Four experienced knitters for the TRC Silk Stockings project, 29th December 2017.29 December 2017: Since the first anouncement of the TRC Silk Stockings project, last November, we’ve been overwhelmed by enthousiastic people wanting to participate. More than 100 people have volunteered to join in and to help to reconstruct the silk stockings of the Texel seventeenth century shipwreck. We even had people from the USA and Canada wanting to join in!

The first workshops will take place in the beginning of 2018 and in order to prepare ourselves for this big event we asked four experienced knitters to help us make a preselection of yarns and silks and knit several test swatches. Using needles of 0.7 and 1 mm and threads of max. 0.5 mm, this was quite a challenge. To be honest, the first half hour was not very encouraging. “You can’t knit with this thread!” and “This is not possible…!”

Knitted sample of a shaped toe with knitting needles in place (TRC 2019.1397).Luckily for us the ladies rose to the challenge and bravely plodded on. When three hours the first centimetres were ready and the faces looked considerably happier. “Do-able”, “You have to take your time” and “The first rows are the hardest, but it is always like that”.

Thanks to the work of these brave knitters we can now make a good selection of yarns and needles for the participants of the workshops to start with. It will be a tremendous project and we’ll keep you all informed through Facebook and our newsletter. Would you like to stay up-to-date on the project? Please send us an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will put you on the list for the newsletter. 

Chrystel Brandenburgh, 30th December 2017.