Customer Reviews

Workwoman's Guide by a Lady

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This is an amazing book, considering the time at which it was written, and by whom. The 'Lady' provides hundreds of clear line drawings, illustrating the proper method of making childrens clothing, bed draperies, baskets, and probably anything else you would ever want to make for the early 19th century. She also has a section of recipes for care of the household, from stain removers to homemade ink. Highly reccomended for anyone interested in studying or recreating the early to mid 19th c.

Even with the internet, it's still very difficult to find genuine antique patterns for knitting, sewing, and other needlecrafts, possibly because not all that many survive. I've owned this reissue of Workwoman's Guide since it was first released, and as a museum educator and avid knitter, refer to it frequently for authentic source material for projects and museum interpretation of the Early American (19th century) household. A few words of advice to those who would like to attempt a Workwoman's pattern: there are countless diagrams to accompany the text, but few if any are to scale. Some of the terminology is archaic, but modern definitions and comparisons can be found in a comprehensive dictionary or on the net.

I ordered this book because I thought it had pictures of historic window treatments - which it did, but not very many, and not very detailed. My mistake.