An Archive of Stitches: The Living Histories, Geographies, and Biographies of our Clothes 

Organisers: Dr Rebecca Collins and Prof Deborah Wynne 

(both at the University of Chester)

Holly Kirby, Assistant Curator at the National Trust's Attingham Park, talking about the sustainable ways of caring for the costume collection.

This event, part of the Being Human Festival, the UK's annual Festival of the Humanities, took place in Chester's Forum Shopping Centre on Saturday 19th November. Holly Kirby, an assistant curator with the National Trust, was dressed in a wonderful Regency-style outfit she had made herself. In the morning, she delivered a thought-provoking and informative talk about caring in sustainable ways for the historic costume collection at Attingham Park in Shropshire. Holly explained how the natural laundering techniques of the past continued to be employed, as they were less harsh on delicate fabrics than modern commercial laundry products. Holly also described how garments were repaired and stored, not only by museum staff today, but by the family and servants at Attingham Park in the past. Clothes were once treasured and preserved, a far cry from the cheap, mass-produced clothing culture today. Holly's talk was followed by a general discussion, where participants shared their own approaches to sustainable clothing, some people bringing in garments they had made themselves and had repaired and preserved.

In the afternoon, Dr Rebecca Collins, of the Pop-Up Patch and Repair Challenge Team, set up a repair workshop where participants were shown how to do simple garment repairs. It was a very informative day, as so many stories of garments were shared, making it clear that every item of clothing has its own biography.

The Pop-Up Patch and Repair Workshop

 

Textiles and English surnames

Textile production has had a significant impact on English history and culture in a number of different ways. For example, we can see in the grand residences of the Cotswolds the way in which the industry generated wealth for the area in the Middle English and Early Modern English periods. These markers of the industry’s influence are often clear to see, yet there are other ways in which England’s textile-related history has had an effect on the country’s identity that often go unrecognised, such as the development of its names. By studying the frequency and etymology of some of the more common surnames in England, the importance of textile production is further revealed.

Three of the 100 most frequent surnames in the 1881 census have a clear connection to wool, textiles and clothing. These are Taylor, Walker (from Middle English walker ‘a fuller of cloth’), and Webb (from Middle English webbe ‘weaver’). We could also add to this list the names Miller and Mills, which may have originally been used to refer to someone who worked at a fulling mill (though the names may also have been for used for people who worked at different types of mill, unrelated to textile production). Five out of 100 names may not seem like a lot, but it’s important to put this figure in context. Out of this list of 100 surnames, 19 names relate to an occupation of some sort. This means that five out of 19 surnames in this list, or just over 26% of the most common occupational names, relate to textile processing and production.

Beyond these broad patterns of occupational surname frequency, we can also use surnames which have some relation to wool and textiles to understand other aspects of English identity, such as our dialects and their distribution. As such names are relatively common, due to the continued importance of the textile trade in England, they provide a suitable amount of data for drawing conclusions on dialect usage. The surname Walker (mentioned above) would originally have been applied to a fuller of cloth, but there are two other surnames with the same meaning: Tucker and Fuller. These three surnames have, and have had, different regional distributions, as shown in the maps below adapted from 1881 census data (these maps are generated using Steve Archer’s 1881 surname atlas – see http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/satlas01.htm). We can see that the surname Fuller is more heavily associated with the south-east, Tucker is associated with the south-west, and Walker is more widespread (though with a significant concentration in the north of England and the West Midlands). The distribution of these names reflect the regional usage of the terms full, tuck, and walk to refer to fulling mills. This usage can also be seen in English place-names; see Tuckingmill near Zeal Monachorum in Devon, Walk Mill near Burnley in Lancashire, and Fulling Mill Farm near Ardingly in Sussex.

In this way, the textile-related surnames of England don’t just reflect the influence of the trade on the country’s identity, but also reveal details of the different dialect terms used in the trade. While this exemplifies the power of surnames as a source of linguistic information, it also demonstrates that the textile industry has been so important that it has had a significant impact well beyond the bounds of the industry itself, affecting our names and language in such a way that the effects can still be seen in the frequency and distribution of our surnames today.

by Dr Harry Parkin, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Chester

Fashion Sketches Discovered at Attingham Park.

