My Medieval-Inspired Knitting Projects

Updated 17 October 2012

I had taught myself to knit when I was a girl, but found other things to occupy my time through high school, college and beyond. A few years ago, I found myself traveling more, especially to more SCA events. So I needed a new, more portable hobby to occupy myself on long trips. Eventually, I re-discovered knitting - now with a medieval twist!

Calon Hill Pouch Calon Hill Pouch with ruler Household Pouch Pattern

Calon Hill Pouch

Made: started during trip to Melon Wars 2009
Fiber: DMC crochet cotton No. 5
Colors: purple , gold , red , white
Gauge: 12 stitches per inch
Size:
Technique: knitted in the round, top-down, on 00 needles, some "weaving in", lucet cord strap
Notes: combines populace badges of my SCA Kingdom, Calontir, and my local SCA group, Heraldshill. It was originally used to carry my old "brick" cell phone, and is now looking for a new purpose since that phone has been retired. You can see where I started in the purple and was having trouble with the tension of my gold "woven in" thread.

Peer Pouch Household Pouch Pattern

Peer Pouch

Made: made summer-fall 2009
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: green, gold, purple, white
Gauge: 11 stitches per inch
Technique: knitted in the round from the top down on 00 dpn, "woven in"
Notes: I was so happy with the results of the color work in my first pouch, that I decided to try knitting four colors in the same row to make a pouch based on a friend's device. I learned valuable lessons in the difficulties of controlling the tension when "weaving in" three threads instead of one, and the dangers of stranding too tightly across wide gaps. Needless to say, this pouch was never given to my friend.

Monmouth Cap Monmouth Cap with ruler

Monmouth Cap

Made: made summer-fall 2009
Fiber: Patons worsted wool
Colors: gray.
Gauge: 5 stitches per inch
Size:
Technique: knitted in the round on U.S. 8 dpn, bottom-up, more-or-less following directions on the HistoricKnit Yahoo! Group files
Notes: knitted a little large with the intention of being felted down, but I decided I liked the loose fit - no "hat head" when I get to work.

Household Pouch Household Pouch with ruler Household Pouch Pattern

Household Pouch

Made: winter-spring 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: green, gold
Gauge: 14 stitches per inch, oddly enough
Technique: knitted in the round, bottom up on US 00 dpn, stranded and "woven in"
Notes: I experimented with "weaving in" only at one stitch just before changing colors. This left a subtle pucker in the knitting that I did not like and eventually I got up the courage to abandon "weaving in" altogether. I am fairly happy with the result.

Sifrid Pouch Sifrid Pouch with ruler Sifrid Pouch Pattern

Sifrid Pouch

Made: spring-summer 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: blue, yellow, black
Gauge: 13 stitches per inch
Size:
Technique: knitted in the round, bottom up on US 00 dpn, stranded, some intarsia
Notes: By this time, my husband was complaining that I hadn't made anything for him. I'd read on the HistoricKnit list about doing intarsia-type work in the round and came up with a scheme I used when I got to the acorns. Each side had it's own separate yellow thread and when I knitted across the front of the acorn, I purled across the back to get the thread back across, twisting in the background thread at each end. It worked pretty well, I just needed to fine-tune my thread tension.

Christian's Pouch

Christian d'Hiver's Laurel Pouch

Made: summer 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: purple, white, green, yellow
Gauge: 11-12 (?) stitches per inch
Size: just a little too small for the recipient's phone
Technique: knitted in the round, bottom up (?) on US 00 dpn, stranded, intarsia-type work for the vertical border, finger-loop braid hanging strap.
Notes: I decided to see if the intarsia technique I came up with for the acorns would work for the vertical borders of this pouch. Keeping the tension right stranding two colors while purling was difficult, and the laurel leaf pattern was a little complicated to keep track of switching back and forth. I hid the wobbles by attaching a finger-loop braid over the border, ostensibly to serve as a hanging strap.

I neglected to take a photo of this pouch before I gave it away.

