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So y'all know how much of a history hound I am? How I love the olden days, even though I'm grateful for indoor plumbing and electricity? Well a while back I found a gorgeous Chatelaine belt in one of our free Meuseums and fell absolutely in love with it and decided that I want one!

A chatelaine is a decorative belt hook or clasp worn at the waist with a series of chains suspended from it. Each chain is mounted with a useful household appendage such as scissors, thimble, watch, key, vinaigrette, household seal, etc.

Chatelaines were worn by many housekeepers in the 19th century. They were also worn by Anglo Saxon women, as seen from the burial record.


They're usually made entirely out of metal, but you try finding a decorative peice of metal strong enough, and big enough to do what I want it to! It's IMPOSSIBLE! So I decided to go with ribbon instead.

My chatelaine is made with a metal clasp, a golden ribbon, a decorative card making piece of metal and ribboned flowers. It's not entirely finished yet as I need to locate a pair of needlenose pliers...*recons her daddy may have some*

But here's the actual clasp of it:

Attached to my curtains. I will be adding at least two hooks, and placing one chain on each hook. Scissors and needles. As I find other things to put on it I will add more chains and more hooks. Each hook will be able to hold two chains.

Never again will I loose my bloody scissors!

Angel that looks lovely, can't wait to see it in chains.

What a great idea and how clever of you to see it and make it!

Thank you. I origionally wanted to buy one, but they're hundreds of pounds! So I figured all it really is is a broach with chains, I can make that. It's a bit different from what they "should" be as I've used ribbon instead of metal, but I actually really like it.

Surely there is no "should" in craft ? I bet if some of those medieval ladies could see this they'd wish they'd thought of it too!

That's very pretty Angel and it's not really so different from what it should be as they later developed into brooches or fabric type ones that could be worn at the neck. So yours is more an amalgamating of the styles!

It's beautiful Angel. Well done.

Looks great Angel

Oooooh, I didn't know that. I only know them as metal things. Never followed their growth through to a fabric age. Thank you! Always love to learn new things ^_^ I did think about using a thinner ribbon instead of chains, keeping with the pretty delicate theme. But there's metal in the design so I think metal chains would fit in nice with the chain if I can find the right type of metal.

Oh there's plenty of Should in crafting, now whether we listen to the people saying should....now that's an entirely different matter. You know I once got told that in cross stitch all my top stitches should lay top left to bottom right, no matter what I was stitching or it's wrong My top stitches usually lay bottom left to top right, and in some designs they don't all face the same way I like people telling me what I should do, inspires me on different ways to do it Just to annoy them usually