hung out to dry
At our cottage in PEI, we have a clothesline. Here’s a shot of it in the morning…
And here’s a shot of it in the evening…
The wind is always blowing on that wee little island and the lawns are big and flat making for perfect ‘clothesline country’.
I have a book at the cottage that’s all about the clothesline through time…
There’s actually some interesting trivia.
Clotheslines and clothespins came along in the early 1800’s when the idea for using rope to hang clothes was borrowed by an inventive housewife from her seafaring husband. Maybe in PEI, who knows? 
Shortly after came clothespins with the push kind coming first…
…and then the spring or clip kind was patented in 1832.
Now of course we have the choice between wood and plastic pins…I like them both…
It’s fun to imagine the changes in clotheslines - where they’ve been hung, and what’s been hung on them - over the past 200 years….
Farm denims and cotton bedding…
50’s aprons and teatowels…
Smirfs, Barney’s and Babybops…
Not to mention the places they’ve been hung…
All over the world…
City and country…
In different styles, like the umbrella…
The t-post…
And if you think you don’t have the posts for it, you can always be inventive like this creative sole who used a shepherd’s hook from the garden store.
Hanging clothes on the line just feels good.
Plain and simple.
Comments
One of my best memories of my Mom was when she put me to bed after a long summer’s day and made the bed with me in it, throwing the clean sheet over top of me..it had just been taken off the line and I still clearly remember how wonderful it smelled from being hung in the fresh air all day. I also remember the sun gleaming through the hung clothes as I ran through them to hug my Mom.
Love my clothesline too. Mine is on one of those pulleys and is about a mile long
You fill it neatly 
and then hoist up with the pulley that is attached to the house. Love a nice breeze to take out the wrinkles. Not the breeze that blows them next door 
A dear old friend who lived next to us on his century farm, had the kind where you hoist up in the middle with a nice long stick, once you have it full. To me that’s an true Island clothes line. The ends are usually attached between tree branches so the tension is saggy so the branch is used to hoist it up of the ground. A branch with a Y on the end. Never thought to take a picture of it but I may have one with him pushing one of our kids under it in his wheelbarrow.
My Grandmother taught me to fill my line so that it looks nice, (and hers was behind the house.
I can’t seem to instill the same sense of pride into our daughters…maybe when I forward these blog to them, they may.
Thanks for giving us a new look at clotheslines…love it!
I was always taught to hang tops by their bottoms and bottoms by their tops!
Love your clothesline pictures Cobi. I too love clotheslines and even used one strung with jeans and green gingham on it for a themed teachers lunch at my children’s school in order to hide the books in the library so we could create a country, picnic-themed lunch. We even used mason jars as flower vases with hydrangeas in them.
Thanks Kelly Barr
My elderly Mother thinks that breezy sunny days are a *waste*, if she CAN’T hang a load of laundry on her patio clothesline!