A Sortie Cap

The sortie extremely simple. I made mine of Lana Gatto wool cashmere blend, which is a sort of heavy fingering weight. Cast on 71 stitches (the pattern says 72, but you need an odd number) using size 3 needles, stockinette 5 rows blue, reverse stockinette 5 rows white for a total of nine stripes. Then, drop every other stitch and cast off loosely. Gather the sides and put bows on.

The pattern calls for fringe too, but I really don't want fringe. It's probably totally not right to leave it off, but I imagine that someone in period would have left it off as well!

I do recommend doing a gauge--including the unravelling. For mine I just did 10 stitches for 5 rows and then unravelled it. It didn't take long at all, and it was amazing to see just how much it grows!

Click the above pictures for a larger version of the pattern!

And what it looks like on. I prefer the look of it untied to tied. Since bonnets were sometimes worn untied, I think it's fine!

The finished knitting before dropping the stitches.

The knitting after the stitches have been dropped. The cast off edge is tighter than the cast on edge, which gives it a trapezoidal shape. This makes it fit your head quite nicely! The cap stays on without any pins.