Sommaire pour Winter 2021 de PieceWork

The idea of dedicating an entire issue of PieceWork to closures of all kinds has been in the works for several years. In 2019, I (digitally) stumbled upon the trove of buttonhole samplers held by the Smithsonian. I’d seen images and discussions of these textiles, but modern online collections allow us to pore over each stitch—such a joy! Besotted, I contacted needlework expert Deanna Hall West and collections specialist Susan J. Jerome, and an article and project pair was published in the Summer 2020 issue of PieceWork. Those buttonholes sent me on a quest to improve my own plain-sewing skills, and as I felled yard after yard of ever-improving seams, I had time to think beyond the buttonhole—eyelets, hooks and eyes, clever draping that eliminates the need for any device…

Lustrous Vintage Linen The Linen Thread Card Sets from Linladan include 14 meters each of six coordinating shades of vintage linen embroidery thread from 1960s Sweden. Linladan (Swedish for flax barn) is a project that shares this linen thread with the world along with more textile treasures that were hidden in a United Kingdom haberdashery for decades. Shown in the Bloom colorway. linladan.com Soft, Rustic Wool Blend Four Corners Fiber Collective is a group of indigenous and rural fiber artists and shepherds from the southwestern United States. Handspun High Desert 2 is made from 60% Merino and 40% Navajo Churro, making it lustrous and strong with Merino softness. Shown in worsted-weight Medium Sage (2111). fcyarns.com Natural Comfort Winter’s Past Farm is a small family farm with a flock of Coopworth…

Crafting Thread Jewelry: The Beginner’s Essential Guide to Creating Gorgeous Thread Wrapped Bracelets, Earrings, Necklaces, and Pins Inspired by Traditional Dorset Buttons Pat Olski River Edge, New Jersey: YarnWhirled Press, 2021. Paperback, 118 pages, $24.95. ISBN 9780578907291. Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers Serena Dyer and Chloe Wigston Smith, Editors New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021. Hardcover, 328 pages, $135. ISBN 9781501349614. Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century Serena Dyer New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021 Paperback, 272 pages, $36.95. ISBN 9781350126961. The Power of Knitting: Stitching Together Our Lives in a Fractured World Loretta Napoleoni New York: TarcherPerigee, 2020. Hardcover, 224 pages, $20. ISBN 9780593087190. Scarves Nicky Albrechtsen and Fola Solanke New York: Thames & Hudson, 2021. Hardcover, 304 pages, $40.…

Elizabeth Laird Mathieson’s 1947 book, The Complete Book of Knitting, provides the inspiration for this placemat pattern. Mathieson included the project in her “Specialties of the House” chapter, but it was originally published in the 1945 leaflet, Gifts Crocheted and Knitted (#226) from Clark’s O. N. T. and J & P Coats, distributed by The Spool Cotton Company. Mathieson’s pattern for five placemats doesn’t name the eyelet pattern motif, but it appears to be a variation of traditional fern lace. It is remarkably similar to Barbara G. Walker’s “Diagonal Fern Lace,” shown in her masterful work A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, published in 1968. Mathieson offers the staggered fern motifs in panels framed by decrease edge stitches and divided by moss stitch. Whether intentional or not, these moss and fern…

The famed author Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910), better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was also an inventor with three U.S. patents to his credit. He received the first of these patents, which is the subject of this piece, in 1871 for an “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments.” He received his second patent in 1873 for a self-adhesive scrapbook and his third in 1885 for a history game. Clemens designed his adjustable and detachable garment strap, which he also called a vest strap, as a device to make various garments, such as men’s vests, pantaloons, and women’s corsets, fit more snugly. Clemens prescribed that the vest strap should be made from elastic in two parts fastened by buttonholes to buttons on the garment to be tightened,…

