"Sewing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Athalie at a little table, at the corner of which Frau Sophie pretended to be busy sewing. (For years this table had been ostentatiously spread with needle-work and knitting, so that visitors might imagine they were occupied ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... fingers. Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... well known in many parts of Asia and part of Africa. It is mentioned by Ctesias, and by Aelian, who says the shepherds used to extract the tallow from the live animal, sewing up the tail again; exactly the same story is told by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's statements as to size do not surpass those of the admirable Kampfer: "In size they so much surpass the common ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... voluntary work, and trimming them up here and there, simply because they could not keep away from the place, or keep their hands off the trees and bushes. Sometimes in the long, tender afternoons, we see far up on some pasture slope, groups of girls scattered about on the grass, with their sewing, or listening to some one reading. Other times they are giving a little play, usually a comedy, for life is so happy here that tragedy would not be true to it, with the characters coming and going in a grove of small pines, for ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Nature seems to be in her merriest mood, clothing everything in poetic attire, rendering more than beautiful the gray hamlets on the hillsides, over which rise square bell-towers, about which the red-tiled cottages cluster. Outside of these are seen family groups, some sewing, some spinning, while children gleefully tumble about and play in ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... in the utilization of the forces of Nature, particularly in the development of this country. We, although young in years, have become the greatest railroad builders in history, and have put into use mechanical machines like the harvester, the sewing machine, the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and almost numberless applications of electricity. Ships have been built of late years greatly departing from those immediately preceding them, so that at the present time ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • John A. Bensel
... one evening from church meeting, letting himself into the parsonage with his night-key, and, not seeing his wife in the sitting-room, where she was in the habit of reading and sewing, he walked on into the small sewing-room, where she sometimes sat at special work, thinking to find her there. She was not there, and Philip opened the kitchen door and inquired of the servant, who sat there reading, where his ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... spend the day with some of her artist friends, but at noon she dashed into the room where Clara and Lucy sat sewing, her dark face blotched red, and her voice stuttering ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... look quite at home. I remember my first trip; it was in New England, and I was selling sewing-machine needles. Mr. Hopsby took me around a corner before I started and, presenting me with a nail-puller, told me he was afraid he was doing wrong to send me out, I was so young; but that I was to remember that the only way to prosperity was in getting orders. It hadn't ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... down to help Mother with some sewing when along comes your second wire, addressed to her. Mother and I threw up our hands and screamed! Certainly we thought you were off your crumpet. Why on earth should you send us another cook when you know Ethel has been here for so long? I read the wire forward and backward ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... school, near Redcliffe church. But whatever hereditary tendencies may have been transmitted from the father, the sole training of the boy necessarily devolved on his mother, who was in the fourth month of her widowhood at the time of his birth. She established a girls' school, took in sewing and ornamental needlework, and so brought up her two children, a girl and a boy, till the latter attained his eighth year, when he was admitted to Colston's Charity. But the Bristol blue-coat school, in which the curriculum was limited to reading, writing, arithmetic and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... as formerly, and of late the toil of the farm taxed her endurance. There was milking, sewing, the housework, and the care of the chickens; enough to keep ten pairs of hands busy, let alone one. Oh, Lucy should earn her board, ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... little more spirit into his Highland fling, "by request." She remembered their merrymaking with Simpson at breakfast. What did they intend to do with her belongings? And as she remembered the little plaid sewing-bag that Aunt Adelaide had made for her—surreptitiously drying her tears in the mean time—when she remembered that bag and the possibility of its being submitted to ignominy, she could have cried or done murder, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... was with a heavy heart she took herself up-stairs for the afternoon. This tete-a-tete had become their custom every day; she with her sewing, and the sick man luxuriating in a pipe. Tresler was still bandaged, but it was only lightly, for the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... and of evenings your grandfather would often read aloud, while your mother and I were engaged in kitting or sewing; or, she would take up her guitar and sing some of those pretty Scotch airs, of which he was so fond; or, the more deep-toned German songs, which were favorites of mine. And thus we passed nearly thee months, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... said, "loves me too much. She is my orphan, she and her two brothers. I have bought one house for them near from ze church, and, for the girl, one sewing-machine. Their mother had been stealed [robbed] of everything, and she had died a month ago. Ze cheeldren ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... cash registers there are manufactured agricultural machinery, clay-working machinery, cottonseed and linseed oil machinery, railway cars, carriages and wagons, automobiles, flying machines, sewing machines, paper, furniture, soap and tobacco. Almost every industrial product finds a maker in this town. Barnum & Smith are the well known manufacturers of street cars. There is the Davis Sewing Machine ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... fall into the hands of privateers. The stores too had a depressed aspect. Men sat outside gossiping in a languid sort of way, and here and there a woman was tending her baby on the porch or doing a bit of sewing. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... sewing. One day I could not help blurting out: "What a humbug you are, sister! When your 'brother' is present, your mouth waters at the very mention of Swadeshi scissors, but it is the English-made article every ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... I am busying about, Sewing on buttons, tapes, and strings, Hanging the week's wet washing out Or ironing the children's things, Sweeping and dusting, cleaning grates, Scrubbing the dresser or the floors, Washing the greasy dinner plates, Scouring the brasses ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... dropped in an absent survey of her sewing, while Mrs. Bowen regarded her with a look of vexation, impatience, resentment, on the last refinement of these emotions, which she banished from her face before Miss Graham looked up and said, with a smile "How funny it is to see Effie's infatuation with ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Peterkin!" said Jack as he shouldered the oars. "Come along with me, and I'll give you work to do. In the first place, you will go and collect coca-nut fibre, and set to work to make sewing-twine with it—" ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... intention appears to be to apply this pile to the lighting of apartments, and even to the running of small motors, and, for the purpose of actuating sewing machines, he has already constructed a small model whose external dimensions are 160 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... buck just killed, to leave all the bones of the head in the skin with the horns on, to leave the bones of the legs in the skin also, and the hoofs to it, so that having only made an incision all along the belly and neck to take the animal out at, we could by sewing up that incision and stuffing the skin, present the true size and form of the animal, it would be a most precious present. Our deer have been often sent to England and Scotland. Do you know (with certainty) whether they have ever bred with the red deer ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... stretched and dried, and afterward scraped and worked until soft. These were employed to make the upper portions of the summer waterproof boots and shoes. The skin of the giant seal, treated in the same way, was used for boot soles, the soles being crimped into shape by biting with the teeth. All sewing was done with deer or whale sinew, the former being considered the best. The same methods are yet employed for dressing skins and making clothing ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... being so far away from anyone. M. and Mme. A. and all the servants were at the other end of the house, and there were no bells in our wing (nor anywhere else in the house except in the dining-room). When I wanted a work-woman who was sewing in the lingerie I had to go up a steep little winding staircase, which connected our wing with the main building, and walk the whole length of the gallery to the lingerie, which was at the extreme end of the other wing. I ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... she, too, was dead. To the last she adhered tenaciously to her habits of independence. She would suffer no one to assist her. On the day of her death she arose, dressed herself, and tried to take up her sewing. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Madeleine made in her new home was with the sewing-maid, for naturally there were a good many repairs of various kinds to be seen to. She had already made some acquaintance with the family by previous short visits to Sandsgaard, and the same impression of coldness which she had hitherto received from her relations still ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in want of an efficient person to assist you in taking charge of your domestic affairs, Enna," said a maiden aunt of mine to me one evening. I pulled my little sewing-table toward me with a slight degree of impatience, and began very earnestly to examine the contents of my work-box, that I might not express aloud my weariness of my aunt's favorite subject. I had been in want of just such an article as an "efficient person" ever since I had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... for chasing the gazelle, and their beautiful flints were found to be like those belonging to an excellent collection already existing in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford. They also made an abundant use of copper for adzes, harpoons for spearing fish, and needles for sewing garments. They used pottery abundantly, and its variety is remarkable no less than the quality, which, unlike the Egyptian, was all hand-made and never fashioned by aid of the wheel. They entered Egypt about 3,000 B.C., and were probably ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... moment for Jerry to reach the house and in another she had reached the room where her mother sat sewing. ...
— A Day at the County Fair • Alice Hale Burnett
