One day several of the volunteers at the Benton County
Historical Museum were talking about unusual objects or those not seen much
anymore. Some of these I’ve featured in earlier posts. One object that another
volunteer mentioned is shown in the picture below.
This is a bodkin.
Once upon a time a bodkin would have been in every woman’s sewing
box. They used these blunt needles with
large eyes to pull ribbons through lace or cords through a casing. One might
have been used to insert the blue ribbon into this baby’s cap. Pulling elastic
through a casing sure would be a lot easier with one of these that with a large
safety pin used by many home sewers today!
Bodkins were also used to thread laces through holes in
corsets or other clothing closed this way, especially before manufactured cords
were fitted with aiglets.
In the 17th century so many items of clothing
were laced closed that women kept their bodkins handy in special decorative
cases or acquired fancy silver bodkins which they stuck in their elaborate
hairdos until needed.
By Martha Fraundorf, Volunteer for Benton County Historical Society, Philomath, Oregon
No comments:
Post a Comment