From Make Believe to a Passion: Textile History

I don’t know about you, but when I was young I loved to play make-believe. Perhaps that was the beginning of my love for acting and writing, but that is a topic for another time. I distinctly remember grabbing my bedsheets, blankets, and scarves and wrapping them about myself, trying to dress up like a queen of a far off land, or the protective fairy of a glenn. I used knots, string, safety pins, and whatever else I could use to make the sheets and blankets stay in place and drape into a makeshift ball gown or cape. I would have mounds of material on my bed as I sorted through what would make the best material for the costume I had in mind. Such childhood fantasy grew a lot of future habits, but the one that came as a shock was my interest in sewing and textile work.

It started innocuously. I would sew simple dresses for my dolls. A circle skirt and strapless bodice. It was made from some remnant cotton my mother had bought me at Walmart. I used an embroidery needle, since it was all I could find in my mother’s old needlepoint basket that had been hiding in the back of the living room closet for years, dusty and faded. Using a random spool of thread that was vaguely the same color as the bright yellow cotton, I hand stitched the dress to fit my doll. I didn’t hem it, so after a while it started to shed little yellow strands everywhere, but I was so proud of the thing I made. So, obviously, I made another, and another.

My little self was so inspired by this new thing called sewing, I just had to keep making until I made myself sick. I even attempted to embroider flowers on the bottom of one of them. Then I proceeded to get bored of that and stopped about a quarter of the way through.

From there it slowly grew, fed by my mother. She taught me cross-stitch. I got bored of that quickly. She then taught me to knit. I got bored of that quickly, too. Then, she taught me to crochet, and it all went downhill from there. Or up hill, depending on how you look at it. I took to crochet easily, and started to gobble up anything I could learn about the craft. Tapestry crochet, tunisian crochet, lace crochet. You name it. From elementary school through middle school and the beginning of highschool, that was my hobby. I tried knitting again a couple of times and enjoyed it a little. Faire isle knitting, cable knitting, lace. It was an enjoyable hobby, and I consumed a lot of literature about the craft.

Then my mother comes to me and asks if I knew what shuttle tatting was. No, I didn’t, but I was sure as hell going to figure it out. Tatting is a type of lace making that can either be done with a tatting needle or tatting shuttles. It was something new, exciting, and historical. (Have I mentioned I’m kind of a history nut? No? Sorry.) So, like crochet, I researched everything about it. This time I had the internet on my side.

Learning about the process of tatting led to learning about the history of lace. Learning about the history of lace led to learning about the history of lace garments. Then it was about historical garments of the victorian and edwardian eras. Then it was dresses, bodices, petticoats, corsets, stays, and on and on.

Those last few years of high school and first handful of college was a cacophony of research and obsession about historical textiles. It bled backwards in time to the 15th century and shifts and caps. Medieval embroidery. Tapestries. Weaving. Basket making. Navajo looms. Inkle looms.

My parents bought me a sewing machine. I ignored it for a long time. I was incredibly terrified and intimidated by the loud machine. For about a year, I didn’t touch it, focusing on my crocheting and lace. Then, with my mother's insistence, I tried it out.

Oh boy, just like crocheting, I took to it instantly. Starting with tote bags and headbands, I learned the basics. Then, I stretched myself to make skirts. Then, I decided to undertake the task of making both me and my mother regency gowns. This was a major step up in difficulty, and I didn’t like the final product, but it was a great learning experience and got me motivated to try for a better outcome. I also made us stoles and bonnets, which stoked the fire of my love of historical dress even more.

At this point, I was gone. All of my hobbies were some sort of historical recreation. Lace, weaving, knitting, crochet, sewing, research, etc. Renaissance, regency, medieval, victorian, edwardian, rococo. It has evolved into such an overwhelming passion, I could not fathom my life without my love of textile arts and history.

Now that I look back at how it all began, tiny me wrapping myself in sheets to look like a grecian senator, it amazes me how such flippant fun could echo into a consuming passion.