This is the inaugural post of the new-style Clothworkers’ Centre blog. If you self-identify as a Knitwit or a Fan of Fans (a fanfan), read on, and even if you would not prod a Velveteenage Dirtbag with a stick, you might learn something (although probably not from me). We will use this as a rostrum to announce our activities, to manifest gossip, and to show you photographs of nice things. To bring new readers up to speed with what I’ve been writing about for the past year, please see below these descriptive haiku:
1
State of the art store;
Award-winning study room;
Book now, it is free.
2
Our collection has;
Over one-hundred-thousand;
Objects. That’s a lot.
3
Visit us to see;
Mantuas, lace, hats, sari…;
You’ll love Clothworkers’
The wee description up top promises content, so now I will tell you a little bit about what I have seen today. The proportions of this set of knitted baby clothing are tiny. The pink and green glass beads are arranged in delicate grape-like bunches and bands of roses, and each would have had to have been threaded onto the yarn in the precise reverse-order of the pattern before it could have been knitted. The sleeves are meant to be separate from the jacket, and would have been worn in chilly weather to ‘prevent chapping’. Presumably no one would have wanted their newborn baby to have been even pinker.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
