Green Plaid Summer Dress, 1855

I did actually finish the plain summer dress I wanted for 1850s events. It's a shirting weight cotton, so noticeably cooler than my brown calico, with a yoked bodice, gauged skirt, and bishop sleeves. The cuffs fasten with buttons, so they're easier to roll up when working in the kitchen.

 

The calico stenciling on the cuff buttons are this dress's only ornament, though I cut the yoke on the bias to add some visual interest. I wanted to do the same for the waistband (despite having done that on my last summer-weight green plaid), but didn't have enough fabric to do it without extensive piecing. 

I like that it's cool and comfortable, though the neckline is still giving me trouble. It's been my main 1850s dress since last June (mostly interpreting cooking and similar physical work), and is now going into the closet until the weather warms up again. 

Muffatees (modern interpretation)

This project's mostly a modern interpretation, but I like how it turned out. I'm calling them muffatees, since they follow the general form (tube with a thumb slit) of one of the common historic variations. This form show up, for instance, in the Driving Mitts and Knit Muffatee patterns in The Workwoman's Guide.

Muffatees in 3-1 mock rib.

 

The 3-1 mock rib, knit in the round, is not a historic variation to my knowledge; I've found patterns for muffatees in 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, and 4-2 ribbing. However, of the options available on my machine, I thought that it would give the best coverage, while retaining at least some of the appearance and flexibility of ribbing. The yarn is a lace-weight pale purple that's actually 50% wool, 35% alpaca, and 15% linen. I love color, and the materials were certainly available in the mid-1850s, but as I haven't found any examples of wool/alpaca/linen blend yarn being used in English-language sources from that period, I decided to use this yarn for a modern gift instead.

Eyelet Muffatees

Definitely in the interpretation realm, using the cuff and motif from the "eyelet mittens" in Miss Watt's The Ladies' Knitting and Netting Book: Second Series (1840) as a muffatee/cuff. 

Cuffs or muffatees based on an 1840 mitten pattern.

While I think this is a historically sound interpretation to mix motifs with form (for instance, the 'shell pattern manchettes' two pages later specifically mention that the pattern also works well for mittens), I also think I have enough departures from the given recipe to warrant the 'interpretation' label. Main changes:

1. Made the muffatees symmetric by adding another section of ribbing at the far end, and working 4 plain rows before the first eyelet row, not only after.
2. Sixty rather than 66 stitches around (limited by cylinder size).
3. Because I still can't get the ribber working in time, I substituted mock-rib for true ribbing. I tried to compensate for any lost warmth by making the mock-rib sections double-layered (a hung hem).

On the other hand, the elements that these do have going for them:

1. Accurate material: I made these out of a fine wool yarn, opting for an indigo-dyed light blue.
2. The knitting machine (which did exist in the period!) makes the same stockinette stitches as knitting by hand, and the eyelets can be made on it quite easily.
3. Historic precedence in this and other sources for the shape (knit tube for the wrist or forearm without a thumb slit), which come in variety of lengths and may be variously called muffatees, cuffs, or manchettes. 

For the set-up, I used my 60-cylinder set to a 2-2 mock-rib. I set the tension to 1L3, determined through experiment with the other muffatee patterns I've been trying in similar yarn weights. This is also how I got my gauge of ~10 rows to the inch.

1) Worked 20 rows of mock-rib.

2) Hung the hem, adding in the missing needles at the same time, and picking up stiches for them.

3) Knit 4 rows plain.

4) Knit 1 row eyelets by moving every second stitch to the previous needle.

5) Knit another 4 rows plain, 1 row eyelets, 4 rows plain, 1 row eyelets, 4 rows plain.

6) Remove every 3rd and 4th needle (transferring the active stitches from the third needle to the second and the fourth to the first).

7) Knit 20 rows 2-2 mock rib.

8) Remove from machine and sew up the hem on the second side.

