Some more knitting for children (HSM '25 Pink, and a baby hat)

 I don't really do new year resolutions, but I do happen to have several for this year. To wit:

1) Finish more projects than in previous years.

2) Use more of my already extensive collection of sewing and knitting patterns / books.

3) Post more of my projects on this blog.

I'm happy to report that one of the two makes I want to share in this post now checks all three boxes! Well, not quite the "more projects than in previous years," yet; but I'm coming close to finishing with more projects, so I expect by next week I'll have surpassed 2025, and that's a good start on that one.

But first, the pink singlet / vest for my little niece which was my one lonely HSM entry for 2025:

 

I've decided that from here on out, my niece shall be referred to on this blog as Kitty. Not at all her name, not even close; just a public consumption pseudonym based on the fact we keep joking that she's like a little kitty - always aware of what's going on, always needing to be aware and present at whatever's going on and putting her nose into things. :-)

So. This thing I knit for Kitty was intended to be a singlet, to be worn as underwear. But the colour turned out to be such a perfect match for her that it ended up being used as an outerwear vest. And since I still have quite a bit of the yarn left, I think I might go ahead and knit a sweater for a future Kitty...

I intentionally made the whole thing in ribbed patterns, so that it could grow with her a bit. Originally, I thought I had a suitable pattern in one of my 1930s German magazines, but, alas, it turned out to be a pattern for a knitting machine and thus useless for my handknitting purposes. I didn't really see anything else I liked quite as much online, until I found a picture of a little girl in a singlet, and thought, yep, that's roughly the style I'm after. Unfortunately, no pattern, just a photo.

And then I lost the link, and found out I had very unconscionably failed to Pin the image, so, my apologies, I have no idea where it came from! It was a blog post featuring more 1930s knitted styles, if I remember correctly. The file name says "child in a singlet 1936" but, alas, that has also not helped me find it again. Neither trying to replicate my original search terms nor straight up reverse image search has been any help either... So all I know now is that it falls into the latter half of the 1930s where so many of the styles I'm drawn to now come from. :P

 

As you can see, the original garment actually used some sort of brioche stitch (?) in the body, and had crocheted borders around the armscyes and neckline. I had no idea how to begin with the more complicated stitch, and didn't like the idea of the added bulk crochet would add to the very lightweight single yarn I used in the knitting. So I ditched both. (I still don't fully understand crochet borders on knit using the same thickness of yarn. Must be me.)

The yarn is the same as in the blanket I knit for Kitty previously, just a different colour, and not held triple. (Also I have an update on the blanket that it's now clad in a duvet cover and used for Kitty to sleep under regularly!)

I messed up the armscye / neckline shaping and calculations a bit. Learning by trial and error, here! 

Just the facts, ma'am:

What the item is: A child's singlet

The challenge: 2025 #5 Pink 

How it fits the challenge: It's very pink!

Material: Linsieme Kirman, a cone yarn that's 92% merino 8% cashmere

Pattern: My own.

Year: 1930s (c. 1935-1936, based on my inspirations)

Notions: 2,5 mm knitting needles (circular)

How historically accurate is it? As I already said, it's not based on an actual period pattern. I think the construction and gauge are perfectly plausible; I'm less sure about the material.

Hours to complete: No clue!

First worn: This January.

Total cost: I got the yarn for free as industrial remnants!

 

Further knitting facts:

Yarn weight: Lace, at Nm 14/2 (700 m / 100 g), but I think it fluffs up into more of a light fingering style yarn.

Gauge: 8 stitches per inch. Forgot the row count.

Amount used: 43 g

 

And then I whipped up a quick project to be sent with a bunch of fairly random things we put together for Ukraine - I just hadn't managed to finish the blanket by the time my sister went to Prague with the things. So by the time I realised as much, in the two days I had left I made a quick baby hat, following instructions in a 1950s knitting book by Helena Dutkiewicz. I have a Slovak translation, but the original is Polish - it says Dziewiarstwo ręczne, but one copy of that I found being sold online only has children's clothing while mine has all sorts of things, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there. (Also one of many examples of the ways I can kind of switch between all the Western Slavic languages in passive usage. Well, the three state languages, I have no experience with Lusatian. Polish is the hardest, but I can still glean a lot.)