 

Recently, a fascinating selection of historic fashion sketches were discovered at Attingham Park. Whilst undertaking inventory checking work in the textile collection store in 2018, a National Trust volunteer found this collection of sketches tucked inside an unassuming historic envelope. These sketches were created by Teresa Hulton, later the 8th Lady Berwick, between the ages of 11 and 15. Born in 1890, Teresa created the sketches in the early part of the 20^th century.

The sketches are a valuable resource showing what activities and interests wealthy teenage girls enjoyed at the time. They show family, friends, ladies’ maids, seamstresses, and outfits seen in operas and plays. Some gowns appearing to be outfits that survive in the Attingham collection, like the striped dress Teresa depicts her mother wearing. 

In different mediums from ink to pastel, some sketches have been drawn on whatever paper Teresa had to hand, like her grandmother’s address card. Some of the sketches have been meticulously cut around to give a 3D effect. Pin holes in some of the sketches suggest they were displayed. Other pictures seen in Teresa's letters to her friends show she used her illustrations as modern teenage girls might do with photographs – sharing images of outfits admired at parties or picnics. In a letter to a friend, she says how she loved to sketch her mother in her evening dresses before she left for soirees.

Teresa’s father, the artist William Stokes Hulton, encouraged his daughters to take an interest in art. William Stokes Hulton was friends with influential artists like John Singer Sargent and Walter Sickert. Sickert helped Teresa and her sister, Gioconda, with their own artistic efforts and the girls sent him their drawings to be commented on. Whilst Gioconda was the one who developed a real passion for art, Teresa primarily enjoyed creating beautiful fashion sketches.

Teresa’s interest in fashion paved the way for her future as a fashionable society beauty featuring in the ‘Vogue’ and ‘Tatler’ magazines. She also made her own dresses and enjoyed attending fancy dress parties in historical costumes and outfits from different countries – ideas suggested by the more fanciful of her sketches. 

Holly Kirby (assistant curator, Attingham Park)

Victorian Object Lessons: Charlotte Brontë, Textile Recycling and the Hidden Stories of Childhood

 

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50458343

This is one of the ‘Little Books’ created by Charlotte Brontë in 1830 when she was 14 years old, an edition of The Young Men’s Magazine which she and her brother Branwell regularly produced from 1829 onwards. The size of a matchbox, it was recently bought at auction by the Brontë Parsonage Museum for £500,000. Its tiny size and neat but cramped handwriting charmingly suggest the miniature worlds of childhood.

 Yet this homemade book conceals hidden stories. The paper on which Charlotte wrote her magazine was scavenged; perhaps it came from a discarded sugar bag in the kitchen of Haworth Parsonage, or from an advertisement which had been thrown away. However, if we look beyond Charlotte’s text, hidden within the roughly cut paper pages are irretrievable stories we can only imagine, for until the 1870s paper was manufactured from textile waste. The threads from a clergyman’s surplice or a fine lady’s chemise may perhaps be mingled with the rags worn by a beggar in the paper sewn by Charlotte for her little book. 

Indeed, cloth made strange journeys through Victorian society, when a fine lady’s dress would be passed on to many owners via the second-hand clothing trade, until it eventually ended up as a servant’s duster, or the rags worn by a beggar. At the very end of this journey, rags were collected for recycling into paper. Textile recycling for the Victorians was a major industry, with many of the urban poor making a living from collecting rags and selling them to dealers who traded with the owners of paper mills, where the textile waste was manufactured into paper.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbaph.org.uk%2Fpapermills.html&psig=AOvVaw1i4HeED90oFc5EWwSygCTJ&ust=1620654768064000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKC1ndjfvPACFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

Charlotte’s scavenging for scraps of paper in the parsonage at Haworth seems far removed from the experiences of street children in the cities, when many orphans and abandoned children in the early nineteenth century made their living from collecting rags. However, the paper on which she wrote her text offers a link between the rural parson’s daughter and the abandoned street child in the city. The work of the rag-picker was vital to the work of the writer, for paper before 1870 could only be manufactured from rags.

We might wonder why the Brontë children didn’t just ask their father to buy paper for them. The reason is that paper from textile waste was both very expensive to manufacture and subject to the Paper Tax, whereby a levy was imposed on all paper made in Britain until 1860. Recycling, for the Victorians, was not done to save the planet (as it is today), but to save money, a thriftiness which was practised by all but the wealthy. The Victorian writer, Harriet Martineau, wrote in Household Words in 1854 that rags were ‘precious tatters’ and that everyone should keep a ‘rag bag’ in their home to give to the rag-and-bone collectors who visited every street.

