Research: Medieval Egyptian Knitting

When Egyptians Walk

At some point in 2008, prior to LPT that year, I started digging for medieval-documentable sock patterns. I didn't expect it to be easy, but the knitters of the world haven't let me down yet - I found an excellent blog showing these stockings, a pattern, and construction, dye, and find notes.

In 2008, the page was completely beyond me. And then I practiced, and researched, and practiced, and researched some more.

I've written several sets of notes on my experiences with this project in general, and this pattern in specific, in several different places. As I work toward getting all my thoughts in one place, I'll try to do justice to this topic.

I'm setting up my notes in two separate blogs:

• This one is research notes, suitable for reworking into classes or documentation on these projects.
• The other one is real-time iterations I've created, with project photos. 

Research Notes
I feel like every time I try to say something definitive about these stockings besides what I’ve done, I find a new piece of information that contradicts, or at least spins, what I previously had.

The earliest known knitted items are thought to be (Crusades-driven) grave finds that made their way to Fustat, a major trade port in Egypt that was also the capital of the country through 1168 CE.

Later knitted items (13th century) were produced by Muslim knitters in Spain for Spanish Christian royal families – and those items were found buried in royal family tombs in monasteries. By the 14th century, knitted things were in common use all throughout Europe, made by all classes of people and constructed of all available fibers.

I’ve seen photos of two variations in this stocking style.

Commonalities: 

• Definitely knitted (as opposed to questionable identifications involving fabric created via naalbinding)
• Worked from the toe, up
• Intricately color-worked
• Cotton, dyed blue or bleached white
• Same trade-routes/ discovery 

Differences:

• Heels: afterthought vs short-row
• Toe cast-on method: magic-loop vs ??
• Color work banding: primarily white with color-work bands, and the other was entirely color-work in bands

Construction

Material

The yarn for the stockings and color swatch is Cotton Carpet Warp 8/4 from Halcyon Yarn. The colors are 104/58 Ivory and 117/5 Navy Blue.


Cotton was known to many cultures throughout our Period, including Europe. The original sock was constructed of cotton yarn in a yarn gauge close to 28 wraps per inch (wpi), which can be determined by measuring the number of stitches in a 1” by 1” square. For this project, I’ve used rug warp cotton in the same weight, which matched the needle size recommended in the pattern I used, in addition to being a common “sock weight.”

The original sock was determined to be made of cotton in off-white and dark indigo blue. Natural dyestuffs in Egypt would have been mostly limited to madder and indigo, and sometimes weld.

Cotton is a cellulose material, same as linen, so while it does accept dyes initially, most colors fades quickly to pale or pastel shades from washing and exposure to sun. The common exceptions to this general rule are indigo and madder which have unique properties and aggressive dyeing procedures.

Tools

Knitting needles feature a point at one or both ends and an even, smooth shaft. The earliest work of knitting would have been completed using double pointed needles, working in a spiral.

This project utilized a set of five dpns in size US 2, being 2.75 mm on the metric scale. Some care must be taken in the modern selection of knitting needles because at the fine and heavy ends of the spectrum, the US numbers do not share a 1:1 gradation relationship with the metric measurement.

A tool often referenced by researchers of Egyptian and folk knitting has a crochet hook on one end and a knitting needle point on the other. The modern name appears to be “knook.” I haven’t found an older name for the tool, nor an indication whether they were used in pairs or separately. They are mundanely sold individually or in a set of consecutive sizes.

This is an invaluable tool for knitting work for a few functions:

• Pick up loops during the cast-on process - where loops are formed in the working yarn and transferred to the needle in a way that holds each loop separate from the ones before and after.
• Pick up stitches that fell from a needle. A hook can grab the loose stitch and “walk” it back up the “laddered” gap left behind when it unraveled (imagine a run in nylon stockings).
• Weave in loose strings at the conclusion of a project’s construction.

