Lady Adventure

Lucky Number Seven

I've got seven done. I'm flying through them! I did three little socks on Sunday because I discovered that I can manage one in under an hour - and since Sunday was a day of sloth, I churned out three little socks. Strangely enough, handicrafts were (and for some people still are) considered 'work' and thus would've been forbidden on the Sabbath. It's interesting to remember that what we nowdays choose to do recreationally - crochet dishcloths, knit socks, sew quilts - was part of the drudgery of women's daily life. It reminds me of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book in which the family almost has a conniption of joy when they sell a couple of cows for a sewing machine ... a sewing machine! It meant - brace yourselves - that they didn't have to hem the bedsheets by hand. Imagine a day spent boiling water and lugging heavy pots and pans, steeping laundry, then scrubbing and wringing it out to dry, followed by the preparation of a family dinner from scratch - and then the joy of hand-hemming a sheet by the light of an oil-lamp for recreation.
Crikey.