Susan wrote:
Hi all,
I'm still here. I get fed up with facebook, and
rarely with email lists, so happy to see people.
I've refused to join Facebook. (That said, I am
on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.)
Since you're all here ... I've just gotten
interested in english smocks (18th - 19th c
ones) and was debating making one.
Cool! It was something that surprised me years
ago, when I purchased a second-hand book I
expected to be mostly smocking patterns. (_Smocks
and Smocking_, by Beverley Marshall, 1981 Van
Nostrand Reinhold: New York, ISBN 0-442-28269-9
paperback edition of Alphabooks UK 1980 hardcover).
Marshall tries to disambiguate body-garment
smocks from protective-overgarment smocks,
decorative smocks, and smocking (needlework
technique), showing examples of all of the above
(with a number of the garments exhibiting
variations of the needlework technique).
RE: Mouse-Proof: On page 14 of _Smocks and
Smocking_, Marshall describes the attire of Victorian smock-wearing laborers:
"Trousers were made of fustian' or 'moleskin': a
strong twilled cotton with a smooth matt surface
favoured by the labourer for its resemblance to
their earlier leather breeches. THey were hitched
up under the knee by a leather strap or simply a
piee of string, good for preventing field mice
and insects from running up the wearer's legs."
From which one might surmise that Miss
Browning's knickers might have been made of a
smooth, sturdy fabric and bound tightly to the leg at the lower edges.
Brenda F. Bell
webwar...@earthlink.net
Support me in riding the 2016 Tour de Cure to
Stop Diabetes! http://main.diabetes.org/goto/tmana
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