yarns.

Lion Brand Yarns' 1912 A Manual of Worsted Work for Those Who Knit and Crochet includes illustrated sections on how to knit and crochet, with useful and clearly-illustrated stitch dictionaries for both knitting and crochet (including crocheted borders), patterns for garments to suit babies, children, men, and women -- though do note that most of the women's patterns are sized to fit a 34 to 36-inch bust (86 to 92 cm) only -- and patterns for afghans, "couch robes," etc. and "novelties" from leading reins to a dog coat. A treasure trove!

The entire book is available free through Archive.org.

"My Knitting Book" by Miss Lambert

 From the introduction:

The examples of knitting, contained in the following pages, have been selected with the greatest care,—many are original,—and the whole are so arranged as to render them comprehensible even to a novice in the art.

Knitting being so often sought, as an evening amusement, both by the aged and by invalids, a large and distinct type has been adopted,—as affording an additional facility. The writer feels confident in the recommendation of "My Knitting Book," and humbly hopes it may meet with the same liberal reception that has been accorded to her "Hand-Book of Needlework."

The numerous piracies that have been committed on her last mentioned work, have been one inducement to publish this little volume; and from the low price at which it is fixed, nothing, but a very extended circulation, can ensure her from loss. Some few of the examples have been selected from the chapter on knitting, in the "Hand-Book."

3, New Burlington Street,
November 1843.

The full text (with typographical errors corrected) of Miss Lambert's My Knitting Book (1843) is available on Gutenberg.org.

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 ...!)