Deciphering Historical Clothes: Czech wristwarmers from the 1880s

The HSM theme for March is Protection. Looking through my pins of Czech historical garments, I was left uninspired in that regard. (I try to focus on Czech collections in this series now, because it's a good way for me to study and showcase my own country's history!) Until I remembered an item I'd already wracked my head about, an item that protects from cold, so it fits the theme beautifully. Even more so because we've got snow now! Makes my plans of finishing a straw hat or covering an umbrella / parasol kind of less attractive than taking up my needles...

Yep, I'm doing a different thing this time around: I'm looking at a knit garment. Well, an accessory of a super-simple not-shaped kind; but made interesting with lots of colours.

Apologies to my non-knitting readers, and a warm welcome to those who knit. :-) I'm still something of a beginner intermediate in the world of knitting, but things like this inspire me to get better!

There isn't much knitting to be found in Czech online collections so far, sadly; it seems knitting, on the whole, wasn't such a big part of Czech folk culture as it tends to be in colder climates. Or at least not big enough for museum collectors to focus on it. :P But I've still found a few very interesting things (notably, Moravian Wallachian socks!). And one very, very striking thing was this pair of patterned wristwarmers that not only uses seven colours, but one of those colours is even metallic silver!

Knitted wristwarmers, wool and silver metalic thread, Czech lands, 1880s. The ethnographic collections of Národní muzeum, ID: H4-5999ab

Not a sort of thing you'd see in Moravian Wallachia, I think. The description on Esbirky unfortunately does not specify where exactly these do come from; but it does give another very helpful detail for deciphering and possible recreating: the dimensions. Cca 20 cm around and 12 cm long. I'd slate them for a woman's wristwarmers based on that, although that's obviously just a guess.

Looking at the opening in the big photo and counting very carefully, I've arrived at the tentative stitch count of 88 stitches: it seems to be somewhere in the area between 80 and 90, and it has to be divisible by four (because of the patterning). It doesn't strike you immediately from looking at the photo, but it also has to be a small gauge (and given the density of the knit, likely a combination of tiny needles and slightly thicker yarn, my favourite way to knit :D): 88 stitches in 20 cm gives me the approximate gauge of 11 stitches per inch. (<= 44 stitches per 10 cm / 4 inches)
The silver threads are somewhat thinner than the wools, and distort the knitting.

It's knitted flat: notice the seaming inside.  UPDATE MANY YEARS LATER: I'm actually not sure what I was looking at - it's just the "step" you get from joining to knit in the round and not bothering to correct for that...

Knitted wristwarmers, wool and silver metalic thread, Czech lands, 1880s. The ethnographic collections of Národní muzeum, ID: H4-5999ab

Notice also that the museum photographed one of the wristwarmers upside down. The trick to deciphering a knit garment is first and foremost looking closely and deciding where upside/downside is. Much like the grainlines in woven fabrics. In the above photo, it's the piece on the right that's upside up.

"Fair Isle" knitting is fun and easy to decipher, especially on a "flat" object like this, because you can see the individual stitches clearly and really all you have to do is chart it out... It's the purled beginnings and ends of the knitting that gave me some trouble here, and I had to resort to trying it out.

My first two-coloured attempts weren't very promising:

It actually is super simple - it's just garter stitch - but I still struggle with visualising how multi-coloured purls work... When I switched to my final mock-up in the actual colours, I still had to unravel it a few times, and as you can see, I still made a mistake in the upper section of it (it should end up looking like orange-yellow, not yellow-orange). But it's a mistake small and obvious enough for me to know how it should really go.
(My yellow is much thinner than my green and therefore distorted in that section, but it's correct.)
 

I knitted this test piece with 12 stitches, in yarns calling for cca 3 mm needles according to the maker (most of them are remnants of unknown description, though), on 2,5 mm needles, and it came out 5 cm wide, so for the original size, you'll want to go about half that...

* * *

So, here goes the pattern as deciphered. If there are any experienced knitters among you, used to English charting conventions etc., I would appreciate knowing if this makes sense to you or if you'd write/do some things differently.

If you want to knit this in the round, just knit every "wrong side" row of the garter stitch sections instead of purling them. In my experience, stranded colourwork is easier in the round; but to be historically accurate to the original, flat knitting it is. (AHEM)

Beginning in garter stitch
cast a number of stitches divisible by 4, in red (88 with a gauge of 11 st / inch for the original size)
1. (right side) purl red
2. (wrong side) purl orange
3. (r) purl orange
4. (w) purl 2 stitches in yellow, purl 2 in green, repeat
5. (r) purl 2 stitches in green, purl 2 in yellow, repeat
6. (w) purl red
7. (r) purl red
---------------------------

Stranded colourwork in stockinette
66 rows, starting on the wrong side
(The museum description says the rows of motifs repeat thrice, but they don't really, which was the original reason I tried to decipher it. :D)
Chart starts at the bottom. Grey stands for silver, obviously. The blue dots at the side indicate fifth rows, red dots indicate tenth rows, for greater ease of keeping track and count.

