Knitting an 1860s Sontag/Bosom Friend as a complete beginner! [Instructions included]
My only experience with knitting before starting to learn at a local knitting group this spring was my grandmother teaching me to do a garter stitch scarf when I was 13 (which I never finished) (also I didn’t know it was garter stitch). However, with a couple of years of sewing experience (and, more crucially, experience with actually finishing projects) under my belt, I thought it was time to get back into knitting. Doesn’t hurt that the climate in the UK is much more conducive to wearing cozy knitted garments than the sub-tropical temperatures of Taipei.
After finishing a slightly wonky chunky ribbed beanie and a few swatches, I felt that I had enough grasp of knits and purls to attempt my first garment. Ever since I saw the knit Sontag made by the amazing Roksolana Knits (check out her Instagram and Etsy shop for stunning historical/vintage knitting!), I’ve had it saved away as something I’d potentially want to make one day.
Original illustration of the “Bosom Friend” or “Sontag”, from Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, dated 1860
Lucky for me, the original Victorian illustration for the knit Sontag (a shawl that wraps around the torso and buttons in the back) featured (albeit slightly barebones) instructions. I found a modern translation of the instruction on a blog post by Colleen Formby, which you can find here. Someone had also uploaded Colleen’s translation to Ravelry here and added suggestions for yarn weight (Sport/5 ply, 12 wpi), gauge (20 stitches and 28 rows = 10 cm
in basketweave pattern) and needle size (US size 7/4.5mm), which is what I ended up going with. I’ll total up the yardage I used after my pattern. Other helpful sources I consulted before embarking on this new venture were a YouTube video on knitting this sontag by Vtor Hunter and a blog post by In the Rounds.
Finished photo of how my sontag looks like when worn! Just realized I have it buttoned left over right (instead of right over left like the Godey’s illustration)…well I’ve been wearing a lot of Hanfu/historical Chinese garments and you ALWAYS do left over right so the collar makes a “y”
First of all, as someone who loves overviews, let me give you an overview of how the sontag is knitted. It is knitted in basket weave stitch starting from the bottom edge of the back. As you knit up the back, you make one increase at the start of each row, then when you reach the back neck edge, you bind off the middle three squares to make the neck edge, put one of the front panels on stitch holders, and continue knitting the other front panel, decreasing once every few rows at the inner edge until you come to a point. Then you add yarn to the on-hold section, and knit it to mirror the other panel. Lastly, you pick up stitches with a new yarn (matching the yarn on the border), then knit a garter stitch border using circular needles one size smaller than the ones used for the body (I used 4mm for my border, 4.5 mm for the body). If your circulars are not long enough to pick up all the stitches around the entire border at once, it’s fine to pick it up in sections and sew them together later with a mattress stitch.
We start at the bottom of the back panel. The pink stitch marker is just marking that this is the right side.
Going to preface this by saying that I am extremely new to knitting and do not profess to know how to write knitting patterns, so this is going to be a just a guide, not a row-by-row pattern or a detailed tutorial. That said, with the aid of all the wonderful knitting YouTube videos and blogs out there, I’m sure a confident beginner can pull this off! I’ll be linking all the tutorials I referenced within the following steps as well.
You will need:
~400 g of Sport (5ply/12 wpi) weight yarn for the main body. I used 95% alpaca, but that can stretch. I prewashed mine to check (it didn’t stretch or shrink).
~100g of Sport (5ply/12 wpi) weight yarn for the contrast border. I used the same yarn as the body in a lighter color.
US Size 7/4.5 mm needles for the main body. I used straight 35 cm long needles, but you can use circulars for flat knitting if you like.
US Size 6/4 mm needles for the border. I used 80cm long circulars, but longer would be nice.
Crochet hook for picking up stitches. I just used what I happened to have on hand, which was a 4mm hook
Stitch holder (I used one of the Clover ones) (not sponsored!!)
Stitch markers
Measuring tape
Blunt tapestry needle (for weaving in ends and sewing the button loop)
Two 2cm buttons
Scissors to cut the yarn with
Main points of reference (to make it quicker to see what I’m doing)
One “square” of the basket weave is 5 stitches wide and 6 stitches tall
Each square is around 2.4 cm wide and 2.1 cm tall
The back panel is 17 squares tall to the point of the back neck bind-off edge, and 25 squares wide at that point
The front triangular panels are 25 squares tall, starting from the back neck bind-off edge
This was made to fit someone with a 40 cm back neck to waist length and about 70 cm waist, but turned out just a smidge too large (back panel is slightly too long and front triangles could stand to be a bit narrower)
I modified the pattern by making the triangular panels shorter so they button at the edges of the back panel, because I wanted to eliminate the waist ties (dangly parts are harder to launder!)
I used two kinds of increase
Add a stitch at the front of the row (like this tutorial shows) for when the increased first stitch is DIFFERENT from the second (trust me once you start the basket weave pattern you’ll understand)
kfb (knit front and back) or pfb (purl front and back) for when the increased first stitch is the SAME as the second
I used only one kind of decrease, the k2tog (knit 2 together) or p2tog (purl 2 together)
Here’s the key for the abbreviations used below:
k: knit
p: purl
kfb: knit front and back (this makes an additional stitch)
pfb: purl front and back (this makes an additional stitch)
k2tog: knit two together (this decreases by one stitch)
p2tog: purl two together (this decreases by one stitch)
Basket weave: this is done by making alternating “squares” of stockinette stitch, so when we’re on the first row of square, we knit the knits and purl the purls, but when we’re changing to the next row of squares, we knit the purls and purl the knits for one row, then go back to knitting the knits and purling the purls
Okay, let’s get into it! Scroll down for pictures of some of the steps.
