ABSTRACT
The Nun’s Book, Directions for Weaving Watch Strings, is a seventeenth-century English instruction book for making silk braids by the manipulation of ‘boes’ or loops of coloured threads on the fingers. Braids made in this way were utilised in early modern clothing and accessories as button loops, points, purse strings, girdles and bookmarkers. No introduction to, or identification of, the craft (fingerloop braiding) is given; there is no preamble to the text, simply immediate immersion into two quite distinct sets of instructions. 35 tiny, coloured, silk samples, sewn to the page, accompany 38 verbal directions for weaving a variety of decorative braids. A series of codified charts give directions for weaving braids containing letters of the alphabet. This anonymous manuscript raises many questions about its production and consumption in terms of its text and textile content, but a reading of it within its cultural context suggests an elite female provenance.
