31st PA - woman in camp photo

[roundshot]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Not only was this type jacket used by Federals, in this instance the jacket is also most likely gray. Several patterns of gray jackets with varying button counts were worn in the war's early days by regiments of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Reserve Corps. One example can be seen in EOG/Union p. 153. Quite a few period photos show them as well and some are mislabled as Confederate.

[redroosterinalabama]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

I must comment on the 2 pot/pans to the viewer's left in the pic. One is leaning against some sort of handled box ( a mystery by itself) w/holes in it, while the other is on the ground w/a huge spoon in it. From my observations, they do not appear to be wood, pottery or tinware. But here is the deal, they don't appear to be cast iron, either. Perhaps stamped sheet metal?
mike boyd

[roundshot]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Another view of this nice family, also from the LOC files.

[K. Krewer]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

and look at that wonderful iron!!!!!

[Tabbico]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Thanks for posting the second image. At first, I thought her sweater looked like the front was kattywampus across her chest and tucked under her arm and might be a man's garment - too big for her so "adjusted" accordingly. Now, I can see that it looks to be done in Brioche stitch and appears to have a nice colored crochet edging - more ladylike, I would say.

Polly Steenhagen

https://www.2nddelaware.com

[Deborah Hyland]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

I also notice how surprisingly thick the yarn on her hood is. Those must have been large needles, but the yarn itself looks quite heavy.

[col90]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

I also notice how surprisingly thick the yarn on her hood is. Those must have been large needles, but the yarn itself looks quite heavy.

Actually, I"d have said just the opposite on the needles. Many of the more utilitarian hood patterns call for Double Berlin, which can be modern sport to DK weight, and if you knit that using a somewhat smaller needle than you normally would, you are going to get a very thick, solid, warm hood. This does appear to have used the larger needles, though, from the looseness of the edge, but I'd still say it's no more than a DK weight, or smaller ones plied together.

Colleen

[Deborah Hyland]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Actually, I"d have said just the opposite on the needles. Many of the more utilitarian hood patterns call for Double Berlin, which can be modern sport to DK weight, and if you knit that using a somewhat smaller needle than you normally would, you are going to get a very thick, solid, warm hood.

Colleen

I'm not disagreeing about what was printed in patterns, having knitted from them myself, but here we have an actual garment, or a photo at least.

If you actually view the second image at full size, not fitted to screen, you can see a great closeup view of the hood. The yarns of the tassels and sweater are quite fine, as we'd expect. The yarn of the hood is quite thick though, and the stitch count looks like it could be as few as 2 per inch, something you won't get with DK on smaller needles.

[Deborah Hyland]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Well I'l be. I've been looking for period broom images lately and they're very hard to find in photographs. I'd found several in genre paintings and they tended to be round straw broom, but right in the middle of this image is one really modern looking broom.

[col90]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Well I'l be. I've been looking for period broom images lately and they're very hard to find in photographs. I'd found several in genre paintings and they tended to be round straw broom, but right in the middle of this image is one really modern looking broom.

That particular style of broom, which is pretty much what all the straw brooms are today, was first invented by the Shakers..I believe sometime in the 1830s, but I"d have to check my references at home to be sure of the date.

If you go to Ross Kelbaugh's site, in the occupational images section, there is a great image there: http://www.bcpl.net/~images/housekeeper2.jpeg

Colleen

[fiferjackdoyle]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Re: Flat brooms - I bought one when I visited the Shaker Village in Canterbury NH.

http://www.shakers.org/

Shaker Broom
In the Shakers’ pursuit of material cleanliness to mirror their vision of spiritual purity, no single item was so valued, so symbolic, or so widely known as the Shaker flat broom. Created in 1798 by Brother Theodore Bates of Watervliet, NY, the flat broom was vastly more efficient than the round broom and swiftly became popular among the Shakers as well as the “world’s people.” Our brooms are authentic reproductions of Shaker brooms, made with hardwood handles, natural broom corn, wire and flaxen thread.

I just checked their online store and they are out of stock right now.

Jack Doyle

[Tabbico]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

I recently made the Godey's winter spenser pattern using a sport weight wool and size 9 needles, and it looks a whole lot like the hood. Brioche (it looks like that stitch to me) works up to make a very heavy-ish, thick fabric even though you use finer wool as it is very dimensional. The big loops that stand out are slipped every other row which makes them larger than a normally worked stitch and gives the appearance that they were worked with a bigger needle than they were. I'd have to go along with Coleen with this one, and say the wool used in the hood is probably the same as the wool used for the tassels, which doesn't look all that terribly fine to me - I'd go with sport to possibly DK!

Polly Steenhagen

https://www.2nddelaware.com

[DaveGink]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

OK ... So what is this thing?

[KarinTimour]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Mr. Gink:

That, sir, is an iron. If memory serves, it's the type of iron where you put burning coals into it, hence the need for the little chimney on the back.

We so often see the types of sad irons where they are simply lumps of cast iron that were warmed by contact with the stove. This iron, in contrast, had within itself the means of keeping the heat up while you were ironing. Bet it was easy to burn yourself or the shirt if you weren't careful.

Mr. White:
I believe you might be right, her "sweater" does look, in the second photo, as though it has a full opening down the front, with tape closure, button holes and at a least one button. The way the stitches are distorted over her left shoulder and bust also leads one to believe that the shoulder seam, which hits her where a modern shoulder seam would, was really intended to be a period armscye for a larger person, could well have been originally a knit coat. I'm wondering, however, if the sleeves were either shrunk or had been cut off -- even though she's got them rolled several times, I wonder if they'd be that flat of a roll of knitted material if the entire sleeve were still present.

Ms. Hyland, Formby and Steenhagen:
I'd have to agree with Colleen and Polly on this one, I think that the hood is knit in brioche or has some open stitching around the face -- I don't think that the little darker bits around her face are simply stitches. Likley knit with perhaps Double Berlin. The way that the "curtain" or that back part of the headpiece is sort of foofy -- I'm wondering if there aren't two layers of a thinner yarn here, especially when you look at the way the "curtain" or the back sort of "wings" of the bonnet drape. If this were made of a thicker yarn, especially something that would give it two stitches to the inch, it would be stiff as a board, and rigid. But the curtain doesn't look stiff as a board. It reminds me of the texture of the four-layer hood that Colleen had at the Ladies and Gentlemen of the 1860s conference in 2006. That bonnet was very light, appeared to be made in an open work stitch, but because of multiple layers, very warm, and the drape was sort of more like a pillow-y effect. It looked like it was lightly quilted over a batting, like a foofy quilt or pillow. That's the drape that this bonnet appears to me to have.

Polly, could this bonnet perhaps be made with Tunisian crochet? I've only seen it when you were working on it at the conference, but I do remember it having a distinct texture, like that on this bonnet....

Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Warm. Durable. Documented.
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[Tabbico]

Re: 31st PA - woman in camp photo

Mr. Gink:


Polly, could this bonnet perhaps be made with Tunisian crochet? I've only seen it when you were working on it at the conference, but I do remember it having a distinct texture, like that on this bonnet....

Karin Timour

Karin, I would put money on it that it is knit in Brioche stitch. In the second picture, in the lower right edge of the hood (our right, that is), there is enough of the pattern to show the slipped stitch and two more stitches of the Brioche. It looks nothing like Tunisian crochet, and Tunisian crochet does not "drape" like this. Tunisian crochet makes a stiff fabric with definite "boxes" of one vertical stitch with a background of a horizontal stitch.