Cast on 25 stitches using the long-tail cast on
Row 1 (start of first row of squares): k5, p5, k5, p5, k5
Row 2: p5, k5, p5, k5, p5
Rows 3-6: repeat Row 1 and Row 2
Row 7 (start of 2nd row of squares): Add one stitch to the beginning of the row, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5
Row 8: Add one stitch to the beginning of the row, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p1
Row 9: kfb, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5, k1
Row 10: pfb, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p2
Row 11: kfb, k1, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5, k2
Row 12: pfb, p1, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p3
Row 7 (start of 3rd row of squares): kfb, k1, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5, k3
Row 8: pfb, p2, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p3
Row 9: kfb, k2, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5, k4
Row 10: pfb, p3, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p4
Row 11: kfb, k3, p5, k5, p5, k5, p5, k4
Row 12: pfb, p3, k5, p5, k5, p5, k5, p4
Repeat Rows 7-12, increasing one stitch at the start of every single row, until the back panel measures 17 squares tall (should be 102 rows)
Row 103 (start of 18th row of squares): Start the first row of Square 18 as usual WITHOUT increasing on the first stitch, knit and purl in basket weave pattern until we reach the center three squares, BIND OFF center three squares (this tutorial helped me). I kept the proper left panel on my needles and placed the proper right panel on stitch holders.
Row 104: Knit and purl the proper left panel in keeping with basket weave pattern, when reaching the bound-off edge in the middle, BIND OFF one new stitch (this tutorial is helpful), continue in basket weave pattern without increasing at start of row
Row 105-108: Continue in basket weave pattern without increasing at start of row, while binding off one new stitch next to the already-bound-off center. This will make a shaped back neck edge that lies nicer against the neck.
Row 109-114 (19th row of squares): Knit and purl in basket weave pattern without increasing on first stitch or binding off anything
Row 115-150 (20-25th row of squares, total 6 rows of squares): Knit and purl in basket weave pattern while doing a k2tog or p2tog once every 4 rows on the INSIDE EDGE (where the neckline is)
Row 151-186 (26-31st row of squares, total 6 rows of squares): Knit and purl in basket weave pattern while doing a k2tog or p2tog once every 3 rows on the INSIDE EDGE (where the neckline is)
Row 187-222 (32-37th row of squares, total 6 rows of squares): Knit and purl in basket weave pattern while doing a k2tog or p2tog once every 2 rows on the INSIDE EDGE (where the neckline is)
Row 223-258 (38-43th row of squares, total 6 rows of squares): Knit and purl in basket weave pattern while doing a k2tog or p2tog once every 3 rows on the INSIDE EDGE (where the neckline is)
The proper left triangular panel is now finished! Now repeat steps 19-25 on the proper right triangular panel, and the main body of the sontag is done!
Border: Switch to 4mm needles. Pick up stitches with a crochet hook and put on 4mm circular needles. Pick up 4 stitches for every 6 rows on slanted edges, pick up 1 stitch each stitch for horizontal edges (this is pretty much ONLY the starting line at the back and the middle 3 squares of the neckline)
If circular needles not long enough, pick up in sections, preferably in a symmetrical manner. I divided the border into five parts: the two corners of the triangular panels, the inside edge of the neckline, and half of the outer edge
Knit 8 rows of garter stitch with second yarn color to form the border, making note to make increases where there are corners:
Increase one stitch each to the left and right of the back corners, but only do the increases on right side rows (that means only 4 rows out of 8 have increases)
Increase 3 stitches at the pointy corners of the triangular panels, also only on right side rows
Increase 1 stitch only next to the shoulder corner, also only on right side rows
(Optional, I feel it would look nicer without decreases, just knitted straight): Decrease by 2 stitches in each corner at the back neck, only on right side rows
Bind off garter stitch border (I used the Icelandic bind off)
Sew the edges of the borders together with a mattress stitch (like so) until they form one continuous border
Weave in all loose ends, typing them together where applicable, then sew a button loop (like this, pretty much in an identical manner to how button loops are sewn onto woven garments) and sew on one button on each back corner.
Finished! Hooray!
As you see, you pretty much just need to know how to knit, purl, increase, and decrease, and you can make this sontag! It feels to me like wearing a slightly fancier vest, which is really useful for the cool spring weather we’re currently having. Enjoy the gratuitous shots of me wearing the sontag below. Please do tag me on my Instagram: @laurencewenyuli if you make one, I’d love to see it!
And here’s the back view of the finished sontag!
Postscript: I realised after writing this post that if you actually make an account and log into Ravelry you can see the project notes of everyone who attempted this project, which is a good bit more than the people who chose to let theirs be public. So much useful information on there on how everyone made their own modifications! Also I’m definitely not the only one who came up with the idea to put the buttons on the back edges, ha. It’s this page on Ravelry again if you’d like to have a look at the hivemind!