braiding

N.Y. Playground [raffia work] (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• tacit geese said:

  Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Eye Candy Art Post (share 1 comment 1), and we'd love to have this added to the group!

• Juanbpn. said:

  Excellent image and glas, Very thanks and Greetings.

• Wystan said:

  Kids here in Ann Arbor used to do stuff like this sixty years ago -- probably still do. It was a service of the parks system, called "Supervised Play," and for mere pennies we could weave potholders by stringing elastic cotton loops across a grid of nails, or braid raffia into lanyards. (Our "raffia" came in a selection of bright colors, and was made of some kind of synthetic, plasticized material). We ended up with segments of lanyards that never got finished: the same kind of project that the poet Billy Collins wrote about in his wonderful poem, "The Lanyard," in which he describes one he fashioned as a boy in an Adirondak summer camp: "this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom." "The Lanyard" ---------- thegoodenoughwitch.typepad.com/cyn/2009/04/the-lanyard-by...

• swanq said:

  NYT of July 3, 1921 query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04EFD71739E133A... describes the NYC system of playgrounds that operated over the summer. "The public school playgrounds open Tuesday. Throughout the season they will be open from 1:30 P.M, to 5:30 P.M. daily. The regular school term, which closed on June 30, did not end the responsibility of the Board of Education for the welfare of the children...." NYT of August 10. 1913 query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9501E4DC113BE633A... mentions raffia class in particular.

• Jim Rees said:

  We still had the supervised play when I was growing up in Ann Arbor. I eagerly looked forward to sending my own son off to the park on Saturday afternoons but they have long since discontinued it.