The crafting skills, they are not new

So in Austin, if you are not familiar with our fine (hot) city, we have many unique phenomena – the Alamo Drafthouse, various Kerbey Lanes, BookPeople (the only bookstore whose religion section I don’t laugh at), the Town Lake Trail (we like our walking parks here) and the largest Whole Foods anywhere (80,000 sq ft), among other things. One other thing we have is called Half Price Books (also a chain). It’s book recycling – you buy cheap books and you sell them back. The prices you get for selling them back are pretty poor, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.  But it’s the prices for buying that get it done – I walk in intending to fetch one book and walk out with a metric ton most of the time. They shamelessly feed my book addiction.

On a recent trip I wandered through my usual sections and came to rest (literally, on the floor) in the craft section. And I found this antique book on needlework:

I have been paging through this book quite a bit lately. It was not the only elderly crafting book that was there, but I liked it the best.  This is a printing that quite succinctly describes the rise and fall of crafting over a century:  originally printed in 1882 when needlework was quite common, and reprinted in 1972, 90 years later in the midst of another surge in interest for handmade items.  Both times? Clearly marketed to women.  Being me, I LOVE seeing how people once thought of these things, and how they think of them now. Now, craft is often about the rather energetic reinvention and occasionally factually deficient musings of the young, when you consider

• the zeitgeist-intensive feel of Faythe Levine’s Handmade Nation, or
• the young hipsterish (it is! it totally is) coolness of Craftzine and Etsy or
• the in-your-face third-wave feminist (but craft-heavy) feel of Bust magazine (home of Debbie Stoller of Stitch and B*tch) or
• the tidal surge of youthful Japanese-and-Scandinavian-influenced design or
• the “craftivism” of eco-consciousness – reusing everything, redefining materials, considering the source, consciousness-raising and occasionally ever-so-slighly preachiness of this whole “green” thing or
• the “new domestic,” statement-making, tech-heavy leanings of author and craft icon Jean Railla.

I like them all, and think it’s an interesting movement, and one which certainly has personal meaning, given I’m still young-ish myself and started crafting at 19. In the end, though, reading things like this, I am afraid I’d have to opine that many modern craft skills don’t approach what they did 100 years ago.

I have half a mind to try out some of the crazy stuff in here. China ribbon embroidery?  Alencon lace? Surely it wouldn’t take too much longer than what I already do? I take that back, it would. Some of the examples I’ve seen with my own eyes are some pretty crazy complex stuff. Consider those examples of antique crochet I found and posted (which I’m now framing).  I know from just looking some of those would take so much time for such small decorative items. They are things I would barely have time for now, not being so much a lady of leisure as a lady of oh-my-goodness-how-am-I-going-to-get-it-all-done.  I persist, but … WOW.

There are a lot of things referred to in this book that are names and things I have never heard of before.  For example, a crochet tricot referred to as “fool’s crochet” (above.  Any of you ever heard of forfars?  I know gingham and linsey-woolsey, even, and various other sorts of cloth, but many names of cloth and other fabrics have certainly not stuck around.  Sometimes it’s the fabric itself which has not stuck around, and for really good reason – I found a reference to penguin cloth – which is, yes, penguin skin used for making ladies’ outerwear.  Lovely.  There are a lot of references which are NOT very, um, feminist.  Ladies are referred to as requiring delicate, dainty items at all times, and to being dainty and delicate themselves. So, how many of you are delicate and dainty and require handmade lace on your undergarments?  Not many? That’s what I figured.

So, how many of you would like to take on the task of open fibre in Honiton Lace (above)?  The instructions refer to bobby pins, a process that seems sorta like tatting but isn’t, and knotting of fine silk fiber.  A bit of netting work, obviously, and some tricot from what I can see. How long do you suppose this would take, for just a few inches of intricate lace?  I bet if you had to make this, suddenly you would (a) use this as a removable piece instead of something sewn in, (b) be very careful with it, (c) not have a lot of it, (d) treasure it like you would jewelry.

