Table of contents for September - October 2015 in PieceWork

Our September/October literary-inspired issue is here! As most of you know, this issue always resonates with me—I am a voracious reader and eager to discover new titles for my ever-growing book-wish list. This issue has provided many. We start off with Kathy Augustine’s “Stitching with Paint: Inside the World of Jan Brett.” Jan Brett writes and illustrates delightful books for children of all ages; each is permeated with folklore and folk costume and each is mesmerizing. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent poring over the details in the illustrations in many of her classics, including Trouble with Trolls, which is featured here. I’m looking forward to doing the same when her latest book, The Turnip, is published in November. Mimi Seyferth uncovered fascinating information about beloved American…

Once again, our sincere thanks to each person who entered this contest. As with past PieceWork contests, your creativity and your technical expertise wowed our panel of judges. We used the blind-judging format—each entry was assigned a number, and all references to names were eliminated before judging. Our judges relayed that with so many worthy entries, the process was difficult—but so rewarding. Each of the First-Place category winners will receive $250 in products from our generous sponsors. The Honorable Mention entries will receive a two-year subscription to PieceWork; Semifinalists will receive a one-year subscription. Congratulations to our winners. They created pincushions extraordinaire! To our sponsers—Clover Needlecraft, Skacel/ Addi, Handy Hands, and Colonial Needle: The contest would not have been possible without you. Thank you so much for your support. —Editor…

The following selected chronological list of Jan’s books, which includes the setting and year of publication, highlights the many cultures her stories celebrate. All of the books were published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Follow Jan on her website (www.janbrett.com); among scores of activities, a complete list of her books, and news, her Hedge a Gram, a monthly newsletter detailing her activities, is available there. The Animals’ Santa (Northern Canada), 2014.Cinders, a Chicken Cinderella (Russia), 2013.Mossy (Hingham, Massachusetts), 2012.Home for Christmas (Sweden), 2011.The 3 Little Dassies (Namibia, Africa), 2010.Gingerbread Friends (Switzerland), 2008.Hedgie’s Surprise (Denmark), 2000.The Hat (Denmark), 1997.Trouble with Trolls (Norway), 1992.The Wild Christmas Reindeer (Norway), 1990.The Mitten (Ukraine), 1989.Jan Brett’s latest book, The Turnip, will be published by G.P. Putnam’s…

The idea for this project was inspired by the character Sansa in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series. However, it was not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by George R.R. Martin, his publishers, or HBO. The epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin is a rich and layered landscape of political intrigue. At its core, it is a battle between several different families for the Iron Throne of Westeros. In the third novel, A Storm of Swords (New York: Bantam, 2003), we see one of the key characters, Sansa Stark, preparing for a royal wedding. Sansa’s handmaiden dressed her in “a gown of silvery satin. . . . She had arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking…

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (1828–1897) was one of the most prolific writers in nineteenth-century Britain, but she is almost unheard of, much less read, today. Her output included almost 100 novels as well as essays, reviews, literary criticism, travel accounts, biography, and her autobiography. Many of her novels can be classified as domestic realism, but she also wrote novels focusing on clerical issues and, later on, supernatural tales. It is hard to imagine how one person achieved such literary prolificacy and diversity. Born in Wallyford (near Edinburgh), Scotland, and raised primarily in Liverpool, England, she seems to have had no formal education but early on became a prodigious reader. Her mother encouraged her to write, and Margaret published her first novel, Passage in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland (London,…

The idea for this project was inspired by the clothing in Diana Gabaldon’s book Outlander and the television series of the same name. However, it was not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by Diana Gabaldon, her publishers, or Starz. It is intriguing to discover how modernity shapes our concepts about clothing and its design. In the description of the eighteenth-century clothing worn by Claire Beauchamp in Diana Gabaldon’s novel Outlander (originally published in 1991; reissue, New York: Dell, 1992), she wears a chemise, a petticoat, a bodice, and overskirts. From museum collections, books, and historical films, we have a pretty good idea of what these items were and how they were constructed. A description of one item reads, “Brown-striped stockings of wool and a pair of yellow slippers completed the…

When Ann Rinaldi set about writing a fictionalized account of the brutal nineteenth-century feud between the Hatfield clan of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky, and the ill-starred romance between Johnse Hatfield and Roseanna McCoy that exacerbated it, historical facts alone provided grist for a drama as wrenching as one of Sophocles’ tragedies, with a subplot that echoes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Even so, Rinaldi sought something more, an indelible element that would embody the grief suffered by those on both sides of the famous, decades-long dispute. To find it, she reached deep into Appalachian tradition of that era, and found a remarkable kind of quilt. In The Coffin Quilt: The Feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1999), the novel Rinaldi wrote…

If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then Jan Brett has “written” thousands of words beyond the story texts in her children’s books. She has more than three dozen children’s picture books to her name, and her exquisitely detailed illustrations draw the reader deeply into the stories. Her books are set in different places and cultures around the world, and they introduce textiles and other crafts through the illustrations of the tale and through the pages’ borders. One border might show exquisite knitting motifs, another beadwork, and a third decorative rope. Patterns, designs, and colors abound; they become part of the world each book creates. During a telephone interview earlier this year, Jan discussed many aspects of her work. Inspiration for a story can arise…