I'm generally happy with how these turned out. I was surprised at how the mock-rib changed appearance between the first and second sections, and despite using the same tension settings and weight. Blocking them did help. I ended up not liking the double-layer on the mock rib as much as I thought, since it overshadows the eyelet section. Next time, I'd like to see how it looks with true ribbing, even if I have to work it by hand. Visually, I'd also like to make the eyelet section longer (maybe 5 or 7 rows of eyelet), though the overall length fits nicely over the wrist. It could also be fun to adapt this pattern into a hand-covering muffatee (ribbing at the wrist and maybe the fingers, eyelet over the hand, with a slit for the thumb) 

Foods in Season: November, 1861

Checking Beeton's Book of Household Management to see what's in season for November, we are definitely starting to see a reduction in available ingredients.

Fish- Brill, carp, cod, crabs, eels, gudgeons, haddocks, oysters, pike, soles, tench, turbot, whitling.

Meat- Beef, mutton, veal, doe venison.

Poultry- Chickens, fowls, geese, larks, pigeons, pullets, rabbits, teal, turkeys, widgeon, wild ducks.

Game- Hares, partridges, pheasant, snipes, woodcocks, doe venison. 

Vegetables- Beetroot, cabbages, carrots, celery, lettuces, late cucumbers, onions, potatoes,  salading, spinach, sprouts--various kitchen herbs.

Fruit- Apples, bullaces, chestnuts, filberts, grapes, pears, walnuts.

The fish list lost barbel, flounder, lobster, mullet, plaice, prawns, and skate, gaining in return cod and pike. Pork is off the meat list again. No changes to poultry. Blackcock and grouse came off the game menu (and doe venison was moved into "meat"), with no new additions. Root vegetables and cool-weather greens dominate the vegetable list, which has since last month lost artichokes, cauliflower, tomatoes, mushrooms, pease, turnips, and vegetable marrow. It did see the addition of late cucumbers, though [which confuses me, since my cucumber plants were at their most prolific through July/August and active into September, all months which do not list cucumbers at all.] The fruit category lost damsons, figs, and quinces, but gained chestnuts; we're firmly into an autumn mix of hard tree-fruits, nuts, and grapes.

Originals: Silk Mantle, 1850s

Woman's mantle in off-white silk taffeta. This item is listed as a pelerine, though I disagree: the size (down to the elbow on the sides and past the waist in front) and shape more closely resemble a mantle, in my opinion.  

 

"Pelerine" (mantle), 1850s, in LACMA.

 

It's worth zooming in for a look at that self-fabric trim. It appears to be a variation on puffed gathering; there's a minimum of two rows all around the edges, expanding to four at the elbows, which adds a delightfully subtle extra bit of shaping there.

October Mending

Not much mending this month: just fixing the bones of my 1850s corset as they escape, and darning my red wool stockings just before Candlelight Tours. Fortunately, this left some time for new sewing projects, which will hopefully be done in time for December events.

Tablet-Woven Belt, 14th Centuty

Silk, made with 14 tablets. The pattern is a simple stripe (2 rows yellow, 2 rows green) based on a surviving fragment documented in Textiles and Clothing: Medieval Finds from Excavations in London (page 133, fig 100c) as a girdle or spur strap from the second half of the 14th century. It also appears in Dress Accessories (page 48). The original fragment is two colors: one source give pink and green/yellow, the other pink and yellow/white.

I wanted it to follow the narrow, long trailing belt styles popular in the 14th century (as on this statue or this surviving belt), which seemed congruent with the width of the surviving fragment. For the belt fittings, I used the "garter buckle and chape" set from Billy & Charlie's, which is meant to be 14th to early 15th century in style, and which fit the size of the band I was weaving.

The main lesson from this project was so fun that I got to learn it twice: re-read the instructions if you've set a project aside for months/years. For the weaving, I had gone so long between warping and weaving that I forget that 'using a finer weft on warp-faced tablet weave is necessary or else it will distort the pattern' is basically the first rule of tablet weaving. Alas, my clever idea of using the same silk for warp and weft to get cleaner selvedges also turned the lines of the pattern into zig-zags. And then when it came to installing the buckle and chape, I used an unnecessary extra pin (for which there really wasn't enough room), because there was a spare in the kit and I incorrectly assumed both should be needed. Again, if I'd taken a moment to check the item specs, this could have been avoided.

That being said, I did like working with the silk thread. The simple pattern made it very easy to bring this project out to public events, since it was easy to stop and start without losing count.