Dress Journal #13: I Need a Sweater

We're off to the rink in our
brothers' sweaters!

     At the top of the list of things I need is a warm, lightweight, period-appropriate sweater, so this project is the perfect opportunity to knit an Edwardian turtleneck. (I'll pause here for the delicate flowers to clutch their pearls and reach for the smelling salts.) That right: I said "turtleneck sweater." As soon as those intrepid co-eds discovered their brothers' and fathers' athletic "jerseys," they began pinching them, then knitting their own. Why the surprise? Sweaters were as useful for outdoor activities at the beginning of the 20th century as they are at the beginning of the 21st century. There are plenty of photos of young women, often with skates slung jauntily over their shoulders, wearing turtleneck sweaters. There's even a bit of film shot by the Edison Studios of women frolicking in the snow, and many of them are wearing sweaters and dashing caps.

"Ladies' Outing Sweater" from The
Columbia Book on the Use of Yarns
(1904). I like the ribbing, but the
pigeon-breast is all wrong.

     Digging around in old knitting books uncovered some patterns for different "ladies' sweaters," but none are exactly what I want: I want a sweater like the girls are wearing. That means some creative extrapolating and adjusting patterns. From The Columbia Book on the Use of Yarns (1904), it appears that both ladies' and mens' sweaters were knitted "up the back and down the front," leaving no shoulder seams. The "Ladies' Outing Sweater" has a nice rib pattern--that will make the sweater fit smoothly. The "Mens' Sweater" has the ribbed lower sleeve detail that is evident in many of the photographs. A bit of this, a bit of that, and I have my pattern.

"Mens' Sweater" from The Columbia
Book on the Use of Yarns (1904).
I'll just "borrow" the neck and 
sleeve cuffs from this.

     Since none of these patterns were designed with my somewhat larger measurements in mind, I'll need to scale the pattern up to accommodate. I love Ida Riley Duncan's The Complete Book of Progressive Knitting for doing this. Duncan's system works off measurements taken from the wearer's body, and knitted swatches for gauge, and includes how to add the appropriate amount of ease to make the pattern fit appropriately. I've used it before, so this will make knitting this sweater simple.
     I want this sweater to be more than just a "costume" piece, so it needs to be light, warm, and not scratchy. Light means it needs to be thin, so a fingering-weight yarn on US#2/2.75mm needles should give me the thickness I want. The yarn can't be scratchy, so I'm using merino. And because I want this sweater to have some durability and not pill, there needs to be some nylon in the mix. (Some nylon in the blend also means the sweater can be gently machine-washed.) The yarn I've settled on is Knit Picks "Stroll" in the "Bare" colorway. I've used "Stroll" before, and it makes lovely socks. Knit Picks puts it up in 100g skeins for dyeing, but I'll simply skip the dyeing and knit an ecru sweater.
     The pattern(s) are chosen, and the yarns arrived on Tuesday. Next up is swatching, measuring, and casting on my "shocking" Edwardian turtleneck sweater.