Anyway, this one was labelled as a hat for a 6-12 months old, though I'm not entirely sure whether the sizing still holds up for today's babies. It tells you to use 3 mm needles and cast on 90 stitches for 30 cm, or whatever works for your gauge. I used 2 mm needles and cast on, IIRC, 80 stitches for 29 cm... Sooo. It's extremely yarn and personal knitting style dependent, and the "patterns" in the book all basically work like that. I actually like that about old Central European vintage knitting, although it also often involves a great deal of wild guesswork.

The yarn I used is a soft acryllic I bought years ago in a church charity sale. So this is a charity project through and through. :D

 

The construction is extremely simple. It's just, basically, a large Dutch heel in garter stitch. Then you pick up stitches around the face opening, increase in every third stitch, and knit a border / brim / flounce (it's not very flouncy). It's supposed to be a bit bigger, but I ran out of my ball of yarn at that point, and figured that I liked it as it was and that I did not want to attach new yarn at that point where it would inevitably be visible. Then you string a tie through the bottom - mine's just a crochet chain.

The knitting facts:

Yarn: A German acryllic no-name. Seriously, there's no name on the label, it just says "Garn" (yarn)! (Then a bunch of other languages, including Czech without diacritics...) JES Collection by J.E. Schum Würzburg, colour 130 (white). My guess is it's from the 90s or early 00s, but that's just a guess.

Yarn weight: 130 m / 50 g, i.e. 260 m / 100 g, based on a Ravelry entry for a similar-but-not-the-same yarn from the same manufacturer I'm assuming DK. Recommended needle size 3-4 mm, recommended gauge swatch 22 stitches and 28 rows for 10 cm. I didn't follow this.

Gauge: I forgot to actually measure it, I just winged it based on my mitered squares from this self same yarn, but it comes out at 7 stitches per inch in garter stitch.

Amount used:  38 g.

2025, and future plans

I've been writing down projects I've finished on a paper on a pinboard since... 2021 I think? I think I started doing it during lockdowns to make myself feel better. Well, the list for 2025 is fit to make one feel worse: there are only three items. And one of them is this:

- a tiny knitted Christmas ornament I made as a gift for the work Christmas party. I used two acrylic yarns from the stash (one destash from my mum, one bought in a charity sale) and two metallic / Lurex yarns from my huge yarn haul from my previous job. Did I mention that here? Yeah, I must have in connection to the baby blanket from last Christmas. So, yeah. That happened and now I have SO MUCH YARN and so much knitting to do. So this was also a bit of a proof of concept for me for working with those metallic yarns. I declare it quite successful.

Also, it's a tiny thing, but it still took me about three hours to make, so it's not a quick thing, necessarily.

But that short list of three finished projects is a very misleading review of things, because there was quite a bit more I worked on in 2025 - I just hadn't managed to finish most of the projects by the end of the year.

As a most striking example, there's the singlet I knit for my little niece that is already finished - all that's left to do is to sew it up and give it to the intended recipient. Photos to come then.

This I can / want to show. I'm working on a sontag for my grandma from the same yarn that baby blanket was made in. I currently got fed up with it but on the whole, it's a very exciting project because - you may notice I have that 1860s knitalong badge on the right. It's been sitting there since 2010, a reminder of a failure. It didn't work out for me back then; a big part of the problem were terrible old circular needles. Also, I think the yarn wasn't that great either. I have nice new circular needles now, and a yarn that's almost too luxurious (although it tangles a lot in its current unwashed, doubled up state). I recalculated the pattern a bit to work better with my gauge, and of course it won't be in the original design, with this marled yarn (is that what it is called?). But I WILL finish that sontag! Soon! Soonish!

I got fed up with it right now, though, so today I reached for a ball of mystery yarn from that same haul, and started knitting a Monmouth Cap. Well, a modern version. Here is the pattern. I started a hat from the yarn last year (I think it was), trying to figure out a historically inspired top-down construction. But it wasn't working out the way I thought it would (it was far more flying by the seat of my pants than I realised at the time, life's been A Lot), and it was sitting in the naughty pile. Then, going through my Ravelry library today, I realised this yarn was the perfect gauge for this pattern (well, not row gauge, but that's par for the course for me), meaning this pattern was perfect for this yarn and my intentions for it, and off I go. Unlike the written pattern, I'm doing the whole thing on DPNs, and because I don't think I'd have enough yarn if I made it as written, I intend to make the body of the hat an inch shorter. It should still fit me and work for me as a modern winter hat.

