Knit Sleeves, 1849

Plain under-sleeve.

I needed a set of knit undersleeves to go with my new wool basque, which, being red, would not look well with the blue-edged sleeves I usually wear with my blue wool dress. Being pressed for time, I wanted something that would translate well to the circular knitting machine, and ideally was fairly plain. I ended up opting for the 'Under-Sleeve (long)' in Esther Copley's The Comprehensive Knitting Book (1849).

Starting from the cuff, the sleeve is to be knit with 12 rows of 1-1 ribbing, and is then knit plain for the rest of its length. The instructions call gradually increasing the number of stitches (making a sleeve that fits fairly close to the arm), and describes both shoulder-length and elbow-length variations. They do not, however, specify whether the sleeve is to be knit in the round or knit flat and then seamed. I take that to mean that it is left to the maker's choice (or was so obvious at the time as to not need to be said).
 

The main departure in turning this into a circular machine project was adding the hung hem at the upper edge, and working down from there. I used the machine tension to give the sleeve a little shaping, and ran a waste thread 13 rows before my the desired length. Off the machine, I then frogged those 13 rows, transferred the live stitches to a size 1 circular needle, and re-knit them as 12 rows of 1-1 ribbing, with 13th used to cast off.

I'm fairly satisfied with the sleeves. I wish I'd made them a little bit longer; I was calculating for an upper-arm length, but ended up about 4" shorted than desired (when worn, they go about two inches past the elbow, which should be sufficient even if it wasn't what I wanted). In retrospect, I could have just run an entire ball through the machine for each sleeve, tried them on, marked the cuff, and then frogged back to there. The process worked just fine though, with the waste thread being very helpful to mark the appropriate location and to transfer the stitches. The size 1 knitting needles were a close match to the stitch size of the machine, though it took a few rows for the tension to even out, which looked pretty rough at first, though blocking helped a lot. If making these again, I would opt for double-points rather than a circular needle, since the cuff was so much smaller than the needle that I was constantly fighting with the excess length.

Similar instructions for 'Lambs-Wool Sleeves' appear in Miss Watts' The Ladies' Knitting and Netting Book (1845) but with 3" ribbed cuffs and a 1.5" ribbed upper edge, the sleeve in between being otherwise knit plain, to whatever length is desired. Interestingly, this sleeve doesn't call for adding stitches to shape, but instead seems to be more of a straight tube.

Foods in Season: December, 1861

Coming to the end of the year, it's time to see what Beeton's Book of Household Management has to say about foods available in December:

Fish- Barbel, brill, carp, cod, crabs, dace, eels, gudgeons, haddocks, herrings, lobsters, oysters, perch, pike, shrimps, skate, sprats, soles, tench, thornback, turbot, whitling.

Meat- Beef, house lamb, mutton, pork, venison.

Poultry- Capons, chickens, fowls, geese, pigeons, pullets, rabbits, teal, turkeys, widgeon, wild ducks.

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

Vegetables- Broccoli, cabbages, carrots, celery, leeks, late cucumbers, onions, potatoes,  Scotch kale, turnips, winter spinach.

Fruit- Apples, chestnuts, filberts, grapes, medlars, oranges, pears, walnuts, dried fruits, such as almonds and raisins, dates, figs, &c.,--crystallized preserves.

Overall, most categories have either expanded or held consistent (in number if not exact content) from November to December. Fish gained barbel, dace, herrings, lobsters, perch, shrimps, skate, sprats, and thornback. Pork has returned to the meat list, with house lamb replacing veal. Capons have returned to the poultry list, while larks have moved out of season. Game is unchanged, beyond venison moving into the meat category. Broccoli, leeks, parsnips, Scotch kale, turnips, and winter spinach replaced beetroot, lettuces, salading, spinach, sprouts, and 'kitchen herbs' (very neat--six old vegetables out and six new in). In the fruit category, bullaces have gone out of season, but medlars, oranges, and various dried and crystalized fruit have come in.

