Hands to the spindle
Subtitle: Texas women and home textile production, 1822-1880
By: by Paula Mitchell Marks ; illustrated by Walle Conoly.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: The Clayton Wheat Williams Texas life series ;; no. 5
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: College Station
Language: eng
Number of pages: 133
Subjects: Women textile workers -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Women weavers -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Hand weaving -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Spinning -- Texas -- History -- 19th century
Description: In nineteenth-century Texas women's hands often created the fabrics their families wore, the blankets used to cover their tired bodies, and the textiles that furnished their homes. Through spinning, weaving, dyeing, and knitting of clothing and linens, women displayed their abilities and their dreams of a better future. These day-to-day activities of Texas women spinners and weavers come to life in award-winning author Paula Mitchell Marks's Hands to the Spindle. The hum.

Of the spinning wheel and the clatter of the loom provided regular accompaniment to the lives of many Texas women immigrants and their families. Producing much-needed garments and cloth also provided an escape from the worries and isolation of frontier life. One early chronicler, Mary Crownover Rabb, kept her spinning wheel whistling all day and most of the night because the spinning kept her "from hearing the Indians walking around hunting mischief." Through the stories.

Of real women and an overview of their textile crafts, Paula Mitchell Marks introduces readers to a functional art rarely practiced in our more hurried times. Photographs of some of their actual handiwork and evocative pen sketches of women at work and the tools and dye plants they used, delicately drawn by artist Walle Conoly, bring the words to life.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [121]-127) and index.