Items from the Design Meeting

Here is a summary of the information I provided for the production meeting, Friday, 14 March.

Quilt blocks were appliquèd not pieced. (Rose of Sharon is a good example of an appliquè block.)
Knitting was done both by hand and machine. They often knit “footings” – the heel and toe portion of socks – for sale in the community. Crochet was seen as decorative, not functional, and therefore was not used.
For a picnic water carrier, there are many options. Glass, stoneware crocks, pottery, or tin would all be period-correct.
Each family dwelling house (holding 40-100 people) had its own laundry room. Certain women did the laundry for the entire house. Individual people’s clothing was marked with their name cross-stitched, usually into the collar. Linens were marked with the room title cross-stitched into a corner. They used agitators and washboards in a basin. They also ironed and did spot cleaning in the laundry room.
Irons were heated on a special stove with 10 slats for irons. A woman would take one iron out, use it until it was cold, replace it and pick up the next one. There was no way to keep an iron warm off the stove.
Dust pans were tin. They were straight across the top rather than fluted like modern ones.
Shaker women wore apron-front dresses with an extra panel in the front of the skirt to serve as an apron. They wore actual aprons only in the kitchen and the laundry room.
The 1994 edition of American Costuming Society’s Dress journal has a good article about Shaker clothing.
See post below for information about lap desks.

This is all from Susan Hughes, education director at Shaker Village, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.