There's also the mitered square blanket (separate squares this time) I'm making out of the acrylic I'm never ever gonna wear. It's intended as a baby blanket to be sent to Ukraine. One of the yarns I used turned out to actually have wool in it, and a number of my finished squares shrunk in the wash, so I need to make more. Again, it even could have been finished in 2025, were it not for that. (Well, and the priority Christmas gifts took.)

So that's some of the things that should be finished soonish in 2026, and if all goes well, this year will be better on the finished projects front than last year was.

Of course, things going well really isn't a given these days...

HSM '23, Ch. 12 - Paired to Perfection: A pair of mustard-yellow fingerless mitts

 

I wanted to have these finished during my summer vacation of 2023 - when Leimomi came visiting and we took photos in historical clothes in historical backdrops... and then the mitts took longer to make than I had hoped, and I lost yarn chicken with the ball of yarn I had with me on our travels. So they only got definitively finished in January of 2024. (It's always the weaving in of ends that takes forever because procrastination.) Aaaand I'm only posting them here now. I have quite a lot of blogging to catch up on.

The yarn I used comes from the same deadstock haul the yarn in the baby blanket I made last year came from. This one is a 28/2 merino; preeeetty fine (I have a couple in 30/2, too; even finer). I doubled the yarn because undoubled it would be a recipe for madness, and also because the few fine wool items from the period of around 1800 I did find (most of them in the V&A) suggested to me a gauge closer to that. Here it's about 10 stitches and 16 rows per inch - I'm always proportionally higher on the row count than the usual 3:4 ratio.

I knitted the mitts according to info I found online in lots of places - both people's descriptions and pictures I peered at. I'm not certain I got it right, but at least I made a good stab at it. My favourite thing about this historical mitt construction as I've inferred it is the way the long body of the mitt is shaped - much like with historical stockings, you do the shaping along one line down the garment, on both sides of the "seam"; in this case, the "seam" is on the outside of the arm, opposite the thumb. It's easier to do than trying to distribute it evenly all around, and actually looks quite good.

Like so:

In this lightweight yarn, the whole pair used up only 44 g of it. Which makes it rather funny that I lost yarn chicken with it anyway. It goes to show that these were truly made from remnants :D - my ball was pretty small. 

* * *

I have quite a lot of this mustard yellow, actually. It's a colour I'm not sure would look good on me as a main garment close to my face, but for historical accessories, it somehow seems close to perfect for me. And yellow is such a cheerful colour.

I reeeeally want to make yellow stockings now. Do I have any use for Renaissance stockings? Nope. But I want to do it For Reasons. Also, I do have Knitting with the Modern Maker, I do want to make more than just socks out of it. (Given my short thick-ish legs, I was thinking I might have to adjust the pattern, whichever pattern I end up using; and then I remembered my row ratio and thought, maybe that would actually end up perfect.)

If I feel particularly crazy, I could turn this yarn into a sweater, and dye it into a more suitable colour... probably not. I also have this yarn in other colours, though. One is a perfect match for a beloved thrifted turquoise-ish turtleneck sweater that, alas, got shrunk in the wash years ago (I had carefully put it in the laundry storage area separately, someone grabbed it with the regular stuff anyway). I am about 99% certain that sweater must have been made from the exact same yarn, considering the yarn's industrial production origins. So there is one definitely madness inducing knitting project in my future. I think the original was indeed made from a single yarn; I'm not doing that, but a sweater on 2 mm needles will be bad enough.

For now, I started with modern socks, just to see how this yarn wears in something less madness-inducing - and to see how I feel in wool socks with zero polyamide in them. :-) There was recently a very funny situation when my mother and me met up for a brief spot of knitting in the park, we pulled out our projects... and they were both mustard yellow. :D With the difference that mine was a sock in this yarn, and hers was a not-sock in a regular modern sock yarn. :D

* * * 

I'm honestly not entirely sure how I made the thumb gusset anymore...

 

I might write up something about making fingerless mitts like this once I am more certain I know what I'm doing. I did write it up, but currently it's just notes for me to remember what I did - it needs a more substantial treatment for something presentable to the public. I do have a lot of yarn to use up, so I do intend to make more - also to go well with different outfits. (I have a lot of fabric to use up, too...)

