Historical thigh high stockings

 Ahh, finally a post  which embodies the original spirit of this blog... You see, I have not forget that this is supposed to be a craft-blog...

Anyhow, You have already seen me knitting historical stockings, study the "texel stocking", doing its reconstruction project, back in 2018, and knitting quiet a few pairs since, many of which didn't even make the blog, because... well, they are not the most exciting knitting, and I admit, even the study of them seems, that only exciting for some people. 

The last bunch of them, that I took to the Groelle event last fall was posted here, and all of them but one (a small sized red one) was either given away (as a long owed wedding present to teammates of mine) or sold. 

One sold was bough by an Italian reenactor friend of mine, who got it for his long time girlfriend, and then at the very end of February he sent me a message, that he would like to have his own stockings to wear with his 17th and 16th century clothes. Yes, that means two pairs of stockings, a pair of (regular) knee high ones, and can I make a pair that is thigh high, as 16th century breeches are shorter?

Oh sure, hold my Coca Cola. I started knitting the black one, and did it without much problem, however, when I started to think about the long one... I needed to recalculate the length, the starting number of stitches, and the way how I get down to the knee, especially because the intended wearer was not here to keep trying it on, so I could only hope that it will fit. We exchanged a number of messages, can you please measure this and that distance, now, I need that circumference please... 

You have seen the beginning (and an early stitchcount) of it here.

I had no time or the inclination to further calculate just how many stitches in that pair of stocking, but its indication enough to say: a LOT.

Once I got down to the knee, things were easier, as I already knew how to proceed.

It was a LOT of knitting, but thankfully we were travelling a fair amount in March and April, so I had car-knitting time...

You can see, how much longer they are than the regular knee highs... (and how much MORE knitting).

Let it be enough to say, that a regular knee high pair takes about 3-4 skein of yarn, this one used up 5 full skein, to the last meter.

However, my friend, Samuele was really happy with them, they fit him great, so it was all well.

He wore it all through the weekend, even into the battle.

Yarn: DROPS Flora (5 skein) (I bought it from Nordfonal)

Needles: Knit Pro 2,25