TIP OF THE HAT TO YOU

We have some amazing textiles at the Museum. At the moment only a few are on display, such as this amazing black and gold beaded cape. It is designed in a three layer arrangement from the neck down, each having its own beaded border and tied at the neck with ribbon and two hooks. Beside it is a top hat, plus the hat box in which it would have been stored. During the 19th century the top hat became symbolic of urban respectability and was widely adopted when Prince Albert began wearing them in 1850. 

It is easy to forget that in earlier times there was considerable wealth in Kings County and such lovely items were worn by local ladies and gentleman during the 19th and early 20th century.

SPOILER ALERT: Next season we hope to exhibit a wider selection from our textile collection.

Sewing Egg/Darning Egg or Flea Trap?

This cool little carved egg is beautifully designed and unscrews in the middle. It is perforated with numerous small holes which are part of the design work. There are two possibilities as to what it was used for, and perhaps both are correct. It can be inserted into the toe of a sock to allow for darning or under your article of clothing to repair a tear. Alternatively, since it is hollow and unscrews, it may have been used by ladies as a flea trap. A little drop of blood mixed with honey or beeswax would be baited in the egg and then hung around the neck under the clothing or placed in the bed. The fleas would be attracted, climb in and become trapped in the sticky honey or wax.

Regardless this is a beautifully designed little item that was carved from a coquilla nut . . . an example of the beautiful work done for something that was a simple work-a-day item during Victorian times.

If you want to learn more, here is a great article on coqilla nuts:
https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-coquilla-nut-a-handy-19th-century-ornamental-material/

We May Not Want to Admit It, but it will soon be Autumn in Hampton!

Did you know Hampton has it's own tartan? It was created in 1961 by The Hampton Weavers, a group organized in 1956. It is called Autumn in Hampton and is made up of the colours of the fall hillsides . . . brown, gold, white, green and orange. Through the hard work of Hampton's David Keirstead, whose mother was one of the members of the Hampton Weavers group, we have several items that were "reproduced" using the Autumn in Hampton recipe. The colours vary slightly from the original, but are lovely regardless.

It's the Details that Make the Difference

It's the Details that Make the Difference

This doesn't look like much . . .  just a wooden box about 11" by 6" in size.

But when you lift off the lid, you see this:

Variously known as a butter press, butter mold, butter stamp or butter print, these little wooden boxes transformed your block of butter into a work of art for presentation on your table. The "box" portion is open on both top and bottom and would be filled with butter, then "pressed" with the top, transferring the design to the top of the butter. This particular press has 8 separately carved panels held in place by brass screws: blackberry, pear, raspberry, sheaf of wheat, apples, strawberry, grapes and a leaf. Such care to even the smallest details of life!

Snowballs in May

While some days it has felt like we could still be making snowballs, these snowballs are quilted. This is one of the quilts we are featuring in this year's exhibit, celebrating Canada's 150th with the newly restored and returned Confederation Quilt. One online source stated the snowball pattern is an Amish quilt block pattern. For sure it is a pattern that fools the eye by creating an optical illusion. From a distance, a snowball block looks like a round circle, but it is actually an octagon, an eight-sided figure.Our snowball quilt is made up of 11,396 pieces, all hand-stitched into a full sized quilt by Minnie Main (Frost) Northrup, and was completed by the time she was 11 years old. Yes, eleven. She had started it as a doll bed quilt, but was encouraged to finish it as a full sized quilt. The final photo shows my hand to give a sense of the scale of the pieces used to create the blocks.

Nothing Like a Pair of Home Made Socks . . . or is there

This cool contraption caught my eye this week. The Auto Knitter Hosiery Co. Ltd. was located at 1870 Davenport Road, Toronto, Ontario. During the early 1900’s it shipped knitting machines throughout Canada. It was a way for people to discretely earn a wage cheque by producing socks and other knitted goods at home and sending them to Toronto. Prior to WW1 socks were normally handknit by family members, but the need for multiple changes of socks for the soldiers in the trenches to prevent ‘trench foot’ led to mechanization of this skill. A good hand knitter could complete a pair of socks in a week, but an experienced operator of a circular sock knitting machine could see a pair completed in less than an hour! It is complete including the shipping case, and was shipped to Mrs A Ralph Spragg of Saint John and donated to the museum by her daughter E M Dearman. 

What is That?!

Wandering through the museum collection often has me exclaiming "What IS that?" Today's post is one of those items. When I first saw it I saw what is shown in the first photo. The second photo including the mallet started to answer the identity question, and a search in our database contributed a little more information. This is actually a church bell, mounted to a wooden base and rung with a wooden mallet. It came to us in 2004 from Gagetown, but unfortunately that is all the information recorded. Funny how the inclusion of one simple additional piece of information can make sense of a mystery.