It is likely that Charlotte was aware that the scraps of paper she salvaged for her little book came from rags. Perhaps she fantasised that the shirt of her hero, the Duke of Wellington, had played a part in its construction? Certainly, the stories that she and Branwell created as children turn upon fantastic transformations and improbable happenings, and the journey from rags to paper was often described as magical. One imaginative child’s story written in 1830, and now a valuable museum object, was inscribed upon an object brought about through the labour of many illiterate and exploited children.

As well as the stories that Charlotte wrote, there are the hidden stories contained within the paper of this little book. As well as vulnerable child ragpickers scavenging for cloth on the streets, further back than that were the children employed in cotton mills and woollen mills, who worked in dangerous conditions picking fluff from beneath the moving machinery. Further back still, there may have been the children of slave workers in the Southern States of America, helping adults to pick cotton. The labour of all these children is now silently embedded in the sheets of paper on which texts before the 1870s were written. After 1870, manufacturers in the United States discovered a way of manufacturing cheap paper from wood-pulp, and expensive ‘rag-paper’ declined.

Over the past year Professor Deborah Wynne has taken part in a project organised by the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada, Crafting Communities: A Series of Victorian Object Lessons and Scholarly Exchanges in COVID Times, involving online roundtables, crafting workshops, pedagogy workshops, an exhibition and series of podcasts. To find out more about the Crafting Communities project see: http://vsawc.org/crafting-communities/

‘These Boots were made for Walking’: What Women Wore to Walk

Women’s clothing has often restricted their ability to walk freely and such clothing has then impacted on their freedoms in other areas of their lives. This blog post will discuss how some women overcame these restrictions.

Dorothy Wordsworth walked every day around the Lake District with her brother William and their friends, and then wrote about these walks in her journals. Dorothy and her friend Mary Barker were the first women to both climb and write about Scafell Pike. This walk was re-enacted in period dress by Dr Jo Taylor, Alex Jakob-Whitworth and Harriet Fraser in 2018 (exactly 200 years after Dorothy). I have been in contact with Dr Taylor from the University of Manchester as I was interested to discover how restrictive she found the period costume to be. Did it hinder her walking in any way? She told me: ‘We got caught in a storm that day on Scafell…The men, whose historical clothes were much more closely related to modern walking gear, wanted to go on – but wearing a long skirt is like wearing a kite; the women were being picked up, and it felt pretty hairy at some points to be blown quite significantly around the paths along some of the ridges.’ 

Figure 1

Corsets were another item of clothing which women wore and which restricted their movement. Figure 1 shows an advert for an ‘Athletic Girl Corset’. The development of special clothing for sport was an area of controversy as a passive lifestyle for women was seen to be more genteel. The design of female clothing was confining as rapid motion, ample waists and the raising of arms above the head were considered unfeminine so sleeves were cut to inhibit movement, corsets became tighter and petticoats more voluminous. Women’s clothing usually made them unable to engage in any activity more rigorous than a sedate stroll. So-called ‘walking dresses’ were part of a lady’s wardrobe from early nineteenth century, but their design permitted only the most leisurely of paces. In the mid-nineteenth-century, when outdoor exercise began to be more popular, women still wore ordinary clothing that interfered badly with their freedom of movement.

Figure 2

In the early 1850s, Amelia Bloomer tried to persuade women that beauty and utility in dress were not incompatible, and to adopt a form of Turkish trousers worn beneath a knee-length skirt (Figure 2). The bloomer costume was far too revolutionary for the time and the few brave women who wore them in public were ridiculed. The wire cage and crinoline introduced in the mid-1850s made walking in long skirts easier but expanding circumferences, sometimes to as much as 5 yards, impeded ease of motion. Dr Taylor experienced this problem first-hand on her re-enactment walk. The dresses of the 1870s and 1880s, with tied-back skirts and bustles, had smaller circumferences, but also a train that swept the ground and leg-of-mutton sleeves that restricted arm movement. In the 1890s, although daytime clothing was reduced in weight and complexity, ordinary skirts remained long, and ‘sensible’ walking outfits were 3.5 yards wide and hung to the ankle.1  During the Edwardian years, the reaction against the New Woman and her unconventional attitudes produced one of the most restrictive fashions of all time, the hobble skirt, whose exaggerated narrowness at the knee barely permitted a single step and more than offset the advantage of a slightly raised hemline (Figure 3).

