MY WORKBOX

I want to treat you all to some pages from
my latest acquisition -
The Cult of the Needle
from the early 1900's.

These pages will speak for themselves!
Enjoy!

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(click on picture to enlarge)

Old Photos

These photos were purchased at
an antique shop a little while back.
I love them for the wonderful
styles of dresses that the young
ladies wear.
I often think that I should have
been born a century earlier!
I wonder whether they would have
worked on the making of the dresses
themselves, possibly a loving
Mother, or a dear Aunt, or maybe
a dressmaker.
Was there lots of hand-stitching, or lots
of machine stitching on a treadle
or a handcrank sewing machine? -
handmade laces, silk ribbons, buttons
and expensive trims?
Did they have the latest catalog/ue or
pattern book?
What colours or fabrics did they use?
I hope you enjoy this little look.

Sisters?

Above - March 1890

Vintage Girl's Own Annual

For my first post of 2008, I wanted to show you something

I consider really special.
The book below - The Girl's Own Annual
Edited by Flora Klickmann
dates around 1917.
I found this book during my recent holiday at
a very favourite antique shop in Tasmania.
This is a large publication of nearly 700 pages,
so I hope you will forgive my attempts to scan some
of the pages from the book. (This book is very thick
and scanning the inside was very difficult due
to the pages curving and distorting the print.)
However, what I have managed to show you is, I hope
of some interest to you.
There are a great many short stories in this book both
fictional and educational - but of course we are mainly interested
in the fashions and crafty articles, aren't we?

The very pretty cover.


Fashion update for 1917

What every young gardener should be wearing!

An easy apron to make and young fashions.

Do you crochet? These are especially
pretty patterns.

Below - making beads.

(click to enlarge)

It appears that I have been tagged!
Cathy from Hazelruthes has tagged me and I now have
to reveal 5 random things about me!
I really do want to keep this blog informative rather than
diary-like/personal but sometimes you can't escape it.
So here goes -

I don't drive!

I can wiggle my nose (but nothing magic happens!)

I have many obsessions (nothing new here) - one of
them is collecting toy dressers (cupboards/hoosiers?)
I needed somewhere to store my collection of toy tea sets!

I love to eat prawns. As a matter of fact, I had
garlic prawns at the pub last night.

I am fascinated with wooden dolls/toys - spoolknitters, kokeshi dolls,
matroushka's, and the like.

So now I have to tag another five bloggers-

Susan - Susaninstitches
Heidi - Needlenecessities
Becky- Sweetcottagedreams
Jane - Jane'sjots
Linda - Chloe'splace


(Oops! - It sounds like I had a holiday at an
antique shop - though it might be a great idea! LOL!)