Attempts at recreating stockings worn by, and buried with (in 1562), a Spanish Habsburg woman who married into the Florentine Medici family.
This is one of the earliest exemplars of lace knitting and intentional purl-stitch work.
I'm setting up my notes in two separate blogs:
- This one is real-time iterations I've created, with project photos.
- The other one is research notes, suitable for reworking into classes or documentation on these projects.
Iteration #1 - Muscle Memory
Summer 2013; Yellow, Tonal Wool
(aka "no idea what I'm doing")
At Laurel's Prize Tourney, Summer 2013, my friend Genevieve told me about some gorgeous YELLOW silk stockings. As a displaying artisan, I was deep into the information overload common to that event, so I didn't write down anything.
When I got home, I remembered "Eleanor" and "yellow stockings." Which led to the following rabbit hole questions (and answers):
- Eleanor of Toledo vs Eleanor of Aquitaine. Which one knitted? Both, maybe? Maybe neither, and one (or both) had a lovely Court Knitter?
- Eleanor of Toledo had a silk woman, who, I guess, could functionally be her "court knitter."
- I don't know about Eleanor of Aquitaine
- No idea whether either knitted - EoA maybe; EoT probably not
- EoT: bright yellow or bright red?
- most likely, red faded to yellow over time/ grave goo
- EoA: fascination with diamonds?
- sure seems to be a common motif in searches for her name
Side Note:
This was one of my first experiences (positive as a rule!) with KnitPicks for knitting yarns. Until this point, I purchased from Halcyon Yarn - and still do for all my weaving yarns.
Swatch!
I usually forego pattern swatching, entirely from laziness. Until this project, I entirely worked projects where the gauge I got was what I was stuck with, regardless of intent. That worked out just fine for a good long time.
But when I started working on this pattern, I immediately recognized that it was out of my league. I wasn't a new knitter, and didn't think I'd be thrown for a loop by knit/purl iterations. But, this is a complicated beastie.
So, I started a swatch with a couple of thoughts: that I would learn enough from that work to make it worth my while, and that this iteration didn't need to be "right." Sure enough: I learned tons, including a few things to not do.
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| The most significant thing I learned from this swatch was how to do the panel sections under the lace sections. Here they are stacked horizontally - I couldn't figure out why the pattern didn't give me row counts until I did this: I worked them horizontal here, and they wanted to be worked vertically. |
This One Time in Florence, Italy
April 2014
While figuring out the beginning stages of these stockings, including swatching and starting, my friend Lena went to Florence, Italy for a Study Abroad semester-long program.
Through lots of trial and error, and long conversations about practicality and functionality, I ended up travelling alone to visit her and check out the scene.
The two of us puttered around town a bit (Gusto Pizza!!). We'd picked up a few tours (Vespas in the near countryside! Bus to Pisa and Carrera!), and kept ourselves entertained (day trip to Rome!). We never did make it up into the Duomo - it was closed on our first attempt, and as the week wore on, we ran low on stamina and time to burn.
There's an old Mooneschadowe joke about traveling to Europe: There's so much history there, they leave it laying out in the streets to get rained on! (Information overload set in fairly quickly, and my stamina didn't _start_ where I wanted it, oops.)
At one point, we visited the museums at Pitti Palace, the home purchased by Eleonora for her growing Medici family. Lena had tried to play it cool, before I got there, that we were going to see these socks in person - but I'd done my homework, and had an idea of what to expect.
At the ticket counter, in a classic "stupid foreigner" mistake, I'd paid for an extra exhibit that Lena had not, oops. In the arrangement of the museum, it was ahead of the Costume Gallery, so I sped through that exhibit area: 6-8 rooms densely arrayed with French pieces, including a life-size sculpture of Victor Hugo sprawled in an arm chair, reading a book, OMG. She took that time to study for her upcoming exams.
So there I was, in Italy, clutching a bag holding a half sock with definitely-not-right lacework (and questionably incorrect chevrons above), while staring at So Many museum displays, trying to not get completely impatient by my own side-track and the sheer size and artistry and magnificence of EVERYTHING.
And then, payoff.
Toward the end of the Costume Gallery exhibit, I got to stare raptly at the real-live stockings as I attempted to figure out how they differed, and were the same as, the fabric I'd recreated (haphazardly) from the pattern also in my hand.
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| Airplane tray table from the to-Italy trip, with my first attempt at drafting someone else's version of this pattern (for readability) in the corner. I was a smidge farther along with the knitting by the time we got to the museum. |
Surreal! Also, it felt very "kindergarten" as I gazed at a knitting equivalent of a painting masterwork, and compared it with my "finger painting" version.
