RUGS TO RHYME SHEETS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 21

RUGS TO RHYME SHEETS

“Twenty-seventh Englishwoman” Exhibition Of Arts And Handicrafts

'’pHE women of England spend their long winter evenings bookbinding, glove-making, knitting, and doing leatherwork, nature-craft, painted ivory, painted fabrics and painted wood, pewter work, poker-work, pottery, quilting, rhyme-sheets, toy-making, weaving and woodcarving are just a few of the crafts demonstrated at the 27th Englishwoman Exhibition of Arts and Handicrafts now being held in London.

J ATTENDED the opening of the exhibition by the Duchess of Keilt, writes “The Dominion’s” special woman correspondent from London. It was rather a sad occasion, for the Duchess had just heard of the death of her cousin, the Grand Duchess of Hesse, in a tragic air crash. The committee immediately offered to release the Duchess from her promise to open the exhibition, but she insisted on fulfilling it. She was all in black, with a mink coat over her black velvet dress, and she wore dark silk stockings.

Although evidently very upset, she made a complete tour of the exhibition, and bought a number of Christmas presents, including woolly lambs and ducks for her children and sometiny nailbrushes. I talked to two young craftsmen at a stall of hand-forged wrought ironwork which the Duchess had visited, aud one of them said : ‘T’rn going home now.”

“Why?” I asked. “The Duchess shook hands witli me,” he said, bursting with pride, “and I’m not going to use this hand for anything else to-day.” “I’m hand-woven from head to foot,” was the rather startling announcement which one stall-holder made to me. And so she was. She wore a pretty cardi-gan-suit of soft blue wool with a l ,hat to match, a hand-woven blouse' of coarse white 'linen, and even her watch-strap, stockings and plaited leather shoes were woven on the simple loom which she was demonstrating. It was a simple and very light apparatus, which can be worked after a few hours’ tuition, and is specially intended for weaving in a fireside chair or in the garden. Even invalids in bed can manipulate its simple mechanism with ease, and quite complicated patterns can be worked in a short time. Another exhibit which caught my fancy was tlie really lovely modern furniture made by unemployed miners

at Bryumawr, in South Wales. In 1928 a group of men an'd women who had been concerned with the distribution of relief through the Mansion House Fund, decided to follow this work up by something more permanent and constructive, and craftsmen were called in to teach the local men and lads, many of whom had been unemployed for years, the secrets of their trades. Few of them had ever handled a saw or chisel before, but their real enthusiasm carried them through, and to-day Brynmawr's output compares favourably with the very best hand-made modern furniture.

The men work in oak. walnut, cedar, and sycamore, and the designs are perfectly simple. The ideals of the Brynmawr experiment in furniture are:— (1) The article must be supremely fitted for its purpose. (2) The materials selected must be suited to their use. and the tiesign such as to employ their natural qualities. , (3) The harmony of line, colour, texture and the balance of masses must be achieved.

I talked to one of the organisers of the experiment, and he explained: “Our ideals are consistent with the desire to avoid shams, make-shifts, and meretricious ornament; to escape a blind acceptance of convention, and, while respecting tradition, to express that freedom of spirit and imagination which is the keynote of all true progress.” I only wished that the manufacturers of some of the atrocious mass-pro-duced modern furniture could have heard his words.

A novel and useful wool-winder can be made with two very large reels, such as 'shoemakers’ threa'd is wound on. Put the reels on long nails an'd drive the latter into a heavy board about 24 inches apart. Put the skeiu on the reels, which will revolve as you wind.