Belding Bros & Tatting
I draw your attention to Belding Bros.Silk Company, purveyors of silk threads. Belding Bros. Compnay was founded in 1860and began making silk thread in 1866 in Rockville, CT. This expanded to silk spinning mills in Belding, MI, Northampton, MA, Petaluma, CA, and Montreal, Canada. Apparently their mills were first class facilities and their care of the workers, specially the young woman who worked for them was paramount. They established well maintained dormitories for the women workers which were hotel-like. And the mills' facilities included a corporate hospital, too.
As with other thread makers, Belding Bros. also developed crochet, embroidery and needlework pattern books in order to tempt needle workers to try their thread. It was common for the manufacturers to publish their own magazine with patterns or catalogs calling for the use of their products. Competitions with prizes and premiums were frequent.
Read more about it at:
https://www.belding.michlibrary.org/our-history-1/belding-brothers-company-silk-manufacturers.html
Belding Brothers & Company merged with Heminway Silk Company in 1925 and did business as Belding-Heminway. Soon after, the company was acquired by Corticelli Silk Company and did business as Belding-Heminway-Corticelli. The last mill in Belding closed in 1932.
The antique pattern library has two Belding Bros. books for free download. Although these two have no tatting patterns, their flower diagrams are inspirational. https://antiquepatterns.dreamhosters.com/BeldingRevisedNeedleHook3.pdf,
https://antiquepatterns.dreamhosters.com/BeldingSelfInstructor.pdf
The one Belding Bros. Booklet with tatting patterns was posted on BellaOnline in the free tatting patterns section over the weeks of July 17 through August 7, 2011. This book is broken into 4 sections.
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art39167.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38569.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38598.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38515.asp
As with other thread makers, Belding Bros. also developed crochet, embroidery and needlework pattern books in order to tempt needle workers to try their thread. It was common for the manufacturers to publish their own magazine with patterns or catalogs calling for the use of their products. Competitions with prizes and premiums were frequent.
Read more about it at:
https://www.belding.michlibrary.org/our-history-1/belding-brothers-company-silk-manufacturers.html
Belding Brothers & Company merged with Heminway Silk Company in 1925 and did business as Belding-Heminway. Soon after, the company was acquired by Corticelli Silk Company and did business as Belding-Heminway-Corticelli. The last mill in Belding closed in 1932.
The antique pattern library has two Belding Bros. books for free download. Although these two have no tatting patterns, their flower diagrams are inspirational. https://antiquepatterns.dreamhosters.com/BeldingRevisedNeedleHook3.pdf,
https://antiquepatterns.dreamhosters.com/BeldingSelfInstructor.pdf
The one Belding Bros. Booklet with tatting patterns was posted on BellaOnline in the free tatting patterns section over the weeks of July 17 through August 7, 2011. This book is broken into 4 sections.
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art39167.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38569.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38598.asp
https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38515.asp
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