Just the facts, ma'am:

What the item is: Fingerless mitts
How it fits the challenge: It's a pair. Strictly speaking, they're not paired to perfection, there are imperfections between them... but they're minor. :D
Material: Thin merino cone yarn, doubled (Filati Biagioli Modesto Lambswool extrafine 28/2)
Pattern: My own
Year: c. late 18th-early 19th century
Notions: 2 mm double pointed needles (in reality they're more something like 1,85 mm)
How historically accurate is it? I'm not sure; it's as good as I could figure out, but it's not perfect. I'm not sure if my thumb construction is correct (or more precisely, I'm pretty sure it could be done better). And I'm not sure how accurate the yarn is for my timeframe. (Merino definitely already was around, but I have no idea if they would have made yarn exactly like this out of it, or if they would have used it exactly like this exactly for mitts. Very fine wool yarn did exist, but I'm not sure exactly how fine we're talking.)
Hours to complete: No idea :O
First worn: In January 2024, as they were finished, just because. :D I got quite a lot of wear out of them in Autumn of that year with modern clothes - they do make a great addition to your wardrobe in changeable weather or cold rooms, and having the fingers free while staying more toasty is indeed great.
Total cost: I got the yarn for free! It's old unused stock remnants from work that was sitting in storage and being a moth hazard.

 

Further knitting facts:

Yarn weight: Lace - as mentioned above, Nm 28/2, i.e. 1400 m / 100 g; doubled. So gauge equivalent would be something in about 700 m / 100 g.

Gauge: c. 10 stitches and 16 rows / in

Amount used: 44 g

A baby blanket

This was the big project of 2024. It seems a bit unimpressive to sum up my 2024 projects with this flat rectangle of kniting, but there is quite a lot of work in it!

I have a niece now. This was made for her. The yarn comes from a HUGE haul of old cone yarn I got for free at work a couple years ago - unused yarn that had been sitting in storage for years and being a moth hazard. This particular one is Kirman by Linsieme, a 2-ply 92% merino 8% cashmere which, amazingly, survives machine washing. I tested that by running a sample repeatedly through the machine at 60° Celsius. So I knew it would be perfect for a baby project - soft and washable.

It's a mitred square blanket made more or less using the Knitting Squirrel tutorial - but I used the same yarn throughout. Kirman tripled. And size 4,5 mm needles. There's 40 squares starting with (more or less, depending on how I managed to pick up the stitches in some of them) with 40 stitches. Then I finished the whole thing off with a crochetted border in doubled Kirman, two stitches per stitch so it formed a bit of a soft rufle.

Not much else to say about this one really - other than I finished it at Christmas at grandma's, and she loved the yarn, so we agreed I would make her a sontag out of it. I believe two strands should be just the right thickness of yarn for the Godey's Lady's Book 1860s pattern floating around. Just the thing to keep grandma warm when sitting next to a window, as she does! I'll probably have to adjust the size - I do have her measurements from back when I was making a dress pattern for her. 😁

#HighQualitySockContent

Just. You know. Socks.

Handknit sock yarn socks. They are, as my sister said, addictive. And she's only wearing them!

This is the newest pair, following The Modern Maker's principle of "Italian / antique heel", but not following either of his patterns directly; I did my own thing. The patterns are here, and in the book Knitting with the Modern Maker Vol. 1.

I still need to tweak it a little bit, but I'm satisfied that I've got something very workable. Wearing them right now and they're very nice and fit almost just right; I just feel like I need to change them around the heel a little bit more. Or maybe I made them a tad short. I suppose once I have something I would deem perfect, I might have to write it up, with proper credit of course?

This pair is 68 stitches on 2 mm needles. Yarn is Best Socks by VlnaHep (Czech company), colourway 7118 - no longer available. My gauge with thinner 4-ply sock yarn on 2 mm is about 9 stitches per inch; not sure about row gauge.

There's more nice new socks I never posted about here. I've just realised some of them were HSM entries and deserve their own post, though.

This pair, also featuring Best Socks 7118, plus Drops Fabel 108, went to Ukraine early this year. 72 stitches, again 2 mm needles. The idea was to make them fun and colourful. I don't know where they ended up, the person going there had more destinations, but I hope they did and do help brighten someone's day.

These were my first attempt at a Balbriggan heel, last year. Yarn is Sportivo by Vlnap, but it's from a "mystery packet", not their regular production which is all patterned - there wasn't even a colourway / dyebatch number. 64 stitches and 2,5 mm needles.

