Notes on Textiles -- by Alex Ranieri (Pt. 1)
I recently re-read Jane Eyre for the first time in about five years. I was struck by the narrator’s sardonic, self-loving tone; the unabashed sensuality of the relationship between the two main players, the eponymous Eyre and her employer, Rochester; and by the twists and turns of Bronte’s mind that take the reader from the depths of madness, jealousy, and shame to the mundanities of everyday life.
But one sentence struck me in particular, and in a different way; it struck me because, on my previous reading, it had been totally invisible.
”She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure.
“It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have been dreaming.” “
This sentence describes a commonplace in Bronte’s time; Grace Poole, the speaker, is a seamstress in Rochester’s household. She has been hired to sew almost exclusively, both for the household and her fellow servants. What Jane Eyre does not know is that Poole has also been enlisted to care for Rochester’s deranged wife. Poole buys herself time from answering a difficult question by an innocent chore; she drags the thread she intends to use across a cake of beeswax before threading her needle. This serves two purposes. It will smooth the fibers of the thread, making it easier to pull through her material. It is also likely that the thread is made of cotton. Cotton was becoming the ubiquitous fiber for sewing thread, so much so that in later Victorian sewing manuals it is not uncommon to see thread simply referred to as, “the cotton”. It was cheap and widely available, due to the growing North English industrial landscape. However, cotton is in fact quite a weak fiber, and thread made from it is more prone to snap than sturdier linen and silk threads. The wax, in this case, will also strengthen the thread, and make it less likely to break over time.
This interlude struck me as an elegant evasion, and its naturalness only strengthened my admiration of Bronte’s powers as a novelist. On my previous reading, as I said, it had been totally invisible to me. This year, however, marked the beginning of my obsession with textiles.
January found me looking for a new way to escape everyday life. My writing had taken on the quality of photorespiration, a ritual using up energy without a source to replenish it. I picked up a skein of wool yarn and some knitting needles at my local JoAnn’s, and starting knitting a hat.
Less than four weeks later, I had not only finished the hat and purchased supplies for a new knitting project, but had also picked up hand-sewing supplies, fabric, and the pattern for a Victorian-era chemise. I had fallen into the rabbit hole of historical garment construction.
As the year progressed and time, the commodity I had been desperately lacking, was in sudden surplus, my days dissolved into long hours of research and work on my new obsessions. For a few months I did little reading and much less writing. But as the summer waned, and the steepness of the learning curve eased slightly, I was able to take up my original passions with more enthusiasm than I had had for them in years.
