336 3rd St
Brooklyn, NY 11215
USA
Please join us this Saturday, December 3rd, from 3-5pm at the Old Stone House Museum in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY for the NYNCS Handwork Circle. This month, the Circle will present KNITTING as our featured craft!
Join us in our romantic garret at the historic Old Stone House Museum for a 30 minute informal presentation about Victorian-era knitting, featuring an antique project you can optionally choose to follow along with. Afterward, hang out, chat, eat, and work on your own nineteenth century-inspired handwork projects — be they hand sewing, knitting, crochet, embroidery, tatting, cross stitch, leatherwork, or other period textile arts.
FEATURED PRESENTATION
This month’s presentation and featured project will be an interesting anachronistic item: KNITTED SOCK GARTERS. These useful objects are fast and easy to knit on modern size 1 or 2 needles, with fingering wool. We’ll be working from an authentic 1862 Godey’s Ladies Book pattern used to keep stockings from falling down. Knitted garters were so common and useful during this period (perhaps due to the wartime difficulty of acquiring rubber?) that even toddlers were taught to make them.
More information and some nice pictures of the project are here:
http://worldturndupsidedown.blogspot.com/2011/01/civil-war-knitted-garters-from-godeys.html
GENERAL INFO
1. This event is free. However, to reserve a spot at the handwork circle, you must RSVP at the Facebook event page (see below), or to correspondence@nineteenthcenturysociety.org.
2. Sewing machines are not available at the circle, so please bring projects to be sewn or worked by hand (including hand-sewing buttons, etc). Note that we’re not purists and don’t care if part of your project is historically inaccurate, or even the whole thing! The only requirement for attendance is an interest in antique textile arts.
3. All are welcome, including absolute beginners and those wanting to learn! Note that this is a circle rather than a class, so there is no formal instruction. However, feel free to come and work on your own projects, listen to the presentation, or just eat some homemade snacks and chat.
4. Presentation will be from 3-3:30, followed by chatting and handwork.
ABOUT THE HANDWORK CIRCLE
The monthly NYNCS Handwork Circle promotes the revival and research of antique textile arts. We feature a different craft, technique, or antique project monthly, with a rotating cast of presenters. Members are interested in the handwork techniques of our ancestors for many reasons: we find them relaxing, useful, frugal, environmentally savvy, and beautiful. Although the circle strives for historical accuracy in our research and presentations, we encourage modern and Victorian-inspired personal projects using these techniques, as well as historically accurate projects and recreations. The only requirement for attendance is a curiosity about antique textile techniques, and a willingness to use these techniques in a way that is useful to the individual!