I like 2,5 mm for lighterweight but still durable socks, but compared to my previous pairs in different yarns, these exhibited some considerable superwash stretching - ended up at about 7,5 stitches per inch and honestly that's not great in this yarn. Lots of loose fluff quickly accummulating around the heel. Now they have also been accidentally dyed in the wash and have lost their bright blue colour. I don't particularly mind, see about the stretching and stuff. Also I made the pattern up as I went and it's not perfect. Good learning experience, not entirely the best socks. I did like the colour, though, so I am somewhat sad to see that go and I think I need another bright lighterweight pair like that. Not the same yarn, though. (Not that I can get it anyway.)

(Hashtag title courtesy of Matt and Tom.)

He's not here, he's risen

And it's Easter Sunday and I'm alive.

Which, given the current worldwide situation, and my last post featuring a flu, is far less of a given than it may normally seem.

There have been sudden upheavals in my life since the last post.

But it's Easter Sunday. It's still Easter Sunday. I watched / listened to a service, and I sung Easter songs.

It's sunny outside and it's Easter Sunday.

... I can't get enough of that fact, possibly because I did not get to share it with many other people "live". But in a way, that's the only element missing from my requirements for Easter Sunday - it's sunny, and trees are in white bloom, and I did get to sing my two favourite Easter songs, and listen to a sermon. So that's the absolute majority of my personal Easter requirements checked, so I'm doing pretty well all things considered.

I had a bit of a habit, in the past years, to post at Easter - I even have a tag for it. So it seemed like a good opportunity to rear my head in the blogosphere again.

And I'm making things. They're not always the things I thought I would be making this year. But that's practically tradition with me by now. So, yeah. Nice worsted things, or finishing the whole of my folk costume? Probably not happening anytime soon.

Hand-knitted socks? Happening sooner than I thought. Right now, one. In about three days, I expect to have a pair, and then on to more. (The least enjoyable part is casting on. With most of the rest, I can sit in front of a computer and watch things, like videos from the Ffestiniog Railway with my father.)

Knitted mitts of a vaguely historical nature are happening.

New Regency stays based on Bernhardt's Fig. F (which for some reason not many costumers have used so far, despite the greater ease of adjustment with more seams?) are probably still happening.

Also, historical recipes are still happening every now and then, although I don't think that's anything I will ever document with much consistency. There has been Welsh rabbit. There will be something with eggs from Rettigová (and I should probably take care to document that). Beyond that it's anyone's guess.

* * *

Aside from Sunday services online, and regular fixed-days-of-the-week calls with mom, what's helping me along is videos from Kate on The Last Homely House channel. Kate is great. Kate has four cats. And chickens. And a goose. And bees. She's creative and imaginative and friendly and fun.

What's getting on my nerves right now is town PA. On Easter Sunday. They could have done that on Saturday instead, blegh. Especially because they're right now reminding us that going to church is not good and you should only watch services online. A bit late for that, folks, I've already done that. :D

But that was the last announcement for today. It's still sunny, and it's still Easter Sunday, and I think I'm going to cast the rest of my stitches in the garden. There were supposed to be photos in this post, but I have better things to do.

#CoBloWriMo 21: UFOs

That is, for those unfamiliar with this online sewing jargon, UnFinished Objects.

I have a lot of those. Some aren't here with me.

Some are. So here's a selection of my unfinished object, to take a stock of the making before it's done, fingers crossed.

Or not. The purplish "modern" spencer never got finished.

It's all the fault of my enthusiastic unresearched patternmaking; I'm now too bothered by the fact I put the deep-inset armscye in the front as well as the back.

Not good for the period, and bothering me in this modern-constructed garment as well.

It's a pretty good fit, though (although it could no longer fit with a button overlap), so it's a bit of a mock-up. A starting point.

* * *

In further bathroom photo adventures: Mock-up Nr. 2 of the Utrecht wrap stays.

Way better than mock-up Nr. 1, which I'm soooo not going to show you, because it didn't fit at all. That was how I found out that only one bust gusset for a DD cup was a bad idea. That volume needs to be distributed more evenly, without all the strain being focused on one point. And it plays havoc on grainlines, so I ended up with a lot of wrinkling and buckling etc.

It's still not completely good. I'm thinking of slanting the inside gussets, or moving them closer to centre front, because there's still some odd wrinkling happening there that I think could be taken care of with a change of grainlines. And I think I need to play with the slant / attachment of the side-front and straps, too, because there's fabric excess there.

