A Sampler in Memoriam

A Sampler in Memoriam  

    Did you know that Jane Austen took pride and pleasure in handiwork? In the book, Jane Austen’s World, Maggie Lane says that Jane “applied the same high standards to the production of her needle as to those of her pen.” This is evident in the beauty of the patchwork quilt made by Jane, her mother and her sister Cassandra together. The quilt uses sixty-four different fabrics in diamond shapes on a dotted white background. In 1811, in a letter to Cassandra, Jane asked, “Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork?” The ladies were discriminating collectors of floral chintz in pleasing pinks, red, tan and sky blue. You can see the quilt on the website of Jane Austen’s House museum when taking the virtual tour.

    

In the center of Jane’s quilt is a large diamond with a basket of flowers. In photographs I’ve seen of antique samplers from the 19^th century, the maker of a sampler (usually a young girl acquiring skill) often includes a vase or a basket of flowers, or two baskets because many a sampler is stitched in symmetry.

    The sampler I stitched over the summer has flowers in symmetry and also a larger vase of flowers at its center. It is a reproduction of an antique sampler purchased on e-bay by the ladies of Blackbird Designs. It is featured in their booklet, Honeysuckle Manor. Louisa Bell stitched it in approximately 1804 (Jane’s day) or earlier, judging by the choice of lettering she used.

    

    As always I began at the top and worked the honeysuckle border down the sides to the bottom. Then I did something unusual. I worked from the bottom up. I wanted the security of knowing the house would be spaced just right. Do you see how the window above the door is off center? This is exactly how Louisa Bell stitched it. Sometimes chart makers preserve irregularities in their reproduction charts. Louisa’s inconsistencies in the honeysuckle border, however, were corrected.  

   

    Honeysuckle Manor is pretty in soft shades of color. The soft thread colors are meant to simulate a faded antique – the way the sampler looks today. But the book also gives a peek of the back of the sampler. How rich the original colors were - more true to what could be seen on the front when first stitched. I don’t know what came over me. All I know is that eyeing the back of the sampler made me a deserter. I ignored the color list entirely to choose colors closer to Louisa’s. The faintly marbleized linen I chose and the subtle variations of Gentle Art threads (fading red on the house) suggest enough of an antique for me. 

    The chart recommends stitching the name of someone special in place of Louisa Bell. I peeked at one sampler lover’s blog, also an avid reader, and saw that on her Honeysuckle Manor she stitched Jane Austen - 1775. Can you guess the name I chose? 

“I find no adjectives adequate to describe my admiration . . . “ A Charlotte Mason Companion, pg 377

    Honeysuckle Manor is finished. Until it is framed I’ll keep it rolled in a linen towel. 

Do you and your children like making something for the joy it brings or because it is pleasing to the eye? Perhaps you are drawn to making what is useful or needful. At other times the work of your hands may hold an extra special meaning to you.  
  

    Miss Mason on Handicrafts: 

“The human hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is the cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success.” Phil. of Ed. pg 328.

Summer’s Parting Gifts

Summer’s Parting Gifts

“The mind receives knowledge, not in order that it may know, but in order that it may grow, in breadth and depth, in sound judgment and magnanimity; but in order to grow, it must know.” Charlotte Mason, Phil. of Ed., pg 237.

I am adding to my knowledge by savoring summer’s parting gifts. Learning something new is refreshing.

    I can see these pokeberries from our bedroom window. Pokeberries (poisonous) aren’t new to me but I recently heard that ink from the pokeberry was used to write the Declaration of Independence. Dora, one of the characters in Lessons at Blackberry Inn, is a self-taught spinner of wool. The American colonists used pokeberries as a cloth dye and for ink, which must have sparked Dora’s interest. She exclaimed to Carol, “Ooh, look, pokeberries. They’re plump and ripe and will make just the pink I need.”  She began breaking off the stems . . .  “I’ve collected goldenrod for yellow and sassafras root bark for brown. Whenever I go for walks, I keep my eyes open for plant dyes.”

    Doesn’t this toadstool belong in a fairy tale? Dean found it in the grass and got out his camera.

  

    It opened the next day. Where have I seen a toadstool like this?  On the cover of a Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem - the autumn story - her only “season” story I care for. It isn’t her stories but her detailed illustrations that make her picture books.

    I opened the pages of my Country Diary of an Edwardian and found Edith Holden’s painting of a toadstool (poisonous). I paid closer attention to a detail that I once skimmed over. Her entry reads. “My sister sent me some lovely crimson toadstools with white spots, this morning, from Keston Common.” Were they sent through the mail? Edith says that they were damaged by the journey, the heads severed from their stems, but she still managed to make a sketch of them for her notebook.

