Challenged

Since The Dreamstress wants to make my life a sewing nightmare, there should be more regular posts coming from me, SHOULD. I can make no promises during this fortnightly challenge of fashionable fortitude! I was very much hoping to get through challenge #0, but I think I'm going to hold off on posting what I did until challenge #1's deadline because there's a little tweaking needs done. But is that happening in my living room right now? No.

This is all that remains in scraps from cutting out a mancoat, I hope to goodness I didn't mightily mess up or I'll have to do some true 18thc patching. As it is menswear and I just DON'T UNDERSTAND why men are so hard to fit, I'm kinda half-cheating by modifying a Simplicity pirate frock coat pattern. Don't judge me. He's just gonna have it stained and torn up the first time he wears it anyway, like always.

Coal is lying in the background pretending to be dead so the moment I turn my back he can leap up and gnaw holes in all the wrong places in the fabric. Look at him, all innocuously bunny-like back there...looks are deceiving.

While procrastinating on the pockets, I've also been etsy shopping, and have some pretty lace coming to me:

I really don't have any business buying lace for 18th century stuff because it would have been rare out here in the Illinois frontier, although it WAS French territory, and they were definitely shipping silk ribbons and stuff out here for the demanding ladies so who knows. Also, I'm honestly not a great judge, I tried to compare everything I looked at to extant pieces of 18thc lace, and would like to use the top lace for lappets on a cap, and the bottom lace for sleeve ruffles if I ever get around to making a silk gown...so we shall see. Maybe they'll just sit in a drawer and I can pet them occasionally.

A lot of tv and a little sewing.

Still putting off Christmassy things, I've been ordering movies through my interlibrary loan coworker...all are supposed to be set in the 1700s but the costuming says otherwise in a few, oh well! A listing so far:

Tom Jones: I keep watching this one over and over because I love the lower class clothing! The upper class is hit or miss but the bed gowns, striped petticoats, checked aprons, caps and such on the less-than-gentry are awesome. Plot: a lot of lighthearted fun and drama with comical star-crossed lovers.

City of Vice: again, loving the lower class, someone did some good research. Fairly dark subject matter but compelling look at the beginning of London's police force. Sad there are only 5 episodes!

A Harlot's Progress: I really liked some of the caps the women were wearing, and again there was some great middling to lower class clothing. Based on what might have inspired Hogarth to sketch his series by the same name (kind of depressing, really, but I can sit through anything for good clothes).

Fanny Hill: oh Lordy, I think there's more clothing OFF people than on them, but what can you expect of one of the most racy novellas ever to be banned from sale? There are some really pretty gowns and I definitely want to take some screencaps of a few of the hats to reproduce them. Plot: the debauching of a young country girl who finds her love in a bawdy house, loses him, sleeps with a lot of people, and then finds him again. If you have the vapors over nudity, I don't advise this one. The producer is Andrew Davies of Pride and Prejudice fame, and I have to say this is pretty well done too, just very, very naughty.

The Brotherhood of the Wolf:  this had pretty much nothing to do with the 1700s, costume-wise..most of the female clothing looked like Halloween costume parodies of what uninformed people think 18th century clothing looks like, with some weird peasanty renditions of 17th century wear as well. Awful. But I've always been interested in the legend of the Beast of Gevaudan, the creature who prowled the mountainous region of France, so this fanciful rendition of one of the theories about it was fun enough to make me want to watch it again. Just not for the clothes.

And speaking of clothes I have made a tiiiiny bit of gown progress...in between all the tv. The sleeves are on and are pitifully set in but I refuse to tear them out and recut just because I didn't have enough fabric in the shoulder to prettily pleat along the top. Whatever. I'm so over 18thc sleeves *grumble*. The gown has robings down the front, and I think the back has turned out really pretty with the trim along the top. Going to bed happy tonight.

A tippetuous time

This weekend I finished a tippet! With the weather having turned hideously cold (high of 29? really? I know I should give thanks I'm not in Alaska but this Midwestern girl likes moderate temperatures) I've been thinking about how 18th century folk had to deal with the cold....especially women. NO long gown sleeves for the better part of the century, mostly finger-less mitts, impractically short or thin-looking cloaks...ugh I don't think I would have survived, or else I would've been unfashionably wearing blankets everywhere.

But I quite like some of the winter accessories, like muffs, and especially tippets! Furry scarves? Sign me up. Now I should make the disclaimer that I do not like the thought of murdering tiny animals to wear them, but since my tippet is vintage I figure it's ok to recycle. Here's the inspiration for the tippet:

(Marquise de Lamure, née Charlotte-Phillippine de Chastres de Cange, by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752).) 