Also wondering now if I should try cutting the front on the bias, like in the Bernhardt diagrams. Namely, the diagram C - the basic shape is very similar to it, after all. Maybe that would take care of the problems I'm having, too; so I might start with that.

* * *

Also in the realm of underwear, conical stays teetering somewhere on the edge between late 1780s/1790s, and a folk costume bodice (Central Bohemia, specifically).

I am more and more drawn to earlier transitional styles, so I sort of set out to experiment with it from inside out, cheating by machine of the inside layers. Considering how long it took me to finish my Regency stays, by the time I'm finished with these, I might even really be ready to move into the era!

The fabric I'm covering it with is probably more late 17th than late 18th century, I'm afraid. Let's pretend it's a re-use.

* * *

Also in-progress: a shortgown.

I didn't get beyond sewing two rectangular pieces together to create the skirt portion, and pleating the cetre back. Which, in retrospect, was probably a wrong order of things?

It's a quilting cotton that's not-entirely-correct-but-good-enough.

I've found an extant original that's a good example of what I have in mind, so I have something more solid to go on now. Although now I look more closely at it, I realise the skirt is cut together with the bodice. So it won't be entirely the same anyway. :P

* * *

This cutting layout is actually something I'm already wearing. I think the skirt in question needs to have its pocket openings taped, though, something I forgot to do...

Note: that's not flowered fabric, that's flowered tissue paper. Something was wrapped in it once, I think. Now it's become a pattern. A 1915 pattern (although adapted for my modern uses, with the introduction of side seams.)

* * *

Also in the works: another pair of Moravian-Wallachian socks, this time actually in wool.

(That's an old photo. I'm further ahead now.)

* * *

There are more things in progress. Too many. And more ideas of what to make. Still, I think it's overall a lot better than this time last year, with things I have actually finished (though not yet posted about), with a lot of the ideas with much more concrete outlines, and with some concrete ideas for some fabrics that had been lingering in the stash for years.

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*

Binding the stays & the laces - HSF 9: Black and White

I started binding the stays, even though I still have one piece of cord to insert on the other side. I was fed up with the cording, which, considering the cording was probably my favourite part of it, is quite a feat. But with such lovely aqua binding lying around, it's not such a wonder. It's so perfect. It finishes the stays (by now rather Frankensteined and getting on my nerves) into something once again perfectly mine.

It's one of the bias bindings I got from my aunt.

Coloured binding is historical, honest, although I don't recall seeing any blue bindings. It's probably not completely accurate for the super-neoclassical period of all white sheer dresses, but I don't plan on any sheer white dresses at this point and if I ever venture there, I guess I can just as well go the whole way, start from scratch and make myself one of those more period-correct stays Sabine discovered. It's what I'm going to make my sister - I'm sure she'll be tickled to have stays based on a Dutch example. ;-)

As you can see on the above photo, there is a piece of cord sewn in next to the lacing eyelets. That's what I'm tying my lace to. I'm not sure anymore where I got the idea from, but it's something I came across in my research into spiral lacing.

The laces, as well as that piece of cord, are made by me, too.

Because I'm still working on the stays, I entered the laces into the Black and White challenge (a bit late, but it makes me feel good to have something up). Because I made them myself, too, it's more or less a separate item, and they're white. Ish. You know, the colour linen is when it's basically white.

What the item is: Stay laces

The Challenge: Black & White
Fabric: none, see notions
Pattern: none - I was inspired by this blog post by Stephanie Ann; but because my cord is thicker, I cast only two stitches - it's basically like a lucet cord made on knitting needles.
Year: early 19th century
Notions: linen cord (of a baker's twine variety)
How historically accurate is it? I don't have any documentation for my time period, but I think it's at least 100% plausible
Hours to finish: I lost count - it wasn't much, but it was an on and off project
First worn: Only for tryouts so far
Total cost: I don't remember anymore, but I think the cord was about 30 CZK, not more.

I'm still contemplating whether I will go the same route with tying the shoulder straps or if I will pretty it up and use ribbons. :D But I don't have any period accurate(ish) ribbons and I'm cheap, so I guess knitted cords it is...

It's a fun technique. I like that I'm able to do it on knitting needles, because it's faster and tighter than when I try it lucet-like (more specifically, I've tried it as spool knitting). I could make myself shoe laces as well.

Blog awards and Sewing with Cats

Warning: a very long post ahead! It took much longer to write than I planned...

