Table of contents for Summer 2020 in PieceWork

Necessity is certainly the mother of invention, and skillful needleworkers of all types learn to ease in, let out, and make do. Whether knitter or crocheter, seamstress or tatter, all textile pursuits have their own dilemmas and (sometimes controversial) solutions. I love exploring the heady mix of problem-solving versus tried-and-true needlework rules across cultures and time. In this issue, Susan J. Jerome’s article on handsewn buttonholes highlights this push/ pull of innovation and tradition so well. Buttonholes were to be practiced, perfected, and judged; samplers might serve as a résumé for marriage or work. However, Susan also explains how buttonholes continued evolving and the wonder of a modern sewing machine. And I think many of us are equally interested in the techniques and traditions that were left behind. Sarah Wroot…

Nature’s Palette The local flora of Vermont and natural dyestuffs from more temperate climates color the hand-dyed floss from The Felting Studio of Neysa Russo. Shown in cotton and available in silk and wool, too. www.thefeltingstudio.com Maker’s Mark With a stroke of the ergonomically designed Hera Marker from Clover, mark your next sewing project—no messy ink residue to rinse out later. www.clover-usa.com Heirloom Stitches Skacel kept traditional knitters and crocheters in mind when designing their HiKoo Merino Lace Light. Available in three classic colors, this fine yarn shows off lacy stitches beautifully. www.skacelknitting.com Beekeeper Stitch in vintage style with FripperiesMP’s Bee Skep and keep your floss and threads accessible and tidy. Each one is crafted from local hardwoods. www.retromanticfripperie.etsy.com Magnetic Minder Clasp a Kit-tea Cat Needle Minder by Grandma Girl…

If you are knitting with the rotated-floats or twined-binding techniques, the yarns are rotated as you work, but at different intervals. When twining, the yarns are rotated between stitches, but they are only rotated at color-changes when knitting with rotated floats. In both cases, twist is built up in the yarns between the knitting and the yarn supply. To remedy this, you can tie a slipknot with both yarns around both balls of yarn held together. Then, let them hang free so that gravity will untangle the twist. Repeat this regularly—possibly at the end of every round. When untying the slipknot, make sure that the bight (the bend in the loop) points upward and away from you, before you lift the loop off to the right. This way, you’ll avoid…

In 1877, S. Annie Frost introduced her book The Ladies’ Guide to Needle Work, Embroidery, etc. with these words: “There is no occupation so essentially feminine, at the same time so truly ladylike, as needlework in every branch, from the plain, useful sewing that keeps household and person neat and orderly, to the exquisite, dainty fancy work that adds beauty to every room.” She was echoing sentiments found in other publications of the century, including Godey’s Lady’s Book, of which she was soon to assume control with the January 1, 1878, edition. Sewing had, for many centuries, been divided into two categories: the necessary and the decorative. But in the nineteenth century, the sewing machine and other technological advances replaced the need to hand sew the family clothing, bed linens,…

This project uses the unique, historical, and visually stimulating embroidery style of Ars Canusina, which is based on the art of the Early Middle Ages during the time of Matilda of Canossa (1046–1115). The inspiration for this specific design was taken from a portion of an arch carved in bas-relief in the ancient Pieve of Guastalla, a provincial town in the Italian province of Reggio Emilia. The design was created by Maria Bertolani Del Rio (1892–1978), who started the Ars Canusina crafts movement around 1921, and is recorded in the album Ars Canusina, a collection of designs printed in 1935. Ars Canusina designs have appeared in woodwork, stonework, glasswork, inlaid ceramics, and wrought ironwork, as well as embroidery. This table center cloth with its double-leaves design is characteristic of this…

If the latrine hat was made in the Fortress of Louisbourg, the yarn would have been spun using a drop spindle rather than a spinning wheel. Many hours examining thousands of pages of documents have led historians to the conclusion that there were no spinning wheels in use in the colony during the time of French occupation (1713–1758). The documents that led researchers to this conclusion include thousands of inspection reports related to commercial cargo. Importation of a spinning wheel from the Old Country would have been prohibitively expensive, and the fabrication of one in the colony was problematic. Manufacturing in French colonies was against the law during this period, so the inventive residents found a way around the restriction using an older technology to spin wool from their sheep.…

