All posts filed under: Learn

Terminology: What are Bizarre silks?

Bizarre silks are silk fabrics (obviously) that were fashionable in Europe from the mid 1690s to the 1720s. They featured large, asymmetrical designs, vivid colours, fantastical floral designs which were Oriental in inspiration, and an emphasis on the diagonal ‘serpentine line’ which would later come to characterise the Rococo style. The first bizarre silks were woven in Lyons, France, but by the early 1700s they were also being made in Spitalfelds, England, and to a lesser extent in Italy. The name ‘Bizarre Silks’ is not period – it wasn’t used until 1957 when art historian Dr. Vilhelm Sloman coined the term to describe the style. Dr Sloman believed that bizarre silks were made in India and imported into Europe, but subsequent scholarship has made it clear that they were exclusively produced in Europe. According to my research, there is no particular set of term that was used in the late 17th & 18th centuries for the fabric design – they might be described as Oriental, but generally they were just the popular style, and no …

Terminology: Bodkins & Ã‰tui (and scissor terminology and lots more!)

Published by The Dreamstress

A bodkin, also known as a lacing or threading needle (and occasionally a ballpoint needle, but then it gets confused with the needles we sew knits with), is a large needle with a very large eye, and a very blunt end, used for lacing corsets, threading ribbon through lace beading, cord through casings, or any other time when you need to ‘carry’ a yarn without the chance of poking holes or sewing through something. Bodkin is also occasionally spelled bodekine, bodikin, botkin, bodkine, and boidken. Here is how you thread a bodkin through a casing: To create a bit of confusion, the word bodkin also refers to almost the opposite tool: a sharp, pointed tool for poking holes in leather or fabric (like an awl). And bodkin is also a decorative hairpin, particularly one that is shaped like a stiletto dagger, and a stiletto dagger is itself a bodkin (keeping up?). A 17th century guide to the tailors tools describes a bodkin of the awl variety as: a blad or or round Pin of Iron …

Advertising at the end of the War (WWII, that is)

Published by The Dreamstress

I found a wonderful magazine page a few month’s back, full of advertisements. None of the products advertised would be particularly interesting to me, except that the magazine is from late 1945, and the advertisements make specific reference to the (hopeful) end of wartime shortages. It’s a fascinating glimpse at rationing, and the foreseeable end to it: Unfortunately I just found two pages of the magazine, and there was no identification of what magazine it was, or a precise date, though I’m certain it’s either English (most likely) or Australian (less likely), and that it dates from late 1945 or early 1946. First, a rather sad version of Mary Had a Little Lamb: The Loving Stitch: A History of Spinning & Knitting in New Zealand, gives an excellent account of wartime wool (and knitting needle) shortages, and how women coped with them (hint, it includes #8 wire!) Next, a rather standard beauty ad, though my modern mind can’t help wondering precisely what it is men who call her Pat know about her… Another classic ad …