Leaf Pen-Wipers

In reading through the directions for making pen-wipers, one design group caught my attention: The Leaf Pen-Wiper. The leaf pen-wiper shows up again and again in both publications for adults and youth. This type of pen-wiper stands out for me as having possibilities as a youth or family project. Helen Campbell’s directions
include selecting an actual leaf, a maple or oak, to be the pattern for the pen-wiper:

“Leaf Penwiper.
“Choose a pretty maple or oak leaf for the pattern of your penwiper, and select cloth of a color that would suggest the leaf, – reddish-brown for an oak, or yellow for a maple. Take a paper pattern of the leaf by
laying it on stif paper, tracing the outline with a pencil, and then cutting it out with a pair of scissors. Cut out two leaves of your brown or yellow cloth, and three inside leaves of chamois-skin or broadcloth. If you like, you can imitate the veins of a leaf by embroidering them with silk in stem-stitch on the upper leaf of the
penwiper.” ( The American Girl’s Home Book of Work and Play, 1902.)

What a great outdoor to indoor project. I am picturing children collecting leaves outside as the leaves
fall in the autumn. Then, coming inside and creating their own pen-wiper.

“Leaf Pen-Wiper. – Work a leaf in green cloth, with the veins all marked in lighter silk, and black pieces
underneath. Any shaped leaf can be taken; a fern will do even, as the pinnules can be worked on it to imitate the shape tolerably.” (Three Hundred Decorative and Fancy Articles for Presents, Fairs, etc. by Lucretia Peabody
Hale, 1885.)

A Leaf Pen-Wiper.
Your pattern for this must be a beech-leaf again,—a long one this time,—or you may trace the shape from the illustration. Outline the shape as before, and from the model thus secured cut six leaves in flannel—two green, two brown, and two red, or red, white and blue, or any combination you like. Snip the edge of each leaf into very tiny points, and chain-stitch veins upon it with gold-colored floss. Attach these leaves together by the upper ends, arranging under them three triply pointed leaves of black broadcloth or silk to receive the ink, and finish the top with a small bow of ribbon. (St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol 5, 1877.)