First Draft Done

I just finished my first draft of the dissertation and have sent it off to my committee. Just wanted y'all to know.

new mitts for a common woman

 When moving recently, a friend cleaned out her yarn stash and sent me a couple skeins of sport weight Briggs and Little. She didn't really like knitting with it and knew it was my very favourite yarn to work with.

I got a brown skein and a grey skein, and knew right away that the brown skein would be knit up into new mitts for myself. The first mitts I knit up for myself were worked in a leftover bit of hand spun merino that I loved, but there just wasn't enough yarn to give me the length I wanted. They worked for a while, but this working class chick wanted longer mitts, ones that I could tuck up under the cuffs of my wool gown and wear all day in January and not mind the cold. These new mitts will be long!

Basing my knitting pattern loosely on stocking patterns, I also took the plunge (with a gentle push from Colleen Humphries) and did a backwards loop cast on and a wrap and turn process to knitting the cuff. Now that I have finally jumped in with both feet, I won't go back...so much quicker and easier than purling alternate rows!

My pattern:

Cast on 85 stitches over three needles (25, 25, and 35 on the third needle which will work the seam) (2.25 dpn) using a backwards loop cast. Knit the first row back on itself and join. Knit the second row, wrap and turn. Knit. Wrap and turn. Continue until you have a cuff of 6-8 rows or about a fat half inch.

Knit in the round, in the centre of the last needle, work the 'seam' by alternating rows of plain knit with a "purl, knit, purl" row to form a fancy twisted stitch that appears in extant stockings as a 'seam'.

After about a half inch or so of knitting in the pattern, decrease. On the last needle (the one with the 'seam') knit to three stitches of the seam, knit 2tgthr, knit one, 'seam', knit one, knit 2tgthr through back loops. Knit in pattern for three rows. Decrease four times, then knit in pattern for three inches.

Begin decrease again using same method. Work in this fashion until wrist measurement is achieved.

To increase for the hand, on either side of the seam line pick up to stiches through back loops as often as as every purl row. Once the full hand circumference is achieved, opposite the seam line, set 16 stitches aside on a giant safety pin or stitch keeper to pick up later for the thumb. Once the stitches have been set aside, continue knitting in the round. Continue to knit in pattern until the desired hand length is achieved.

On the needle that is between the seam line and the thumb stitches, work back and forth to create the point, leaving the remaining stitches on the other needles. Once the point is created, pick up stitches along the sides of the point to begin knitting the final cuff. 

Knit one full round, wrap and turn. Knit one full round going in the reverse direction, wrap and turn. Continue this for 6-8 rows as per the starting cuff. Bind off.

Pick up stitches for thumb and knit in the round for desired length. Bind off.

*You can add purl stitches to the back of the hand for decoration or leave plain. You could also add stitches later in a contrasting colour that mimics the knit stitches.

new mitts in a good brown yarn

mitts from the Colonial Williamsburg collection, OBJECT NUMBER2018-255,1&2

In Search of Online Content: Using social media to keep your site in the public thought

Let's face it, for many of us in the heritage sector, gainful UNemployment is likely to be our future. Many of us are seeking out new ways to engage with history, but also keep abreast of life in the heritage sector. We are embracing social media like never before. Personally, I have an instagram account, this blog, a discord, twitch, youtube, linkedin, and two facebook accounts (personal and professional pages). There could be more I could jump on to, but this is what I am feeling comfortable keeping updated on a regular basis. 

That's important, keeping things updated. 

You need to be putting content on your pages. You need to stay in the public eye. Don't be worrying if it's perfect, just do the best you can right now with what you have at hand...which is likely a phone and your knowledge. Sites could be doing this sort of thing as well, with very little staffing resources. If a few or even just one person knows that it's their job to keep the social media updated, that could be their job going forward. A photo and brief blurb of an artifact, an upcoming lecture on Zoom, a pre-recorded bit of interpretation will all do wonders keeping your site in the public's minds so that when things DO reopen, people will want to come spend money at your site and visit you in person. It doesn't take much, but that presence should be on a regular basis. 

Since we have gone into lockdown, I have attended lectures, workshops, conferences. I have watched living history demonstrations, and folks in their own homes showing me how they do things. These, coupled with photographic updates of artifacts and new art projects have given me a community of people to follow and want to contact in person once Covid is through. As a few of my social media friends have mentioned in the past few days, it's important to get out and be seen, to strike new paths for heritage, arts, and the humanities going forward. Join us! Just do it!

Curtching Experiment

 Well, I took the plunge and made an attempt at the curtch!

Highland Wedding at Blair Athol, 1780 by David Allen

This was the painting I settled on to really study. It's a detail from Highland Wedding by David Allen, but other genre paintings from around the same timeframe feature a similar way of wearing the curtch, namely David Wilkie's Penny Wedding of 1818. This one worked for me though, so I worked from it.

I think her curtch is three layers. I say think, because there's no extant evidence available online anywhere...trust me, I have looked. I am working from the thought of wearing multiple layers of cap when I do 17thC living history stuff, but also veil wearing in the late medieval period, and also what/how modern veil wearing folks do. It's a best guess at this point, but it's my working theory and I wanted to see how well it would work.

I began with a forehead cloth found in the Manchester City Galleries collection Accession #2003.100/2. This one is from the mid 17thC, and the latest extant artifact of it's type I could find.

This is a tidy bit of using up linen pieces, and really could be from the scrap bin. For mine, I cut a rectangle from an old shift that I have been repurposing, and cotton 1/4" tailor's tape. In about an hour, I had a forehead cloth. I kept mine plain, without lace. The other pieces I used for my layering were my lappet cap and a square of hemmed, lightweight linen to use as the actual curtch.

I started by putting my hair up in a secure fashion to support my layers.

My bun has a cheap, dollar store hair support in it, I don't make thick enough hair on my own.

The next step was to add the forehead cloth...

I crossed the ties at the nape of my neck, then up around my bun and tied on top. Not pretty, might need a bit more fussing at this stage, I am not sure.

Then came my lappet cap, anyone who has done any late eighteenth-century living history likely has, or has seen one of these, they are ubiquitous...

So, I donned my cotton neckerchief from Burnley and Trowbridge, a gift from Laura and Angela that was perfect for this impression, don't you think? And added the final layer, the curtch itself. A large square of hemmed linen, folded into a triangle. I pulled folds from the ears and pinned with a small ring brooch at my chin, that's it, that's all for pins. Pierre played with folding my front points back over my shoulders to give two different looks. I am wearing my blue wool gown, surprised that everything still fit after a year of Covid and not being dressed.

So the verdict is, this works! It gave me the same look as the lady in the painting above, and in other genre paintings I have seen. It Did Not Move! The entire night of me moving around, cooking, doing dishes, eating, and all that. I say the experiment was a raging success!

Now to write a paragraph for the dissertation...