Calontir Pouch Calontir Pouch with ruler Calontir Pouch Pattern

Calontir Pouch

Made: summer 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: purple, yellow, white
Gauge: 11-12 stitches per inch
Size: bigger than I intended
Technique: knitted in the round, bottom up on US 00 dpn, stranded
Notes: simple two-color stranded work, nothing too challenging. I decided that the pattern needed some tweaking - too much empty background between the motifs, the lines of the crosses needed to be beefed up a bit and I got the pattern of the falcon's heads wrong. In addition, the little fleur-de-lis would have looked more like fleur-de-lis if I had knitted from the top down.
Smaller Calontir Royal Pouch Pattern Royal Pouch with ruler

Royal Pouch

Made: summer 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: purple, yellow, white
Gauge: 11 stitches per inch
Size: 3.25 inches wide and 5 inches long (80 stitches cast on, 71 stitches long)
Technique: knitted in the round, top down on US 00 dpn, stranded
Notes: knitted from the top down to improve the appearance of the mini fleur-de-lis and incorporated other pattern changes learned from Calontir Pouch above. It was stranded with background color in my right "throwing" hand and pattern color in my left "picking" hand since my left hand knits a little more loosely which makes the pattern stitches show better. I used a Russian-style cast-off technique () to knit the bottom of the pouch closed from the inside for a very tidy finish. If I could just get my cast-on to be as nice! This was the first stranded project that I've done that didn't need any tugging of the strands to fix the tension of the stitches.

I realized at the end that the pouch wasn't going to be quite long enough to fit my phone, which I was using as an example to make sure that the pouch would be big enough for a cell phone. So I had to put in some extra rows at the end. With a few more pattern tweaks, the next one will be perfect, really!

Smaller Calontir Royal Pouch Pattern Royal Pouch with ruler

Queen's Pouch

Made: summer-fall 2010
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: purple, yellow, white
Gauge: 12 stitches per inch
Size: 3.25 inches wide and 4 5/8 inches long (80 stitches cast on, 66 stitches long)
Technique: knitted in the round, top down on US 00 dpn, stranded
Notes: I attempted to add a third color to some of the rows, so I had a little trouble with my tension on this one, but not too bad. I'm not sure I like my "roses" but I'm pretty happy with the rest of the pattern, although I should have made the pouch a little bit longer.

Sorcha Pouch Pattern Sorcha Pouch with ruler

Sorcha's Pouch

Made: winter-spring 2011
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: purple, yellow, white
Gauge: 11 stitches per inch
Size: 3 3/8 inches wide and 3 5/8 inches long (78 stitches cast on, 49 stitches long)
Technique: knitted in the round, top down on US 00 dpn, stranded
Notes: I'm still not happy with the vertical laurel wreaths but they turned out better than Christian's pouch. This time I just stranded the thread across the back of the vertical stripe when it was time to knit the next row (instead of trying to purl back across). Keeping the tension right for that was difficult. I should have done one more row of gold at the bottom before I did the "inside-out invisible Russian cast-off".

Vasilla Pouch Pattern Vasilla Pouch with ruler

Vasilla's Pouch

Made: winter-summer 2012
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: yellow, green, red, white
Gauge: 11 stitches per inch
Size: 3 3/8 inches wide and 3 5/8 inches long (78 stitches cast on, 49 stitches long)
Technique: knitted in the round, top down on US 00 dpn, woven-in
Notes: The vertical laurel wreaths turned out a little better this time. I used a separate pair of yellow and green threads for each column and "wove-in" the red and white threads across the back of the column to try to better unite the columns with the body of the pouch. This made the pouch more solid, but de-tangling the extra pair of threads and having to change colors so often slowed the project considerably. Since I was using the woven-in technique across the columns, I decided to attempt it again to control the red threads as I knit the large areas of white, but I don't like the roughness and irregularity it introduced into those stitches. (Cotton is not very forgiving of tension issues.) I did one more row of gold at the bottom than I had on Sorcha's before I did the "inside-out invisible Russian cast-off". I think there needs to be a third row of gold.

Tatjana Pouch Pattern Tatjana Pouch with ruler

Tatjana's Pouch

Made: Fall 2012
Fiber: DMC Crochet Cotton No. 5
Colors: yellow, green, red, white, black
Gauge: 11 stitches per inch
Size: 3 3/8 inches wide and 3 5/8 inches long (80 stitches cast on, 52 stitches long)
Technique: knitted in the round, top down on US 00 dpn, stranded
Notes: I decided to give up on the vertical laurel wreaths, and the pouch was much faster to make accordingly. I am much happier with the smoothness and "cleanness" of the knitting with the stranded technique instead of the woven-in technique. I did a third row of gold at the bottom before I did the "inside-out invisible Russian cast-off" and that looks about right. Finally.

Send comments and questions to lkies319@gmail.com
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