    In the 1990s I recommended The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady as a beautiful example of a nature notebook created in 1906. The video, based on the book, is one I can’t part with. It is a calming portrayal of the seasonal wildlife of rural England. Mothers who observe nature to feed their souls, and mothers who lead their children in observation will find inspiration here. I propped up the video in the beehive oven of our fireplace then decorated it with a little pair of antique shoes. (Click photo to enlarge.) One hundred years later the buttons are still intact. I can’t imagine that they were comfortable shoes for a young child. But by the state of the soles they, indeed, were worn.

    I do not recommend the DVD series based on Edith Holden’s life. It is a disappointment. The added footage reveals family conflict and Edith’s country walks with her quiet fiancé. Few conversations take place. Apparently her family prefers talking to the dead round the dinning table. Creepy. The video excludes the unwelcome footage and depicts only Edith’s observations and entries in her notebook. You’ll find it for a few dollars online because videos are passé. 

    A new wildflower, one growing further down the road from the asters, is this spotted orange flower, the touch-me-not. 

    It took me quite a while to locate the name of this five-petal weed that sprang up beside our front walk. It is a cinqfoil but its color is unlike any in my field guides. Sophia was visiting on the Saturday I was searching my guides. She swiftly consulted her “contemporary resource” – her laptop - to goggle images.

    I wish you new knowledge this week, my friend, to add a little surprise and refreshment to your Mother Culture. Learning new things with children, too, makes for pleasant companionship.  

Homemade Multiplicity

Homemade Multiplicity

            When news reached the Lady-of-the house that a certain married couple was expecting a baby she was excited. She can recall the days when the young wife was a girl, the days of sleepovers with her daughters, watching “Pride & Prejudice” in PJ’s while munching on buttered popcorn.

At the same time the Lady-of-the-house heard news of a baby, she had just viewed the Homestead Blessings sewing DVD featuring the West ladies. On it they demonstrate how to make a rag quilt. She had set her sights on one day making such a cute and practical thing. Now news of the baby pushed her over the edge. That week she was in the local variety store fingering the fabric.

 “I may-as-well make three,” she told herself. This notion drifted to mind and she was aware of its source. It sprang from the influence of her long distance friend, a homeschool mother of six who has learned to be efficient. This friend lives by a code of multiplicity. Her practical and loving service to her family made an impression on the Lady-of-the-house who, by this time, certainly had enough enthusiasm for making a multiplicity of rag quilts. “It does feel good to have something made in readiness she said to the Man-of-the-house who was accustomed to her old fashioned phrases, “something for other babies.”

“What other babies?” he asked.

            “Oh, there’s bound to be other babies,” she replied, not exactly satisfying the point.  

This was because the notion of multiplicity was swirling around in her head. If a homemaker can make lasagna, she can double the recipe and make a second for the freezer. If she can make a loaf of zucchini bread she can just as easily make four loaves, freeze two, or wrap one up with a green bow to share with a widowed neighbor. If she can bottle multiple jars of raspberry jam, couldn’t she also sew multiple quilts if they are small?

The project was turning out to be a frugal one. She dug out from a closet of boxes, the cotton batting she was given years before by a friend who had been spring-cleaning her closet. The yards of flannel at the variety store were half price. She purchased no thread because she decided to use up whatever pastel colored thread she had on hand. 

In her attempts at multiplicity, she thought that if she can cut squares she could just as easily cut three batches. If she can machine quilt a stack of flannel sandwiches she can quilt three stacks. While she was sewing together rows of quilt sandwiches for one quilt, she may-as-well sew rows for two more quilts.

After the seams of a rag quilt are clipped carefully with scissors it is to be washed and dried to turn the seams into fringe. The Lady-of-the-house is taking her time with this summer project. Two are near to completion. One is finished. Opening the door of the clothes dryer was the “moment of truth.” Would the rag quilt really form fringe? 

Fresh from the dryer it was warm, soft, and yes, it was adequately fringed. She stood alone in the laundry room and gave the little quilt a kind of hug in agreement with Vicki West who exclaims in a Tennessee accent on the DVDs that everything homemade is either: “so wonderful, so cute, so beautiful, so sweet” or “so darling.” “Darling” was the exclamation the Lady-of-house. 

That afternoon she enjoyed a glass of sun tea - one of three herbal flavors that had been steeping on the lawn since noontime. Simplicity has a place but multiplicity also has its rewards. 

In what way have you invested in the code of multiplicity? In what way would you like to?