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 1805 South McDowell Blvd Petaluma, CA 94954 (435) 259-8404 dharmatrading.com Needlecraft Cottage 870 Grand Ave San Diego, CA 92109 (858) 272-8185 needlecraftcottage.com Cardigans Yarn and Fiber 3030 State St Santa Barbara, CA 93105 (805) 569-0531 cardigansyarnandfiber.com COLORADO LambShoppe 3512 E 12TH AVE Denver, CO 80206 (303) 322-2223 thelambshoppe.com Lambspun of Colorado 1101 E Lincoln Ave Fort Collins, CO 80524 (970) 484-1998 lambspun.com IOWA Blue Heron Knittery 300 W Water St Decorah, IA 52101 (563) 517-1059 blueheronknittery.com ILLINOIS Starstruck Cat Design 3130…

EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Anne Merrow MANAGING EDITOR Laura Rintala EDITOR Kate Larson ASSOCIATE EDITOR Elizabeth Prose TECHNICAL EDITORS Lori Gayle, Deanna Hall West, Mary Polityka Bush COPY EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Trish Faubion PROOFREADER Nancy Arndt 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 MEDIA SALES Sommer Street Associates DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Haydn Strauss…

It all began with a personal challenge: take $100 of seed money and see how much good you can do. The year was 2009, and oncology nurse Janet Tupy, who had not sewn since high school, was inspired by a pair of felted wool mittens she found in a gift shop. She enlisted a couple of friends to help, located a pattern, and spent $100 on wool sweaters at a thrift store. Their goal was to raise $1,000 for local food pantries by making and selling felted wool mittens. That first year, they raised $4,000 and ran out of mittens. Fast forward eleven years, and ReMitts has raised more than one-third of a million dollars, with the proceeds going to food pantries in the Madison, Wisconsin, area. In 2019 alone,…

Two different buttonhole stitches are used in this sampler—the regular buttonhole (Figure 1) and the tailor’s buttonhole (Figure 4). Although both use the word buttonhole in their name, the latter stitch is a different entity entirely with a very different stitching procedure and, therefore, does not belong to the large buttonhole family. MATERIALS • Wichelt linen, 32-count, Ivory, 11 × 11 inches (28 × 28 cm), 1 piece • DMC embroidery floss, 6-strand 100% cotton thread, 8.7 yard (8 m)/skein, # 221 Very Dark Shell Pink, 1 skein • Coats & Clark thread, Bold Hand Quilting, 175 yard (160 m)/spool, Ecru #S922-B8-8020, 1 spool • Sewing thread, Ivory and Light Blue, 1 spool each • John James needles, tapestry size 26 and quilting/ between size 7 • Needlework stitching frame,…

“. . . To embroider a piece of Ars Canusina means to produce an object of art that bears a twofold tradition, that of the twentieth century born from the genius of Maria Del Rio and that of the thousand-year-old Romanesque legacy. It also means confronting oneself with a local identity, that of the Emilian territory, genetically inscribed in the motifs themselves and in the creativity of its artisans: it is the story of a land and its values that become interpreters of a timeless custom. . . .” —Blu Nautilus, Event Planning Association, December 2018 The Countess Matilda of Canossa (1046–1115) led an extraordinary life. When she was young, her father was murdered, and she was kidnapped and taken to Germany, where she grew up; years later, her husband…

On July 6, 2007, the consortium, created by the Municipality of Casina (thanks to the financing of the GAL Antico Frignano and Appennino Reggiano), was set up to further develop and promote the fine artistic craftsmanship of Ars Canusina, inspired by the Reggio Emilia’s Romanesque style. Today’s Ars Canusina is nourished by research, innovation, dissemination, protection, development, and recovery of socio-cultural traditions. The goal is enhancement of the specific cultural identity of the region by safeguarding its distinctive artistic style. Although the 1935 Ars Canusina album was reprinted in 1992 by the Municipality of Casina, it has been out of print for a long time. Today, it has reemerged as a digital album, Ars Canusina: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow. The DVD includes the original volume, illustrating this almost century-old story,…

Herjolf Bårdson left the crowded Norse settlements of tenth-century Iceland and founded Herjolfsnaes, a seaport on the fertile southern coast of Greenland. By 1300, Herjolfsnaes had become a community of more than 300 farms, but life was becoming difficult as the climate cooled and local Inuit raids increased. By 1500, the Norse settlers had disappeared, leaving behind their buildings and their dead, buried in their clothes for lack of shrouds and coffins. In 1920, after many reports of clothing, bones, and other objects washing into the sea, Danish archaeologists began excavations to rescue and preserve what remained. As a handspinner wondering how my ancestors in northern Europe spun wools and other fibers, I soon realized that historic textiles are the best and often the only source of information. Even a…

