French Victorian Crochet Book

The name of the book is: Leçons de couture : crochet, tricot, frivolité, guipure sur filet, passementerie et tapisserie by Mme Emmeline Raymond.

WHY TRANSLATE FRENCH VICTORIAN CROCHET MANUALS?

One day, I was bored in my room, and I wanted to crochet SOMETHING, but I didn't know what. I didn't want to crochet another top because I had so many of those, and I wasn't drawn to any modern patterns. I didn't want to make a crop top or a random plushy, then it came to me. Since I wasn't drawn to any modern looking crochet items, why not look to the past? I didn't know where to start because there wasn't anything on YouTube, so I looked to find some texts. For some reason, I couldn't find anything in English, you would think there was something, but when I tried to find anything, I guess the texts were hiding from me. I knew that the French national library was put online from my time at the French school, so this is how I chanced upon these documents.

TRANSLATION

We thought at a time of widespread female education about frivolous occupations and futile pastimes that it would be beneficial to get a reaction, even in a close-minded field. How many women, of all classes of society, have fallen to idleness, which in turn leads to a feeling of emptiness simply because they lack a simple and practical education! We always love to do. What we are good at; so, in order to know the rewards of work, we need to know how to work well.

We are not saying that the humble craft of sewing should rule despotically and take up hours of a woman’s life; but could we not, should we not, designate a bit of time to it between voice lessons, piano lessons, English class, dance class, swimming, and gymnastics? Would it not be appropriate to dethrone the principal in favor of the accessory? What good will an education focused on worldly success do when a young girl becomes a mother? A great aria, no matter how well sung, is no substitute for the skill and experience needed to prepare her children’s clothes. Ice skating, swimming, gymnastics can’t replace more domestic talents either, and we don’t really see the use of a woman who can only sing, dance, and even know foreign languages – unless we have taken the time to teach her the art of fashion.

A woman needs to learn, before anything else, how to make her clothes and those of her children.

This rule, this priority, should not be ignored in any feminine education, regardless of the amount of money you possess or hope to possess; because on the other hand, work, which constitutes a precious or indispensable resource for a large number of women, represents, for those who are rich, the refuge against boredom, the diversion from all the evils that are its consequence.

Only, as I was saying earlier, to love sewing, you have to know how to sew well; that is what we are taking up to learn with the help of explanations and drawings, which will allow young girls to study by themselves this indispensable art, essentially feminine art, while mothers will be able to use our teachings, either for themselves, or to guide their children.

The first thing you need to observe is to be extremely proper in your work, and an even greater properness. Being habitually patient is equally indispensable…. And will in fact serve you in other considerable circumstances. An irregular piece of work, composed of stitches that are sometimes long, sometimes short, bunched together here, far apart there, isn’t done any faster – on the contrary – than impeccable work from the point of view of regularity. This is a demonstration of the eternal truth represented by the fable of the hare and the tortoise: the latter, moving forward with slow but regular steps, wins the prize that the former loses for having become distracted along the way.

NOTES

This text was decently hard to translate, but not the worst. Despite it being an older text, it was quite easy to understand. However, the things I have put in red, I have no idea what they are talking about... I need help on how to translate. I need help from a professional, because I wonder how they translate something that they themselves don't understand.