From the Compost Heap header. A pencil style illustration of a compost heap with flowers and plants growing around it. A bee buzzes by and a white rabbit hops by.

Tenterhooks

Sometime in the months after Davy was born I found myself saying I was “on tenterhooks” and realizing I had no idea what it meant.

Photograph of dictionary entry for tenterhook: a sharp hooked nail used for fastening cloth on a tenter - on tenterhooks. In suspense, or under a distressing strain.

A tenter is a frame with wicked looking tenterhooks that stretch cloth taut to make it flat.

Black and white photograph of figures removing a large swathe of white cloth from a wooden frame with tenterhooks
Black and white photograph of the same frame with fabric attached to half of it.

Once I learned I knew it had to be a metaphor for a piece of art.

Suddenly the word was more accurate than ever with a new visceral understanding of what it meant.

Closeup photography of a wooden frame with wickedly sharp hooks piercing light brown cloth

This work is done indoors now, but you can still see holes like this on some bolts of cloth.

Closeup of the edge of a yellow cloth with holes from tenterhooks clearly visible

Feeling curious? Tap here to read more.


Image Sources

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Fifth Edition, 1945

Witney Blanket Story

Wiki Commons

Eleanor Pritchard