Kalea’s Watchguard Reflection
My first encounter with a watchguard was through Charlotte Brontë’s final novel, Villette (1853), in which the protagonist, Lucy Snowe, crafts a watchguard as a birthday gift for M. Paul. As I researched and made my own watchguard, I was struck by how involved the entire body is in the making of this everyday item. Recreating Lucy’s making process allowed me to investigate how Brontë represents intimacy in Villette through such made objects.
I had difficulty wrapping my head (and hands) around the weaving pattern at first. The knotting technique in this tutorial resembles macrame—a craft I am terrible at. Furthermore, the instructions for watchguard weaving that I found in nineteenth-century magazines and books call for netting silk or purse silk thread, which are no longer produced outside of vintage brands. I used beading cord in my watchguard instead, but I am curious about how the texture and durability of the watchguard changes when substituting modern alternatives for beading silk.
Another material commonly used in extant watchguards is human hair. This form of hair work embeds a somatic quality within the watchguard. That is, using a piece of one’s body to craft an item intended to be held close to the body of another speaks to the intimacy of crafting and gifting such an item. The maker does not need to use hair to incorporate personal items into the watchguard. Watchguard charms (I added a locket to mine) can perform a similar intimate or even romantic function. Articles in Victorian magazines divulge the romantic connotations of the watchguard. Watchguards frequently appear as material symbols of attachment between men and women in articles about love, courtship, and remembrance. For example, in breach of marriage promise disputes from 1857 and 1862, gifting a watchguard functioned as evidence of a marriage promise.
Once I sat down to create the watchguard I encountered another problem: crafting a watchguard in this manner—making a loom using your body and a steady surface—makes the maker immobile. In Villette, Lucy Snowe’s annoyance when her students distract her while she makes her watchguard and her contentment when she’s banished to the end of the table made sense to me after I anchored myself to my coffee table and tried to not lose track of the intricate stitches every time I untied myself to retrieve an item I forgot to leave within arm’s reach.
Crafting a watchguard taught me about the Victorians’ awareness of bodies and their relationship to physical objects in fiction, print culture, and daily life. Only once I tied myself to a watchguard did I comprehend how involved the body is in making an item that was intended to be held close to the body of another. In this context, I was able to connect the inner workings of the minds of characters in the text to the workings of my own body during the crafting process and develop a deeper understanding of the significance of making and carrying a watchguard in the nineteenth century.
Works Cited
“Breach of Promise of Marriage." The Lady's Newspaper & Pictorial Times, no. 535, 28 Mar. 1857, p. 202. Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
“Breach of Promise of Marriage.” The Lady's Newspaper & Pictorial Times, no. 806, 7 June 1862, p. 354. Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
