This embroidered rose is probably part of a set, for a dressing table. Every woman had a dressing table, which was her personal space. It was a sign of respectability and achievement. My mother’s family were at the upper, genteel end of the working class. They had one of the first council houses, with the luxury of an indoor toilet and a bathroom. Such a house was not easily acquired. You had to be interviewed and prove you would be a respectable, well behaved tenant. In her eighties, my mother said she was shocked to learn how many of her contemporaries had grown up in families so poor they couldn’t afford to buy shoes. She’d always been well clothed and had never been hungry.
The dressing table was a woman’s domain. I remember hers having an amber glass set consisting of tray (for hairbrush, mirror and comb) and two small pots, with lids, for earrings, hairpins etc. Part of growing up was being given your own sets of these things. The glass pots remain, but the tray is long gone. When my grandmother died my mother replaced her own set with her mother’s bone china one.
This rose, embroidered on linen, would have been under one of these small pots. Perhaps the other bits will turn up too, in a different drawer or cupboard. It was probably made by my mother as she always kept the silk at full thickness, while ‘experts’ recommended using only a few strands. Going through cupboards, boxes and old suitcases I’ve found lots of this beautiful, gleaming silk in many shades, along with cut out shapes in tracing paper which were used for transferring designs onto the cloth. There’s an element of luxury in embroidery. It’s associated with leisure, so signifies a freedom from the drudgery of chores. My mother never liked housework, though for much of her life she was proud to be a housewife, who did not have to work, but she was never idle. She was always, sewing, knitting, crocheting, baking. She pressed flowers and made cards. When she could no longer do any of these she created scrap books. There’s a terrible poignancy when I find these, as if she was heroically defying the tides of time, clinging to a raft of girlish things.
She made all my clothes, even swimsuits. We’d go to the Co-op to choose fabric, usually buying something with modern pattern and colours. I remember a turquoise dress with an embroidered kingfisher on the big, square pocket. Every dress had some individual detail such as piping, applique, ribbon… things I can no longer name. By the time I was a teenager I longed for shop bought clothes. Surprisingly, none of my childhood clothes remain. I once dreamed I was wearing all of these dresses, peeling them off one by one, like the layers of an onion. It was as if my soul had its own archive, where these dresses were carefully preserved.
The dressing table was a woman’s domain. I remember hers having an amber glass set consisting of tray (for hairbrush, mirror and comb) and two small pots, with lids, for earrings, hairpins etc. Part of growing up was being given your own sets of these things. The glass pots remain, but the tray is long gone. When my grandmother died my mother replaced her own set with her mother’s bone china one.
This rose, embroidered on linen, would have been under one of these small pots. Perhaps the other bits will turn up too, in a different drawer or cupboard. It was probably made by my mother as she always kept the silk at full thickness, while ‘experts’ recommended using only a few strands. Going through cupboards, boxes and old suitcases I’ve found lots of this beautiful, gleaming silk in many shades, along with cut out shapes in tracing paper which were used for transferring designs onto the cloth. There’s an element of luxury in embroidery. It’s associated with leisure, so signifies a freedom from the drudgery of chores. My mother never liked housework, though for much of her life she was proud to be a housewife, who did not have to work, but she was never idle. She was always, sewing, knitting, crocheting, baking. She pressed flowers and made cards. When she could no longer do any of these she created scrap books. There’s a terrible poignancy when I find these, as if she was heroically defying the tides of time, clinging to a raft of girlish things.
She made all my clothes, even swimsuits. We’d go to the Co-op to choose fabric, usually buying something with modern pattern and colours. I remember a turquoise dress with an embroidered kingfisher on the big, square pocket. Every dress had some individual detail such as piping, applique, ribbon… things I can no longer name. By the time I was a teenager I longed for shop bought clothes. Surprisingly, none of my childhood clothes remain. I once dreamed I was wearing all of these dresses, peeling them off one by one, like the layers of an onion. It was as if my soul had its own archive, where these dresses were carefully preserved.