Pin ball sewing equipment
Category
Costume
Date
1795
Materials
Silk
Order this imageCollection
Snowshill Wade Costume Collection, Gloucestershire
NT 1349993
Summary
Pin ball sewing equipment - Cream and khaki knitted silk constructed with 2 circular pieces of knitting sewn together and stuffed to form sphere, cord missing, hand knitted and sewn. One hemisphere showing 'Tho'absent not forgotten 1795', the other a geometric design of 4 stylised trees arranged in a circle.
Full description
Quaker Knitted Pin Ball 1797 - Pin balls are associated with Quaker schools and in Particular Ackworth school in Yorkshire which took poor children to give them an education. School girls knitted these balls in their leidure time as gifts or to sell for extra income. The owner would have attached it to her waist with the loop of the braid. The ball was knitted in two sections and joined at the seams. On the Needleprint blogspot it mentions that Pinballs with the words 'A token of Love' were given to prisoners, often Quakers imprisoned for not paying their tithes, as a taken of God's love, to show they were not forgotten.
Provenance
Given to National Trust with Snowshill Manor in 1951 by Charles Paget Wade