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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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A Jane Austoe Sock Contest – Yeah! – and a short discourse on women’s work in the Regency Era

August 12, 2020 by Vic

Excited readers,

ChattyFeet, a cool, funky sock gift site, now features Jane Austoe socks! No, we are not kidding. Our Jane, who loved to walk, has joined the foot pantheon of other great writers: William Shakes-Feet, George Toe-Well, Virginia Wool, Ernestoe Hemingway, and Marcel Proustoe. (Artists like Vincent Van Toe and Frida Callus are also featured.)

Update: We have three winners–Denise, Mea, and Mary! I will contact you regarding your addresses. Thank you all for participating.

Image of Austoe socks

Jane Austoes!

These brilliant hysterical, er, historical, socks are available for purchase. Literature Sock Gift Sets are also offered to those who cannot exist without reading great books and who love novel ideas.

ChattyFeet-Sock-Collections

ChattyFeet Gift Sets. Note the Literature Gift Set in the top left corner!

To help your summer doldrums disappear with laughter, ChattyFeet will give away three pairs of Jane Austoe socks to three lucky G.B. or U.S. winners of this contest! Simply finish the blanks in one of the following sentences and leave it as a comment on this blog. Be outrageous. Be creative! Make readers smile. And then twirl with delight as you anticipate receiving your very own pair of Jane Austoes.

Six instagram images of people wearing Chatty Feet socks in the community

These instagram images might inspire you to enter the contest!

Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will _____________ because __________.

or

Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll _____________ and will feel _______________.

The contest ends at midnight, August 22, EST USA time. Winners from the U.S. and G.B. will be drawn by random number generator.

More About Socks: A short history of knitting in Austen’s time and through today

In 1589, the first mechanical knitting machine was invented near Nottingham by William Lee of Calverton. As the stocking frame was refined, the knitting cottage industry dwindled in Britain. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) website offers a short history on hand knitting which includes an image of a pair of Regency socks in their collection. Also view an image of a stocking frame in 1751 at this link in The British Museum.

Women in the late 18th century and during the Regency era wore stockings held up by garters, but generally did not wear underwear. I find the detail in this cartoon by Rowlandson (Exhibition Stare Case) particularly funny and revealing!

Closeup image of the Exhibition Stare Case by Thomas Rowlandson.

Closeup of Exhibition Stare Case. Image is in the public domain, Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. 

Interestingly, as machines took over the business of making stockings wholesale, genteel ladies continued to knit them. How else were they expected to spend their time? Ladies could not work or own property, and, with a few exceptions, were dependent on their male relatives to oversee every legal aspect of their lives. Days were long and boring for those who had nothing but time on their hands, and so “hand-knitting mainly became the domain of wealthier ladies,” – V&A. When not writing or overseeing household duties, Jane Austen occupied herself with sewing (view her needle case, and the quilt she sewed with her sister in these links). In her letters, Austen discussed sewing men’s shirts for her brothers–in Regency times, these shirts were made by female relatives and not purchased in a tailor shop. View two examples below from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

Public domain images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art of two early 19th century British men's shirts.

Public domain images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art of two early 19th century British men’s shirts.

Knitting remained part of the education of Yorkshire’s poor in the late 18th- and early 19th centuries.

…for poorer members of society, [knitting]was taught in orphanages and poor houses. The first recorded knitting schools had been established in Lincoln, Leicester and York in the late 16th century and hand-knitting for income continued in Yorkshire until well into the 19th century. The Ackworth Quaker School in Yorkshire was established in 1779 for girls and boys “not in affluence”. According to records, its female pupils knitted 339 stockings in 1821 alone.” – V&A

To view a knitting instruction book, which was the first publication of its kind, visit The National Society’s Instructions on Needlework and Knitting, 1838, England. Museum no. T.307&A-1979. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

A woman’s duties in the house remained largely unchanged until the early 20th century, when my great grandmother and great aunts and their daughters (solid middle class Dutch burger women) knitted and darned stockings for their menfolk and for soldiers during WWI and WWII. They crocheted the most intricate doilies for arm rests and neck rests on plush sofas and chairs. Long after their deaths, when I went through their sewing baskets, I beheld and assortment of wood balls and finials for darning stockings and tatting pointed lace doilies. Thick wool socks were reused until they literally fell apart.

Image of a small hand-made doily.

A small doily Tante Dina made for my dresser in the 1960s.

My Dutch mom’s sewing basket held different colors of wool scraps, and some of my favorite memories were of watching her at night darning a big hole in my wool stocking. These female skills were considered so essential through late mid-century Holland (and in the U.K., as described in The history of handknitting, The V&A Museum), that I learned to knit, sew, embroider, and crochet during my first 3 years of school in Den Haag. My brother was given no such instruction.