... later Mrs. Hastings took up a basket of sewing she had been engaged in, and moved towards the door. Sproatly, who rose as she approached him, drew aside his chair, and she handed the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... scarcely twenty—as dairymaid, for whom Sir William quickly conceived an amorous regard. Actuated by jealousy or disgust, Molly Jones threatened to leave Sir William, a resolution which she soon carried out, retiring to Cambden, a neighbouring market town, where she was reduced to keep a small sewing school as a means of livelihood. Although left to carry on his intrigue undisturbed, Sir William soon became a victim to gloomy reflections, feeling at times that he had not only cruelly wronged a good wife, but had been deserted by the very woman for whose sake he had brought this ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... agree with you," he said. "I feel inclined to recommend a course of sewing and cooking to ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... those mystics passed who had to walk through fire, there lay plenty of charcoal, and yonder hung robes of every description. The next moment she had thrown off her own, in order to blacken her glistening white limbs and her face with soot. Among the sewing materials which the lady Euryale had laid beside the scrolls was a pair of scissors. These the girl seized, and with quick, remorseless hand cut off the long, thick locks that were her brother's and her lover's delight. Then she chose out a chiton, which, reaching only to her knees, gave ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... vermin I had caught in the Felucca. As soon as I had got clear of these, by means of changing my clothes and linen, I proceeded to furnish the chamber I had chosen. I made a good mattress with my waistcoats and shirts; my napkins I converted, by sewing them together, into sheets; my robe de chambre into a counterpane; and my cloak into a pillow. I made myself a seat with one of my trunks laid flat, and a table with the other. I took out some writing paper and an inkstand, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... out," said Bill, sewing busily. "What in the world has all this to do with his children? I want ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... the garden, Miss Fletcher, at the window where she sat sewing, began to notice the little stranger at last; for the child stood outside the fence with her doll, and gazed and gazed so long each time, that the lady began to ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... stove is polished with black-lead till it shines, and the floor is sanded in Flemish style. Mignonette and violets bloom in a box on the window-sill, and a bird chirps in its cage above them. A young woman sits in front of the window; but she is so intent on the linen she is sewing that no other sound is heard in the silent room but that made by the motion of her hands as they guide the needle. She is dressed in the plainest garments; yet they are cut and put on so gracefully that one may declare at a glance she ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... that Mr. Shrewsbury really wished to teach them, and that he was ready to assist those who wanted to get on. In the afternoon the schoolmaster's wife started a sewing class for the girls and, a week or two after he came, the master announced that such of the elder class of boys and girls who chose to come, in the evening, to his cottage could do so for an hour; and that he and the boys ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... next evening. Dominey led the way upstairs, curiously gratified at her lingering progress. He took her to the door of her room and looked in. The nurse was sitting in an easy-chair, reading, and the maid was sewing ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... funeral the Arnolds called at the residence of Mrs. Morton, whose husband had died more than a year before. She was obliged to take in plain sewing, and when she could do so, she gave occasional lessons in French to eke out a livelihood for herself and child. A very short interview resulted in Mrs. Arnold persuading the widow to take a permanent situation with her, as her seamstress. And from that date until her death, ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... for Maria Clemm. She folded her sewing and laid it away with an air of finality which plainly said that she had found other and more pressing work to do. The sewing must ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... again across the hill-face in the sombre gloaming. It was odd that the last time I had walked on this hillside had been for a glimpse of that same girl we sought to-night. Years ago, when I was a lad, she had on a summer been sewing with a kinswoman in Car-lunnan, the mill croft beside a linn of the river, where the salmon plout in a most wonderful profusion, and I had gone at morning to the hill to watch her pass up and down in the garden of the mill, or feed the pigeons at the round doo-cot, content ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... stood around to have a last look at the strong old face we had known so long. The sailmaker was sewing him up in the clew of an old topsail, a sailorly shroud that Martin would have chosen. The office was done gently and soberly, as a shipmate has a right to expect. A few pieces of old chain were put in to weight him down, all ship-shape and sailor-fashion, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... everything and no is nothing. I don't think that means much, but we call him that for fun...." But Mary could not remember what the child's real name was. What difference did it make? As if she could have a child meddling round the house while she was sewing. But of course this was not the real reason. The real reason was that she could not bring up a child—did she ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... it might absorb or digest it. There were old cribs, in which the infant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up; old looking-glasses, that had reflected their shining, soapy faces, and Mamie's best chip Sunday hat; an old sewing-machine, that had been worn out in active service; old patchwork quilts; an old accordion, to whose long drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns; old pictures, books, and old toys. There were one or two old chromos, and, stuck in an old frame, a colored print ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... always open, all the features of domestic life and of mechanical labor are exposed to the public. The housewives, the