Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Stocking reconstruction

At the end of may at the celebration of museums my friend donned in full reanactment costume planted the bug in my ear. She asked me to knit a pair of stockings, but not just any stocking, but one based on old findings. You must know by now that I am not to ruin anything good...
We looked through museum items, descriptions, I added what I knew from my readings on knitting and old stockings...and what I know about sock knitting in general.
This is the result:
The old findings were rather missmatched, some writings from the age of Elizabeth the first talk about incredibly tiny gauge, others that my friend showed to me mentioned thick, even worsted yarn, so we decided to use the thickness that is used for socks today..
The upper edge of older stockings are rolling back, but garther stitch is not called as such for nothing, and writings do mention using the stitch there
Elastic bands obviously were non-existent, silk or velvet ribbons held socks up. I added a row of holes to hold the ribbon.
Short rows were invented later, therefore I had to use the heel flap version.


Shaping for the knee/calf/ankle were done with strategically placed decreases and increases.
Without short rows shaping the heel is a bit clumsy, but anything for historical accuracy...

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