Victorian Antique Clothing Haul: Historical Underwear, Stockings & Other Knits!

Hello everyone and welcome back to my rooftop, although this time I am not wearing my historical underwear. Although I am still working on the historical Halloween project, I still need a little bit more time before it's fully finished. So I thought this time I would actually share with you guys some more of my antique pieces. You've already seen some of my collection, such as the Edwardian petticoat with a knit lace that I compared to my own knit lace, as well as my antique sewing machine, my vintage oil lamp, and my antique teacups. I won't be showing you any more of that, but I will be sharing with you some more of the antique clothing pieces that I own. I do most of my antiquing online. I use sites like Etsy and eBay. Sometimes I go to online estate sales and bidding options, and that's where I find a lot of these pieces. Especially for finding references for historical knitting, I find it really fascinating to look at pictures online, but what I found even more illuminating is actually being able to hold, interact, and see the pieces up close that people knit from the Victorian era. And it's actually my hope to use these antique pieces as reference points so that I can recreate them as part of a future outfit. All right, so let's take a look at some of the pieces that I've collected over the last year or so. The first item that I want to show you is this pair of black stockings. According to the listing on Etsy where I got these from, they are approximately from the early 1900s, so about Edwardian era, and they still have the original sticker partially attached to the sock. I was trying to find some more information about this to get a little bit more detail on exactly when this stocking is from, but I haven't had any luck. So if you know anything about this stocking, I would actually love to get your input. I feel like I learn so much from all the comments that I get every time I post a video, so if anyone knows anything, please do let me know. From what I can tell, these definitely look machine made, so this is unlike most of the other items in my collection, but I was very interested to see exactly how delicate and fine machine knitting would look like from the time, and it's absolutely beautiful. I do have a few pair of stockings, so this is another pair of stockings, also from Etsy, but this time these are hand knit and made out of a white cotton material. They measure approximately 18 inches from the cuff to the bottom of the heel, and that's another reason why I like to have the stockings too. I'm interested in the size. Now the way that I can tell that these are hand knit is there are some very slight differences, maybe you would call them imperfections, but just kind of hallmarks of what makes them hand knit, and that would be the varying tension in the actual fabric and material that you can see, as well as some differences between the right and left sock. So when you compare the right and left toe, the decreases look slightly different. One toe is pointier than the other. The other difference that you can see is in the heel gusset, so in one of them the line goes further down the foot than the other, so the decreases were done slightly different between the two heel gussets. I also really like looking at the decreases and some of the fixes that happen to the sock over time. I'm not exactly sure when this sock was darned or fixed, maybe it was with the original owner, maybe it was some subsequent owners, but these are definitely very delicate and they have multiple holes in them, so I tried to handle them as infrequently as possible because I don't want them to unravel on me. The yarn is also quite a bit thicker than the first pair of stockings that I showed you, but it is still incredibly fine compared to today's yarns that we typically use. The stockings that I made out of lace weight yarn are even thicker, the stitches are much larger than these, so if I want to recreate these I think I'm going to definitely have to find some thinner yarn. While the first two pair of stockings were definitely meant for an adult, these are child-sized stockings. They're much smaller, about 11 inches from the cuff to the heel, and while the listing says that they are antiques and possibly hand-knit, I can definitely say that they are definitely hand-knit. I'm not exactly sure if they're antiques or not, but I do still find them really beautiful to look at. So what are some things that give away that these are hand-knit? Well, first of all, if you look at the difference in the heel from both of the socks, this heel is stockinette stitch while the other heel on the other sock is actually the reverse of that, so I think someone was a little inconsistent between the heel construction of the two socks. These are also a little bit in not-so-great condition, there are a few threads that are coming apart, so I also try to handle these as delicately as possible because I don't want them to unwind on me. They're also quite yellowed and with age, so I believe these were a much brighter color originally, but they definitely have yellowed with time. The other thing that kind of gives away that these are hand-knit, in my opinion, is the fact that the pattern on the socks are reversed. So on one of the socks, you can kind of see these crossover stitches very clearly on the outside versus the other one, that pattern is on the inside of the sock, and you would think that if you turn it inside out that maybe you get the right pattern in the right direction and maybe the heel turns the right way around, but then your foot, the bottom of the foot stockinette section would be the wrong way around, so I think someone mixed up exactly where they're knitting which part of the pattern on these socks, but they still look really really cute. Next, I managed to acquire some aprons with hand-knit lace trimming. This one I also got from Etsy and it's really exciting to me because it has actual provenance, I don't know if that's the right word for what I mean here, but I actually know that this is an apron dating to 1860 and it belonged to Susan Rebecca Boynton, who was born in 1838 in Concord, New