The story of the little girls dress...

At the archive this week we began trying to find out some interesting stories and tales of some of the pieces. One piece in particular really captured our imaginations, (and hearts!)

A picture of a little girl in a tiny knitted dress...

The picture, along with the genuine knitted dress and a copy of the pattern were donated to the Guild by a lady from the Midlands. To have access to all three things in this story was something we felt was really symbolic and gave the knitted piece so much more depth than just being a knitted dress. This story was made even better by Barbara telling us that she had managed to track down some of the material that was used to knit the dress (vintage rayon) and had knitted a swatch of the fabric herself! The actual piece is also trimmed with a delicate rounded edging done with cream mohair which Barbara has also sampled in her swatch. 

Adding Barbara's sample into the story meant that not only did we have significant information on the history of this little garment, we had also bought it into the present by un-earthing it and adding Barbara's recent sample into the tale of the little girls dress.

Going forward, we hope to unearth similar lovely little anecdotes of the Archive and put together a collection of stories, whether it be stories we hear in conversation with the ladies at the archive, or stories we gather from the artifacts we find.