Looking back/ahead to January, options are actually going to grow as the season progresses. Fish will gain the addition of crayfish, flounders, and lampreys and no removals. The meat category will contract slightly with the loss of chickens and the various ducks, though some of those might simply be counted in the "wild-fowl" which will join the game list, along with grouse. Beetroot, chervil, cresses, forced cucumber, endive, lettuces, savoys and 'various herbs' will be added to the vegetable list, with only the loss of Scotch kale. And finally, the fruit category will gain (dried) French and Spanish plums and prunes.

I hope you've also found this an interesting exercise to look at ingredients available throughout the year. I mostly found the vegetable category to line up with my own garden (except for the cucumbers and tomatoes), and appreciated the chance to reflect on how things like fruit and meat go in and out of season. Though I try to keep such things in mind when planning historic menus, I find these sorts of reminders helpful, as most of my lived experience of food availability has been colored by cold-storage and international shipping.

Original: Open-work Stockings, 1855

With all the Christmas presents in progress, I have knit stockings on my mind. This pair of openwork cotton stockings in the MFA is certainly worthy of admiration:

Cotton stockings, 1855. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In addition to being from one of my main reenacting years, the things that caught my eye about these stockings is the placement of the pattern work along the lower calf and top of the foot. While these could have been worn with the popular ankle-boots and gaiters of the period, those options would entirely cover the detailed open-work design. And while plenty of undergarments have decorative elements that would never be seen by anyone but the wearer, it does leave me wondering whether these specific stockings were meant to be worn with a slipper. Such a low, open shoe style would leave all the patterned areas of the stockings visible (should the foot/ankle be seen) rather than specifically covering them.

Plain Collar and Cuffs, Late 1850s

I didn't have much mending to do this month, and instead I was mostly finishing new projects. One of these was a simple collar and cuff set. Several of my white collars need replacing, and I have fewer pairs of white cotton cuffs than I have bishop-sleeved dresses which need them, so this was a timely project.

The aforementioned accessories.

The collar was traced from one of the 1850s examples in Liz Clark's collar pattern (and adjusted to fit my new green dress's neckline), and the cuffs are simply drafted from that dress's wrist measurements. Both are constructed of a single-layer of white cotton batiste, hemmed on three sides, and finished with a bias-band of the same fabric.  

Simple Muffatee for a Gentleman, 1859

Adapted from Mlle Riego's The Winter Knitting Book for 1859.  As given, the pattern is for a 2-2 ribbed tube (knit flat and seamed), which is then joined again to make a two layer muffatee. I knit in the round, on the machine, rather than flat, and switched the 2-2 rib for 3-1 mock-rib due to my on-going difficulties with the ribber attachment.

 

Muffatees in original color scheme.

I maintained the color scheme in the original for my first attempt (white with colored stripes), and reversed it for the second. A third pair was made in a solid color in a 2-2 mock rib; while they turned out fine, I think the stripes add a lot of interest to the finished appearance of the muffatees. I used a faux Russian join to make the color changes in the first two sets, and found it very easy to do (especially as the double layering meant the ends didn't need to be trimmed further). To close the tubes, I used Kitchener stitch (grafting) to join the live stitches on either end, rather than hemming each separately and then joining them together. 

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the result. I was surprised at the finished size (60 rows, after doubling, is rather a long muffatee), but will have to wait for feedback from the wearers. I did make the other two pairs slightly smaller after seeing the first set: the second striped set are only 48 rows on their finished length, and the solid ones 50. I reduced the length because I was thinking of these as primarily worn over the wrist and the full length would thus cover most of the forearm. However, I'm now wondering if they aren't meant to be worn a bit higher, to cover the hand up to just below the thumb (as there's no slit for the thumb to pass through) as well as the wrist and part of the forearm. Looks like some experimentation is in order.

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.