The Craft of Hand-Sewing

My husband came down with "the flu" on Monday. By Wednesday, we were all down with it --fever, chills, coughing, sinus, body aches--you name it. As you can imagine, my inability to breathe and walk at the same time wreaked havoc with my regularly scheduled life. No housework, no homeschooling, hardly any eating.

Both dh and son are considerably better now, but my bout is hanging on a bit. I actually dragged myself up to do a load of laundry as we were getting mighty low in that department. I don't know why since I've worn pajamas all week, but I digress.

I am actually going somewhere with this Haven of Home Health Newsflash. Due to the lack of moving around, I've had a LOT of time to spend on the computer. I was wandering around at a site called Open Library and came across a fun book from 1910 written as a five-year course of study for girls in the 3rd - 7th grades. (Click on the book cover to go to the online version.)

Idabelle knew her stuff. She was a stickler about details and about doing things CORRECTLY. I was so impressed by her "explanatory note" in which she says:

"Every exercise in handicraft should train the judgment, the eye or the memory and tend to develop skill, patience, accuracy, perseverance, dexterity or artistic appreciation."

That's a pretty tall order! Those words are like a battle cry, aren't they? I was hooked. Below is the general table of contents (click to enlarge):

Take a look at what is to be taught (once a week for 38 weeks) in the fourth grade:

I'm (almost) moved to do some hand-sewing! In this day of short-cuts and gadgets, there's something to be said for mastering something like this.

Just wanted to share. (About the book, not the flu...)