I drew a sketch, hated it, drew a second more slowly. Started counting rows, and then stitches. Tried to draw more to clarify the point, and ended up with increasingly illegible scribbles. But my notes came out okay, as I counted, re-counted, figured out, and second-guessed.
This is the first thing I am angry at myself for not photographing: I read an intriguing thing on an exhibit board in that room, but did NOT copy or photograph it. I'm leaving this note vague, in spite to both me and you, dear reader: do your best to fight past the information overload, and write down anything worth remembering - verbatim if it's going to be relevant long-term. Because no one would believe me if I _did_ write out what I think I saw on that board, and in the face of that disbelief, I tend to doubt myself, too.
Then, after our museum tours, we caught lunch in the museum restaurant.
This is the second thing I am angry at myself for not photographing: The bottle of water had a label referencing the water-works renovation completed (by Cosimo) in the year-or-two after Eleanor died of malaria.
Exhausted, but still high on that whole experience, I found another intriguing thing: a repeated pattern motif in an unexpected place. And I told myself I'd catch it later. And "later on," I kept pushing the point.
This is the third thing I am angry at myself for not photographing: On a ceramic tile in my hostel, the motif in the lacework in the top cuff of the stockings was echoed as blue lines with red dots.
And then, suddenly, I needed to get out of there to catch my bus and plane. (Sitting in the airport terminal in Germany, alone, for a 5 hour layover, was an excruciating practice of coming to terms with my own bad planning.)
Getting home and back into my head, I tried a desperate maneuver: I'd made friends with Ali, a staff member at the hostel. I emailed him to see if he could sent me a photo of the ceramic tile. He gamely sent me what he thought I was asking. I tried twice, and then decided to not be a nuisance.
Controversies
After I got deep into this topic, the "controversies" I'm still researching are:
- Sources say "red," but my own eyeballs say "yellow." I don't doubt that the dyes faded over time, but how do we "know" that they started as red?
- Turn-down cuff "like a little boy," per an Englishman, referring to an interpretation of a photograph included in an Englishwoman's cursory reference to an Italian (or Spanish?) knitted piece.
- Garters vs grave bindings. This one is pretty clear, but I'll include it while discussing the other tertiary source commentary.
- Worked flat - this last is still the most vitriolic debate I've seen on the topic, hence the disclaimer: I've knitted my pattern both ways, both in the round, and flat - both ways work!! I'll show you photos, at some point. In the meanwhile: I'M STILL RESEARCHING!
After Florence, I was impatient to start the next pair, and I shortchanged the toe length on these, while starting those. This sock is not comfortable to wear, unfortunately, exclusively because of the short toe. I've kicked around the thought of fixing it, but I haven't yet cared enough.
At one point, I started to think in terms of collaboration. I made a mold of my leg using newspaper and duck tape. I weighted the base of the foot, and it stood upright on its own! This shows the folded-over cuff as posited in one of my sources.
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| My "foot" cast, covered with the yellow stocking, completed. |
(Ultimately, I got enough grief about my foot being "creepy" that I destroyed it. I can rebuild it, better, if that starts to look like a good idea again.)
Iteration #2 - "Most Best"
Summer 2014; Red Tonal Wool
I started the red as a "most best" version to compare to the yellow - which, of course, was unfair to the yellow, but I wanted proof of skill improvement over time. So, back to swatching again.
This one still explored a few questions to myself, most notably in the shaping of the ankle "clocks."
I took these stockings to (LPT? in 2016?). One knitter who reviewed my work asked why the panels weren't even - why the stitch count ended on a pattern panel, not an interstitial panel. Great question! It was too late to explore that thought for the red, so I put that on my to-do list for the next pair.
I gave this pair to my friend Sabine. I did that as a placeholder, as described in the next section, but also for me: so I could borrow them back after they'd been worn a little bit, and I could see how the wear lines compared with the extant. The experiment was flawed, of course: as wool, these felted at the feet soles and shoe rub-points. But at the same time, they proved the points I thought they would.
Intermission
February 2016; Yellow Tonal Wool
For awhile, this was my very most favorite knitting motif.
At some point in here, I started a "hope chest" box, making a bunch of ankle-high socks for myself, both to practice a toe-up cast-on and while daydreaming about longterm plans my husband and I were making.
Iteration #3 - Practice
November 2014; Silver Silk for Sabine
While working through the red, I started to feel antsy about the street cred of this work. My friend Sabine has a French persona, but she's a costumer, and I thought she'd appreciate Italian stockings - especially these, with such incredible wow-factor and legitimacy. So I talked her into buying silk thread, with the promise that I'd send her "baby pictures" as I made progress on these.
I slightly changed-up the stitch count of the pattern based on feedback: if these are plausibly knitted flat, it seems like the pattern intervals would start and end on the long vertical panels, not the "static" or horizontal ones.
