Forester

I'm really excited with this one, my latest pattern has just gone live and is a hat that combines leafy forms and cables. I'm particularly pleased with the way the crown came out. I always love hats where the design follows right through to the last possible stitch, and the floral/star effect at the crown was an extra bonus.

I must also share with you this absolutely gorgeous version in red made by one of my test knitters, I love the contrast to the white version I worked mine up in.
Should you wish to try this pattern out for yourself, it can be downloaded from Ravelry for $4 and requires 3mm needles for the cuff and 3.5mm for the body. The hat is worked in dk or sport weight yarn.

Snow and staying cosy

Happy New Year everyone, seems ages since I last updated the blog. The weather has been very snowy here, which has made getting to work a problem on a couple of occasions, but on the plus side we've had a chance to seriously test drive some of our warmest hats.

The Voyageur pattern (available through Ravelry for $4) has been particularly popular this winter, possibly assisted by the snowy weather! There is no doubt that having two layers of nice thick fulled wool over your ears is a great comfort when its sub zero and windy out. Here's a recent picture of Gareth in one of the Voyageur hats I've made over the last few weeeks.
I've also found some time for some designing, watch out for a new hat coming in the next few days, its been out for pattern testing and I'm really pleased with it.

Today though, once I've finished some work for the day job, I'm going to dye some fibre for the next round of Fibreholics boxes, and then curl up and work on a pair of super warm slipper socks that I'm designing as I knit.

Broad Brimmed 'Monmouth' Caps

There has been a fair bit of debate in recent years as to whether the broad brimmed, heavy knitted cap popular from the late sixteenth century through early eighteenth century is more accurately described as a Monmouth Cap than the cap we are all familiar with. Not that there is anything wrong with the cap on display in the Neslon Museum in Monmouth, its accepted to be of the right date and to reflect a widespread style, and the excellent article about it by Kirstie Buckland remains one of the best articles about capping practices available-, its just getting it to match up with the written descriptions of Monmouth caps does show up a couple of possible issues, chief of which is that Monmouth Caps mentioned in the literature are typically about a pound in weight, something thats nigh on impossible to achieve when replicating the one from the museum.

As a result, there seems to be some good reasons to think that the broad brimmed version might be a challenger for this name, and the museum one might be better renamed the Monmouth Labourer's Cap. There is a very handy booklet available that goes into the current arguments for and against in the form of Monmouths and Monteroes. A confusion of caps. by Robert Morris available from Stuart Press.

Even more confusingly, for years, I and many other re-enactors and 'historic knitters' have tended to refer to this broad brimmed style as a 'Peter the Great' hat, after a famous surviving example in the Hermitage collection. Muddling, isnt it?

Whatever we end up calling it, and its entirely possible it will take a while for a generic name to settle on it, I've been working on different ways to reconstruct a plausible pattern of this very warm and useful hat, and here's the result that I feel gives the best result:

This is it before fulling, and here it is after fulling and modelled by my trusty (and long suffering, this photo was taken when the hat was still wet on a rather chilly afternoon) stunt head, Gareth:

its now available as part of my range of historic hat patterns, all of which come with a brief discussion of the style and footnotes to provide references to supporting information, either in hardcopy through the shop at www.sallypointer.com/shop (£2.50) or as a Ravelry Download ($4).

Acorn Purse and a Sally-Cosy

I've been away for a week on the annual family holiday, which in this case means me, himself, my parents, my brother and his wife, himself's mum and her dog, all in a cottage in Devon indulging in far too much food and plonk, interspersed with long walks and a bit of knitting.

Whilst we were away, I finished writing up the pattern for my Acorn Purse, which is now available through Ravelry like most of my patterns. (link goes to the 'buy' page, its $3 should anyone fancy trying it out)

I also finished a little handspun shawl that I'd been working on, this started off as one ply of assorted green shades, and one ply of a brown and white undyed 'humbug' fleece, the finished shawl is just big enough to cover my back and shoulders without trailing over my arms, and has already proven useful on a couple of cool evenings.

The green is a bit more saturated in real life, I think my camera is starting to show its age and it isnt capturing colour very well these days.

Came home to a handful of hat orders and a nagging awareness that its only a couple of weeks until the International Living History Fair, at which I trade and for which I really need to crack on and make some stock, then a few weeks later we're taking the Plague Rat stall to the Supreme Show. All this and a banquet and a bit of media work to fit in as well, plus the day job. Oh well, better to be busy than bored, whatever the occasion.

Dutch Sailor's Cap

In my last post I was working on the Machault cap, and I've been continuing my research by working up another double cap based on extant examples, this time a rather wonderfully variagated blue and white cap in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, dated to between 1650-1800.

The original is a relatively rare example of early variagated yarn, I’m quite pleased that my yarn mimics the original reasonably well. The Rijksmuseum has a fantastic collection of historic knitted caps, many of them from the whaler's graves at Spitsbergen, and I'm pleased with how this came out. I'm now itching to work on several other striped hats from the same source.

I've just about got this pattern ready now, it will be available any moment now over on Ravelry and in due course as a hard copy booklet in the shop, like all my historic range of patterns well supported with references and a discussion of this style of cap.

Machault Cap/Voyageur Tuque

I was recently asked to do some research into the construction of double knit sailors caps/voyageur caps/tuques (lots of names depending on who you are and what you are representing), and this is the result. It combines information from extant caps both in Holland and in Canada, with most of the detailing in this instance being from the Machault cap, right down to the little 'ear dents' that are a feature of this cap but which rarely show up in reconstructed versions..

It starts out as a very long seamlessly knitted 'flat rugby ball' shape, which is then heavily fulled to give this result:

I'm not entirely sure yet if these will make it into my regular 'off the peg' range for the simple reason that being double caps thay take an absolute age to knit, but I think I will be writing up the pattern, with extensive notes and reference material for my range of historic patterns.

I'm pleased with it, and will be continuing the research with a reconstruction of the tie dyed indigo and white double knit Whalers Cap from the Rijksmuseum.

Tudor Caps and Pixie Hats

I was convinced I had already blogged about this, but clearly my mind is going mushy and I hadn't. Anyway, after several people very gently prodding me over quite a few years, I've finally put my method for making a Tudor Cap down into pattern format. All my historic patterns come with a short overview of the style to allow for informed costuming choices, and its available either in hardcopy from my shop at www.sallypointer.com/shop, or as a Ravelry Download for $4.00.


My other recent pattern is a reworking of an old favourite. For a number of years now I've sold full kits for my Pixie Hats, but its now also available just as a pattern, again via Ravelry. This one priced $3, its a very quick knit in aran weight yarn on 5mm needles and is fulled for a perfect fit.


And it doesn't stop there, I'm currently finalising some research into Voyageur caps, tuques and double knit sailors caps, and hope to have the next addition to my historic pattern range out soon, that should be accompanied by a similarly documentations supported pattern for Thrum caps.