A FINE SMALL STITCH

Sewing has been THE female vocation for thousands of years. Everyone from queens to pioneers to starving immigrants relied on their needlework in different ways.
From the lost moment some cave woman pointed out by the fire that her man’s bearskin might stay in place with a bone pin or two, women have been (mostly) in charge of sewing, and often judged by it.
Eleanor of Aquitaine, considered a rather bad woman by many of the men writing the chronicles because she traded a boring king for a more interesting one, was nevertheless always praised for the embroidered vestments she donated to churches. It’s clear that she did some of the work herself, and equally clear that the clerics considered it a major mitigating factor for such an otherwise unruly female.
There was nothing unruly about Catherine of Aragon, but she went to war with her needle, too. In the middle of Henry VIII’s impressively ugly effort to dump her for Anne Boleyn, she insisted upon the right to make and embroider his shirts. We can safely assume this had little to do with affection – and plenty to do with hanging on to her prerogatives as Queen. It didn’t help, of course, and I can’t be the only person wondering who did Henry’s shirts after Catherine was gone. (Anne’s lack of interest in housewifely pursuits helped send her to the block.)
For less elevated females, sewing was simply a matter of caring for their families, whether by providing what they needed, or earning the money for food. Before and after the Industrial Revolution, women were usually in charge of clothing and other household goods. In the Colonies, that became a much bigger task, because they often had to grow and process the raw flax or wool before they could even start sewing.
Even in the late 19th century, it was still pretty daunting. LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE readers will remember the scenes of Laura sewing sheets, hating every second of it, hating her blind sister Mary more because she’d been good at it – and feeling horrible about that, too. Sewing wasn’t always the blissful expression of femininity that those Victorian prints show.
For some women, it was a just a living. There had always been seamstresses and dressmakers, and as the middle class expanded in the Victorian era, more women hired out the heavy lifting and contented themselves with pretty fancy work.
Further down the scale, piecework was barely a living at all. Entire families would sew shirtwaists or skirts or whatever was needed, for pennies a basket. It meant long days of (literally) blindingly hard work for a pittance, but for many immigrant families, it was the only way to keep food on the table.
It was for Ella Shane’s mother. Malka (Molly) Steinmetz, barely educated and fighting consumption, couldn’t do anything else. As soon as she was able, young Ellen pitched in. That’s why the adult Ella doesn’t sew. In A FATAL FIRST NIGHT, she offers to sew on a button for a friend, triggering what she calls an “upset,” a flashback to her tenement childhood and her mother’s death.
Sewing for Ella, and for many other women over the centuries, turns out to be a great deal more than just picking up a needle and thread.

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