Cupid needlecase or etui c. 1759-69 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O180909/etui-or-bodkin-chelsea-porcelain-factory/
The Dress-Maker’s Lover.
Cupid is at work again in our community, and this time he has rammed an arrow right through the swain, but it seems has only tickled the gay young dress-maker a little with the feathered end of his dart. The following poem written by the victim tells the whole story:
Only this one dear boon I ask,
That you will give me your a dress,
That in your smiles I yet may basque,
And gain new life at each caress.
The blushes mantle on your cheeks;
Deny me not, it’s dread foulard;
I’ve pressed my suit for days and weeks,
And sent you letters by the yard
Oft at your feet I’ve knelt and braid,
But you have cut me short and square;
It lace with you, but I’m a frayed
You will not make up to me fair.
It’s sashy pale has grown my face,
Though all things look most navy blue;
I’ll collar mine, or I will face
Whatever evils may ecru.
The State Rights Democrat [Albany, OR] 19 September 1879: p. 3
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: A Valentine’s effusion of the most cutting pattern…. It is obvious that the speaker considers himself incom-pleat without his be-stitching companion. Mrs Daffodil feels that he is waist-ing his time. A man who took such liberties with the language would be ill-suited to matrimony and without stay-ing power. He might wish to so-lace himself with Mr Hugh Rowley’s jokes:
Why is love like Irish poplin?
Because it’s half stuff.
Why is a deceptive woman like a seamstress?
Because she is not what she seams!
Puniana, Hugh Rowley, 1867: p. 213-4
Mrs Daffodil wishes her readers the happiness of loving and being loved on this Valentine’s Day.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Mrs Daffodil Digresses 