On Apr 12, 2009, at 9:53, [email protected] wrote:
There seems to be a lot of references to having to poke and arrange ruffs,
Janet Arnold's newest book -- Patterns of Fashion #4 -- has several pictures of various activities related to ruff-care: p.14 plate LVII; p.15, plates LIX and LX.
It does, indeed, look like ruff-care was a thriving business; two of the plates depict entire workshops devoted to it, with different peple doing different parts (a bit like an assembly line in a modern factory). And it does look like, at least sometimes, the ruff's pleats were set with a "setting stick", which looks very much like a curling iron (Devon, given your indifferent success with the curling iron, you might have prefered to be employed at the starching table <g>).
Plates LXVII and LXIX (detail), on p.16, show a laundress setting the pleats over her fingers. That's closer to the pleater device that Alice mentioned (and which The Stonewall Jackson House here has, also. I thought I took you there, Devon? Maybe not). But. It's *not a ruff* that she's setting that way; it's a *ruffle*. A diferent -- and simpler -- "animal" altogether. Plate LXVI on the same page shows a partlet (drying on the line) with a ruffle; the ruffle is not detachable, but part and parcel of the garment.
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
