Mary Walker Phillips, the author of Step-by-Step Macrame was an amazing textile artist who is better-known for her knitting books. I came across my copy of her book this morning and was struck by how informative the introduction was on the history of macrame as well as the following quote in the first paragraph, attributed to an 1880's book Sylvia's Book of Macrame Lace:Goethe, somewhere or other, in exalting music above every other art, does so on the ground that it produces its marvelous effects with so little display of means and tools; and if this test be applied to our present work, it will rank very high...not even a thimble and needle are wanted to produce the charming effects of our Macrame work.
Everyone today seems to think that micro-macrame is a brand new concept. Heavens, no. It was an old old lace form before the late Victorians got their hot little hands on it. Here is another quote from Sylvia's 1880 book that Ms. Phillips used in her introduction:
This kind of fancy-work is not exactly a novelty; except in the sense that when anything becomes so old as to be forgotten, its revival has all the effects of a first appearance.
OK love this book! I got it in Ventura at this unreal Used Bookstore downtown that has alot of vintage Macrame Books! I am just getting back into Macrame and only learned a few knots, but this book is so helpful! :)
ReplyDeleteI also subscribed to your blog and will be reblogging you also! Hope you don't mind, I will of course post where it came from! I also have a macrame blog too! :) Just started!