“He also left behind daughters, but they do not concern us.” -Dominic Mancini, regarding the daughters of Edward IV
“Time has told me to keep an open mind on history, and an open heart. I wrote the historical account for Tudor Roses fifteen years ago, and since then I have read and thought further on the subject. Sometimes a hitherto unseen text can prompt an alteration in an historian’s view. It is rare for a single line to have such an effect, but that is what has happened to me; the line jumped out from the page and completely altered my perspective.” – Tudor Roses, 2013 edition, Alice Starmore
Rarely outside of Alice Starmore’s work do I find a emotional theme in a knitting book. Of course, at this point we know her work better than to think it would be vapid, but in addition to the normal history section, Tudor Roses goes into the experiences and feelings of the Tudor women the patterns are based off. Each pattern starts off with a letter written by Alice’s daughter Jade as if Jade were the historical figure, and until I read the prologue, I really thought they were actual historical letters, translated into modern English.
The patterns themselves aren’t so much based off what the women of that dynasty actually would have worn, but off the general feel of the times. For instance, the first pattern in the 2013 edition (some patterns were changed, and others added between this edition and the 1998 version), Elizabeth Woodville, is a long-sleeve button cardigan with a smoothly curved bottom edging that would fit perfectly against a long skirt, but would also pair well with a pair of jeans. When I first cracked open my copy, I was pleasantly surprised that some of the patterns included side shaping. I love Alice Starmore’s patterns, but up until now they’ve been lacking in the shaping department, at least as far as my tastes in design go. The attraction for me in her work has always been the texture, between her Fair Isle and her cable work, but to see actually fitting incorporated made me think I had gone to knitter’s heaven. Elizabeth of York even combines stranded colorwork and shaping, which nearly knocked me flat.
The styling can be a bit off-putting, with Margaret Tudor in particular pairing a classic buttoned and cabled pullover with a very modern looking angular, almost spider-like metal choker, but that was the only instance that had me tilting my head.
The Tudor dynasty is one of my particular areas of nerd, along with knitting (really, you say?), cooking, Egyptology, the American civil war, and the paranormal, so I can only blame the fact that I hadn’t seen the inside of this book because for a very long time it was out of print. It used to be one of those books that libraries were loath to carry simple because they knew it might get stolen, so imagine my delight when I saw it was back in publication, and at a very reasonable price.