Hampshire, and I think the fabric is really interesting because while the bottom of the apron looks like it has pintucks, it's actually, I believe, part of the weave, so it's woven thicker in those areas to make it almost look like it has pintucks and add a little bit more extra volume and structure to the bottom of it. It's also quite a long apron, it's about 36 and a half inches long, so when I wear it, it reaches quite far down and the lace is so incredibly intricate with this beautiful border. I've been trying to study it in much more detail because I find it very interesting how she managed to go around the corner on both ends of this hand-knit lace. The other thing about this apron is that the ties are quite short, so I am able to very delicately and gently tie it behind my back without wearing any kind of undergarments, so I wonder if Susan was potentially very small-waisted or if maybe she pinned the apron instead. In any case, I am always very happy when I manage to find an example of antique Victorian knit lace trim because I love making my own hand-knit lace and sometimes I find it difficult to find actual examples of it being used in wearable items of clothing. So between this apron and the next apron that I'll show you, I definitely want to remake one of these for another outfit or ensemble in the future. I have a little bit less information on exactly where this apron came from, but I do know that this is a museum deaccession piece that I also got from Etsy. It's not quite as long as the last apron, it's only 33 inches long, and the ties are much longer, making it easier to tie around one's back. This has two rows of lace, so one lace trim and a lace insertion, but they both definitely complement each other, and it has an extra detail on it where it actually has some white embroidery on top of the white apron, so it just adds that little extra bit of texture and interest. I'm not an expert in embroidery, but I do think it's a very beautiful pattern, but the knit lace is so delicate, so beautiful, and really open, and once again, the size of the yarn is just so small. So I'm glad that I'm starting to use smaller yarns as I'm making different pieces, but if I do want to recreate an apron like this, I'm definitely going to have to do some trial and error to make sure I can get the same stitch sizes as they did back then. I also don't know the exact time frame of when this apron is from. The listing only said that it's a Victorian ladies kitchen apron, but it still is very reminiscent to me of the lace patterns that I've seen in the pattern books, and the embroidery is very close to the ones that I've seen in the stitch books that I own. What's also different about this particular apron is that whoever made it also made enough lace to trim both of the ties at the back, so it adds a little extra detail and interest to the apron overall. I believe this is the one that I'm going to try to recreate in the future. When I saw this item online, I was so excited. When I created my petticoat almost a year ago now, I was having kind of a hard time finding actual examples of petticoats from the 1890s that had hand-knit lace trim, especially lace trim and lace insertions, but this petticoat has not only one lace trim and one insertion, but three layers of insertions and the most delicate pin tucks. The lace is in a bit of a rough condition, there are a few places where it seems like maybe something ate away at the stitches and it's coming down off of the actual petticoat too, so I want to make sure that I can keep the petticoat in as good a shape as possible. You can also tell that it's hand-knit because while the insertion is, I have a hard time finding any kind of unique mistakes in that pattern, the bottom trim, you can see sometimes whoever made this lace skipped a few of those larger openings, so you can definitely tell that this is a hand-knit piece of lace and once again in the most delicate gauge possible. I'm also just absolutely amazed at the pin tucks on this petticoat, I've tried to make pin tucks and I find them incredibly difficult to do, so this is another item that I want to try to recreate exactly, so I think I'm going to have to try to practice and see if I can get my sewing skills a little bit better before I try to recreate this petticoat. This is also quite a small petticoat, the waist I believe is around 21 inches and is a tie in the back, I definitely wouldn't want to try this on, like I said the knit lace is in kind of a delicate condition but even if I wanted to I definitely don't have a 21 inch waist so I couldn't. For other reference it's 38 inches long and according to the listing it is from the 1890s. Now the last item that I'm going to share with you is actually pretty common to find online, it is an Edwardian era knit muffler and not a muffler for your hands but actually for your neck. I got this one in particular because it came with its original box and I just absolutely love the illustration on the front of it and it also has some writing on the side that says the size of this muffler which I'm guessing might be like a neck opening size, I'm not exactly sure, and the color that it's supposed to be which is pearl, but this is a very very common piece that I've seen very often online and I find it really fascinating because from what I can tell, and please give me your references, this is pretty popular around the time that cars started to become common in order to protect your neck and collar area from the high winds and dirt when you're driving especially down unpaved roads, so this is something to keep yourself nice and warm and hopefully less dusty. It goes around the neck and closes at the front with this beautiful little pearlized button and that is it, that is my entire newly acquired antique collection and if you have any more information on any of the things I've shown you please leave me a comment, I want to know more about these items. Thank you so much for watching, I hope to see you next time because I will be revealing my historical Halloween costume and as usual I'll just leave the links to all of my other social pages down below if you want to check me out somewhere else. See you next time!