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    Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls
    Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls
    Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls
    Ebook215 pages1 hour

    Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls

    By M. Sibbald

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    About this ebook

    This early works is a fascinating guide with much of the information still useful and practical today. Contents Include; I. The ancient art of needlework, II. The origin of implements and materials, III. Cross-Stitch, IV. Holbein Work, V. Bead Work - Ancient and Modern, VI. Embroidery Stitches, VII. How to Transfer Designs, VIII. Smocking - An Ancient Craft, IX. Applique Work, X. Broderie Anglaise, XI. Drawn-Thread Work, XII. Pretty Presents Simply Made, XIII. Crochet Work, XIV. The Art of Knitting, XV. Doll-Dressing. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPook Press
    Release dateFeb 22, 2018
    ISBN9781528782074
    Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls

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      Book preview

      Dainty Work for Busy Fingers - A Book of Needlework, Knitting and Crochet for Girls - M. Sibbald

      I

      THE ANCIENT ART OF NEEDLEWORK

      "The use of sewing is exceedingly old,

        As in the sacred Text it is enrolled.

        Till the world be quite dissolved and past,

        So long at least the needle’s use shall last."

      JOHN TAYLOR, 1640.

      Needlework or embroidery has long been proved to be the oldest art in the world and to take precedence even of painting, for the earliest representations of figures were to be found in embroidery on coarse linen. Its origin, like that of so many more arts and industries, is lost in the mists of antiquity, but it was known and practised by all the ancient nations of the world, and held in highest esteem by women of every class, who have found in it from time immemorial, if not their principal occupation and means of livelihood, a constant source of interest, amusement, and solace.

      Some authorities assert that Eve was the first sempstress and that in all probability her needle was a thorn, and we are all familiar with the fact that Adam and she sewed themselves fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, teems with references to the work of skilled embroiderers, and in the Psalms we read of the daughter of Pharaoh—Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought into the presence of the King in raiment of needlework. Tamar wore a garment of divers colours, and Hannah fashioned for her son Samuel a little coat.

      The Egyptians were experts in the art as well as in that of tapestry and weaving, and Cleopatra did lie in her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue), in a galley with richly decorated sails, when she went to meet Anthony. The Greeks, too, excelled in needlework, which was supposed to have originated with Minerva, and history chronicles the fact that when the Danes invaded Northumbria they carried a gorgeous banner with a sacred raven worked by their princesses in one noonday’s while.

      With the dawn of Christianity, women consecrated their talents to the manufacture and adornment of altar cloths and hangings for their churches and elaborate vestments for the priests, and later on nunneries became good shee schooles wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught.

      During the fifth century, weaving was combined with the art of embroidery, and Englishwomen, long before the days of the Norman Conquest, were famous for their intricate and beautiful designs.

      By the 13th century, both men and women practised the craft in almost every country in Europe. In 1295 in Paris nearly 100 workers were registered as belonging to the Guild. Their apprenticeship lasted for eight years, and no employer could train more than one at a time. The London Broderers, or The Craft of Brauderie, belongs to a much later date, but it is interesting to learn that Henry III, a famous art patron, employed a certain Mabel of Bury St. Edmunds, a skilled embroideress, to make him an embroidered chasuble in 1242. In the sixteenth century, it became common to apply needlework to personal adornment, not only on gowns and costumes, but on the accessories of the toilet such as gloves, boots, pockets, etc. Henry the Eighth’s handkerchiefs were bordered with gold, silver, or fine needlework.

      Cover of Prayer Book, worked by Queen Elizabeth

      Queen Elizabeth loved her needle, and her skill therein was greatly praised by the rhymers of her time. A beautiful book-cover, which she worked for her father, bearing the initials H., K., is to be seen in the British Museum along with other specimens of her handiwork.

