PENELOPE HEMINGWAY
Let’s step outside the 1940s stuff, today and talk about something else. Am about to raise some money to publish the new book (I will go on about it here and on social media, when the Kickstarter is live, hopefully in the next week). If reaction at the barnstorming talk about it we did last […]
Monday 16th May, 1836 A large assortment of Pots at the Market today… but all was pretty quiet, there is no such uproar as there used to be with the Blackguards who attended. I think the Potters are rather more respectable than formerly… [The Diary of Robert Sharp of South Cave, Life in a […]
Whilst ‘The Knitter’ 122 is still in the shops, I thought I’d do a quick post on the non -traditional way I constructed the centre square of the ‘Hetty’ hap shawl. Well, I say non traditional – it’s very traditional. Just in Lancashire, not Scotland! Fusion knitting is a thing, right? One thing that inspired […]
In Europe the handspindle was the only tool for spinning yarn until the early Renaissance, when the spinning wheel appeared. Simple spindles produced all the thread, yarns and cordage for household use, for commerce and for war, for at least 9,000 years. The handspindle met all these human needs: clothing, household linens, uniforms for the […]
Knitting and sewing have always been feminist acts. Sometimes, it has been about activism as well. As a sort of historian, I’ve written on the blog, and will continue to write, about nineteenth century women who used crafts to escape the ‘cage’ of domesticity. It always fascinated me that needle arts were seen, culturally as […]
Not textiles, but colour related so I thought this would interest some of yous. Yesterday we went to the Pencil Museum in Keswick. (I know how to have a good time). The museum is a former canteen, standing in the grounds of the now empty, old Cumberland Pencils factory. It would make a brilliant set […]
…each Girl has the following articles given to her: A Pair of Scissors A Huswife A Thimble A Work Box A Knitting Sheath A Work Bag A Pincushion A Comb and Case At Easter she is allowed to have her Scissors ground; a Pincushion and String, Huswif mended, Her Thimble changed… a new Comb if […]
“Angola. 1827. A corruption of ANGORA: the fabric made of angora wool” The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1983. The Shorter OED has the first recorded incidence of “angola” as 1827, but I stumbled on an unpublished reference to it, in the 1807-16 Disbursement Book of The Retreat asylum, in York. (Held at the Borthwick Institute, […]
On the day we got our (catastrophic) election results, I thought I’d hoist the red flag (well, red petticoat) and talk about living history then and now, and the random thoughts I had whilst re-modelling a piece of ‘costume’ from the 1980s. Comrades, the Red Flag is at half mast today. But the red petticoat […]
Here’s some events coming up in the next few months. I’ll add in new ones as they’re finalised. 24th February, 2 – 3 PM. An Afternoon in Dove Cottage: For the Love of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal. Sold out! My partner in crime, Caro Heyworth and I will be doing a fireside chat, at Dove Cottage […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 