The Lady of the House in Victorian Times would be responsible for the running of her household but usually this task would be delegated to the Housekeeper, who would manage the other servants and see that everything ran smoothly.
Victorian ladies saw little of their children, who were passed from nurse to nanny to governess (girls) or sent to school (boys). Children did not even eat with their parents – they ate in the nursery with the nanny. These arrangements freed the Lady of the House to engage an abundance of leisure pursuits popular in Victorian times.
Victorian Scrap-Booking
Scrap-booking today has become a lucrative industry. However, the hobby is not a new one – scrapbooks were kept in Victorian times as prized family possessions, to be passed down from generation to generation and enormous care was taken in arranging the pages artistically. Scrap books were elaborately leather bound with clasps and brass locks or decoratively bound.
Many a genteel young lady would fill her scrapbook with notes, memorabilia, cards, letters, pressed flowers, sketches, drawings and watercolor paintings. Scrap-booking was considered the ideal occupation for rainy days, with children encouraged to fill pages with notes and drawings.
Adults, usually women, would write or copy pages of poetry and use pretty paper or thicker, good quality paper for paintings and sketches.
Victorian Needlework
A major indoor Victorian occupation was needlework, not mending but netting purses and embroidering pen cases and other decorative work, although some Ladies would run up shifts and shirts for the poor. The types of needlework included embroidery on linen, silk and velvet, tapestry, cross-stitch, tatting, lace work, netting, trimmings such as tassels, appliqué work and sewing of monograms on household linen.
Girls were encouraged to perfect basic sewing stitches such as running stitch (being the easiest stitch to teach young children), back-stitching, hemming and over-sewing (commonly called seaming).
Embroidery in Victorian Times
Regularity and straightness of the line were to be perfected before more complicated stitches were tried, such as smocking and embroidery on fabric. Later, complicated samplers would be embroidered before advancing on to complicated stitches as flat and raised satin stitching.
Beautiful embroidery upon white materials such as linen would be a goal for the young lady, such work becoming a family heirloom to be passed onto the next generation.
Intricate needlework and embroidery has not died out in modern times, but in many cases is considered more of a hobby than the necessary skill of the past.