I assure you that ChattyFeet’s socks will need no darning, but they will keep your feet warm, pretty, and smart. I encourage you, fair reader, to enter the contest by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post, using one of the two questions listed at the top as a prompt. Remember that the contest ends on August 22nd. And do visit the ChattyFeet website! It is so much fun.

Find more information about Regency underdrawers on this blog: Ladies Underdrawers in Regency Times

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Posted in Georgian Life, Jane Austen needlework, Jane Austen's World, Working class | Tagged Chatty Feet, Janeaustoe socks, Regency knitting, Regency women's work, Vic Sanborn | 18 Comments

18 Responses

  1. on August 12, 2020 at 16:13 Darlene

    Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will inspire me to write clever stories because my brain is in my feet.


  2. on August 12, 2020 at 16:36 Laura baker

    Sorry, couldn’t resist taking a stab at both!!!

    Q2: stem the tide of arch enemies/disagreeable people are wholly unsupportable

    Q1: restore my sole/They will allow me to be an excellent walker


  3. on August 12, 2020 at 16:52 dholcomb1

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make my feet happy because the distance is nothing when one has a motive.

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll be dancing and will feel like its own reward.

    Love the period information shared.

    Thanks for the chance.

    Denise


  4. on August 12, 2020 at 18:58 Eva E

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make me happy to look at because I am home during this pandemic and not wearing shoes.

    or

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll prance around the house and will feel joyous.


    • on August 15, 2020 at 09:24 Tonya

      Q.1. Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make my heart leap while I knit to Jane Austen on Audible.

      Q. 2. While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll watch Pride and Prejudice and draw sketches from the scenes.


  5. on August 12, 2020 at 21:03 raquel from jc

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make me extremely proud because they will show my love for literature!.

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll walk till my hem shows at least six inches deep in mud and will feel remarkably well!.
    Thanks for the chance!


  6. on August 12, 2020 at 23:46 Mea Cadwell

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will _help the rheumatoid arthritis in my feet_because _the socks will help keep them warm and make them feel better_.

    or

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll _have to figure out a way of adding a sock section to my personal library_ and will feel _quite naughty for having an author underfoot_.


  7. on August 13, 2020 at 11:27 Ratna Mathur

    Delightful contest! I am from lndia, so probably not qualified to enter, but having a go regardless! Both!

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will stop me from disobliging my family in Mansfield Park to make a great match in Northanger Abbey because l shall find there many men of large fortune searching for a pretty woman to deserve them.
    OR
    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will need no Persuaion because my Sensibility takes universally acknowledged Pride in real comfort.

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll dance certain steps and will feel l have fallen in love.
    OR
    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll sit in the shade on a fine day in Mansfield Park and will feel that verdure is the most perfect refreshment for Northanger Abbey.


  8. on August 13, 2020 at 11:46 Vic

    Gentle readers, I love your creativity in entering your submissions. I can’t wait to read more.


  9. on August 14, 2020 at 17:31 HillaryM

    Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will delight because I’ll feel both stylish & erudite!


  10. on August 14, 2020 at 17:51 Ollie Hutten

    Q 2: While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll promise to write daily and will feel accomplished and talented.


  11. on August 14, 2020 at 23:56 Garrie Doss

    While wearing my Jane Austin socks, I will be wishing to come across Mr Darcy emerge from his pond wearing his birthday suit


  12. on August 14, 2020 at 23:58 Garrie Doss

    Wearing Jane Austin socks will make me think it’s Christmas because I live in the desert and that’s the only time I wear socks


  13. on August 15, 2020 at 18:27 generalgtony

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make the postman smile when I open the door to receive my latest copy of Pride and Prejudice ordered from Amazon.

    Marilyn Grant 🧦🧦


  14. on August 17, 2020 at 10:17 Kate

    Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will relax me because without them the cold will tax me. (I love a rhyme!)


  15. on August 17, 2020 at 13:12 Cristin Ryland

    Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make my feet feel happy, because they’ve always wanted to meet the author.


  16. on August 17, 2020 at 15:49 Becky C.

    While wearing my Jane Austoe socks I’ll read Emma again and will feel that I’ve landed in Highbury.


  17. on August 19, 2020 at 01:45 Mary Hodge

    Q 1: Wearing my Jane Austoe socks will make me perspire because the temperature is 106 degrees today. (I’m in dead earnest; we’re in a beastly heat wave this week.)



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