I averaged an inch in length per hour, with an average of 6 rows to an inch.
And then I ran out of thread. Sabine bought more.
Now I just need to sit still with the red to count out the toe rows to finish these out. It'll be only about 2-3 hours work when I get going, provided I'm not interrupted too severely.
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| Close-up of calf-shaping decreases in the pattern motif. |
Iteration #4 - Eventing Wool Socks
April 2018; Homespun for Charles
I have now made three pairs of socks for myself, out of wool homespun. And I love them all to pieces.
The first pair is nearly unwearable for being so thick - I want to put a sole on them, and wear them as moccasins. I have suede and rubber cement, and a foot to trace. And I keep not doing that, so I think I'm still cogitating a better plan.
The second pair is my very most favorite ever, made from yarn I re-worked after I had figured out my baseline skill set.
The third is "okay" - the toe is a little thin, which worries me. And I don't love how tight the toe band is, around the color work.
When I started to think about making a fourth pair, I wasn't inspired for my own benefit. But at the same time, I'm pretty solidly convinced that no one else will love my homespun the way I do, so I have to keep it, somehow. And then it occurred to me that my husband lives in my house and would appreciate (and respect) wool socks for the winter eventing season. And I could "borrow" them back, if I developed "gifters remorse." Done and done.
I thought about this in the middle of the Homespun Jacket project, and gathered everything in one place. I'd settled on the Raspberry Merino for this project, and the boyf confirmed that he would accept that color in his life. I started to work toe-up, and couldn't figure out why it kept fighting me. So I left everything in a bag, and put it in time-out.
Fast forward a bit: When I, ha, did my due diligence and pulled out the pattern, oy, it turned out the pattern was cuff-down. Glad I'm doing this now, ahead of the next project iteration.
Then, I agonized over starting the swatch. I brought the bag, pattern, needles, etc with me to Wiesenfeuer Baronial. When we got word that the event was cancelled for rain, we turned around and I turned on "full speed" mode to finally get this thing started.
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| Raspberry Merino. It really just looks the best in day-lighting. |
And then, I had to figure out counts and stretch, and fit. Oy. That was another two iterations. Finally, I dropped the number of stitches to a point I'm not willing to go beyond. And now we're game-on.
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| Cast-on Sock #1 for Charles. |
And here we are, at the very tippy-end of the cold season.
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| LINK: https://goo.gl/images/WNMp7Q |
Functionally:
I'm making thick wool socks for the boyf because I love him and want to him to be happy;
To be completed in the summertime, because love can be stifling and inconvenient.
Iteration #5 - Commission
August 2016; Silk for Tatiana
On August 1, 2016, a friend posted a silent auction to benefit an acquaintance starting a fight against cancer. I knew all the parties involved, and wanted to help.
I checked with the coordinator: I was pressed for time, but still was willing to offer two pairs of stockings, timing to be determined. She said that sounded reasonable - both sock offers were fancy enough that the winning party would likely expect a decent construction time lag.
Sure enough: the bidding went respectably high, and then the winning party and I waited for our lives to line-up. She wanted to use a fiber I didn't have on hand, so we discussed options. And then more life. Conveniently, the longer we waited, the more brain-processing space I have been able to free up.
[will update - as of April 2018, looks like our timing is about to line-up]
Rabbit Holes
Because, I can't bring myself to delete a link for a "Sock Museum." Disclaimer: Links may be dead. I haven't checked these since I initially placed them.
Sock Museum! How could you not?!
http://www.sockmuseum.com/socks/eleanora-toledo-socks
Ravelry link with a pattern!! In Carnation Pink! June 2008
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/eleonora-di-toledo-stockings
This has lots of links to finished works: PDFs of class hand-outs and other works of AWESOME!
https://sites.google.com/site/grenewode/
How-To work-through of the Ravelry pattern! With the chart that comes up the most commonly during such searches.
http://georgresearch.blogspot.com/2007/11/eleanor-of-toledo-socks.html
Another version of this stocking, with photos of the extant stockings and new work based off a TI article:
http://www.mktag.org/projects/caelfindToledoStocking/content.html
Tournaments Illuminated article references:
Knitting Eleanora of Toledo’s Stockings, by Melinda Strehl. Tournaments Illuminated 1998.
Revised Pattern For Eleanora Of Toledo’s Silk Stockings (26/5/00)
Gorgeous slouchy YELLOW sock with folded cuff and red scarf tied like a garter. It's not a top return, but it's in there (second row on 9-17-2013). This is the link, but it gave me a 404. I haven't chased it further yet (but the root also comes back dead).
http://www.aneafiles.webs.com/renaissancegallery/italian.html
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