Figure 3

One of the famous advocates for reform in women’s dress was Ada Ballin. She attacked ‘outmoded’ and ‘tyrannical’ ideas about dress.2  In relating health to dress and physical exercise she recounted the story of: 

a Gentleman of scientific frame of mind, who determined to make the experiment of walking in petticoats in order to estimate the disadvantage under which women labored in regard to dress. He walked for a mile up a hill; but was so exhausted by the endeavor that he gave up with the remark that women must be stronger than men or they would never be able to stand it.3  

Another advocate for dress reform was Martina Bergman-Österberg. She was a Swedish-born physical education instructor and women’s suffrage advocate. She advised against corsets and required functional dress for ordinary wear and exercise and advocated the wearing of gymslips for sport. Old students recalled that when going to matches they were called ‘those dreadful girls’ by ‘men who don’t know how troublesome skirts are and by women who don’t know how delicious it is to be free of them’.4

Figure 4

But what about when they got older and wanted to play sport professionally and in a public arena? Many women were successful mountaineers, but as this is a physical activity it must have been very difficult to participate in long, heavy dresses. For those who chose to wear dresses to climb, there were a range of possible skirt-related incidents to bear in mind. The Matterhorn’s Col Felicité was named after Felicité Carrel whose 1867 attempt at the summit with her father was thwarted when her skirts ballooned in the wind and it was too dangerous to go on. This is similar to the problems that Dr Taylor encountered on Scafell Pike. A common compromise was to wear a skirt or dress when leaving the hotel, then rip it off at the base of the mountain and climb in more sensible clothing. One woman who did just that was the Irish pioneer of mountaineering, Lizzie Le Blond (1860-1934). She set off on a traverse of the Rothorn, came down the other side and realized that her skirt was still on the summit. As the Alpine Club did not admit women members, she formed the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1907. She moved to Switzerland, wrote seven books on mountaineering and made twenty first ascents, conquering peaks no one had climbed before. Abandoning mid-1880s convention, she was often known to climb in trousers. The Second President of Ladies’ Alpine Club was Lucy Walker. She was a British mountaineer and the first women to climb the Matterhorn – she was wearing a white print dress (Figure 4). Fanny Bullock Workman was an American mountaineer who climbed mainly in the Himalayas. She wore skirts whilst cycling thousands of miles across Europe and Asia, climbing peaks and negotiating crevasses. The photo shows her on Silver Throne Plateau (21,000 feet) holding a ‘Votes for Women’ newspaper (Figure 5). This clearly shows the link between walking and women’s independence.

Figure 5

Clothing has often hindered women’s freedom to exercise how they choose. Dress has restricted both women’s physical and social freedoms. By throwing off their corsets and finding more comfortable clothes to walk in, women had gained the independence to express themselves more freely in society.

1Kathleen E, McCrone, Sport and the Physical Emancipation of English Women, 1870-1914, (London: Routledge, 1988), p.217.
2Ballin, quoted in Cunnington and Mansfield, English Costume, (London, Faber, 1973), p.333.
3Ibid
4Ann Pagan, St. George's Chronicle, May 1894 quoted in May, Madame Bergman-Osterberg, (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1969), p.45.

Naomi Walker, May 2020.

Special thanks to Dr Joanna Taylor from the University of Manchester for her helpful emails.

Reading recommendations and volunteering opportunities

Here are a few book recommendations to help keep your mind off the COVID-19 lockdown.

For those of you who are interested in books which relate in some way to textiles and/or clothing, here are a few suggestions:

·         Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale (1910): This novel focuses on the lives of two sisters in a provincial draper’s shop, offering a considerable insight into the importance of such shops in Victorian communities. One sister manages the shop, while the other sister runs away to Paris. Lots of references to clothing and fabric in a novel which is a masterpiece.

·         Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967): This is set in Australia in 1900 and concerns a group of schoolgirls who visit an enigmatic local landmark, the Hanging Rock. Some of the girls are mysteriously ‘lost’ and if you are interested in the history of clothing and its cultural significance, then this novel offers a fascinating read. There are wonderful images of girls freeing themselves of their corsets as they climb.

Still from the 1975 film version of Picnic at Hanging Rock

·         Colm Toibin, Nora Webster (2014): Set in 1950s/60s Ireland, the novel is focused on the recently widowed Nora. There’s lots of references to clothing and home dressmaking. A wonderfully evocative novel.

