Snippets on snips

I have an obsession and I am not referring to my over abundant cloth and yarn stash. I am actually referring to my rather useful, though most likely unnecessary,  scissor collection. I have tho pairs of pinking shears, I think I last used one of them two years ago but one of them belonged to my Grandmas K and the other, her mother-in-law. Three fabric shears. The Weiss were my GK's and the one I actually use my aunt gave me. I have three pairs of Stork embroidery scissors, in 3 different colors. Then there are my Historical looking ones, dull ones, little ones, big ones, folding ones, the ones I have lost and yet I seem to always think I need more.

Spring scissors are the oldest form dating to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia over 3,000 years ago. These ones were the most common around the world until the 16th century(1500s). They were made of one solid piece of bent metal that opened and closed with the pinch of the metal. The pivot scissors are the most common type today but are found in Rome in 1st century (100 AD). By the 16th century  it had replaced the spring scissors but you can still  find them around.

Scissors were used for everything and a tool for every housewife. Along with knives and pockets, paintings of housewives show women with scissors hanging on ropes or chains attached to their belts/girdles.  They would be kept near at hand and used for cutting everything from cloth or twine to flowers or herbs.

Now beyond scissors are thread cutters, small pendants with a disc blade in the center or rings with small blades for cutting single threads. Seam rippers that easily tear out stitching mistakes were invented in the 1980s. In 1975 Olfa company introduced rotary cutters that for clothing making and are today a favorite tool among quilters. A patent from 1950 has a pair Gideon and Gorka adding thread cutters to thimbles. Thread cutters on sewing machines was patented on September 10, 1946 yet don't appear common on machines till later. Two of my three machines date before 1970 and neither have one. My mom's 1976 or 78 Kenmore, my 91 Rose both do. Singer renews the patent for the item in 1962.

Signing off and snipping away...

Wobbles of the...

I hate feeling sick and it takes a lot for me to either call in or go home sick. Partly cause I love my job, partly cause I have do few sick days, and partly I hate the idea of being at home doing nothing. Now here's where you are thinking, you can knit, or sew, why wouldn't you want to be home. Well because knitting and all that other stuff I do to clear my mind and it is hard to clear my mind when I am trying not to cast (vomit) all over said projects.

At work I can interpret around illness. Actually it is one of the most common questions. What do you do (who do you see) when you are ill? I like turning that on the visitors and ask them it back. I think as we grow older the instinct for the answer changes. Most adults respond with "Go to the doctor", where children respond with "go to my mommy."

The dependency on doctors is a late 20th early 21st century idea. For hundreds of years doctors/physicians, apothecaries/pharmacists, and surgeons/barbers/dentists where a last resort. First you went to your mother, who would then teach you.  It was only when nothing seemed to be working did you go to the doctor. In some cases skip the doctor because the apothecary was were the doctor sent you anyways and many thought they were smarter.

First though moms would try there own remedies.  Infusions of mint for the wobbly belly, margrim for wobbles of the mind, sage for runny noses, salves of clary sage for sore muscles, house leeks (hens and chicks) for burns and cuts, roses for melancholy and it goes on. Now we take aspirin filled with things we can't pronounce  (I am guilty too). We forget simple treatments and time are just as good for wobbles of the...

Loopy Lucet

I know strange title but believe me it makes sense.  It goes back about 2 years ago. I was helping out in the visitor center at the park, I had my knitting in my purse and forgotten to check on how close to being done it was. Now it was winter meaning visitors were few and far between so about an hour before lunch time the project was done. Oops!  Unfortunately I am a twiddler so an hour later I was dizzy because we had swivel chairs and I was slowly going mad. Lunch comes I decide instead of going home to get more yarn I will go to the gift shop in the main town and get a book. I walked out with a book and lucet kit.

By the end of the day I had nothing but a huge knot and ended up googling it once I got home, and about 10 minutes later was looping and pulling away at the string. It was rather simple once I saw how to start it.

Now what is a lucet? It is a two pronged forked object that you use to make cording. Thought to be created by the vikings, who were just as much into textiles as pillaging, it dates back to the 600s (7th century) or early 700s (8th). Evidence is found scattered throughout Northern Europe until the 1400s (15th) when evidence disappears and then pops back up in the late 1500s (16th), and early 1600s (17th). It remains strong again until the end of the Victorian era, and diminishes in popularity by the 1950s.

The cords are distinctive, as is the tool. The usually two pronged fork, makes a square almost springy cord made up by wrapping and looping the thread.  Unlike other forms of cord meaning you didn't need a pre-cut piece of thread you could take it right of the spool of yarn or thread.

The tool can be made from bone as most are until the 16th century,  metal, or wood. Currently I only own one lucet, and it is made from wood. The could have designs engraved on the stem that meant something to the owner or left plain.

The cording is great for corsets/stays/bodies, ties for sleeves, or to hang things from ones belt and appropriate for any era of historical interpretation. Especially viking and early medieval.