      Her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, a needlewoman, royal and renowned, who acquired the art in France, sent her from time to time gifts of her own work, among them an artistic canopy for the Throne Room at Whitehall. During her captivity in England she whiled away many weary hours at her embroidery frame, in the company of her jailer, Bess of Hardwicke, Countess of Shaftesbury, and the four Maries; and her work, which has survived the ravages of time, may still be studied at Chatsworth (which also contains relics of the handiwork of Queen Elizabeth and Amy Robsart), and in Holyrood Palace.

      II

      THE ORIGIN OF IMPLEMENTS AND MATERIALS

      It is reasonable to suppose that necessity, the mother of invention, impelled our rude forefathers to sew skins, fibres, and leaves together, to fashion clothing or tents to dwell in, and so protect themselves from the winter’s frost and snow. The elemental desire for personal adornment is as strong in the breast of the primitive savage as in that of the most highly civilised man or woman.

      The tribes of Southern India excelled in the ingenuity with which they applied the wings and skins of insects, the nails and claws of animals, and their own hair, etc., to gauze, cotton, and other materials. The Red Indian must needs dye his blanket before decorating it with beads of crude colouring, and the Laplander adorns his reindeer robe with strips of skin and fur of various hues, using for the purpose a needle of reindeer bone.

      Needles and Pins

      The first implements used for stitching materials together were no doubt thorns, but as these would be liable to break easily they were succeeded in time by the bones of fishes and animals, possibly pierced at one end, and not unlike the modern bodkin. The thread used with such needles would be either the fibres of plants or thongs of leather

      Steel needles are said to have been first made in England in 1545, then the art was lost for many years and revived in Whitechapel and elsewhere.

      Once upon a time it is reported that English ladies fastened their robes together with skewers, and pins originally were made of bone, ivory, silver, and brass. Catherine Howard is believed to have been the means of introducing them into this country, and their manufacture was curiously regulated by law in the reign of Henry VIII.

      Scissors, in their present form, date from about the twelfth century, and many beautiful specimens, richly inlaid, are to be seen in the British and other Museums.

      Thimbles were of later introduction and were imported from Holland about the fifteenth century, although originally there may have been finger protectors of leather for use with needles of bone.

      Wool and Worsted

      As woman became proficient in her needlework, she laid under contribution the products of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdom; and not content with flax and cotton, silk and wool, she requisitioned gold and silver, and twisted and twined these into threads, to enrich and beautify her handiwork.

      But where and how did she procure them? some thoughtful reader may be tempted to inquire.

      Since wool is referred to by Moses in Exodus and also is mentioned in Proverbs, we may assume its manufacture is of Asiatic origin and that it existed at least fifteen centuries before the Christian era. Whilst the men clipped the wool from the sheep, the women washed, spun, wove, and embroidered it within the tents of Israel. Later on, they learned the art of dyeing from Tyre, and manufactured woollen garments, carpets and hangings. Worsted takes its name from the town in Norfolk where yarn was first twisted into thread or crewels, to which Cowper refers in The Sofa: Here and there a tuft of crimson yarn or scarlet crewel.

      A Buckinghamshire Lace-worker.

      Linen

      The secret of the art of weaving linen was known in India and Egypt centuries before it found its way to Europe or this country where it flourished in Saxon times, died out, and was revived in the thirteenth century by Flemish weavers to such an extent that almost every housewife possessed a loom and spun and wove all the linen required by her family in the days of our great-granddames.

      Cotton

      The term tree-wool was used to denote cotton in ancient days, and we read of the trees of Ethiopia white with soft wool. Most of it hails from India, where it was originally and largely used as a background for some of the most beautiful gold and silver and jewelled embroideries produced anywhere.

      Silk

      There is an interesting tradition to the effect that about the middle of the sixth century two monks, who had resided for a long time in China, smuggled some of the eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane to Constantinople, where the eggs were hatched by artificial heat and the worms were fed on mulberry leaves until an entirely new and important industry was started. Silk manufacture was first practised in London in the reign of Henry IV by a company of silk women who produced ribbons and laces, etc. Then men took up the work, and Henry VIII wore the first pair of silk stockings; but a silk gown was evidently regarded

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