Crafty Manolo

When I was a wee sprout of nine summers, I visited the White House. Yes, I took the tour with my family, and was duly impressed. We did not see the president, who, at that time, was Richard Nixon, for those keeping track.

I saw a lot of interesting and important things that summer afternoon, but the one that really stuck with me was the exhibit of Presidential China. In particular, the ambitious and wildly hideous dinnerware designed especially for Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife Lucy, who then didn’t even allow guests alcoholic spirits to help them deal with scenes like this on the dinner table:

Note that the fish on that platter is captured in a net and bleeding profusely.

That wasn’t even the worst piece. There was also a caribou in a snowstorm being taken down by a pack of wolves that still haunts my nightmares. Nixon to Obama, and I’m still shuddering.

I honestly thought I would never find another plate so utterly unappetizing again… until I saw this:

I know it’s not easy to see in this size, but there is a detail shot on the site. I just didn’t think you all needed quite that graphic a vision of a snake devouring a baby bird while a second baby bird begs for dinner.

Etsy artist hdmann has named his series “Dinnertime” but is unsure whether the pieces are food safe.

I cannot speak to food safety, but these are definitely not appetite safe.

This fabulous lady is Maymee Campbell, as photographed by one Schmalstig. What, you may ask, is she doing with that big, honking knife? Why, she’s whittling an old toothbrush, as you do.

And for what purpose is she whittling that toothbrush? To make a rug with naalbinding techniques, of course!

Okay, it’s not something done much now. It’s something you may never have heard of. I know I didn’t until I started learning a bit more about naalbinding as a technique this year. But it’s something that has been done for generations, apparently.

Maymee Campbell learned the technique when she wanted some old-fashioned looking rugs. How did she learn? From a friend of her daughter’s! I love that. When people see you doing something crafty in public, or see your craft work, they usually assume you learned it from an older relative… but some people get the skinny on old-fashioned crafts from younger friends of the family or the internet, too.

Anyway, if you want to read Maymee’s story and get learn how to make her ‘toothbrush rugs’, head on over here to this 1981 article from the Springfield-Green County Library.

And if you happen to have an old toothbrush (or very large naalbinding needle) and some cloth in attractive colors that go with the room you want it for… well, you can make yourself a dandy rug!

I always find it kind of amusing that films set in the far, far past tend to show people dressed mostly in shades of brown and ecru with little touches of muddy green or dull ochre here and there. Oh, and the more poor people, the less color in general.

But the fact is that some surprising colors – and surprisingly bright shades of them! – can be produced via natural dyestuffs that would have been found growing by the side of the road.

For instance, I once chatted with a woman who dyed her own thread and wove her own fabric. She only used natural dyestuffs. I admired a scarf that included a rather delicious salmon pink stripe. What created that color? Mushrooms!

I still don’t know what kind of mushrooms they were. I didn’t think to ask and I’ve never met up with her again. All the same, there’s a variety of mushroom in the world that produces a clear, bright salmon pink when dying wool. Somehow, that makes me happy.

Depending on circumstances, using Queen Anne’s Lace as a dye might leave you with purple, green, or yellow. Oh, and dandelion roots can produce red dye.

Curious to know more? I found this handy chart of natural dyestuffs and what colors they produce over at Pioneer Thinking. You’ll also find some good basic information to get you started dyeing for yourself. Oh, and there are pages of tips from readers.

Rooney Mara wore one in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Lucy Lawless was fitted for one for Spartacus, but didn’t wear it in the end.

Heidi Klum wore a huge, terrifying one in Blow Dry.

Kate Winslet refused to wear one in The Reader.

Fifteenth century prostitutes wore them.

What potentially not safe for work fashion item am I talking about?

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If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you know I have a passion for the history as well as the techniques of crafting. I own several antique books on various needlework techniques, reprints of a great many more, and some fascinating pamphlets, as well. One of the bobbin lace patterns I used for my wedding gown was taken from the oldest known printed collection of bobbin lace patterns, dating back to 1559. It was a pretty – and surprisingly complex! – edging, which I really enjoyed making.

So when I find a good cache of patterns, books of instruction, and historically significant pamphlets available online, I just have to share the wealth with my fellow enthusiasts.