Techniques

I'll probably provide links for these, since they're common enough to modern knitters, but will not be familiar to non-knitters. The work here did not appear to be different in any discernable way from the modern finished result, even if the way of working it has changed over time - for example in the popular shift to Victorian (English, aka "throw") from Continental (European, aka "pick-up").

• Cast on
• Bind off
• Stranded knitting
• Number of unique pattern motifs.
• Level of detail within each pattern motif.
• Finish work beyond simply weaving in the tails.
• Color work bands.
• Color work from the toe-up - more complex than cuff-down because of the lack of stitches holding the needles in place while juggling two strands plus their tails.

Quality Notes

I occasionally catch myself musing about the quality of extant pieces - for all that they are visibly deteriorated from actual centuries of neglect and decay, the remaining fabric shows care and expertise. Factors I consider while in this headspace include:

• Drape of the fabric. Tight knitting will hang more stiffly than loose knitting. Drape is directly affected by matching the needle gauge to the yarn gauge, and the tension used by the knitter during the process of working the pattern.
• Texture of colorwork areas. Colorwork features loose threads floating on the wrong side of the work. If the threads are too taut or slack, one or both of the two stitches connected to them may sink or bulge.
• Overall texture of the fabric. In any textile, changes in texture may be caused by changes in tension (perhaps looser when starting and tighter when stopping a work session), imperfections in the yarn, and careless pauses with a needle stabbed through the fabric. Consistency of texture within specific-pattern areas. For example, the Diapered Diamonds “pucker” differently than the Zig Zag and the straight-knit sections.
• Pattern consistency. Subtle mistakes in following the pattern may manifest as anything from an odd patch in the work to a band that looks reasonable for the pattern but doesn’t match the rest of the section. Charted patterns are commonly worked using repeated rows, so if one row is off, it could shift the whole pattern.
• Spaces between needles. In circular knitting using double pointed needles, twisted or ladder-like gaps may develop between the end of one needle and the beginning of the next. As the relative position of each needle in relation to the orientation of the fabric may not frequently (if ever) change during the course of a project, any holes or distortions may track along a straight line.
• Seam where the pattern begins and ends. A charted colorwork pattern may not feature seamless joins since there is a definite beginning and end of the design. The point where one pattern row ends and another begins should have the same texture as the rest of the overall piece.
• New color joins. There should be no right-side indication of where a new thread was introduced to the work. Incorrect color additions may feature the same textural imperfections as are found in colorwork areas.
• Finish work. Loose ends should be hidden or arrayed decoratively.

References and Citations

Project Focus: Eleanor of Toledo Stockings

Stockings, the Italian Way

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

After figuring out the general outline of what I was aiming for, I dug for, and found, a sale on lace-weight wool yarn - the colorway was called "Shadow Tonal" and included a bright-and-shady yellow, and a bright-and-shady red. Perfect!

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.

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.

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 had a pen and a different sock-knitting book with me - that was my only paper and drawing utensil. For being so enthusiastic, and informed, about this trip, I sure didn't plan that part very well.

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! 

I got these stockings done, at some point.

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.

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.

This silk pair were complicated from the beginning - exactly because I wanted them to be perfect, and because I was changing fibers from my more-accustomed wool to silk, which I hadn't much worked with before. I ended up having to work the strand doubled, because 2/30 silk was much too fine for the texture I wanted on size 0 (US) needles.

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.

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.

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.

Cast-on Sock #1 for Charles. 

I complain, but I do want these to 1) be wearable by the intended party, and 2) look nice when they show up, in for-real daylight, at some event possibly near you (and likely near me).

And here we are, at the very tippy-end of the cold season.

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

Fine Cakes, ie Shortbread, from 1585

The following is the research I compiled for the May '11 meeting of the Mooneschadowe Cooks' Guild. I've updated it slightly from the handout I had at the Guild meeting. These changes are primarily notes from the second batch I made.

