During the Victorian age and up into the first part of the 20th century, single initials, monograms or ciphers (there’s a difference between initials, monograms, and ciphers, explained here) embroidered onto personal linens served more than just a decorative purpose. And sometimes, they were so simple, small, and discreet that they weren’t necessarily even that decorative.

Imagine marking all the personal linens in your trousseau. (Um…ok, first imagine that you had to have a trousseau…).

Every hanky, every under garment…just so there’d be no mix up in your household laundry when your servants or your laundry service cleaned them.

Imagine that your husband or brother or father is going off to fight in WWI, and his personal linens all need to be marked. It’s not as if you can whip out the Sharpie, after all.

Or just imagine that you’re an industrious embroiderer who wants to embroider a neat little initial on a nice pile of hankies to to sell, to give as a gift, or whatever.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could impress the letter’s design onto many different linens, uniformly?

Enter, the iron-on transfer, first developed in the late 1800’s, and popular ever since for the easy transfer of embroidery patterns.

How happily handy!