For almost as long as I’ve been a knitter, I’ve been fascinated by the history of knitting. I’ve especially enjoyed the mind-twisting process of working with the often obtuse and obfuscatory language of antique patterns. There’s a thrill, I find, in watching a project emerge row by row and knowing that other knitters, long gone, followed the same path.

The process of decoding, testing and correcting isn’t for everyone, though; and so in this column I hope to share the excitement of the journey by removing as many of the roadblocks as possible. You don’t need to be a historian to come along–just a knitter with a curious mind.

And so we begin, with lace–for men.

Join Me for a Nightcap

The ancient ancestors of Knitty.com – the very first printed knitting books – date from the late 1830s, at the onset of the original Knitting Craze. Around this time knitting, which had once been the private domain of guildsmen and then the humble enterprise of cottagers, acquired a genteel cachet and was allowed into the drawing room.

Cultivated ladies newly addicted to needles and yarn needed patterns to work from, and publishers brought forth a flood of popular, inexpensive titles such as Jane Gaugain’s The Lady’s Assistant (1840).

At first glance, these early books appear to the modern knitter as an invitation to headache and madness. The vocabulary is archaic; what we call a “purl” may be called a “pearl,” a “turn” or a “seam,” even within the same pattern. The “recipes” are often written in a stream-of-consciousness style that anticipates James Joyce. The errors – even in works that promise on the title page to be scrupulously accurate – are legion.

And so the titles that fueled knitting’s rise to popularity gather dust, unexplored by any but the most adventurous historians and re-enactors. More’s the pity, because long-lost beauties are hidden beneath the pile of crabbed typefaces and run-on sentences.

One such is the “gentleman’s night cap” (sic) included in the knitting chapter of The Workwoman’s Guide, first published in 1838. The anonymous author, who signed herself “A Lady,” introduces it thus:

This cap has a very pretty appearance, something resembling old-fashioned insertion lace,
as there is an ornamented border round the head. It is done with fine needles and cotton,
and knit round like a stocking.

The “ornamented border” is a wonder. Knit from the bottom up, it provides a scalloped, lacy edge with a hint of elasticity. Even unblocked, it does not curl. Try it as the hem of a skirt or tank top, or at the cuff of a sleeve.

As for the cap, if you don’t happen to be or know a cold-headed Victorian gentleman, consider creating a infant’s version. Reduce the number of cast-on stitches (using a multiple of thirteen), increase the number of decrease points to seven or eight, and shape a rounded instead of pointed top. Worked in a fine yarn, this would yield a splendid christening bonnet, especially if used with a gown or shawl that also incorporates the lacy border.

model: Tom Rothschild photos: Franklin Habit

From the second, revised edition of  The Workwoman’s Guide, by A Lady, translated for the modern knitter by Franklin Habit.