·         H.G.Wells, Kipps (1905): You may have seen the film version, but the novel offers a negative view of the drapery trade. Kipps, a young draper’s apprentice, hates the fabrics he has to sell, dreaming of a more adventurous and ‘manly’ career. Nevertheless, H.G. Wells was himself a draper’s apprentice as a teenager, and he certainly knows a lot about fabrics.

Poster for the 1941 film version of Kipps

Hillary Lette:  I am totally engrossed in Threads of Life by Clare Hunter - it has even stopped me knitting! What an AMAZING book, on so many levels.

Wendy Riddick: The book I’m reading at the moment is The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history by Kassia St Clair

Rosamond Peet: I have at last started to read the book my sister gave me to enjoy on winter afternoons and evenings.  It is Alexander Mc Call Smith’s reworking of Emma but brought up to date.  He certainly has brought his clever wit to the work, but so far I am in the early chapters so I will have to see how it progresses.  I feel at the minute it centres on Emma and Isabella before the Austen story starts.  Other than that, I have lots of books to reread on my shelves and some that have been unread and really I should put my head into some French literature and exercise my brain, but not Proust.  Marcel Pagnol is nice to read to perhaps I shall start there.

Janice Knight: I couldn't resist replying to your email about books when I saw your reference to Barbara Pym. I've almost finished all my books from Oswestry library with no chance of getting any more in the foreseeable future but I was lucky enough to find a Barbara Pym I hadn't read in a charity shop a few days before our enforced self-isolation. So I'm really looking forward to reading Excellent Women.

As for suggestions, I always find Tracy Chevalier books worth reading especially for their references to art/textiles:  Girl with a Pearl Earring (Vermeer); The Lady and the Unicorn (tapestry); The Last Runaway (quilting); A Single Thread (embroidery).

Poster for the 2003 film adaptation of The Girl with the Pearl Earring

The last library book I read was, surprisingly by a male American author, but is well worth reading: The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash (the story based on truth of the fight for equality and fair pay in the cotton mills of USA in the 1920s so vaguely to do with textiles).

Elaine Rowland: I'm currently reading Millions Like Us, Virginia Nicholson's study of women's lives during World War II. I have already read and enjoyed her books about the 1950s and the inter-war years (both of them were referenced in my dissertation), but reading this one at present serves as a useful reminder that being forced to stay at home and sew is hardly the greatest hardship ever encountered.

Ann Martin: I'm reading books about the detective Vera as on TV. (Anne Cleeves, Vera Stanhope books).

Darcy Lear: I thought I’d let you know that I’ve just read A Single Thread by Tracey Chevalier. A definite link to craft and textiles! Some time ago I read a book called Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson - a social history covering the period just after the Great War. It looked at the issue of ’surplus’ women, the many who’d been trained only to fulfil the career of wives and mothers and who now suddenly found themselves without husbands and in need of jobs to support themselves. Tracy Chevalier’s novel explores that idea.

I’ve also thought of another novel I enjoyed ages ago with a textile theme running through….Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood…..a theme of quilts and quilt making running throughout.

Sharon Forsdyke: Reading recommendations: Carola Dunn’s ‘Daisy Dalrymple’ series and I’m bingeing on Agatha Christie’s Poirot books.

Volunteering opportunities:

Maralyn Hepworth: Friends of Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings have now set up and extra Volunteers facebook page where people can post. If you have any interesting snippets about anything to do with the Flaxmill, it would be great to share.  I have posted about the dye planters there, all ready to go when it re-opens to the public, and spinning wool for an 18th century shawl. Others do research and random other things!!!  

Debbie Marais: Here's a link for a volunteering-from-home opportunity:

https://www.leedsbeckettsu.co.uk/volunteering-opportunities/nhs-heart-project-knit-crochet-a-heart-volunteer-from-home

Here are a couple of links to patterns:

https://blog.weareknitters.com/free-patterns/knitted-hearts/  3-4mm and double-knit wool works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH9PMEYxH6w crochet tutorial - not quite the 6.5cm required but could add a second layer of double crochet all round or use bigger wool and hook

How to Crochet a Heart

How to crochet a simple heart measuring about 2 inches by 2 inches. I hope you enjoy! (^-^) Written version: http://www.happyberry.co.uk/how-to-cr... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happyberryc... Website: https://www.happyberry.co.uk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happyberrycr... Patreon: http://www.patreon.com ...www.youtube.com

Textile Therapy: Craft ideas for the Covid-19 Lockdown

Now are in 'lockdown' and unable to do our usual activities, many people are appreciating the therapeutic value of crafting. Here are some suggestions:

Hillary Lette

Last autumn I went to Blists Hill and saw a blanket that gave me some inspiration as a change to the knitted square blankets I had been making for the dementia ward at the hospital. So, I started knitting diamonds as opposed to squares. They don't take very long, use up any left-over wool (even tiny bits long enough to do a couple of rows) and when stitched together look kind of quilted. 

