Calling All Crafty Culberts!

The John Culbert - Mary Ward family brought with them from Ireland a spinning wheel.

Image found online. Image does not contain actual Culberts.

Ethel (Gras) Culbert (1886-1996) said, "Many a time I sat fascinated as I watched my mother spin the carded rolls of wool with which she knit socks and stockings for the whole family."[1]

Ethel's mother, Jane (Fairhall) Culbert cleaned the wool from her flock of sheep on Poplar Farm near Lucan, Ontario, and had it carded at a mill. Then she spun it into yarn for weaving blankets and for knitting socks for men and stockings for the children.[2] 

Jane Eleanor (Fairhall) Culbert (1858-1949). Crafter extraordinaire.

Ethel continues, "One thing I never could forgive her for was her insistence on my wearing homemade woolen stockings that drove me nearly crazy, the way they itched my legs. Of course it was her chief concern that her children should be warm, when walking two or more miles off to school [Atkinson's School] on cold and stormy winter days. She would not listen to my protest, saying "Now you'll get used to them," but which I never did, vowing that I never could be half so cruel to children of my own."[3]

Ethel says her mother did much sewing and knitting for little ones as they grew up, even unto the fourth generation of Culberts. "She was always making quilts, such nice designs in patchwork... She did nice crocheting, edgings mostly for pillow cases, and some doilies."[4]

"She braided rugs. In early days she sewed together strips of rags and hand them woven into carpets, some were dyed to make a pattern, and this was the only floor covering we knew in the old log house. The carpet was padded underneath with straw and tacked close to the wall."[5]

CALLING ALL CRAFTY CULBERTS!

Do you create any of the following arts and crafts?

Knitting, crocheting, quilting, sewing, embroidering, pottery, woodcraft/carpentry, metalwork, brewing your own beer, painting, drawing, making jewellery or creating other handcrafted items? 

If so, please email a few photos of your handiwork to me, Mary Jane Culbert, with a description of what you've made. If you sell your work online or in a gallery, please provide a link.

I'll put together a post (or posts) to showcase the arts and crafts of modern-day Culbert descendants. 

Note: This invitation to submit photos is open to the descendants of John Culbert & Mary Ward and also to the spouses and partners of those descendants. This invitation is also open to other families who are connected, however distantly, to the descendants of John Culbert and Mary Ward. 

My email address:

Footnotes:

[1]Stories From Life by Ethel Gertrude Culbert Gras, page 49. 
[2] ibid. page 94.
[3] ibid. page 94.
[4] ibid. page 101.
[5] ibid. page. 101.