The Antique Pattern Library is a fabulous resource for the modern practitioner of antique needlework techniques. It’s a completely free collection of antique and vintage books and pamphlets for techniques ranging from knitting and crochet to quilting, bobbin lace, tatting, needle lace, beading, embroidery… almost anything you can imagine. Each book or pamphlet is in PDF format for easy downloading and use. There are literally hundreds of resources on this site and every single one is free.

Some of the names listed as authors are familiar to those of us who love antique needlework: Therese de Dillmont, Isabella Beeton, Butterick, Coats and Clark, and the Red Cross. Others are less well known, but have equally interesting and inspiring patterns to play with.

Oh, and if you have an out-of-copyright book or pamphlet in your needlework collection, consider offering it up so that another needleworker out there can have a chance to do the patterns. You’ll find all the information you need to do so right here.

Hey guys!

Remember way back in October when I started musing on towels and how to achieve them at home?

Well, I then promptly got distracted by numerous shiny things of great glory… such as Project Runway All Stars, and trying out needle felting, and abusing my Simmies, and, well, you know how it goes.

Still, the question has remained simmering in the back of my mind ever since. And then it poured rain in Biblical torrents this week and I found myself thinking about the subject again, more in a foreground kind of way.

And then I found an article (available in PDF form, no less, for free on your computer) at Textile Reproductions on the proper method of making 18th century linen towels.

If you’re not already familiar with Textile Reproductions and you have any interest at all in an 18th century way of life or living history projects for the period, you’re in for a treat when you visit their online store. From period-sized pillow cases to vegetable dyed embroidery threads, to pockets to wear under your skirts, they’ve got an amazing range of great products.

Oh, and I’m absolutely downloading and using those instructions for making towels. I could use some more hand towels and kitchen towels.

If you live near Williamsburg, VA or are planning a visit to the area soon, it may interest you to know that James Anderson’s Blacksmith Shop and Public Armory will have its ribbon cutting ceremony on March 31. That’s this saturday, for those of you without handy calendars.

The armory will include demonstrations of: blacksmithing, coopering/basket making, carpentry, brick making and masonry, and more.

I only wish I could be there, too.

… the Triangle Waist Factory in New York caught fire at 4:45 pm.

The Triangle filled the top three floors of the ironically named Asch Building. Since it was a saturday, the other businesses in the lower floors had closed for the weekend around noon. But the workers at the Triangle were scheduled to work until five that afternoon.

The blaze began when a cigarette (or match, according to some versions) fell into a scrap bin filled with two months’ worth of undisposed scraps unnoticed. The workers on the eighth floor notified the owners on the tenth floor immediately via telephone. The owners evacuated via the rooftops to safety.

Unfortunately, nobody thought to warn the factory workers on the ninth floor. Equally unfortunately, many of the workers on the eighth floor – where the fire started – found themselves unable to escape.
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(Illustration via Stuart King)

Mention bobbin lace, and chances are if the listener knows anything at all about it, this is what they think of: an old woman in antique clothing doing something they can’t for the life of them figure out.

A hundred years ago, that’s exactly what bobbin lace looked like, too. It was something nobody needed to do for themselves anymore, so they didn’t learn it. It was something only very poor people did, and most of them had been run out of the market by the machine laces that were so much faster and cheaper to make.

By the time I took up the craft in 1990, most people I saw at demonstrations thought it was tatting and would pontificate that it was a ‘lost art.’

In reply, I would hold up a tatting shuttle to show them the difference, and explain that bobbin lace isn’t lost at all. I found it just fine.

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… and that’s not always such a bad thing.

Once the German tradition of Christmas trees was imported to England in 1841 along with Prince Albert, people had to come up with ways of decorating them. We all know about popcorn strings and candles and candy canes, but the endlessly creative Victorians came up with a plethora of ways of making their homes festive for the season, and some of them were less classically attractive.

Victoriana.com has compiled a selection of Christmas ornaments Victorians made at home that you can, too… if you really want to.

The one above is peanuts on a string. That’s right, those are peanuts wrapped in pastel tissue paper, fringed on the ends. For my money it’s miles and away better than the chimney sweep made of prunes.