A Fascinating Article

Dear Gentle Reader,

You know how sometimes, one starts to read a book, that leads to an internet search, another book, a website, a blog post, another internet search, until finally, and most definitely an hour or more later, you forget what the original thread was.  It can often and affectionately be referred to as 'falling down the rabbit hole' of 'research'.  I am currently re-reading a fantastic book titled The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker, which led me briefly to a google search, and I found this wonderful article written a few years ago by a very clever young woman, Clare Walker Gore. I just had to share it with you today.

Crafty Women and Artful Misses: Femininity, Feminism and Female Crafts in the Nineteenth-Century Novel ...
The trouble was, despite knowing that no self-respecting reader should, I couldn’t help identifying with the girls who shared my sedentary and shamefully ‘feminine’ hobbies. I was continually, secretly, siding with the wrong girl. If any of my readers preferred Meg to Jo in Little Women, or had a sneaking sympathy for Enid Blyton’s Anne, they will know the shame of which I speak. ...


And once you've read the article, I wonder if you'll start to think about characters in novels or movies or a TV series you've recently seen, that have similarities to those that Clare discussed.  My first thoughts - Sansa and Arya Stark in Game of Thrones.   Then I looked at the embroidery done on the costumes in GOT.  Here's a glimpse.

Isn't 'research' fun!

Back to the writing for me, and perhaps some fun research 'down the rabbit hole' for you, gentle reader.