making a balmoral bonnet

[fluter]

As mentioned elsewhere, I have a balmoral in progress. It's knitted to a commercial pattern by Anne Carroll Gilmour, but I believe many of the historically inspired bonnet patterns would give similar results.

The impressive thing about this is the size of the crown, before it is felted. The remark in the other thread about a bonnet shaped like a bloated cactus really did seem to be the proper term.



Still, I had the gauge matched up, and had experimentally felted a test swatch, and Anne really does know her stuff. It's knitted very, very loosely, and ends up with a right tight fabric. So beginning with a bonnet that would enclose my head, with the hem sitting on my shoulders; we proceeded to felt it within an inch of its life---as advised by the cognoscenti among the rabble, in the washer using hot water and cold rinse. Here is the result after drying overnight on a handy 61-centimeter bowl from the kitchen.


For comparison, here is the dicing during the knitting process: you can see how much it shrinks up in the vertical dimension.


I still have to procure some grosgrain ribbon, think about a lining fabric, construct a rosette as base for badge or cockade, and so on. The bonnet will probably undergo a couple more immersions and dryings. However i have a distinct advantage in that it does not have that nice, regular shape from the artisan's workshop. It's almost pre-Jocked, you might say!