Daddy's hands

For every housewife there is a husband. The father of her children, her partner and her support. Growing up I watched my father do what he could. He taught me to water ski, swim, snowmobile (I threw him off the sled and took off without him on that one) and more. He took us to from PEI to Key West and from Cape Breton, Novia Scotia to the Grand Canyon.

Now what do fathers have to do with housewifery and fiber arts. At work I talk about how a marriage is  a team of oxen. Our culture today almost diminishes the work of housewives but at one time it was an honor for a man to choose you for it meant not only did he think you were a good match but also thought you could care for him. Equally of course the woman had her say.

A father taught his son, protected his family, and cared for them. If his wife was sick he'd attempt to cook (simple things), after which many housewives vow to never be sick again. He'd fix the roof or minor house repairs. He'd cut firewood and get food. While a garden was the wives domain the fields were the husbands. It was a team neither the father or mother was more important even if there was a division of labor.

So here's to the men who care for us. The men who taught us to drive, who picked us up after we fell. Who taught us to paint, behave, and best of all our fall back to when mom says no. (Unfortunately that didn't work in my house unless cars were involved).

Grand Old Flag!

June 14, 1777, the American Revolution,  our forefathers choose the stars and stripes to represent our great nation on battle fronts and peace tables alike. It had 13 stripes and 13 stars representing the 13 colonies at war with England. Fighting against taxation without represention our leaders had our stars and stripes created.

The legend goes that widowed seamstress in Philadelphia named Betsy Ross met with her father-in-law,  the general comanding the Army named George Washington,  and one other asked her to create and so a flag to represent them because up until this point the flag was like the cause it depended on where you are from as to why or what our flag was. It would unify the nations soldiers.

The truth is we don't know who sewed the original flag or even what happened to it. What we do know is they were hand sewn by hand and the stripes haven't changed but the stars have multiplied. Today it is made in China by machines but then it was hand sewn with love and pride.

Now for a tale, a knitter in the Civil War sends a soldier a pair of socks. On the top the stars and stripes on the bottom a confederate flag. Soldier like yhem so much he mailed them home never to be worn.

Sewn in the ground

I love gardening. At work digging in our garden is peaceful, but dirty work. Gardening was an essential part of house wives bag of tricks. They suplement a families food resource or income.  Planting things have allowed us to settle in one  place and create villages and cities.

Now gardening has changed over time as  terminology has changed.  When I was growing up my mother tended a small L shaped garden where we grew beans, tomatoes, cucumbers,  corn (on occasion) and zuchinni. It was about the size of the average bedroom but it was our garden. Now my mom's garden is bigger while my personal garden is smaller. She now keeps a raised bed surrounded by blackberry bushes as well as two big fields.

It wasn't untill I was working for a 19th century museum I ran into a raised bed garden with paths in between. Now I don't know where they derive from but I see them every where now. They are raised partly for aesthetics,  partly for ease of use and partly to strengthen poor soil.

Muck piles or compost piles were built using trash from the home, garden, and farm to build up the soil. Surrounded by rocks, scraps of wood, good wood or just left in a mound, these beds were filled with soil, planted and then cared for.

In the 17th century herb gardens, kitchen gardens, and vegetable gardens where all one in the same. Herb garden were filled with pot, physic, salad, and root herbs. Pot herbs were anything you can grow in a pot on a patio, or in your home. So this could include any of the other three.  Physic herbs were useful for illness. Margrim was used for headaches, mints for belly aches,  feverfew for fevers, violets and tanzey to help you make water and stool and wormwood and southern wood to help you cast (vomit). (I suggest you don't try those at home.) Now salad herbs were like letace, cabbages, radishes. Root herbs were like carrots, parsnips and onions. Some of these crossed over in between cattegories. Field plants were anything you grew in great quantity,  like Flint corn, Barley, Rye, wheat, peas, and anything else you can think of. 

Now the biggest challenge for housewives was protecting their precious work. Placing branches or thorns over the beds as seen above kept chickens or rabbits off the seeds and seedlings. Weeding around fences and the gardens also keeps the pests at bay. Plus a good dog keeps them at bay too.

So here is to all those green thumbs out there continuing to keep up the tradition even if is just a pot on their patio.

"Prick her finger on a spinning wheel"

 Although I have been spinning on a spinning wheel for a year it is an art that goes back between 800 to 1,000 years. Thought to have started in India and the wheels have evolved to what we know today. The earliest versions were great wheels or walking. They are distinctive in their form and the spinner, man or woman, would turn the wheel, conecting to the spindle by a a driveband, by hand causing the fibers to twist then wrap it around the spindle.

Eventually the great wheel would evolve. Around the 15 hundreds in Germany a treadle would be added that would allow the spinners foot to control the speed of the wheel. A driveband then connects to a fly wheel which not only twist the fiber but also winds the spun yarn onto a bobbin resting inside the flywheel.

Today treadle wheels are the most common. Parlor wheels, which is the kind I own, spin most fibers from wool to acrylic. Linen fiber however needs a special tool called a distaff. Early distaffs had a needle of sorts on the top.... leading to the fairy tale of bewitching spindles and sleeping girls. The flax plant once processed would be wrapped around the distaff and then spun.

An old art but a beautiful one.