The 1830s Habit Shirt in Daily Writing

I’m undertaking a new project. It’s called a “habit shirt” but I’m not entirely sure what that means. I saw the diagrams, detailing some fairly simple shapes, and read the very vague instructions. The description on how to get started and the image gave me an idea of what i should craft it to look like, but I felt utterly confused. This isn’t a pattern! It’s a vague direction, simply throwing me into a distressing situation, of which I can’t imagine how women of the day must have interpreted it, but, of course, they were used to these things.

I took a deep breath after reading over the pattern for the fourth time, and the instructions on double knitting at least three or four. I’ve never done double knitting, and while it isn’t expressly required, it’s recommended for warmth in the garment. That makes logical sense. The garment is described as a sort of wrap that provides a layer of warmth for the body when worn under a shawl. I could imagine how lovely that must be, a hexagonal back met with two uneven trapazoidal pieces to wrap across the front. The two corners wrap across the front with ribbons at the ends to tie in the back. At the top is a neat little rectangular collar, simple to knit, that’s stitched on. There’s another ribbon at the end of the collar to keep it snug at the neck. This sounds ideal for me, warm, comfortable, thick, and practical. With the collar it will be just a little warmer than my other wraps, and with the doubled thickness, adding an extra layer to trap the warmth, it promises to be lovely and warm.

Getting all the details, I was so excited to start, but I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. It’s possible I don’t have enough yarn and will need to order more. Since I won’t have a chance of getting the same dye lot, I want to knit up both the sides, because if the back is slightly off, no one is likely to notice, especially if it’s covered with a shawl. Oh, how I look forward to being wrapped up in a gorgeous dress, habit shirt wrapped tightly around my body, shawl wrapped over even that, and some muffletees and gloves to keep my hands snug. I think of having my warm, quilted petticoat snuggled up under the skirt, and maybe a down petticoat for extra warmth on a particularly bitter day. Paired with some warm socks and a bonnet or cap to keep the cold from my ears, I can imagine being terribly warm, even in a heavy snow without a jacket. It’s years earlier, but it brings to memory images of the March girls playing in the snow, not a care in the world, and perhaps acting quite unladylike.

With gusto, I begin. The double knitting sounded far more difficult than it was. That’s quite the relief. It’s a simple pattern of skipping every other stitch and tucking the yarn to the inside of the piece, making it fiddly and slow, but incredibly easy to do. The fabric that burst forth of my needles was delightful, not just the standard bulk of the yarn as it loops across itself, but also the pull of the stranding between the stitches where the back crosses to the front, and the neat little pocket of air between, making this the perfect sort of garment to catch the warmth. This is the very knitting I needed, and I suspect it will mean being snuggly warm in the upcoming winter, which promises to be cold.

I look at the steep angle developing on one side, and the shallow on the other. This was how the book said to increase, every row on one side, every other row for the opposite, yet this didn’t look like the diagram. The diagram shows straight on the sides, but to make that happen I would need to knit an number of increases and decreases. That doesn’t track with the instructions. What’s going on here?

Frustrated, I search the pattern desperately for understanding. It indicates I need to work up the back first. Perhaps that’s the key. If I knit up the back… but no, I can’t do that. I need to knit up the two wraps because I want those to match. If the back doesn’t match I can tolerate that. I’m not sure I have enough yarn given it’s double knit, so I want to make sure I get this right. I need to start with the sides, which I realized just after I’d worked the first couple rows of the back when I ripped out the first side.

I poured over the pattern again. What was I missing? Okay, so look at the diagram, check. That makes sense. I want to cast on… wait, I cast on enough stitches to match the distance from A to S? What? How did I miss that? Okay, so I’m guessing you measure S, then estimate enough stitches to get you to that with the increases, and that gives you A. But A and S are on flat sides of the....

Damnit! That was where I went wrong! I needed to knit the stitches the other way, not from the point, but from the end! The other diagram shows very clearly that the sides of the front are angled into a hexagonal back, which means the sides need to expand out to a point on both ends. How did I miss that? This necessitates starting at the neck and working down to the bottom, expanding until it fits neatly around the waist. Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps I made too many patterns where the wrap is knit from the shoulder to the point, so I can’t conceptualize it any other way. Well, I felt I had it, so off I went.

Now I sit here, feeling the green, heathered wool slide through my fingers as I slowly knit one, pull the yarn forward, slip a stitch, and pull the yarn to the back to be ready to knit once again. There are now two hundred stitches on the needles, and it’s fiddly and annoying, but at last it looks like it may just work. With satisfaction, I can breathe. It won’t be much longer until the magic happens and I finally feel like I can see what the pattern is talking about. That is the moment the next challenge will come, but until then, I sit, patiently flipping the yarn front and back, slipping stitches, and knitting, late into the night.