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Thimble
A thimble is a small pitted cup worn on the finger that protects it from being pricked or poked by a needle while sewing. The Old English word , the ancestor of thimble, is derived from Old English , the ancestor of the English word ''thumb''. History Pre-17th century As the purpose of a thimble is to prevent discomfort while sewing by providing a barrier between fingertips and the blunt end of a needle, it is likely that the earliest thimbles were created closely following the invention of sewing. According to the United Kingdom Detector Finds Database, thimbles dating to the 10th century have been found in England, and thimbles were in widespread use there by the 14th century. Although there are isolated examples of thimbles made of precious metals—Elizabeth I is said to have given one of her ladies-in-waiting a thimble set with precious stones—the vast majority of metal thimbles were made of brass. Medieval thimbles were either cast brass or made from hammered sheet. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lofting
John Lofting (1659 – 15 June 1742, London), originally Jan Loftingh, was an engineer and entrepreneur from the Dutch Republic. Biography His parents were Herman and Johanna. He moved to London, England, before 1686. He patented two inventions: the "sucking worm engine" (a fire engine) and a horse-powered thimble knurling machine. His mill was set up in Islington, where Lofting Road is named after him. However, in or about 1700, he moved his main operation to Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire to take advantage of the River Thames' ability to turn a water wheel which improved productivity, enabling the production of over 2 million thimbles per year. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Lofting, John 1659 births 1742 deaths Emigrants from the Dutch Republic Immigrants to England British engineers Dutch engineers History of firefighting English inventors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening pieces of textiles together using a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fabric, archaeologists believe Stone Age people across Europe and Asia sewed fur and leather clothing using bone, antler or ivory sewing-needles and "thread" made of various animal body parts including sinew, catgut, and veins. For thousands of years, all sewing was done by hand. The invention of the sewing machine in the 19th century and the rise of computerization in the 20th century led to mass production and export of sewn objects, but hand sewing is still practiced around the world. Fine hand sewing is a characteristic of high-quality tailoring, haute couture fashion, and custom dressmaking, and is pursued by both textile artists and hobbyists as a means of creative expression. The first known use of the word "sewing" was in the 14th century. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fingerhut
Fingerhut is an American catalog/online retailer. Fingerhut is distinguished from other online retailers in that it incorporates a technique known as hire purchase, where customers can pay with credit, and make monthly payments until their orders are paid off. History Fingerhut was founded in 1948 by William Fingerhut and his brother Manny, selling automobile seat covers. In 1952, the business repositioned itself as a mail order catalog company and diversified its goods to include towels, dishes, and tools. In 1969 the company went public. The Fingerhut family was no longer involved in the business after 1979. In 1994, Fingerhut sponsored the #98 NASCAR Ford Thunderbird for Cale Yarborough Motorsports. Derrike Cope started the year in the #98 car, before he was replaced later on by Jeremy Mayfield. In 1995 the company launched the e-commerce site fingerhut.com. By 1996, Fingerhut was one of the 25 largest credit card issuers in the United States. The Fingerhut brand has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connemara Marble
Connemara marble or "Irish green" is a rare variety of green marble from Connemara, Ireland. It is used as a decoration and building material. Its colour causes it to often be associated with the Irish identity, and for this reason it has been named the national gemstone of Ireland. It strongly resembles the verd antique, a green serpentinite breccia found in the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean. It is named after the region in which it is found (including Lissoughter in Recess, County Galway, and in Clifden). The marble was deposited as a limestone mud during the neoproterozoic. Geology Connemara marble occurs as layers within the Connemara Marble Formation from the lower Dalradian Appin Group, part of the Connemara Metamorphic Complex. The parent rock was an impure siliceous dolomite (rock), dolomitic limestone deposited in a continental shelf, shelf environment on the continental margin of Laurentia. In the Grampian Orogeny it underwent metamorphic grade, silimanite grade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Carl Fabergé
Peter Carl Gustavovich Fabergé (; – 24 September 1920; also known as Charles Fabergé) was a Russian goldsmith and jeweller. He is best known for creating Fabergé eggs made in the style of genuine Easter eggs, but using precious metals and gemstones rather than more mundane materials. He was one of the sons of Gustav Fabergé, the founder of the House of Fabergé. Early life and education Peter Carl Fabergé was born on in Saint Petersburg, Russia, into the family of the Baltic German jeweller of Huguenots, Huguenot descent, Gustav Fabergé, and his wife Charlotte Jungstedt, the daughter of Danish painter Karl Jungstedt. Gustav Fabergé's paternal ancestors were Huguenots, originally from La Bouteille, Picardy, who fled from France after the Edict of Fontainebleau, revocation of the Edict of Nantes, first to Germany near Berlin, then in 1800 to the Kreis Pernau, Pernau county (today Pärnu), Livonia Governorate, then part of Russia, now in Estonia. His father retired from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guilloché
