Knit Bits and Tips

In this section of the website I'll be giving you tips and advice on how to improve your knitting skills or maybe to encourage you to start from scratch. I'll be adding 'knitbits' over the coming months, so please check every now and again to see if there's something which interests or inspires you.

You can also find a range of knitting terms and techniques, as well as useful websites to visit by following the links on the left hand side of the page.

Knitting and Caring for Silk

Knitting during the Victorian Era

1 Help with Knitting Victorian Patterns
2 Tips
3 Victorian Measurements

1 Help with Knitting Victorian Patterns
For those knitters wishing to try out nineteenth century patterns there are one or two points to remember. Some of the terms will be found to be unfamiliar and if these cannot be clarified here on this website Richard Rutt's A HISTORY OF HANDKNITTING might be of help including yarns from the period enabling substitutes to be made.

Understanding and knitting these very old patterns are challenging to say the least but a first reading of the pattern will help to indicate to the knitter whether it is the knitting terms or some other questionable problem area that needs to be worked through. Writing out the pattern into modern day terms or charts either line by line and/or enlarging the instructions will be found helpful.

The amount of information given in nineteenth century patterns varies a great deal. Gauge was hardly mentioned and quite often yarns were left up to the knitter so that specific materials as in today’s patterns were rarely allocated.

Those yarns that are mentioned give us some idea as to the era of the time as well as the knitting patterns themselves which often indicated the pursuits popular to Victorian ladies such as riding and walking eg; ladies anklets, wrist warmers, mufflers and chest protectors.

Pattern-in-the-yarns as well as space-dyed yarns were as popular then as they are today. "Pearl" wool  had white as well as a different colour every quarter of an inch. Shaded wool  went from light to dark and back as a rule. "Ombre" wools were shaded in several  colours. Arrasene was a  chenille like yarn of silk or wool. "Orne" had sequences of colour tied so that the knots ended a row and the colours formed elegant floral patterns. Unshrinkable vest wool was a mixture of wool and silk.

2 Tips
For those trying out English patterns it is important to remember that British needle sizes are higher the finer the needle is used.

Approximate equivalents are:

3 Victorian Measurements
It is wise to remember [due to the Victorian diet for one thing] that the average person was shorter and babies smaller. Young boys inducted into choral schools for example were very often singing past their fourteenth birthday because diet at this time precluded their maturity from establishing itself any earlier therefore their voice broke a lot later allowing for greater choice of chorister to fill the choir stalls.