Description:
Woman's pocket of crewel embroidery on a linen ground, which is unfinished. Before the late 19th century, pockets were not built into women's clothing in any regular way. Often initialed, a woman’s pocket or workbag was an extension of her self-worth, pride, and fine skill with a needle even though it was usually out of sight. Pockets were worn over the shift (the basic linen undergarment) and under the petticoat, tied around the waist and accessible through specially positioned slits in the petticoat. Pockets could contain such items as small personal items, sewing work-in-progress, scissors, pin-cushion, and small publications. The embroidery design, which is only done on the front side, consists of a meandering vine on each side with flowers, and a central floral design at the bottom with two birds. The front is embroidered in shades of blue (either two or one shade that has faded in some places), light tan, yellow, brown or black, and green that is ovedyed (blue onto yellow). There is black (now brown) india ink tracing where the design needs to be finished; most are without holes, indicating the embroidery was unfinished. The problems in the drafting of the design are visible, like crowding and mismatching. There is a strip of printed cotton edging for the CF slit and sides of the pocket., which matches the printed edging found on the pocket, HD 2000.18.8. The colors for this printed fabric are brown, pink, and possibly black, which resemble the printed cotton seen in Barbara Johnson's album for the year 1792, p. 35. The stems are done in a backstitch or stem stitch, the flowers in a solid filling stitch. The pocket is backed with a linen plain weave, and the thread used a white/off-white linen. The ties are likely not original; they extend to give a total width of 56 1/2". There is some thread loss from age or insect damage as well.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2000.18.9 |
