Month: May 2014

Hanging On By A Thread

Post author By PLH
Post date May 21, 2014
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This month’s ‘Family Tree Magazine’ (UK) has a piece I did about crafts in eighteenth and nineteenth century asylums. Whilst researching, I stumbled on these amazing Native American autographs, in The Retreat’s ‘Visiter’s Book’, made by visiting Seneca nation dignitaries, in 1818. Couldn’t shoehorn them into the piece, so here’s one for all of […]

Tags frayed, insanity, lorina bulwer, textiles, the retreat

handspinning

Spinning the Boss Cow Way

Post author By PLH
Post date May 10, 2014
5 Comments on Spinning the Boss Cow Way

This week, I’ve mostly been spinning gansey yarn. Here is some of it on the clothes horse. It’s been washed and is dried unweighted. That is the extent of ‘blocking’ for knitting yarn. Why is commercial guernsey yarn always 5 ply? Because guernseys came about post Industrialisation. By the 1820s, most yarn in England was […]