We know that Monday was laundry day and Tuesday was ironing day but what took place in the vintage home on Wednedsay?
Although it seems that it was common advice for a homemaker in time’s past to have a set day for doing a particular household task. Just what task to do on what day most definitely depended upon the workings of the home in question.
For many Wednesday seemed to be an ideal time to mend the family’s clothing.
A great example is how Sara Corey Rippey, in her chapter of The Complete Home on The Machinery of Housekeeping imagined Mrs. Grundy (of the infamous children’s nursery rhyme) might have accomplished many household tasks on a Wednesday.
“On Wednesday Mrs. Grundy mends and puts away the clean clothes and picks up some of the household stitches which had to be dropped on the two preceding days. The kitchen must be put in order, the refrigerator must have its semiweekly cleaning, and the ashes which have accumulated in the stove removed, a new fire built, and the hearth washed. While the oven is heating for the mid-week baking there are vestibules and porches to wash, walks to sweep, the cellar to investigate, and a dozen little odds and ends to attend to which, with the baking, make a busy morning. The cleaning of silver dovetails nicely with the Wednesday work and during the canning season the preserving of fruit can be done at this time with the least interference with the other work of the house, though when it becomes a case of the fruit being ripe, other work must give way for the nonce. In short, Wednesday is the general weekly catch-all into which go all the odd jobs for which room cannot be found elsewhere. ”
~The Complete Home
Mending
Take a needleful of quite fine thread the right color, start at the extreme end of the opening, and holding the goods as flat and even as you can, take a short stitch through from one side, across the rent, and into the other side. Draw the thread close, without puckering, and come back the same way.
Do not get those stitches too close together the first time you go around, as you might unconsciously “full” one side more than the other, but when you have reached the other end, turn and come back the same way, now putting your stitches in between the first set. Also take them a little deeper, so they will catch more of the material and make the sewing hold better. The second time around, if you will notice, you will see you have left a little hole at the sharp corner (in the middle), so put in a few extra stitches there, spread out fan shape to strengthen that particular place.
~Sewing for Little Girls