PENELOPE HEMINGWAYStill employing myself studying the (historical) crazy. Digging around in some York archives, last week. For an upcoming article in a genealogy magazine about crafts and eighteenth/nineteenth century insanity. Here are some snippets I thought might interest readers, but I can’t shoehorn into the piece ~ some more fascinating reasons for inmates being “a […]
Huddersfield, yesterday. And having an hour to kill, I found the Local History section of the Library. I didn’t have time to look for my Huddersfield ancestors, wool weavers and dyers the Smiths, Dawsons and Listers ~ but did find this info I wanted to share, in a fascinating book, ‘The Water-Spinners’, by Chris Aspin, […]
I’ve hesitated about writing this post. In the same way I hesitate about commenting on YouTube videos that claim to be showing a certain spinning technique – and aren’t. But great wheels are one of my ‘things’. And I couldn’t bear to see inaccuracies stand as ‘facts’. So in the spirit of preserving this craft […]
Knitting the Old Dales Way. How To Use a Knitting Stick or Shetland Knitting Belt: workshop A rare chance to learn this brilliant, simple but obscure method of knitting. Let’s keep this old Yorkshire craft alive! For its opening weekend, the Yorkshire Museum of Farming is holding a Country Crafts event, and I’ll be doing […]
A few months back, myself and friend, the lovely Caro, spent some time at the Bankfield Museum, in Halifax. We were there to document the spinning wheels – particularly any great wheels – in the reserve collection. For many years, the Bankfield was legendary amongst textile historians and enthusiasts. The current displays are fantastic – […]
Yesterday, I was watching the incomparable Abby Franquemont’s video download, ‘Respect The Spindle’. I’ve had the book since the week (hour?) it came out but finally got round to getting the video recently, as despite my thirty odd years’ worth of spinning, knew I’d learn something new from it. And I did. At one point, […]
Knitting history is a special corner of textile history, for me, as it tells the story of ordinary people. Knitting was – and remains – something seen as disposable; comparatively cheap to make, so gets used up, worn out and discarded. Pieces of knitting turn up in the archaeology, and finding out about and reconstructing […]
“…remains without material change. July 28 .. She still knits away with a piece of string and pieces of wool and needles producing only a tangle—if she cannot get anything to employ herself in this manner with she rubs her hands together all day long till she rubs the skin off then she rubs away […]
Last month, I was lucky enough to be invited to the preview of the Close Knit exhibition, at Hull Maritime Museum. The exhibition was created by the Maritime Museum in partnership with the Moray Firth Gansey Project and Hull School of Art & Design. ‘Close Knit”s star turn is a gansey once owned by Poet […]
This week, I went in search of my relative David Dawson, father of Dan Dawson. I had spotted David’s name cropping up frequently on Dan’s various patents, for improved dyeing processes and machinery, as”David Dawson, gentleman”. It turns out David credited himself with the development of magenta as a synthetic dye, and the 21 year […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 