Guilloché (), or guilloche (), is a decorative technique in which a very precise, intricate and repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into an underlying material via engine turning, which uses a machine of the same name. Engine turning machines may include the rose engine lathe and also the straight-line engine. This mechanical technique improved on more time-consuming designs achieved by hand and allowed for greater delicacy, precision, and closeness of line, as well as greater speed. The term ''guilloche'' is also used more generally for repetitive architectural patterns of intersecting or overlapping spirals or other shapes, as used in the Ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome and neo-classical architecture, and Early Medieval interlace decoration in Anglo-Saxon art and elsewhere. Medieval Cosmatesque stone inlay designs with two ribbons winding around a series of regular central points are very often called guilloche. These central points are often blank, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of New Jersey'', Rutgers University Press, . Amber is used in jewelry and as a healing agent in Traditional medicine, folk medicine. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as Inclusion (mineral), inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite, and the term ''ambrite'' is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. Etymology The English word ''amber'' derives from Arabic from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭭𐭡𐭫 (''ʾnbl'' /ambar/, “ambergris”) via Medieval Latin, Middle Latin ''ambar'' and Middle French ''ambre''. The word referred to what is n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moonstone (gemstone)
Moonstone is a sodium potassium aluminium silicate minerals, silicate ((Na,K)AlSi3O8) of the feldspar group that displays a pearly and opalescence, opalescent Lustre (mineralogy)#Schiller, schiller. An alternative name for moonstone is hecatolite (from goddess Hecate). Etymology The name ''moonstone'' derives from the stone's characteristic visual effect, called adularescence (or schiller), which produces a milky, bluish interior light. This effect is caused by light diffraction through alternating layers of orthoclase and albite within the stone. The diffracted light varies from white to blue, depending on the thinness of the albite layers. More technically, this micro-structure consists of regular exsolution layers (lamellae) of different alkali feldspars (orthoclase and sodium-rich plagioclase). Polished moonstones often display chatoyancy ("cat's eye" effect), where a luminous streak appears through the stone. Asterism (gemology), Asterism is rare and produces four-legged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agate
Agate ( ) is a banded variety of chalcedony. Agate stones are characterized by alternating bands of different colored chalcedony and sometimes include macroscopic quartz. They are common in nature and can be found globally in a large number of different varieties. There are some varieties of chalcedony without bands that are commonly called agate ( moss agate, fire agate, etc.); however, these are more properly classified solely as varieties of chalcedony. Agates are primarily formed as nodules within volcanic rock, but they can also form in veins or in sedimentary rock. Agate has been popular as a gemstone in jewelry for thousands of years, and today it is also popular as a collector's stone. Some duller agates sold commercially are artificially dyed to enhance their color. Etymology Agate was given its name by Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and naturalist. He discovered the stone c. 350 BCE along the shoreline of the River Achates (), now the Dirillo River, on the Italian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinnabar
Cinnabar (; ), or cinnabarite (), also known as ''mercurblende'' is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of Mercury sulfide, mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining mercury (element), elemental mercury and is the historic source for the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion and associated red mercury pigments. Cinnabar generally occurs as a vein-filling mineral associated with volcanic activity and Alkaline earth metal, alkaline hot springs. The mineral resembles quartz in symmetry and it exhibits birefringence. Cinnabar has a mean refractive index near 3.2, a mohs scale of mineral hardness, hardness between 2.0 and 2.5, and a specific gravity of approximately 8.1. The color and properties derive from a structure that is a hexagonal crystalline bravais lattice, lattice belonging to the trigonal crystal system, crystals that sometimes exhibit Crystal twinning, twinning. Cinnabar has been used for its color since antiquity in the Near ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabochon
A cabochon (; ) is a gemstone that has been shaped and polished, as opposed to faceted. The resulting form is usually a convex (rounded) obverse with a flat reverse. Cabochon was the default method of preparing gemstones before gemstone cutting developed. Application Cutting ''en cabochon'' (French: "in the manner of a cabochon") is usually applied to opaque gems, while faceting is usually used for transparent stones. Hardness is also taken into account as softer gemstones with a hardness lower than 7 on the Mohs hardness scale are easily scratched, mainly by silicon dioxide in dust and grit. This would quickly make translucent gems unattractive—instead they are polished as cabochons, making the scratches less evident. In asteriated stones such as star sapphires and chatoyant stones such as cat's eye chrysoberyl, a domed cabochon cut can show the star or eye, which would not be visible in a faceted cut. The usual shape for cutting cabochons is an ellipse, because the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubies
Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires; given that the rest of the corundum species are called as such, rubies are sometimes referred to as "red sapphires". Ruby is one of the traditional cardinal gems, alongside amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and diamond. The word ''ruby'' comes from ''ruber'', Latin for red. The color of a ruby is due to the presence of chromium. Some gemstones that are popularly or historically called rubies, such as the Black Prince's Ruby in the British Imperial State Crown, are actually spinels. These were once known as "Balas rubies". The quality of a ruby is determined by its color, cut, and clarity, which, along with carat weight, affect its value. The brightest and most valuable shade of red, called blood-red or pigeon blood, commands a larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