masters, and apprentices, busy as they seem, manage to keep one eye disengaged, and no one passes before them without notice. Cooking, washing, sewing, tailoring, shoemaking, coopering, rope and basket making, succeed each other, as one passes through the narrow streets. In the afternoon, the mechanics frequently come forth and set up their business in the open ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... back to be wedded to my boy. That was like you. I ever wished it, indeed. But I never expected to see my children thus happy. Yet I always knew you and Hugo were made for each other. You are at your sewing, little maid. Well, 'tis natural. I mind me when my own love sat making dainties of just such delicate ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... brought her sewing out on the front-steps, and entered a vigorous protest to her ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... A bit of sewing yet lay upon the marble-topped table in the sitting-room, and an embroidery frame, holding still a square of fine linen, had fallen from a chair. An open book was propped against the back of the chair, and a low rocker, facing it, was swerved sharply aside. The evidence of daily occupation, suddenly ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched Miss Rose sewing. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... a lengthy one, and lengthy speeches mostly exhausted Mr. Stuart. He lay back, watching his fair relative as she sat sewing near, with lazy, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... doubt they are immensely appreciated; besides, they are mostly made up, which the Government clothing won't be.' Miss Hobhouse says that many of the women in the Camp at Aliwal North had brought their sewing machines. If they were set to work to make clothes it might serve a double purpose of giving them occupation and the power of earning a little money, and it would also ensure the clothes being made sufficiently large. Miss Hobhouse says people ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... jail. He had left his Michigan home with fifty dollars of savings and had come to Chicago to make his fortune. His mother's story, which was secured after he got into trouble, narrated how that as a boy he had taken to pieces the sewing-machine and the clocks and, unlike many boys, had put them together again without damage. Reaching Chicago he hired in a garage and conceived the idea of building an automobile. After the fashion of a boy he became ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... he is a good boy. His mother sometimes works for us; she does quite heavy jobs of sewing, and Billy brings them up by train. He was here a little more than a week ago, and I asked him how he was getting on at school, and if he had a good teacher, and he said the man was pretty good. But I want to know about the bear. How in the world did ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... Bedsteads and wardrobes were seen standing awry on the upper floors, ready to fall into the street. Of other houses, reduced, one may say, to powder, only heaps of rubbish remain, in which one can distinguish among pieces of tiles and bricks and plaster chests of drawers, pianos, sideboards, sewing machines, and so forth, broken and mixed with what is left of household linen and crockery. Family portraits, as if in mockery, remain hanging in places and contemplate the scene of ruin. The contents of the shops ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the Squire got over us; and Farmer Nicholas Snowe was sent for, to counsel with mother about the matter and to set his two daughters sewing. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... But the sewing—making the clothes—was the worst. Patty was so proud that she would not ask help from anybody—no, not if she ruined her eyes, and worked her fingers to the bone. Garments were picked to pieces, stitch by stitch, to learn how they were ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... after Lilian had had her cry out and was sitting at her window in the dusk, watching a thin new moon shining over the trees down the street, her inspiration came to her. A minute later she whirled into the tiny sitting-room where her mother was sewing. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... set fire to the villages everywhere, taking with them and driving before them all the male inhabitants. "Upon entering Hofstade, the Belgian soldiers found the corpse of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts; she still held in her hand the needle with which she was sewing when attacked; one mother and her son, aged about 15 years, lay there pierced with bayonet wounds; ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... would soon be there in earnest, and the thought of it made her feel even more tired. She felt that she could never live through another summer like the last one. She thought of all the work ahead of her—sowing and haymaking; spring baking and spring cleaning; weaving and sewing—and wondered how she would ever ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... tiny room, without windows or fireplace, and so low that it was impossible to stand upright. I was given sewing to do, but my first piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... greater number have been rebuilt or repaired at an expense exceeding what is legally required for such purposes, the Duke of Sutherland contributes to the support of several schools for young females, at which sewing and other branches of education are taught; and in 1844 he agreed to establish twelve general assembly schools in such parts of the county as were without the sphere of the parochial schools, and to build school and schoolmasters' houses, which will, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... at school, though she still was an isolated little figure among her schoolmates. The cooking teacher added sewing to the course, after Christmas, and Lydia took up "over and over stitch" at the point where her gentle mother had left off five years before. She progressed so famously that by the time school closed she had learned how to ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... factories along the line of the railway far to the westward. There are two large parks, Beardsley, in the extreme north part of the city, and Seaside, west of the harbour entrance and along the Sound; in the latter are statues of Elias Howe, who built a large sewing-machine factory here in 1863, and of P.T. Barnum, the showman, who lived in Bridgeport after 1846 and did much for the city, especially for East Bridgeport. In Seaside Park there is also a soldiers' and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... ground; then pass the palmar surface of the flat and extended fingers of the right hand over the back of the left from near the wrist toward the tips of the fingers. (Kaiowa I; Comanche III; Apache II; Wichita II.) "Those who use sinew for sewing, and for strengthening ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... funeral, when something happened which went far towards removing her hesitation. She was sitting in Mrs. Chigwin's garden, which was warm and dry in the afternoon sun. Mrs. Chigwin was indoors, vigorously "straightening" the house. Milly was sewing a frock for her child, and the child itself was tumbling about on a soft rug at ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... canoe, but this is rather exceptional, and the bottom is generally pieced out, as seen in our drawing. This piecing may be accomplished with an awl and Indian twine, or by the aid of a large needle threaded with the same, sewing with an over-and-over stitch around the edge of each piece. Use as large pieces as are attainable, and continue to sew them on until the area of bark measures about four and a half feet in width by twelve feet in length, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... and that's true," said the old housekeeper, looking with great complacency at her young master, whose mien she thought much improved by his dress. "I'm sure ye ne'er had a laced cravat like that when ye were at Milnwood; that's nane o' my sewing." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was now busy getting them ready for the morrow, when the dealer's wagon was to call. She was going to Boston, where a distant and condescending rich relative had interested himself to the extent of finding her a place as sewing woman ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... away the time that hung so heavily, took to drinking beer with some newly acquired German friends. The result was that our funds were exhausted much sooner than they should have been, and mother took it upon herself to turn bread-winner for the family by doing some plain sewing. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... you will wear them, Dick,' the mother said with something like a sob in her voice; but the tenderness came not from the approaching departure, but from her fear that the thick woollen drawers on which she was re-sewing all the buttons, should be neglected,—after Dick's usual fashion. 'Mr. Caldigate I hope you will see that he wears them. He looks strong, but indeed he is not.' Our hero who had always regarded his friend as a bull for strength of constitution generally, promised that he would ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... mind; or, rather, I do. I felt it, and in my heart, while I held her close, I registered a vow which I have kept. It was the last tear she shed for me. Our daughter pouts at her father now and then; says I am "fierce." But She comes with her sewing to sit where I write, and when she comes the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... was large of her age, and all the more tender for being large; and they tasked her too severely, and exacted too much of her. She performed boy's work too often; she was dropping potatoes or pulling weeds, or spreading hay in the field, when she ought to have been sewing or doing house-work; she milked too many cows; she carried too many pails of sap in the sugar bush; she gleaned too much wheat; she sewed on hard sewing too long at a time; she spun too much wool and flax, and turned too many cheeses. The consequence was, that while she ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... not satisfy her curiosity. Instead, he knocked on the door of the sitting room and, when Miss Phipps called to him to come in, he obeyed, closing the door behind him. She was sitting by the window and her sewing was in her lap. Yet he was almost certain she had not been sewing. Her face was very grave and, although he could not see distinctly, for the afternoon was cloudy and the room rather dark, it seemed to him that there was a peculiar look about her eyes. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... came back to the porch with some sewing. Conrad appeared from the barn, stood about for a moment, and strolled toward the orchard; then he walked in the garden for a while; finally he sat on the step with his back to her, saying nothing and looking at the sky. She preserved the silence ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... tell how for a while great fortune went with me, and I ruled over much land, and was dreaded upon the wide sea, and raised the battlecry in cities that were not my own, fearing nobody. But you will not think of these matters, you will think only of your children's ailments, of baking and sewing and weaving tapestries, and of directing little household tasks. And the spider will spin her web in my helmet, which will hang as a trophy in the hall of Messire de ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... the Feast, Virgilia was glad to go out into the fresh air, to leave the seamstresses busy sewing in the inner courtyard. They were embroidering fine garments of silk so soft that it could be drawn through a ring. They were hemming and drawing threads, draping and cutting the rich material from Tyre which was to form part of Virgilia's ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... a kind of paper, and a substance like flax; and it is also manufactured into mantles, mats, shoes, girdles, and cordage. This tree produces such strong and sharp prickles, that they are used instead of needles for