Page 348 - J. C. Turner "History and Science of Knots"

The History of Macrame 341

so swiftly that many people thought it was a new invention; so while servants
did all the humdrum sewing, darning, dressmaking and similar duties, Madam,
with an abundance of spare time, made fringes, frills and flounces. With the
work she produced, she had the servants adorn mantleshelves, curtain rails,
gaslamp brackets, and four-poster beds; her macrame designs were even used
to cover up the legs on those obscenely naked pianofortes. She made night-
dress cases, handkerchief sachets, pincushions, workcases and babies' bonnets;
macrame insert-panels were made for table runners and antimacassars; and the
macrame craft was used to produce quite large pieces such as counterpanes.
Some of these last were quite beautiful. Examples are to be found in many
museums throughout the world, particularly in the United Kingdom, and in
those countries that were Her Colonies and Dominions. This was the time, at
the height of the popularity of macrame, that the major emmigrations took
place; and emigrants took the craft with them to their new domiciles.
A whole industry sprang up in the United Kingdom, to produce special
yarns, and elaborate equipment such as frames, bobbins and clamps; and a
wide selection of books, magazines and pamphlets were devoted to the art.
One of the books [4] was written by an English schoolteacher named Louisa
Walker, and published in 1896. It was intended as a teaching aid, with degrees
of difficulty to suit the class ages of the children. The book was full of patterns
(see Fig. 2 for examples) for the bric-a-brac of the period (today we would
label it `kitsch') which could be associated with the knotting art; one such
pattern was for producing a macrame fly rest! Perhaps this book contributed to
macrame's fall from grace in the Edwardian period, when Britain was throwing
off the genteel yoke of Victoriana.
During this period, the art was also very popular in France, Germany and
the United States. And by this time, square knotting had become an integral
part of the sailor's repertoire of handicrafts. Earlier, during the Napoleonic
wars, British ships sailed to and fro for months on end, patrolling the same
stretches of water on blockade duties. Their crews had none of today's enter-
tainments on board to relieve their boredom; radios, T.V.s and video recorders
were a long time in the future. Sailors were among the simplest and poorest of
men, and they were usually illiterate, so they could not entertain themselves
by reading or writing. There may have been a few simple musical instruments
aboard, but for the vast majority, living in cramped quarters, the only things
they had to occupy their minds and hands were the things about them. While
a few, with talents in that direction, carved snuff boxes from their so-called
`beef ration', and buttons from aged pieces of cheese, the majority, battened
below in bad weather, confined to their cramped, damp and smelly quarters,
turned for entertainment to the only skills they had, namely working with
ropes and canvas. With only waste ship's materials available to them, such
as unwanted pieces of sails and cordage, they adapted the severely practical