I've been awarded a blog award; actually, two linked blog awards from two people, Lady Katza of Peanut Butter Macramé and Becky of Sew and So.  Thank you both; I hope you enjoyed yours, because you both deserve it.

The rules alternate between the two blogs, so I decided to go with this (somewhat my own) set:

1. Thank the person / people who awarded you.
2. Add the One Lovely Blog Award / Very Inspiring Blogger award to your post.
3. Share 7 things about yourself.
4. Pass the award on to 7 nominees. (or 10, or 11, or how many you prefer...)
5. Include this set of rules. (or any set you prefer...)
6. Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blog.

The 7 things about me? I like Becky's approach of "crafty confessions"; but I also realised there are several things about my blog and my online personality that never got explained here. So it's a mix.

- My profile picture / avatar? That's me standing on the shore of a lake in Ignalina, Lithuania, back in 2006, as photographed by my sister.
(Yes, Ignalina's famous for the nuclear power plant, and that's what you're most likely to find if you search for it, but the plant is actually still a long way away from Ignalina, in a completely different town, Visaginas - it's just Soviet-time secrecy. And Ignalina and it's surroundings is a most pleasant place to stay if you're into lakes and nature. But I digress.)
I really liked it as an avatar picture, because it showed me without showing me. It just shows my long hair, and my ever growing penchant for wearing things on my head, and the colours are very much me. I still like it as an avatar picture, because it's not so susceptible to change: it's 2013 now, and it still works.

- My header picture? That is (was) a small piece of fabric of mysterious origins in my stash; one of those pieces I very much regretted, and still regret, not having more of. So I immortalised it as my header. It matched the colours in my profile picture nicely.

- My nickname / moniker? Marmota? That dates back to a summer camp where I was with one of my sisters; we were divided into two groups with separate programs; the older ones (where my sister ended up) were called Beavers, while we younger ones were called Marmots (or Groundhogs, depending on which part of the Marmota genus you're familiar with). We kept the nicknames afterwards. I'm using Marmota online, instead of the Czech word, because it's more internet- and international-friendly. (Try saying "svišť"! Try saying "Na cvičišti čtyři svišti piští"! :D)

My second favourite plushie (after my old panda) is Howard the Groundhog

- The first thing I've ever sewed (and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, somewhere but probably not here), was a "top" for one of our dolls when I was about 3. I took a piece of (knit) fabric and made a number of stitches in the middle that scrunched the fabric to such an extent that it somehow stayed put on the doll. I was quite proud of my achievement. And no, I'm not going to show you: I don't think it survived to this day.

- One of the things I loved most at school was making geometric bodies. You know, cubes and such. This I've mentioned before, the turning of a flat pattern into something 3-dimensional. What I did not mention was my very, very brief foray into model-making. On the trip to Austria that photo of my panda teddy was taken on, I also designed a metro unit. Don't ask me why. I only remember it was an exercise in persepective-drawing, and I suspect my father's love of all thing rail-related was also an influence. When we came back, I tried to make a paper model of my metro, and more or less failed - not on the pattern-making front, rather because the paper I chose was not sturdy enough, and I think I just glued it with sticky tape...

- Mom taught me the basics of knitting, and the basics of crocheting. The first thing I ever knitted was a blanket / sweater for a rubber weasel toy that happened to be Russian in origin and have a price tag pressed into its side (hello, centrally planned economy!). The first thing I ever crocheted must have been a plain string, which, of course, also adorned a toy. (And I find this fitting; apparently, knitting was more my thing from the start.) After mom taught me the basics, she very wisely gave me a knitting booklet and let me figure out the rest on my own. I still do that.

Meet Weasel

- The other big influence, other than mom and my Wonderful Crafty Grandma, was an art school / course teacher who is more of an artisan than artist, and thanks to whom I realised the same about myself. She did things like weaving and felting with us, and somehow taught me that no inspiration was too small and insignificant. She's one of my real-life heroes.

This clay pendant was inspired by a smudge on my worktable.

So now that's off my chest, I can nominate people. :-) People who have lovely blogs and are inspiring bloggers, hmm... If any of them have received the award already - I'm sorry for making it duplicate, and thus taking it away from someone else who could have got it... I hope not, though.

Adventures in colour coordinating

Huh, I haven't posted in a long time - again! School, and sloooow internet when at school, and flu and not much blog-worthy creating...

