So, I'm writing a Regency-style romance with the main character being a seamstress in roughly the early Victorian age. As someone who grew up with someone like that, I was used to the term "stash" being used to describe the obsessive collection fabric or yarn in hopes of using it "some day". For example, my mother's yarn stash was a room and her fabric is two.
Assuming that obsessively collecting things isn't a recent invention, I'm looking for the right term or terms to describe a large collection of fabrics or yarn. The specific year is less important and more of the rough period (I'm happy with terms that are close that period also).
I looked at Google's ngram, but it shows usage before and after the 1800's but not during. Nor does it helpfully tell the usage (a collection) or its replacement.
Thank you.
I don't have an answer, (and I hope this is kosher for this subreddit...) but I do know that /u/MaryRobinette is a spec-fic author writes a lot about the Regency era and has made Regency era dresses. She might have more information, though I suspect she doesn't frequent this subreddit.
"Stash" in this case is a term from the drug culture of the Sixties and Seventies. Like Stash Tea.
In my current research in Victorian crafts and terminology, I would say there was no special term. It was just one's collection of threads and fabrics. Why would it need a special word? I'm thinking of an 1855 book by Warren and Pullan where the mother goes up to the attic to get some materials for her daughter to make Christmas gifts, and there is no word used: she just brings back all sorts of threads, ribbons, bourdon, linings, fabrics, beads and hardware.
One had a scrap basket or bag of the off-cuts and morsels of ribbon left over. Sometimes they supplied enough for a small project, and sometimes they were just chopped up to make a stuffing for a pin-cushion or masnud (it's a cushion with a board back).
For some authentic fancy work, I would recommend you drop by Antique Pattern Library and pick up some early stuff like Mrs. Gaugain's Lady's Knitting, Netting & Crochet Book of 1840, or A Winter Gift for Ladies, being Instructions in Knitting, Netting, and Crotchet Work. &c. of 1848. The University of Arizona also has an ebook collection of fabric arts. Reading in these will give you authentic materials.
For example, they used sarsenet where we have to sub habotai silk. They used Ida cloth or Java canvas where we have Aida. You do Berlin work, not needlepoint. Depending on the period, eyelet lace may be broderie Anglaise or Malta work. Hairpin lace is done as an insertion with thread on actual hairpins, and it may be staple work or Maltese crochet. Mignardise may be a basis for a crocheted trim. Guipure is darned netting, and you may make the net from scratch. Tatting may be frivolité. They did braiding with coronation cord, Albert braid, Russia braid, or soutache, depending on what result they wanted, and your seamstress may do a lot of this on clothing. Their panné velvet is nothing like ours: the term meant a patterned velvet, like a moiré or some more formal pattern, not a knitted fabric. Wash leather is our chamois, used for lining tobacco bags, among other things. Your character will use pound beads, seed beads, bugle beads, and O.P. or Bohemian beads, but I can't find fancy finishes like rainbow and cachemire until the 1870s. Their "sequins" are our spangles or paillettes; our sequins are their spangles or brilliants.
Can you see why I'm writing a book of translations? Otherwise using those old craft books is a real mess. This all started from trying to find the equivalent of "3rd size purse silk."
Ask if you need more.