So much gorgeousness in this painting that I don't know where to look first. The adorable lace cap, the earrings, the fan, the gloves (WITH FINGERS thank god, at least this woman knew how to be practical) and funny arm-warmer things. Of course none of my clothing is anywhere near this fabulous or upper-class, but when I spied a bit of fur at the thrift store and realized it was about the same color as the tippet in this painting, I snapped it up.

Most likely it was a coat collar at some point -- the back was covered with satin and it was stuffed inside with some dubious batting, with a row of snaps along one edge presumably to stick it to the coat.

It had a row of netting along the other edge, which came in handy when stitching the fur shut into a little tube. No idea what kind of fur it is...it's not silky enough for mink, not rough or long enough for coyote...all I can think of is that maybe it's been chemically treated somehow, or faded in daylight. A friend said it looks like a furry snake now...it doesn't! Ok I'm not fooling anyone, it kind of does.

                                                             Tada! A tippet!

Holidays = progress

As I'm procrastinating cookie baking and finishing decorating the house, I suddenly find there is time for sewing now, despite being busier than ever...funny how that works. Granted, a GREAT deal of my absence lately can be blamed upon my darling new child --the iPad Mini. I almost can't bear to take a shower because of how far away from it I have to be for ten minutes (ok not quite that bad, but I feel strangely bereft if it's in another room for too long). The degree of obsession, I unwisely supposed, would be much less than that I experienced when first getting an iPhone, because surely I'd be used to the whole thing now and it would be old hat. Foolish, foolish me.

At any rate, at least it's got a slightly better camera than the phone so it's (unimpressive) picture time!!! I don't know how well pictures attach from the mobile Blogger app (edit: not embedded within text, apparently) but here goes!

I was watching The History of Tom Jones, which really has fairly attractive 18th century clothing (certainly a few doozies as well though) and working on sleeve drafting tonight because somehow I lost the last paper pattern I drafted.

My first en fourreau back is still a bit iffy and certainly needs ironing but I'm rather proud of it, like a kid with his first horrible glue-dripping, macaroni-encrusted, cardboard picture frame craft. I.e., I know it's kind of a mess but at least I attempted it (and without a pattern!).

In my overflowing stash I found a bit of matelasse fabric and whipped up a "quilted" stomacher to go with the dress and I think it'll be rather pretty when the edges are covered by the gown. That fabric was ungodly expensive so it's a good thing JoAnn's only had a teeny bit left.

And I'll also treat you to a picture of King Coal, Ravager of Frocks. He has already chewed small holes in the gown skirt and got the butt-spankins of his little furry life, because he knows well and good he isn't allowed near my fabric. Oh well, I guess patching is authentic.

Most Grievous Neglect

Oh dear.  I haven't paid any attention to blogging in a great while. I had several months of pet tribulations with my poor sweet childhood doggie, Honey, and we finally had to put her down before an inoperable tumor made her miserable. She was very elderly, and had cancerous tumors removed before, so it wasn't like this was wholly unexpected, but I still can't believe the grieving period and depression has been so intense. I genuinely feel like I lost a family member...maybe because other than my parents, she was the one consistent link to good memories with my brother, who is in a very hazardous part of Afghanistan right now and whom I worry about constantly.

SO. All the stress and vet visits and bills have kept me too busy for much sewing, but in the past week I have made significant progress on the striped en fourreau, which is not going to be a very attractive dress in my opinion. The fit should be fine, I just feel like the fabric is too coarse to be anything but a work-dress. I'm having to abandon my wishful pagoda sleeve and serpentine trim dreams, because they'd just look silly on this thing, sigh.  I'm trying to do actual robings for the first time (they're just tacked onto my yellow linen gown) and it's fiddly trying to decide how wide to make them. Don't think I will bother with a matching stomacher because I have some matelasse fabric that looks almost like some of the white corded/quilted stomachers in a few books.

OH SPEAKING OF BOOKS. I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to know about this since I haven't even been reading blogs, but, MetPublications put so.much.stuff online for free pdf download.  American Portraits in Miniature, Eighteenth Century French Drawings in New York Collections, John Singleton Copley in America, Period Rooms in the Metropolitain Museum, The Eighteenth Century Woman, and...I swooned with happiness... Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century. I am going to abuse the daylights out of my free printing privileges here at work. Yes.

Last but not least, the lovely Choll at Thread-Headed Snippet awarded me a "Versatile Blogger" award...I was so darn busy being versatile that I didn't get around to mentioning it! Thank you, dearest blogger of snark and awesome! Right now I can't do the requisite pasting and referring and so-forth (in fact I'm not sure there's much point in referring because everyone I would recommend has already been awarded, drat) but I am most honored, if unforgivably absent.

