People today can go to a big box store and get almost any item needed for daily life. If they can't find it there, they can visit a specialty store or go online. In the old days, people often had to make what they needed or do without. This is the reality that vintage crafts evoke for us today. Artisans practice the handicrafts, and collectors hope to preserve handmade objects; both seek to prevent the loss of these old skills and creations.
Crafts are things done by hand or objects made by hand. The majority of traditional skills were born of necessity. However, the innate artistry that exists in all peoples led crafters to embellish almost everything they made. For this reason, antique handmade items are both beautiful and collectible.
Essential things were often made to include beauty as well as function. Fishermen's sweaters, for example, were made to keep men warm on the high seas in inclement weather. Women spun homegrown wool into yarn, often leaving the natural lanolin in to help the garment shed water. These housewives, mothers, and sisters were not content to fashion a merely serviceable sweater. Instead, they developed many of the intricate stitches still used by today's knitters.
People needed tables and chairs for their houses, linens for their beds, clothes and shoes to wear, and tools for both indoors and out. The only way for many to get items of this nature was to make them. However, that alone does not explain the turned legs and spindles of chairs, the pretty borders on sheets and pillowcases, the trim and flounces on the dresses, or the perfect symmetry and graceful curves of many an old farm implement.
We all know that useful things can be beautiful. Think of baskets, hunting decoys, pottery jugs and dishes, cut-glass drinking goblets, hooked rugs, woven blankets, and stained-glass windows. Soap was perfumed, flowers were dried to preserve their colors and scents, candles were tapered and curved, chair cushions and pillows were decorated with colorful tops.
It's exciting that the traditional skills have not been entirely lost. Careful owners, museums, and collectors preserve the objects themselves. Vintage clothing, old books, household implements, farming tools, and decorative objects exist that are a hundred years old or more.
People still practice most, if not all, of the early handicrafts. Today you can take a class at a shop or a community college and learn to hook a rug, cane a chair seat, restore an oil painting, or crochet an afghan. Visitors to Colonial Williamsburg can see glass blowing, silver casting, candle making, and iron forging. Arts and crafts festivals showcase the wares of potters, woodcarvers, quilters, weavers, jewelry makers, and even book binders.
Vintage crafting is part of the heritage of every culture. These things should not be lost forever. Those who collect or who practice things of yesteryear are doing us all a service. Objects made of wood, reed, metal, stone, clay, glass, or textiles recall how things used to be and remind us that we can do for ourselves if need be.
Crafts are things done by hand or objects made by hand. The majority of traditional skills were born of necessity. However, the innate artistry that exists in all peoples led crafters to embellish almost everything they made. For this reason, antique handmade items are both beautiful and collectible.
Essential things were often made to include beauty as well as function. Fishermen's sweaters, for example, were made to keep men warm on the high seas in inclement weather. Women spun homegrown wool into yarn, often leaving the natural lanolin in to help the garment shed water. These housewives, mothers, and sisters were not content to fashion a merely serviceable sweater. Instead, they developed many of the intricate stitches still used by today's knitters.
People needed tables and chairs for their houses, linens for their beds, clothes and shoes to wear, and tools for both indoors and out. The only way for many to get items of this nature was to make them. However, that alone does not explain the turned legs and spindles of chairs, the pretty borders on sheets and pillowcases, the trim and flounces on the dresses, or the perfect symmetry and graceful curves of many an old farm implement.
We all know that useful things can be beautiful. Think of baskets, hunting decoys, pottery jugs and dishes, cut-glass drinking goblets, hooked rugs, woven blankets, and stained-glass windows. Soap was perfumed, flowers were dried to preserve their colors and scents, candles were tapered and curved, chair cushions and pillows were decorated with colorful tops.
It's exciting that the traditional skills have not been entirely lost. Careful owners, museums, and collectors preserve the objects themselves. Vintage clothing, old books, household implements, farming tools, and decorative objects exist that are a hundred years old or more.
People still practice most, if not all, of the early handicrafts. Today you can take a class at a shop or a community college and learn to hook a rug, cane a chair seat, restore an oil painting, or crochet an afghan. Visitors to Colonial Williamsburg can see glass blowing, silver casting, candle making, and iron forging. Arts and crafts festivals showcase the wares of potters, woodcarvers, quilters, weavers, jewelry makers, and even book binders.
Vintage crafting is part of the heritage of every culture. These things should not be lost forever. Those who collect or who practice things of yesteryear are doing us all a service. Objects made of wood, reed, metal, stone, clay, glass, or textiles recall how things used to be and remind us that we can do for ourselves if need be.
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