The Very Easy Life of Jane's Thimble

(Elizabeth took up some needlework and was sufficiently amused Part 2--See Part 3 here.)

Penelope Bryde's "pamphlet" was brought out in a new edition in 2008 amid Jane-inspired madness--under a new title that ignores the needlework section entirely. And, indeed, that section is a mere 15 small pages. I learned that ladies of the era were no longer making lace, as it had just begun to be mass-produced by machine. They were likely, however, to have worked white embroidery on their own white muslin dresses, which is why they would hide their work in their baskets when gentlemen approached. I did not figure out what tambour is though I read a page-long description. I learned that knitting was only for the old or the desperate (Mrs. Smith in Persuasion who makes money by her needlework). And I learned that Bryde considers Austen to have been herself a truly accomplished domestic artist--even by Caroline Bingley's strict definition of the term. The hottest trend was apparently satin-stitch embroidery of which she created some of the finest surviving examples from the era. And how she found the time for it all? I suppose all those hours in the parlour when she couldn't be writing could be filled with listening as long as her hands were busy. But honestly, she sure got a lot done. "I wish I could help you in your Needlework," she wrote to Cassandra. "I have two hands & a new Thimble that lead a very easy life."

But I am mid-way through Sense and Sensibility and I am befuddled by a filigree basket that Elinor helps Lucy Steele to work by rolling paper for her. What could this be?