Knit Whaler's Caps

I've been looking for a simple project for over the holidays and came across some interesting and quite colorful knit caps to inspire me.  There is a collection of whalers caps all found near Spitsbergen dating back to c.1650.  I love the patterns and colors of these caps.

Check out the museum collection.

Here's the museum description:

"In 1980 archaeologists investigated the graves of 185 Dutchmen – whale hunters, and workers at whale oil refineries – who had died on or near Spitsbergen in the 17th century. Many skeletons were still wearing their knitted woollen head coverings. These caps were highly personal. The men were bundled up against the severe cold and could only be recognized by the colours and patterns of their caps. Presumably this is the reason why the caps went with them into their graves"

What I find interesting is that the knitting on these caps is quite fine and some appear to have been fulled, while others do not.

I normally am interested in a slightly earlier period, so I decided to follow the pattern of A Sixteenth-Century Basque Whaler's Cap published by Pieceworks.  This pattern was drafted from a close examination of a 16th c. whaler found in Red Bay, Labrador, Canada.  This site is known to have been in use by whalers starting as early as 1530 through the early 1600s.

Comparing this 16th c. cap to the 17th c. ones from Rijks Museum, there are some differences in the brims, but the general construction and shape are quite similar.  The Red Bay cap is of natural light colored wool, but the Pieceworks article theorizes that due to the placement of the grave, this was a sailor of lower rank/station, so this may have been all he could afford.

I choose to go with orange and blue wool, as see in one of the 17th c. Rijks Museum caps.  I'll report back after the holidays with my progress.

For reference, here's another blog about these caps: http://costumehistorian.blogspot.com/2015/04/seventeenth-and-eighteenth-century.html