A Practical Guide to Needle Lace Jacqueline Peter Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 2020. Softbound, 128 pages, $24.99. ISBN 9780764358692. Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary: 125 Essential Stitches to Crochet in Three Ways Dora Ohrenstein New York: Abrams, 2019. Softbound, 288 pages, $27.50. ISBN 9781419732911. Henry Poole & Co.: The First Tailor of Savile Row James Sherwood New York: Thames & Hudson, 2019. Hardbound, 256 pages, $55.00. ISBN 9780500021958. Portuguese Knitting: A Historical & Practical Guide to Traditional Portuguese Techniques, with 20 Inspirational Projects Rosa Pomar Tunbridge Wells, England: Search Press, 2020. Hardbound, 160 pages, $23.95. ISBN 9781782217213. Traditional Dutch Ganseys for Children: Over 40 Sweaters to Knit from 30 Fishing Villages Stella Ruhe Tunbridge Wells, England: Search Press, 2020. Hardbound, 144 pages, $29.95. ISBN 9781782217527.…

Paper Dress Until I saw Beverly Gordon’s article [“A Most Valuable Fabric: Crepe Paper in the Early Twentieth Century,” page 10] in the Spring 2020 issue of PieceWork, I knew nothing about the popularity of crepe paper in the early 1900s. I wonder if my great-aunt, who was a dressmaker, used it in some of the ways described in the article. Elizabeth Sadak Holic (1891–1976), known by me as Aunt Betty, owned a dressmaking shop in Chicago, Illinois, from the 1920s to the 1950s. Family stories tell that she made very elegant gowns. When I began kindergarten in the late 1940s, my favorite dress was lime and dark green. Around that time, Aunt Betty presented me with a six-inch crepe-paper version of the dress. She had stitched it onto a…

The parallel-floats technique is a stranded method in which both yarns are held parallel in a consistent relationship to each other as they change places when the pattern calls for a new color. This method is persistent in the manuals from all researched areas during the whole period. With this method, there is a risk of “yarn dominance,” in which the stitches made by one of the yarns seems to stand out more. This only happens when using stranded knitting with parallel floats and is most prominent when the color changes are closely situated. It occurs because one of the yarns will always be pushed underneath the other yarn when they cross, which makes it produce a slightly taller stitch. The rotated-floats technique is a similar method, but there is…

Babies are considered precious in every culture—they are, after all, the way we carry our lineages into the future—but practices of caring for them vary considerably. One of the challenges that all people face is how to hold and transport such helpless beings. In modern society, we primarily turn to technological solutions: collapsible strollers and plastic carriers that can be used in and out of cars. For eons, however, simpler solutions prevailed. Most commonly, little ones were wrapped and tied to their mothers’ bodies. This arrangement provided physical and emotional security for the baby and kept the mother’s hands free to carry out everyday tasks. In some cultures, the carriers were more than practical; the wrapping cloths were painstakingly and lovingly adorned. Native American cradleboards varied stylistically across North America…

Ground fabric choice is based on the end product, with a preference for the color ecru. The choice of thread is related to the choice of fabric: embroidery floss or coton à broder for lighter fabrics and pearl cotton sizes 5 or 8 to create a bas-relief effect on heavier fabrics. Silk thread gives a lovely sheen to the flowers. The principle stitches are the parallel rows of stem stitches used to fill the internal parts of larger motifs, four-sided stitch, knotted stitch, and various filling stitches. The combination of these stitches, their variations, and many other traditional surface embroidery stitches together with the choice of harmonious colors and their various shades creates the characteristic style of this embroidery technique. Motifs are broken down into categories and have a multitude…

We will never know how the hat ended up in the latrine, but we can be thankful that it did, because the organic ooze that surrounded the textile preserved it. The well-preserved hat has allowed us to open a small window on life in the French colony of Louisbourg in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the hat was lost in the communal privy. The latrine was a fiveholer in the hospital, the hat was a handspun, handknitted cap, and the rest is history. The French colony of Louisbourg was established on Isle Royale (Cape Breton), Canada, in 1713 for France to control the productive cod fisheries of the surrounding ocean and to serve as a center of commerce. Over the next forty-five years, an impressive, well-fortified colony developed,…

In my ongoing explorations of vintage knitting patterns, I have been investigating how heavier-gauge knitting yarns impact vintage stitch patterns originally shown in very fine, firm yarns. I wanted to try a complicated edging in a heavier, softer yarn to create a dramatic statement. Knowing that this project would be all about the edging, I needed one that would size up beautifully. When I saw “Knitted Lace, Fluted Design with Eyelets” from the September 1931 issue of Needlecraft Magazine, I knew it would be the perfect candidate for this venture into a DK-weight shawl. This edging is particularly interesting because it incorporates short rows in addition to alternating stockinette and reverse-stockinette sections to produce a more ruffled appearance than the edgings I find in my usual Weldon’s Practical Needlework wanderings.…