When most people think of the well-known American author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) and needlework, their minds turn to his novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) and the intricately embroidered scarlet letter A worn by the skilled seamstress Hester Prynne as a symbol of her adultery. But it is a little-known fact that, while convalescing from a foot injury suffered when he was nine years old, Hawthorne knitted a pair of stockings for the cat who then reigned in his family’s household. Born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne, a shipmaster, and Elizabeth Manning, the daughter of a blacksmith, Hawthorne is thought to have added the “w” to his name to hide his relationship to his ancestor John Hathorne, a judge involved in the Salem witch trials (1692–1693).…

The original pattern for these socks—Gentleman’s Golf Stocking: Beaufoy Pattern—was one of the many stockings featured in Weldon’s Practical Stocking Knitter, Fifth Series: How to Knit Gents’ Cycling and Golf Hosiery, published in England in 1896. Men enjoyed these outdoor sports in the late nineteenth century, but the subtext is that women would be spending their time (probably indoors) knitting for the men rather than enjoying the same sports. This particular design promises that “[b]eing knitted with thick wool and coarse needles, the stocking will make no great inroad upon either time or patience. . . .” To my mind, though, knee socks with about ninety rounds worked after the 4½-inch (11.4-cm)-long cuff plus another 4 inches (10.2 cm) of ribbing to line the cuff, would definitely make inroads on…

In Russia, you will not find anyone who has not heard of an Orenburg “downy” shawl—the warm, heavy shawl with the light, delicate lace-patterning called “cobweb.” Downy shawls are distinguished by a center design. Every Russian also knows the song “The Orenburg Downy Shawl” (composed by G. Ponomarenko/V.Bokov, and performed by L. Zykina). It is a lyrical story of a daughter, who, feeling infinite honor for her dear mother, sends her a present, an Orenburg downy shawl. The song’s story embodies the endless obligation to mothers who gave us life, raised us, loved us, and taught us our values. This song forever united the image of the mother and the shawl in one. The book The Orenburg Downy Shawl by Irina Bushukhina, published by Orenburg Publishing House in 2012, describes…

beg—begin(s); beginningBO—bind offCC—contrasting colorch—chaincir—circularcn—cable needleCO—cast oncont—continue(s); continuingdc—double crochetdec(s) (’d)—decrease(s); decreased;decreasingdpn—double-pointed needle(s)foll—follow(s); followinghdc—half double crochetinc(s) (’d)—increase(s); increased;increasingk—knitk1b—knit 1 in back of stitchk1f&b—knit into the front and back of thesame stitch—1 stitch increasedk2b—knit 2 in back of next 2 stitcheskwise—knitwise; as if to knitk2tog—knit 2 stitches togetherk3tog—knit 3 stitches togetherk5tog—knit 5 stitches togetherLLI—insert left needle into back of the stitchbelow stitch just knitted, knit this stitchlp(s)—loop(s)m(s)—marker(s)MC—main colorM1—make one (increase)M1k—increase 1 by knitting into the frontand then the back of the same stitchbefore slipping it off the left-hand needleM1p—increase 1 by purling into the frontand then the back of the same stitchbefore slipping it off the left-hand needleM1L—(make 1 left) lift the running threadbetween the stitch just worked and thenext stitch from front to back, and knitinto the back of this threadM1R—(make 1…

To learn more about the rich and ongoing tradition of various forms of needlework, we recommend these books. —Editor Crochet So Lovely: 21 Carefree Lace Designs Fort Collins, Colorado: Interweave, 2014. Softbound, 135 pages, $24.99. ISBN: 978-1-62033-689-2. Visit bit.ly/crochet-so-lovely for more information. Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft London: V&A Publishing, 2012. Hardbound, 240 pages, $60. ISBN: 978-1-851-77559-0. Visit bit.ly/knitting-fashion-industry-craft for more information. Stitching Resistance: Women, Creativity, and Fiber Art Turnbridge Wells, Kent, England: Solis Press, 2014. Softbound, 232 pages, $60. ISBN: 978-1-907947-90-2. Custom Socks: Knit to Fit Your Feet Fort Collins, Colorado: Interweave, 2015. Softbound, 192 pages, $27.99. ISBN: 978-1-62033-775-2. Visit bit.ly/custom-socks for more information. Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops: A Bend-the-Rules Primer New York: STC Craft, 2015. Hardbound, 160 pages, $29.95. ISBN: 978-1-61769-141-6. Visit bit.ly/rebecca-ringquistembroidery-workshops…

When Jan Brett is not on the road, she loves baking whole-grain bread laden with cranberries, lingonberries, and chopped walnuts. She is also an avid runner and has competed in the Boston marathon about a dozen times. Her regular three-hour neighborhood runs often help her clear her thoughts and resolve any story challenges. Weekly, Jan attends concerts at Symphony Hall, where her husband, Joe Hearne, is a bassist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She has five grandchildren, two of whom live in Okinawa, Japan, with her daughter and son-in-law, who are both Marines.…

She looked at her husband’s body laid out and dressed for burial. She couldn’t believe he was gone. He looked almost perfect lying there in his coffin. Almost perfect—except that his feet were imperfectly covered with machine-made socks worn at the heels. She couldn’t bear for him to be buried like that. She wanted her husband, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), to be buried wearing socks that she had chosen. I don’t know if Jean Conan Doyle (1872–1940), the famous author’s second wife, knitted the socks she put on her husband’s cold feet, or even if she knew how to knit. But I do know that she removed a pair that a nurse had put on his feet and replaced them. I know this because the socks she removed are…