---------------------------

End in garter stitch
1. (w) purl red
2. (r) purl red
3. (w) purl yellow
4. (r) purl orange
5. (w) purl red
6. (r) purl bind off in red

* * *

In case you are wondering, I made the chart in MS Paint by magnifying, utilising the grid and the pencil tool to colour individual pixels in the magnified grid, and then hitting PrintScreen and working with that as my picture afterwards. It's a quick and "cheap" method, and it made charting very easy with opening the MS Paint window on top of the photo of the original. If I do this more often, though, I'd probably prepare myself a grid to colorise (using the Can of Paint tool in that case), skipping the magnifying and PrintScreening, because it comes out a bit small this way (so I can't insert any notes and stuff into the chart itself if they are necessary).


One day, I'll make these wristwarmers and post this pattern to Ravelry so that there will be a traditional Czech pattern out there. *rubs her hands with a supervillain snigger*

HSM #10: Sewing Secrets - My sister's corset

I still only have this one picture of the finished thing; including accidental tea stains than happened after finishing. But my sister's been wearing it and reports it's fine, except next time please scoop down the underarms a bit more.

Much earlier than this challenge, my sister asked me to make her a corset, to wear as a supportive undergarment. It was the first time I've ever made such a garment, so there was much work involved - starting, upon arriving home with the materials (all from Sartor - oh the joy of a dedicated historical sewing shop in my own country!), with figuring out how to set the grommets. Because they didn't come with an implement, and it turns out all such tools start around 500 CZK. So there was a lot of experimenting and gradually more and more successful try-outs all through summer; now I have a home-made udělátko that still isn't quite perfect, but works well enough.

I needed to start with that, because I decided I needed lacing strips for mock-ups. It held me up terribly, but I think in the long run, it was the right decision, because a) now I have lacing strips for mockups that I've already used again for another garment, b) it was also a mock-up for the setting of gromments, so I was a bit more confident on the final garment.

After that, it was to the mock-up. And the pattern. I originally contemplated making the corded corset from the Chisholm Trail Museum, the pattern for which Marna Davis shared through the Historical Sew Fortnightly Facebook group, and other freely available patterns like that; but in the end, I decided all the resizing involved was too much of an uncertain work for something I was doing for the first time ever, and used the drafting tutorial on Foundations Revealed.

I still had to make considerable alterations to it. In part, I think, because I miscalculated some of the measurements (I tried to follow The Dreamstress' guidelines for negative ease, but I mixed it up somewhere along trying to follow the tutorial as well). In part, my sister suspected, because she may have lost some weight between the drafting and the trying on. In part because we were not quite sure just how high and low she wanted it to go until we tried it on. And in part, I think, because I needed to take it in a bit under the bust for it to really give the support needed - larger cup sizes are accounted for in the directions, but maybe not quite enough? The underbust doesn't enter the calculations, which I think might be a mistake for larger cup sizes.

This photo is from when I played around with the final cutting layout, I think, so the pattern pieces are mixed up. But it seems to be after the alterations. In the end, I made all the pattern pieces twice, so that I could be sure about the layout.

(The mock-up was made from my father's old discarded jeans. He wears exclusively Levi Strauss, so he commented that it's a very expensive mock-up. It's okay; I think I'm going to reuse it for a mock-up for myself.)

After we settled on a shape, and on lacing in the front instead of the busk because my sister struggled with it, I cut it out of coutil and sewed it up. Press all seams. Then I added a waist stay out of twill tape, caught with stitching on all the seams.

"The Secret of Chateau Wardrobes" exhibition in Dačice

The main reason we went to Dačice - the main reason for me, anyway - was an exhibition of extant clothes from the end of the 18th century through the 19th to the beginning of the 20th. Those clothes all came from chateaus and museums, or private collections, in the region.

The exhibition was fantastic: just two rooms, but packed full of awesome.

And photographing was allowed.

You can imagine what a happy little marmot I was!

You can see all the photos from the exhibition here; I'll only post some, because, seriously, 248 photos? :D Hopefully, I'll at least eventually manage to add captions to all of them...

And maybe post some more details of some clothes later. For now, I'm posting this wrap-up post so that I don't feel guilty about not having posted it earlier!





This suit (what is it called, really?) is from the end of the 18th century. It comes from the collections of the chateau in Jindřichův Hradec; it belonged to Jan Rudolf Černín z Chudenic (a count from the region; Johann Rudolf Czernin von und zu Chudenitz) and may have been made in France.






This one's another of Jan Rudolf Černín's clothes; it's from 1791, allegedly made in Paris. These two are silk.



This one's Jan Rudolf Černín's from the end of the 18th century as well, but it's woolen, and simpler, indicating a later date, or perhaps a different purpose?



It's got painted buttons. Each of the buttons has a slightly different miniature painting in it. Wow.



The wedding dress of Marie Terezie Černínová, née Orsini-Rosenberg, Vienna 1817. Muslin (obviously). Collections from Jindřichův Hradec.