I join them into bigger diamonds of 9, which makes sure that the colours can be very random, and also makes it easier to put them together. When it comes to the edge, as you can see in the bottom right hand corner, I am finishing it off with black triangles to make it a regular rectangle shape. Just in case it helps, I use Size 4 needles, knit in rib, increase up to a 25 stitches, then start decreasing.  I think it is the rib that makes it look as if it is quilted. Very much a work in progress, and will be for some time.  Most of the wool comes from charity shops, so it is a win win situation. My fingers are busy, and the charity shops benefit.

Wendy Riddick

I have been keeping myself happily occupied with working on the small pieces and research for my Attingham Park four panelled screen and my family piece called ‘DNA’. Unfortunately, the screen itself, which is in progress and already has some applied pieces on, is down at my studio. My last outing too Attingham was with the Friends of the  the Flaxmill in March just before everything shut down which has given me some more inspiration to work from.

The ‘DNA’ piece is based on my own family members that share my DNA. I have been drawing family members past and present in a sketchbook, transferring the images onto fabric which is then stitched with my hair. I have been saving my hair for this project for some time. This week I have been stitching the manipulated pieced silk bases which they will be applied to. I have a very large family with some interesting stories. My cousin has been doing research into our family tree and I have the family albums here fortunately to work from.

Rosamond Peet

I wonder how far I will get with my project. I have started to work on a tapestry cushion cover for my first grandson to mark his birth - ….4 years ago??!!  I have had some design help from my very talented sister (thank you Hester) and am doing William the Whale squirting his friend Huffin the Puffin, the intention being to use his initials W and P as a sort of rebus.  I think it was a device the Tudors liked.  Fortunately I went to Abakhan to buy more wool before they closed for the time being.  So far only William and Huffin are stitched.  I want to do Holly the Honeybee on a poppy for my grand daughter I wonder how old she will be when it is finished??

Ann Martin

Just showing what I'm up to craftwise. I'm spinning recycled jeans from India mixed with raw cotton and on another wheel I'm spinning merino mixed with silk. I'm also knitting socks and a jumper and needle felting.

Daphne Wiggett

I do knitting for the homeless; the neonatal unit, & for refugees. Anything is appreciated. 

Free patterns are available online also wool needles etc . Folk may not realise that patterns: wool:needles & knitting info. can be found on line. There is a site "knitting for charity " which could be useful. We could become a new circle. ..maybe called the Knitwits! !

Georgina Spry

It would be worth looking at the Facebook group creating in the teeth of corona created by one of the ladies in my north wales Feltmaking  group. It’s taken off massively ans has lots of posts every day:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2744495075599109/?ref=share  

Sharon Forsdyke

I managed to set up a WhatsApp sewing group... It went really well.  Here are some photos of e knitted puppets made by one member and a collage of my work:

Ann Gibson

I have been knitting a cushion cover and here is a detail:

And the pattern:

Allow 3 balls of 100g double knitting wool. Size 4 needles. To fit a 16 x 16” (40x40 cms) square cushion (will vary according to tension).

1         Cast on 200 stitches (sts)

2         Work 30 rows in moss stitch (knit one, purl one first row; purl one, knit one second row)

3         Next row: work 20 sts moss; 60 sts plain; 40 sts moss; 60 sts plain; 20 sts moss

4         Next row: work 20 sts moss; 60 sts purl; 40 sts moss; 60 sts purl; 20 sts moss

5         Repeat last two rows for 88 rows (making 90 rows in total)

6         Work another 30 rows in moss stitch

7         Next row: cast off 100 stitches; knit remaining 100 stitches in moss stitch

8         Work a further 30 rows in moss stitch (to form inside/outside flap of cushion) and cast off

9         Fold and stitch up sides to form cushion shape, leaving flap to fold inside/outside

1       Attach buttons and button loops                                                                               amg/24.3.2020