Late-summer

I've been working slowly on a new work-gown of blue and light-grey stripe, and it's the first en-fourreau I have ever attempted. The fabric is at least part linen but has a rougher texture to it...this will probably end up just being a lower-class gown because of the fabric, but hey I might make detachable sleeve ruffles and make up some serpentine trim out of extra fabric for the fun of it. The back pleats are a LOT harder than I was anticipating, sadly, but they didn't turn out too badly I think. Pardon the wrinklyness...it just came out of a work bag.

And this is Max, who was "helping" me by flopping down on my fabric when I was showing the back pleats to my mother. He has a downright princely sense of entitlement so when I went to pull it out from under him, he growled. I covered him with the rest of the skirt and he took a nap. Oh dogs.

Long-overdue event pictures

Wow I have had a case of the summer lazies, bigtime.  I haven't even attempted any projects since the first weekend of June, which was when the biggest 18thc event around here was held -- the Rendezvous. There are always a deplorable number of the ole grizzled mountain-men types with their amazingly Caucasian-looking squaw wives making Hamburger Helper meals in the skillet, but I do think it's improving little by little. The actual context is a range from 1720-1820, in an area where the French first settled and established a series of forts along the Mississippi, then the English came and took over, and Americans filtered in after that. So it certainly allows for a lot of re-enacting leeway (still doesn't excuse Plains teepees and slovenly looking wenches in chemises, paisley drawstring skirts and bare feet, but that doesn't stop some people. Sigh.).

The weather was so beautiful this year compared to last year's, which was in the 90s and 100s and humid as a sauna. In fact, it was downright chilly in the evenings and early mornings! I was so glad I had brought my mitts and heavy wool wrap! I did a lot of sitting by fires until the sun was up and going. I didn't make a fire near my tent because I figured I'd never be there to watch it anyway, so I wandered around until I found friends with fires. Friday I wore my grey linen petticoat, navy blue jacket, and pink-checked apron, and was very cozy with my grey mitts.

Mr. E and I visiting while we wait for the day to warm up

My wretched Simplicity gown came out of the closet again, although the addition of cuffs, a better stomacher front, and polonaising it made me much happier to be seen in it than last year, or the year before. I'm hoping that when I get another gown done this fall, I can retire the Simplicity yellow gown for good. It's just got a lot of structural issues that I cannot fix because I haven't got any more of the fabric. It is some sort of nice linen blend and feels great even on hot days, but the sleeve seam in particular is in the wrong spot and the back is a hideous faux-fourreau. The linen is really too limp to polonaise but I've already hemmed this thing like five times and wasn't about to do it again just to get it off the ground. I had a quilted "puffer petticoat" that made it stand out a lot better but I got too warm by the afternoon to keep it on. My pretty painted Devonshires were on but I didn't get a good shot of them in action. They stood up pretty well to all the grass and gravel with just a few nicks in the leather.

But I did get invited to be in the "fashion show"! So excited! They put me up with a couple of other ladies of various stations, and a really knowledgeable young woman, whose name I forgot (Kate, maybe?), gave a lovely talk about what clothing would have been seen and on whom. I was so grateful for many of the points made during the show, like if women went without stays which was rarely, they would have worn a bedgown, that men just did not do anything without waistcoats unless they were laboring, and that the Indians in the area did NOT live in teepees and wear full Plains headdresses. Hopefully the visitors who attended then went away and looked at some of the more stubborn "old-timers" who refuse to change and maybe asked them some questions like "why are you dressed like such and such? we just heard that they didn't do that here."  There were definitely some fantastic Indians who were part of the fashion show, and they were so well researched as to their clothing, facial markers, head feathers, and accessories. I was really impressed by them and so was Mr. E., who is determined to be an Indian next year, and got in contact with one of the guys. Guess I get to make him a new shirt with a print on it...HE can go live over in the Indian camp and I will stay on the respectable side of the fort with the other palefaces.

The final day I wore my new pink gown, which, while pretty, was HOT. No more heavy fabrics for me. Parasols, I found out recently, were definitely in the area about 1730-40, being mentioned in a will, so heck yes I was gonna carry mine even if perhaps the shape isn't quite right. I was tired of being in the sun. And I wore one of the little miniatures I made, so fun! And no neckerchief because I was a hot cranky loser.

And I got to be in the fashion show for the second day as well! The young woman again narrating the women's section looked down at my pink silk-clad feet, paused in the middle of what she was saying, and said "Girl, are those American Duchess shoes?! Hot dog!" I had to giggle that out here smack-dab in the Midwest, Lauren's lovely shoes have gained notoriety already!

I had a really lovely time and got pictures taken a lot although I apparently ALWAYS smile like a chipmunk on crack, sigh. Will have to make my goal for next year to smile in a more civilized and mysterious manner.