The manequin was very obviously the wrong size for it; but that meant I got to see how it closes.
I'm not sure whether the tie is just a tie, or whether it's also a drawstring. But notice there's a hook in the middle and an eye on top, alternating on one side: a neat little trick against accidental opening I've read about some time ago on some costuming site. It's proven to be period-correct now. ;-)



Also, there is a patch under the bust on the right side, which you can't really see in the photo, but it made me a very happy little marmot to see that yes, these fabrics tore. Even if you were a countess. And isn't that bodice treatment lovely?

And now my favourite garment from the whole exhibition. Not so much in colour; but the construction and overall silhouette are delicious.



An 1830s dress/wrapper from the museum in Písek. Well, they say it is a day dress. But it's a wrap dress. Silk taffetta. (BTW, they tend not to say many details about the construction in the captions, rather they tell the general history of clothing in the era. Nice for people who know nothing about it, a bit redundant for me.)



I told you. The construction is delicious. Look at that tiny piping at the hems!



Apparently, it closes with fabric-covered buttons and some sort of loops or hidden buttonholes. My guess is the former, because the fabric at the right side was slightly scrunched as if something was sewn to the wrong side - you can sort of see that in the photo.

The details end here. There's too much to post details of everything; these were the earliest, most interesting pieces. Most interesting to me, mind you. (And I even have more details of them.) If you want to see more, go to the album, as linked above, or let me know in the comments and I'll put the photos with my observations (if I have any) in another post.

From here on, I will post single photos of all the other garments.

The paintings from those colour palettes

So that you don't have to wonder.


Václav Brožík: Sleeping Governess. Undated.
This is a weird picture. It seems like a costume - not 19th century!


Vojtěch Hynais: Lady with Violets. Ca 1896.


Hynais: Lady with a Fan. 1891.

Hynais: Lady in a Pink Dress. 1880.

Karl Joseph Stieler: Princess Amelie Auguste of Bavaria. Ca 1823.

I've discovered this painting thanks to the Dreamstress's Rate the Dress. Amelie Auguste is the only one so far who rated 10/10. It's now my Favourite Dress Ever.

Old photos

(More antique than vintage this time, but I don't want to scatter the tags all over the place.)

I got inspired by Stephanie Ann's post about preserving old photos and went photo-hunting again. And I got some pretty, really old photos really cheap! (Most of them were 20 CZK, that's about one US dollar at this time.)

Thanks to Stephanie's post, I know these all are "Carte de Visite". They're all approximately the same size, although they were all taken by different photographers, in different times, and probably also by a bit different techniques (the last photo at least).

If you click on the photos, you should get HUGE versions of them. I want to give you (and myself!) as many details as possible.

This one is probably the oldest - the style of the dress is - 1860s?


She looks a bit prim, but she has a pretty dress - I love the trim, and the waist detail.

This young lady/girl is probably also from the 1860s?

Unlike the others, she was photographed outdoors. Also unlike the others, this photo has no markings. Notice the girl is most probably wearing her hair in a snood under that hat! And, again, look at the trim. Aww.

This one is, I guess, circa 1867-1870:

Look at that trim again! The buttons! And the hairstyle. Quite a curious hairstyle, now that I see it big.

And c. 1880 - I guess: the wide sleeves and the narrow skirt...

Another lady with a parasol! Unless it's an umbrella. She has quite an elaborate dress and headdress! A wreath thing and a veil. And, wow, she seems to have short hair!
(Iglau is nowadays called Jihlava. They have a beautiful zoo, among other things.)

And I'm not sure about this one - it's clearly the newest - it's glossy, and the writings on the back are in Czech, not German or German/Czech as the previous ones. Also notice the Czech names are written with diacritics, not in the German way like the Doleschal/Doležal above.

I bought this one because I really liked the lady... she feels like someone I would have known, so to say. I also like the way she dressed. A good, simple coat and a bit of whimsiness with the lacy shawl and the headdress. Yup. I like her.

If you have any ideas as to the dates, tell me!

I was very successful today on the vintage front - I also bought a c. 1950 knitting magazine. Complete with the patterns and one single knitting pattern (a cute cap) inside for a good measure. 45 CZK. I'll show you in another post.

It really makes me happy. Reading all about the vintage patterns and pattern magazines on foreign blogs, I was feeling a bit sad - not just that I didn't have any - that's my own problem, after all - but that I didn't know of so many pretty vintage patterns in my country. Feeling that the 40 years of communism had stripped my country of something quite precious. Well, it seems that process took some time and early on, there were still people from the old times in the "business" and took good care of it. :-)

Who's the most famous Czech artist?

The answer is obvious, I think... I wanted to celebrate the anniversary of his birth, because I really like a lot of his work. But I don't think I have to add anything else about him, because many other sites out there do that work for me.
Although...
With that Czech "national" costume theme I'm having lately, I think it's interesting that Mucha did design some Czech national costumes as well. In 1886, so the label is off, but I'm not bothering with a new label for only one post. (Besides, as I previously mentioned, the book on national costume in 1848 covers some years beyond that as well, so let us just take this very approximately).
What do you think of his version of it?


(Picture scanned from Ludmila Kybalová: Doba turnýry a secese, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, Prague, 2006. I should remember to quote my sources properly!)