I saw the Saturday repeat. The regular pinned up lappets looked rather
like chemical lace to me, but there wasn't a good enough shot of it to
be sure. Yes, the Christmas lappets were Bedfordshre, or rather
Beds-Maltese with a meandering cloth stitch trail running down the
length of the lace.
I do agree that things were sometimes filmed/shown out of order.
When Ruth was doing the laundry at one point she mentioned starching -
after the laundry had been dried! They didn't use cans of spray-on
starch then It was a case of mixing the starch powder with a little
cold water and then adding boiling water (to cook the starch, much the
same as making
Bird's custard) diluting with more (cold) water and then dipping the
laundry into it followed by mangling and drying.
They showed her using various things like milk or alcohol to loosen
stains, and making up the 'blue' for whitening so I'm surprised they
didn't show the starching process.
I'm old enough to remember my Grandma using a similar mangle in the
1950s. I was allowed to turn the handle but not to feed the washing
into the rollers! They had a separate brick built outhouse for the
laundry and I think the only mod-con was a cold water tap, but there
was probably some sort of boiler to heat the water. Made-up starch and
the blue-bag lived on a high shelf along with soda and a bar of yellow
soap.
BTW, that process of squeezing wet fabric between two rollers is what I
call mangling. Using a rolling pin over wet fabric between towels is
just rolling - like rolling out pastry!
Brenda
On 19 Jan 2009, at 09:52, Louise Bailey wrote:
Yes I have been watching and enjoying it. I wasn't sure about her
regular head gear - a falling cap with lappets - it could have been
Broidery Anglaise, or some such, but the one she ironed and wore for
Christmas Dinner looked like a simple Bedfordshire lace. I did wonder
if a farmer's wife would have worn such a frippery cap on her working
days - it looked a bit too much like "best" - wouldn't she have worn
more practical mob cap?
They do appear to know and relish what they are doing, but I was a bit
puzzled in the first episode when they appeared to be ploughing and
sowing immediately after harvest - winter wheat sowing is a modern
practice - the fields all lay fallow through the winter - one of the
reasons for our decline in farm birds. I've come to the conclusion
some of it was filmed out of order.
Brenda in Allhallows, Kent
http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/index.html
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