Aha! The recent invention of elastic!  What did we all do before our pants were made of elastic, allowing us that extra bite of dinner?  It doesn’t sound that common, or that durable, in 1882, and it seems all to be made of India rubber. Pretty rare stuff.  I do love the reference to “narrow frilled cotton” cords of elastic “employed for underlinen.”

Another example, this one of Tambour Work.  I should mention I don’t know what that is, but it seems to be sewn-on cording with embellishments. One last thing here – many of the drawings in this book are woodcuts. For me, that is amazing, because that takes SO MUCH TIME, and this is a THICK book, and there are A LOT of illustrations. Not to mention the book was probably typeset by hand, in a quite lovely and readable typeface. Some, like the Honiton Lace, appear to be a reproduced photograph, which given it was 1882, I haven’t any idea how they did that.  Not sure where exactly reproduction technology was at that time, but the whole project of illustrating this book, I can guarantee, was a feat. That tells you the popularity of needlework craft, that so much time and expense would be put in to producing this thick book. But what else could you do?  There was no (gasp!)… internet.

I hope you’ve enjoyed.  I’m still going through the book, I read bits of it at a time and try to figure out how stuff was made, or just sit there and chuckle, gasp and look oddly at the various entries, depending on what they are.  I learn a lot about what craft once was, as opposed to what it is today, and how it was viewed.  I find, in so many cases, that peope don’t know how women and their work was truly viewed, and assume the negative incorrectly, and that sometimes we are the ones responsible for downgrading and despising our forbears handiwork far more than they did.  I can see easily the value that was placed on this work from the expensive resources devoted to it in materials and time, and the research into new materials and techniques, and the effects of long-valued traditions, and other things. I know from other sources the high prices this handiwork commanded, and the elite circles to which it sold,and the profitability that it generated that kept many families afloat and attracted mechanized industry’s interest.

Okay!  End soapbox before I really get going on twentieth-century misogyny and how it colors our view of the past. Gee, I wonder what I used to write about in graduate school? I should go teach women’s studies classes just so’s I can get it out of my system sometimes.

Ta for now Miriam

Postcards from the … wha … Denmark, Iowa?

So I posted about my little quilt find the other day, but I also brought home postcards. Or actually, just cards I think. Uncommon Objects had a whole box and a drawer full of postcards from the 1920’s and 1930’s. It appears as though said postcards were once the only type of cards – no greeting cards, in other words. Most of the ones I looked at were sorta halfway between the two types. Anyway, I liked these because I have a historical bent and they were personally interesting, and I am going to do something interesting and collag-ey with them, I just don’t know what yet.

These first two are “Texas postcards.” The one on the left is a poem with the title “Texas A Paradise.” It’s from 1936 and it has that schlocky idea of “no place is better than Texas” – the sort of blind and unruly pride in being a Texan that people from other states don’t seem to have so much. The poem says, essentially, that it’s damn hot (look at the teeth on that sun!) but that it’s the promised land.

The other postcard is marked September, 1938 on the back and is a picture of Rice Institute in Houston – now know as Rice University. I grew up in Houston and lived near here for 2 years, and there’s not a blade of uncultivated grass left like this anymore. It’s completely city, and surrounded by (1) the Medical Cente, (2) a bunch of expensive housing and (3) museums, such as they are.

This next one photographed poorly because of the gold, but it’s got great style and was one of the older ones I found. It’s marked Nov. 11, 1909 to Miss Mollie Watt and reads “From your friend Lizzie Harlow, wishing that live to enjoy many more birthdays” [sic]. The front says “Best Wishes.”

This funny (and a little scary with the scythe) card is the one that’s really interesting. It’s from June 10, 1910 through the post office in Wever, Iowa. It was from Helen Davies to Hannah Meisel.

The funny thing is that Wever, Iowa is the post office for Denmark, Iowa, which is the tiny little town where my grandparents live and my mom grew up. Denmark and Wever are towns of 300 people! The chances that I would find a postcard from Wever in an antique shop in Austin are pretty slim. I called my grandparents and they didn’t know the people, but then, my grandfather wasn’t born until 1919.

Anyway, that was fun! I love finding stuff that is interesting to me, and quirky and unique.