Monday, October 14, 2013

Period Book: Home Handicraft (1908)

As we start settling in for the winter, I figured now was a good time to take a look at a book that shows some good indoor activities. This week's book (okay, this month's book): The Good housekeeping manual of home handicraft, published in 1908 by the Good Housekeeping magazine.

This book extensively covers stenciling: how to make them, how to apply them, what paints to use, how to decorate with them, and more. If you're a fan of stencils like I am, go download this book and check it out.

They also have chapters on making handmade toys, applique, printing with wood blocks, making lamp shades, and decorating clocks. Some really interesting stuff.

But, of course, I'm most interested in the parts about stenciling. They had a chapter on curtains with some interesting designs.


This book also had a chapter on making lampshades. "With the coming of winter comes the thought of fires and lights and all that goes to make indoor life cozy and comfortable. With the thought of light comes the thought of pretty candle and lamp shades..... To buy the prettiest shades in a shop costs money. To make shades equally pretty, even prettier, costs very little." While they briefly show how to make a shade out of sheet metal, they also show some other interesting ideas for making shades out of paper, lace, and other textiles.
Most of the clock designs I did not care for, but I did like this one for a bedroom clock.
I thought this idea for a homemade room divider was quite nice. I might change the stencil design, but this looked like something amateurs could make.
The final chapter I found useful was the chapter on applique. They had some pretty designs and some advice for finishing projects. If you've never appliqued before, you'd probably need another source, but it was a good starting point.

1 comment:

  1. This is so timely for me. I washed my cotton Battenberg lace bedroom curtains this past weekend and most of the panels fell to pieces. Wally World isn't carrying them anymore, so I shall have to think of something. Maybe something involving stencils?

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