sewing. The roots are used as fuel; and their ashes make excellent ley for the manufacture of soap. The natives open up the earth from the roots of this tree, and, by scraping or wounding them, they extract a juice which is a rich syrup. By boiling ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... new to her fellow pilgrims: "Why is a bung that hath been made fast in a barrel like unto another bung that is just falling out of a barrel?" As the company promptly answered this easy conundrum, the lady went on to say that when she was one day seated sewing in her private chamber her son entered. "Upon receiving," saith she, "the parental command, 'Depart, my son, and do not disturb me!' he did reply, 'I am, of a truth, thy son; but thou art not my mother, ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... them; to enjoy them is to have them lying by us; having no other need of them than to use them for the clearing of the eyesight, and the comforting of our senses. These we did carry about with us, sewing them in some patches of our doublets near unto the heart, and as close to the skin as we could handsomely quilt them in, holding ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... in her lap, and looking up discontentedly to her mother; "why should not I be rich as well as Clara Payson? There she passes in her father's carriage, with her fine clothes, and haughty ways; while I sit here—sew—sewing—all day long. I don't see what use ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... thicket of currant and gooseberry bushes; and a flock of young turkeys ambling awkwardly through the barn. Timothy stepped gently along in the thick grass, past a pump and a mossy trough, till a side porch came into view, with a woman sitting there sewing bright-colored rags. A row of shining tin pans caught the sun's rays, and threw them back in a thousand glittering prisms of light; the grasshoppers and crickets chirped sleepily in the warm grass, and a score of tiny yellow butterflies hovered ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... truth in these days.' He began beating time with a ruler upon his knee, to some Latin lines he read aloud just then. I suppose the monotonous chant irritated Phillis to some irregular energy, for I remember the quick knotting and breaking of the thread with which she was sewing. I never hear that snap repeated now, without suspecting some sting or stab troubling the heart of the worker. Cousin Holman, at her peaceful knitting, noticed the reason why Phillis had so constantly to interrupt the progress of ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cooking, and serving meals, of cleaning and taking proper care of the rooms of a house, of attending correctly to the telephone and the door bell, of sewing, of washing and ironing, and of taking care of children, should be insisted ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... as vain to expect to eradicate these inborn trends and put others in their places as to make a sewing machine out of an airplane or an oak out of a pine. The most man can do for his neighbor is to understand and inspire him. The most he can do for himself is to understand and ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... breakfasted, start again for the beach. When it is low tide they go shrimp-fishing or walk about in the shallow water looking for shells and sea-weed. When it is high tide, all sit at the door of their tents sewing, reading, or talking—I mean, of course, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... it was a jenny ass, and that a man would not have been so foolish; but whether the compliment is paid to human or to masculine character does not appear—perhaps to both in one. The story told about the famous paradox is very curious. The Queen of France, Joanna or Jeanne, was in the habit of sewing her lovers up in sacks, and throwing them into the Seine; not for blabbing, but that they might not blab—certainly the safer plan. Buridan was exempted, and, in gratitude, invented the sophism. What it has to do with the matter {38} has never been explained. Assuredly qui facit per alium ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... laid it here on the sewing-machine. Gee! the only way for a fellow to keep his hat round this joint ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... I was happy. I sang in the choir and attended the sewing society, and recited that 'Annie Laurie' thing with the whistling stunt in it, 'in a manner bordering upon the professional,' as the weekly village paper reported it. And Arthur and I went rowing, and ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge of sewing,—never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of spending time. Can't you ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... had observed that Gretchen was no longer spinning, but instead was employed in sewing, and that, too, on very fine work, which surprised me the more, as the days were already shortening, and winter was coming on. I thought no further about it; only it troubled me that several times I ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... entered into the creative moments. He would sometimes become deeply abstracted in imagination; and while he was writing "The Scarlet Letter" it is related by a trustworthy person that, sitting in the room where his wife was doing some sewing, he unconsciously took up a part of the work and cut it into minute fragments with the scissors, without being aware that he had done so. At some previous time, he had in the same way gradually chipped off with a knife ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Hindu girls, including a school for the blind; a large and commodious hospital; a printing office with presses capable of turning out a high order of typography; an asylum for lepers; a rescue-home for unfortunate girls; normal classes for teachers and for nurses; training in sewing, embroidery, and weaving; and many another sort of Christian service, including the work of the factory and the farm. Every species of cooking on the premises, and all the care of the rooms and houses, is ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... months. When released from "the brig," they found the ship at London. Here they heard of the glorious victory of the "Constitution," and determined to celebrate it. By ripping up their clothing into strips, and sewing the strips together, a rude American flag was made; and with the most astonishing audacity the three sailors hung this emblem over a gun, and gave three cheers for the stars and stripes. This naturally brought them ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... watch killed and quartered him. Two days afterwards his brother went to look for him, brought home the severed body, and got a tailor to sew the quarters together. Next day the dragons called on the tailor to make them coats and shoes (sic), and heard of his sewing together the body. He showed them the house, and forty-eight dragons got into chests, which the forty-ninth deposited with the poor man. The children, playing about he chests, heard the dragons say, "Would that it were night, that we might eat them all!" So the father took ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... After that, however, it revenged itself in rain, steady rain that came down from a hopelessly grey sky without the least glint of sunlight in it. It was very mild too; the air had a heavy languor that made everybody feel tired and disinclined for any exertion. Mrs. Fleming spread the table with sewing, and sighed at the largeness of the task which faced her. The Vicar shut himself in his study, and pinned a notice on the door stating that nobody must disturb him. Monty retired to develop photos; Neale, clad in a mackintosh, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... BRUNSWICK (101), the capital, a busy commercial town, once a member of the Hanseatic League, and fell into comparative decay after the decay of the League, on the Oker, 140 m. SW. of Berlin; an irregularly built city, it has a cathedral, and manufactures textiles, leather, and sewing-machines. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... they had in the days that followed! Mother's sewing machine hummed for many hours every day. And at last she got out the little trunk and began to carefully pack away the neatly folded gingham dresses, the blue shirts and overalls, a few toys and other things she knew the children would need. A letter had already been written to Grandma, telling ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... of a girl hardly begins to wake up, or take any natural interest in the acquisition of general ideas, before she comes to puberty. But all over London girls of thirteen or fourteen leave school and are sent by their mothers to earn half a crown a week matching patterns or sewing on sequins. ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... all her old pains and aches running riot. She got no relief from them night or day without large doses of chloral. The slightest exertion, such as sewing, writing, and reading for a few minutes, greatly wearied her. Even the simple mental effort of casting up the weekly housekeeping expenses of a very small household upset her, and she had to give it up. The act of walking one ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... well entertained that his mother said she would go over to the sewing-room for a little while to run up ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... years at Edgewater, the home of her grandson. Her death was typical of her life of piety. On a certain afternoon seventy-five women were assembled for Lenten sewing. After greeting them all in the drawing-room Aunt Pomeroy ascended the stairs to her room, stretched herself upon the bed, and quietly drew her last breath. In accordance with the old custom the clock in the death-chamber was stopped, and a sheet ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... stopped the pump. A small motor, the size of a medium Hubbard squash operated a washing machine and wringer on wash days. This same motor was a man-of-all-work for this house, for, when called on, it turned the separator, ground and polished knives and silverware, spun the sewing machine, ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... of the oldest towns in New Jersey," remarked Andy, as they walked around the depots and down Broad Street, the main thoroughfare. "Down along the water front is one of the largest sewing machine factories in the world. I was through it once and I can tell you it was a sight well ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... sewing tow inside pieces of linen, or folding linen and sewing the pieces together. They are used to keep off pressure from parts such as that ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... copy book says about idle hands." He crossed one leg and leaned back as though for a comfortable chat. "No, you come and see me, Murdock, and state how much you've been damaged, and we'll see what we can do. Why, these little lawyers love to name things big. They'd call a sewing circle a riot if one of the members dropped ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and determine its poles; or, break half an inch, or an inch, off your magnetised darning-needle and suspend it by a fine silk fibre. The sewing-needle, or the fragment of the darning needle, is now to be used as a test-needle, to examine the distribution of the magnetism in your strip of steel. Hold the strip upright in your left hand, and cause the test-needle to approach the lower end of your strip; one end of the test-needle ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... impetus from her own private fortunes, was to give the doctrine a recrudescence of interest by resolutely applying it to the status of women. We cannot follow her in detail from the point where she abandons the domestic sewing-basket to reappear smoking black cigars in the Latin Quarter. We find her, at about 1831, entering into competition with the brilliant literary generation of Balzac, Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Merimee, Stendhal, and Sainte-Beuve. To signalize her equality with her brothers in talent, she adopts ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert |
