I rather enjoyed this short piece on the importance of embroidery and needlework as art, and why the trope of the independent woman who doesn't like embroidery (and wants to do X instead) is overdone.
I rather enjoyed this short piece on the importance of embroidery and needlework as art, and why the trope of the independent woman who doesn't like embroidery (and wants to do X instead) is overdone.
I embroider myself, and learned rather recently as an adult. It's very fun and definitely an artistic endeavor. I really liked this article! One good example from fiction of a female character who...
I embroider myself, and learned rather recently as an adult. It's very fun and definitely an artistic endeavor. I really liked this article!
One good example from fiction of a female character who doesn't like embroidery in a realistic way is Anne from Anne of Green Gables. She doesn't dislike embroidery as some sort of weird feminist statement by modern writers but because she generally struggles with sitting still and focusing on it. And as someone who struggles to focus on my embroidery when I haven't taken my Vyvanse, I relate. Of course, I suspect the reason for the difference is the difference between the perspective of a contemporary woman writing about the world she lived in and a modern-day woman writing historical fiction with the skewed modern view many of us have of needlework.
I'm definitely not going to say that every instance of this trope is bad, though the author makes the point that there are a dozen other crafts that women of the Regency Era or medieval times...
I'm definitely not going to say that every instance of this trope is bad, though the author makes the point that there are a dozen other crafts that women of the Regency Era or medieval times (Anne being later) would have done. My issue is forgetting to sit down and knit (I have started cross stitches but never finished them) or abandoning projects rather than not being able to sit with it, because with an audiobook or TV show I do great. Which is why Anne would have benefited from the communal stitching groups had she, ya know, gotten along with her peers or had a family with more kids, etc.
I wonder at embroidery as an elite craft for noble ladies who shouldn't roughen their hands and dirty their fine clothes with grosser work like spinning, weaving, basketry, cooking, pottery,...
I wonder at embroidery as an elite craft for noble ladies who shouldn't roughen their hands and dirty their fine clothes with grosser work like spinning, weaving, basketry, cooking, pottery, gardening, and so on.
Embroidery is certainly an art form and a labor-intensive means of value-added ornamentation for otherwise plain fabrics (moreso since most Western garments of the period didn't have durable printed patterns). A lady's maid might make a little income on the side embroidering handkerchiefs and linens - it's a skill that doesn't require much space or capital investment. But again, it's an ornamental privilege to avoid heavier labor.
We can now think of embroidery as a pleasurable leisure activity because so much of our material needs are meet through machine labor.
I think it's also worth considering that it was a social task for children and women in the winter not just a task for the rich or their servants. Laura Ingalls wrote about doing hemming and...
I think it's also worth considering that it was a social task for children and women in the winter not just a task for the rich or their servants. Laura Ingalls wrote about doing hemming and embroidery both iirc (she was not a fan), with her mother and sisters. And samplers were a thing long past ladies maids. But yeah it was how you'd decorate your linens, or the linens for your daughter to take when she was married.
The surviving pieces of historical embroidery we see today were certainly elaborate works of art created with expensive thread (e.g., silk threads in an array of different colors). However,...
The surviving pieces of historical embroidery we see today were certainly elaborate works of art created with expensive thread (e.g., silk threads in an array of different colors). However, embroidery and darning are very closely related — they use the same tools and materials, and the techniques are very similar (albeit simple/traditional embroidery is quite a bit quicker and easier than darning, in my personal experience).
I would be deeply surprised if it was uncommon for European peasants who were darning their clothes anyway to occasionally embellish their work with a bit of decorative embroidery to entertain themselves on long winter nights. These garments may not have survived to the present day (peasant clothes did not suddenly go out of fashion and disappear into a closet for decades; they were worn until they fell apart), but they were still very valuable to the people who wore them. They generally only had a couple sets of clothes, which were made from sturdy linen that lasted for many years and were repaired many times over. It's hard to imagine that peasants did not love these clothes and put effort into making them nice.
We do know that this happened in Japan. Peasants who were repairing or reinforcing their clothes anyway would commonly do decorative embroidery that eventually came to be known as sashiko. This was simple winter work for women living in farming communities and fishing communities, and it was done with inexpensive undyed thread.
There are also many examples of folk embroidery traditions in Europe, which I strongly suspect grew out of peasant needlework due to the simple patterns and the highly regional nature of the designs.
For example, this is a historical Ukrainian men's shirt with folk embroidery. According to the museum that owns it, the fabric is homemade linen and the embroidery is cotton thread. It even has a repaired hole on the arm. I strongly suspect that this was not a rich person's shirt.
I rather enjoyed this short piece on the importance of embroidery and needlework as art, and why the trope of the independent woman who doesn't like embroidery (and wants to do X instead) is overdone.
I embroider myself, and learned rather recently as an adult. It's very fun and definitely an artistic endeavor. I really liked this article!
One good example from fiction of a female character who doesn't like embroidery in a realistic way is Anne from Anne of Green Gables. She doesn't dislike embroidery as some sort of weird feminist statement by modern writers but because she generally struggles with sitting still and focusing on it. And as someone who struggles to focus on my embroidery when I haven't taken my Vyvanse, I relate. Of course, I suspect the reason for the difference is the difference between the perspective of a contemporary woman writing about the world she lived in and a modern-day woman writing historical fiction with the skewed modern view many of us have of needlework.
I'm definitely not going to say that every instance of this trope is bad, though the author makes the point that there are a dozen other crafts that women of the Regency Era or medieval times (Anne being later) would have done. My issue is forgetting to sit down and knit (I have started cross stitches but never finished them) or abandoning projects rather than not being able to sit with it, because with an audiobook or TV show I do great. Which is why Anne would have benefited from the communal stitching groups had she, ya know, gotten along with her peers or had a family with more kids, etc.
But yeah, I get it!
I wonder at embroidery as an elite craft for noble ladies who shouldn't roughen their hands and dirty their fine clothes with grosser work like spinning, weaving, basketry, cooking, pottery, gardening, and so on.
Embroidery is certainly an art form and a labor-intensive means of value-added ornamentation for otherwise plain fabrics (moreso since most Western garments of the period didn't have durable printed patterns). A lady's maid might make a little income on the side embroidering handkerchiefs and linens - it's a skill that doesn't require much space or capital investment. But again, it's an ornamental privilege to avoid heavier labor.
We can now think of embroidery as a pleasurable leisure activity because so much of our material needs are meet through machine labor.
I think it's also worth considering that it was a social task for children and women in the winter not just a task for the rich or their servants. Laura Ingalls wrote about doing hemming and embroidery both iirc (she was not a fan), with her mother and sisters. And samplers were a thing long past ladies maids. But yeah it was how you'd decorate your linens, or the linens for your daughter to take when she was married.
The surviving pieces of historical embroidery we see today were certainly elaborate works of art created with expensive thread (e.g., silk threads in an array of different colors). However, embroidery and darning are very closely related — they use the same tools and materials, and the techniques are very similar (albeit simple/traditional embroidery is quite a bit quicker and easier than darning, in my personal experience).
I would be deeply surprised if it was uncommon for European peasants who were darning their clothes anyway to occasionally embellish their work with a bit of decorative embroidery to entertain themselves on long winter nights. These garments may not have survived to the present day (peasant clothes did not suddenly go out of fashion and disappear into a closet for decades; they were worn until they fell apart), but they were still very valuable to the people who wore them. They generally only had a couple sets of clothes, which were made from sturdy linen that lasted for many years and were repaired many times over. It's hard to imagine that peasants did not love these clothes and put effort into making them nice.
We do know that this happened in Japan. Peasants who were repairing or reinforcing their clothes anyway would commonly do decorative embroidery that eventually came to be known as sashiko. This was simple winter work for women living in farming communities and fishing communities, and it was done with inexpensive undyed thread.
There are also many examples of folk embroidery traditions in Europe, which I strongly suspect grew out of peasant needlework due to the simple patterns and the highly regional nature of the designs.
For example, this is a historical Ukrainian men's shirt with folk embroidery. According to the museum that owns it, the fabric is homemade linen and the embroidery is cotton thread. It even has a repaired hole on the arm. I strongly suspect that this was not a rich person's shirt.