muff

A muff is a warm covering for receiving the hands, usually made of fur or dressed skins. (Webster, 1882) Sometimes, muffs are made out of the fur coat your husband gave you for Christmas a quarter of a century ago. (Cyberbessie, 2008)

For years, I would look at that fur coat hanging in my closet and dream of cutting it up and making it into a muff (yes, for me) and a nice assortment of tippet, cape, and muff Christmas ornaments. This week, I took the plunge and finally did the cutting - tactfully waiting until Marse Grover was at work, of course - and I had a friend show me how to sew fur, since I never had and I think that fear was probably part of what was holding me back.

In the "Little House" books, you'll find a muff mentioned in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Nellie wears a fur cape to church, Laura wants one, and lo-and-behold if one isn't hanging on the Christmas tree for her that year. And with a matching muff! Reverend Alden puts the cord of the muff around Laura's neck and her hands go inside the silky muff. It comes far up her wrists and hides the shortness of her coat sleeves. Nellie stares, while "Laura walks by with her hands snuggled deep in the soft muff. Her cape was prettier than Nellie's, and Nellie had no muff." (Chapter 31, "Surprise")

In the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript, though, it's neither a muff nor cape that Laura receives that Christmas, but a tippet:

People had given each other presents of things that were needed. There was a washboard on that tree: and new shoes and boots and mittens and calico for dresses and shirts, besides dolls and handsleds. Some church in the east had sent a barrel of toys and clothing to our Sunday school and my present from this barrel was a little fur collar or tippet, to keep my throat warm. I was so pleased I could hardly speak and just managed to say 'Thank You' to Rev. Alden when Ma told me to.

The top picture has nothing to do with "Little House," unless you consider the fact that years later, the girl in the photo (Maud Hart) cooked a chicken for Rose Wilder Lane while they were both living in New York City. Or that maybe, just maybe, Lovelace had Rose in mind when she created the character of Mrs. Main-Whittaker for one of her books. But when I first saw the picture of Gennie Masters and her fur muff (shown above), I immediately thought of the picture of Maud with hers, which was taken at around the same time. It took me a while to make the Laura connection, and suddenly I realized that it was time to be making some furs of my own. (And, wow, those feet do look big to me!)
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:40 PM