I went to a thrift store I hadn't been to yet, hoping to find winter boots. Of course, thrifting being what it is, I did not find winter boots I liked in my size. I found these beautiful shoes instead (and I see now that the photo isn't the best there could be, because you cannot see that they have a slight wedge of about an inch and that there's a piping of the greenish yellow fabric running along the wedge), and a silk shawl to match.

So I didn't find winter boots, but this is very good.

I also, finally, finished the aqua stockings.

Well, not exactly finished, because there are still some finishing touches to be done. But finished knitting.
Each stocking has a different toe. That's what comes from figuring things out as you go. I like the look of the left one (the newer one) more.

I love how bright and cheerful this aqua yarn is. Maybe too bright for me, but I don't care. Winter requires bright things. I'm going to make myself a hat as well, and if there's still any yarn left, mittens or something.

How to knit a stocking instead of a sock?

By casting on 12 more stitches than necessary and being too lazy to unravel it and start again when you figure out it's too big.

It's actually perfect size for an under-the-knee stocking. At least for me, because I'm using my leg to figure out the fit as I go.

It was meant to be warm socks for my sister (part of my "payment" for the green saree). Either it will fit her, and she'll like it as a stocking, too - in that case, it's still for my sister. Or she will not, and I'll keep it and keep warm on cold winter evenings. Either way, not so bad.

Oh, and it's another thing I made from my joyful aqua yarn, which I bought in a thrift store. In retrospect, it probably wasn't so much cheaper than it would be in a normal shop. But it's fun. Maybe too bright for me. But fun. And very soft and pleasant to the touch.

In other news, I received my first ugly anonymous comment. I deleted it.

Very short, too. I wonder why do these people bother. I'd set up the word verification thing on my blog comments. The word verification might have been longer than what that person wrote in the comment. Really, why do they bother? *sigh* (I actually think I know, and it's rather sad.)

The 1950s knitting magazine

I promised to write more about the 1950s knitting magazine in a separate post. So here you go.

There is no date of publication stated anywhere in the magazine, but father helped me date it - thanks to the price printed on the cover, 30 Kčs. He said it must have been before a currency reform that took place in 1953. And because it apparently already comes from the time after the communists took power (national factories and such things), it's most probably from between 1949-1953.

My original estimation was based on a stray mail order form inserted inside, dated December 1950 - but it is, as I said, a stray paper - from a different company.

Still, it's probably from around the same time, because what would it be doing there otherwise? It doesn't seem like for a long time anybody cared about what's in the magazine - not even in the shop where I bought it. As I mentioned in the first post, there was also a separate knitting pattern (again, from a different company) inserted. So I got more worth for my money. :-)

There are many pretty things inside the magazine... It's much better than most newer communist era craft magazines I've seen so far - the 70s and 80s were already quite boring, with an abundance of drab-coloured folk inspired embroidery and shapeless clothes... Here, what I stated in the first post is evident - there were still people from the old times responsible for this, and did their best.

Don't you love these pictures?

I love these sports sweaters - even more, those hats. Rather dwarwish.

This man was "cool" long before "cool" was defined - at least in this neck of the woods.

But I like this sweater much more:

And these adorable hats:

(That separate pattern that was inside the magazine is actually more or less identical to the first hat here.)

And one delightful crocheted thing for a good measure:

Good pair of woolen mittens

Few things are better in winter than a good pair of woolen mittens/gloves.




This pretty pair I got from my sister a week ago (I had birthday last week). She had bought them on a market in Riga, Latvia.

They're probably knitted on a machine, but otherwise this type of mittens is apparently traditional in Latvia (and other northern countries). Although maybe usually in more earthy colours. My sister picked these blue ones for me, because blue suits me better.

I love how bright they are - they pop out among the blacks most people wear in winter around these parts! Plus they have two layers and are really just luxurious...




These are handmade by my grandma. I got them... years ago. Which would explain why they wore through at one thumb:


I bought woolen yarn in the same colour and carefully strengthened the worn-through thumb and sewed the hole together. So hopefully they'll last for many more years.

I personally haven't got to this level of knitting yet - although I'm already able to make fingerless mittens, even with the thumb. On the five sock needles.
But if you cannot knit on five sock needles, you can quite easily cheat around that:



I wanted to make a pair for a lady I occasionally buy magazines from in the street. I had noticed she didn't have any gloves. But last time I got a glimpse of her, she had already been provided with a good pair of gloves, so this joyful aqua pair of fingerless mittens will go to somebody else.