MATERIALS • DMC Cebelia, 100% double mercerized cotton, size 10, 295 yd (270 m)/1¾ oz (50 g), color 712, 1 ball• Steel crochet hook, size 4/0 (1.75 mm) used for this sample. Gauge is adjustable.• 2 metal button forms, Dritz Home Half Ball Cover Buttons #44413 size 1 1/8" (2.9 cm)• Small piece of lightweight cotton fabric to cover button form in a color to match crochet thread• Tapestry needle, size 24, to weave in ends Finished measurements: 2 pieces, 2½" (6.4 cm) × 5¼" (13.3 cm) with 1½" (3.8 cm) loops. Visitpieceworkmagazine.com/abbreviations/ for terms you don’t know. Special Notes The fastener is composed of two identical crocheted pieces with attached loops and two buttons. INSTRUCTIONS Buttons Make 2. Preparation: Cover the two button forms with the cotton fabric, following…

ARIZONA Fiber Creek Suite 123 1046 Willow Creek Rd Prescott, AZ 86301 (928) 717-1774 fibercreekprescott.com CALIFORNIA Lacis Museum of Lace & Textiles 2982 Adeline St Berkeley, CA 94703 510-843-7290 lacis.com Babetta's Yarn & Gifts 4400 San Juan Ave #20 Fair Oaks, CA 95628 (916) 965-6043 babettasyarnandgifts.com Dharma Trading Co 1604 4th Street San Rafael, CA 94901 (435) 456-1211 dharmatrading.com Needlecraft Cottage 870 Grand Ave San Diego, CA 92109 (858) 272-8185 needlecraftcottagesd.com Cardigans Yarn and Fiber 3030 State St Santa Barbara, CA 93105 (805) 569-0531 cardigansyarnandfiber.com COLORADO Lambspun of Colorado 1101 E Lincoln Ave Fort Collins, CO 80524 (800) 558-5262 lambspun.com Shuttles Spindles & Skeins 760 S 43rd St. Boulder, CO 80305 (303) 499 4822 shuttlesspindlesandskeins.com FLORIDA A Good Yarn 5736 Clark Rd Sarasota FL 34233 www.agoodyarnsarasota.com IOWA Blue Heron Knittery…

EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Anne Merrow EDITOR Kate Larson ASSOCIATE EDITOR Debbie Blair MANAGING EDITOR Laura Rintala PROJECT EDITOR Angela Schneider TECHNICAL EDITORS Lori Gayle, Trish Faubion, Daniela Nii COPY EDITOR Katie Bright PROOFREADER Deirdre Carter CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Nancy Bush, Susan Strawn CREATIVE ART DIRECTOR Charlene Tiedemann PRODUCTION DESIGNER Mark Dobroth PHOTOGRAPHY Matt Graves STYLING AND ILLUSTRATIONS Ann Sabin Swanson FOUNDERS Linda Ligon, Anne Merrow, John P. Bolton PUBLISHER John P. Bolton SALES MANAGER Katie Janov DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Haydn Strauss…

Azure walls, indigo stairways, periwinkle pathways—the hues of Chefchaouen, Morocco’s “Blue City,” are visually amazing. As I strolled along, I suddenly caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. Hanging on a cerulean door in front of a tailor’s shop was the most remarkable dress I had ever seen. Closer inspection revealed a full-length sheer silk georgette “coat” over a sumptuous, heavy satin dress, both pieces in the same eye-catching sunny yellow. But the superb trims! Deep burgundy and yellow buttons fastened the front, and complex trim in matching colors scalloped the edges. Little sequin bouquets adorned the front and sleeves of the outer layer. My mind was whirling, envisioning the hundreds of hours involved in decorating this treasure and puzzling over how the buttons could…

Most of us know George Washington Carver (about 1864–1943) as the famous African American agronomist from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) who spent his career working to improve the lives of poor Southern farmers.1 As head of the Agricultural Department at Tuskegee, he was instrumental in establishing and conducting educational outreach programs for rural farmers who were unable to leave their farms for a school term or to travel for night or weekend classes. These programs could have been strictly limited to teaching about crops and livestock, but from their inception, Carver chose to take a broader approach by addressing the farm lifestyle in general. He included domestic topics in his programs, made possible by his own personal expertise. Carver’s programs, including domestic topics, became models for land-grant college Experiment…