Fine Cakes

From the Florilegeum

Redaction 

• 2 c Flour (pastry is ideal, but all-purpose works just fine)
• ½ c Clotted cream  [directions at the end of this document] or butter
• 1 c Sugar
• ½ tsp Mace, ground
• ½ tsp Saffron
• ½ tsp Cloves, ground

1. Place flour in a casserole dish and seal tightly. Bake as long as you’d bake a venison pastry (about an hour).
2. When the flour is baked, it’ll be lumpy. Run the lumps through a sieve and sieve it well (about three times through). Set aside.
3. Mix together sugar and spices. Measure out your cream. For ½ cup cream, one yolk should be adequate. Blend the egg and cream into the sugar.
4. Add flour ½ cup at a time. Blend well between additions. Add only enough flour that the dough doesn’t slump after a few minutes – about 2 cups total.
5. Roll the dough into little balls, place on Parchment paper, and flatten to ½ to ¼ inch. (I used my big cookie sheet to transport them to/from the oven.)
6. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. (They were just turning golden along the edge.)

Baking Notes:
I made a batch in time for Castellan, and they very reminiscent of snickerdoodles with a big saffron aftertaste. During prep for this second batch, I accidentally let the cream boil for two hours. I wasn't sure if that would ruin the cream, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

I made one batch with the cream and one with margerine (Country Crock) for comparison. I guessed on the spice ratio, and I think I got it just right.

These cookies taste like they have a leavener (they don't) and nutmeg (ditto).

The remainder of the milk after making Clotted Cream (as below) is evaporated milk that can be used in any evaporated milk application (including 1:1 replacements of milk in recipes).

Source Notes
From Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu 
Author and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time"

"A searce is a sieve.  The pre-baked flour will be very hard and lumpy; you will need to rub it through a sieve in order to use it.  Clouted creame is fresh unpasteurized cream that has been allowed to sit in an earthenware pan near the hearth overnight.  The cream forms a thick wrinkled yellow crust called clouted or clotted cream.  If you don't have clouted cream, use butter."


Original Recipes

To make Fine Cakes.
From The Widowes Treasure, John Partridge, 1585

Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an earthen pot.  Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as you would a Pasty of Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of clods.  Then searce your flower through a fine sercer.  Then take clouted Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace, saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower.  Then  put these things into the Creame, temper all together.  Then put thereto your flower.  So make your cakes.  The paste will be very short; therefore make them very little.  Lay paper under them.


To Make Short Cakes.
From The good Hus-wifes Handmaide for the Kitchen, Thomas Dawson, London 1594

Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it in an earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an Oven and bake it, and when it is baken, it will be full of clods, and therefore ye must searse it through a searce: the flower will have as long baking as a pastie of Venison. When you have done this, take clowted Creame, or els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take Sugar, Cloves, Mace, and Saffron, and the yolke of an Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is ynough: then put all these foresaid things together into the cream, + te{m}per the{m} al together, the{n} put the{m} to your flower and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your cakes, yee must bake them upon papers, after the drawing of a batch of bread.


Clotted Cream
From Aiofe

You need either 1 1/2 quarts of Day old from-the-Jersey-Cow (ie: high cream content) Milk in a sauce pan, or you need a pint of heavy cream and a quart of whole milk, mixed together briefly in a sauce pan (this works btter if they are not perfectly fresh). Heat at the lowest possible burner setting, NEVER letting it boil or even simmer. You may wish to turn it off and on if your lowest heat is too high. It will develop a wrinkled, yellow skin on top.  This could take a hour or more. The skin is good. Leave the skin alone and heat without stirring. When the skin is pronouncedly wrinkled and thick, remove the cream/milk from the burner. Let cool several hours or overnight, very loosely covered if at all. With a spoon, carefully remove the cream from the surface of the milk, and drain if needed. The lumps of cream are called clotted cream. If you manage to get the skin off in one piece, you have cabbage cream (it resembles a wrinkled cabbage leaf). Yield: a scant pint of clotted cream, and a quart of milk suitable for cooking purposes.