Fashion forward and proud of her career as an executive secretary in Manhattan, my grandmother Sylvia Randall Bodiford could sew unlike anyone I have ever known. She was truly a couture seamstress, and every sophisticated jacket she created was replete with tailoring details: graded and pounded seams, weighted hems, and perfectly employed herringbone and hemstitching. As a little girl, I was mesmerized by the treasures in her sewing box, and it is to her credit that she didn’t flinch (much) as I pored over the exciting contents. She helped spark my interest in anything fiber related, and I was excited when someone taught me how to crochet because I knew I had seen a hook in her basket. When I showed off my newfound skill, I asked her if she…

Not Argyles, but Close! I know they aren’t exactly argyle, but very close. In 1952, my aunt, Barbara Glick, now ninety-six (lifetime knitter), knitted socks for her brother-in-law for Christmas. My dad, Warner Krause, is now ninety-two and wore them for decades, finally deciding they were so out of style that even he couldn’t pull them off anymore. He did wear them to cut grass or shovel snow. He felted the soles, and as a result, there are no holes in them, and they have never been mended that we can see. We have used them for the last ten years or so as extra Christmas stockings for guests. Always, we are careful with them. Aunt Barb remembers that she disliked making them so much that it was a long…

Over several months, I worked in a former music practice room, an attic garret really, the only workspace available on my university campus to accession nearly two hundred garments into a teaching collection. Provenance largely unknown, the collection held mainstream American women’s clothing from the 1860s through the 1980s. One by one, I photographed, accessioned, and prepared each piece for archival storage. Every time I placed a garment on a mannequin for a photograph, I saw the relative ease—or difficulty—of putting the piece on, taking it off, and fastening the closures. Working on my own in a small space, my thoughts turned to the lives of the women who had worn the clothing. Could a woman have dressed herself in this garment, or would she have needed someone to help…

The Cotton Field Doily is my re-creation of an original, unnamed design by George Washington Carver. The original (accession number TUIN 1360) is in the collection of Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, U.S. National Park Service. I visited the collection several years ago and, with the kind help of museum specialist Robyn Green Harris, was able to learn more about the original doily. Carver made this textile and many others as models for his extension demonstrations (see page 28). The original doily would have been made from recycled materials: burlap from worn-out cotton or tobacco shipping bags and string used to stitch flour sacks. The entire embroidery pattern uses only three stitches: chain, split, and blanket stitches. Carver had to teach people attending his demonstrations how to work the stitches…

With practice, it’s possible to tie an obi by yourself on the front of your body, and then turn the bow to the back when finished. The following basic steps will create a simple bow and are best tried using a narrow, supple obi. First, use your arm to measure out one and a half arm lengths at one end and drape that end over your shoulder. Where the obi crosses your waist vertically in front of your body, fold it to become horizontal, and wrap it around your waist twice. Remove the end from your shoulder and tie it into a bow with the remaining end, which will be much longer; pass that longer end under and up over the obi that encircles your waist to create a loop.…

“Put all thy wardrobe’s glories on, and yield in frogs and fringe to none but the great Regent’s self alone. . . .”—Intercepted letter VIII from Colonel Thomas to Skeffington, Esq. Published by Thomas Moore, 1895. While the use of passementerie on men’s jackets had reached satirical heights long before Thomas Moore published a poem about flaunting “frogs and fringe,” delicate frog closures would be advertised as a “new” option for ladies’ dress in the nineteenth century. Provision dealers J. Lockitt, Son & Co.’s of Fulton Street in New York City ran an ad in the October 13, 1858, issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that announced “a new and large supply of . . . (something entirely new) Crochet Cloak Frogs and Leaves.” Although the word “frog” has been…