HSF #3 - Pink

Sigh, behind again. I'm not going to post about challenge #2, Innovation, because I was counting the red Indienne print neck handkerchief I paired with my new wool bedgown (#1: Make Do And Mend) and was thinking about doing a long post on the innovative cotton printing that was catching on in Europe. But I'm too lazy to do all that research for just a simple triangle of cloth!

The Challenge: #3: PINK - A little bouquet of silk flowers and ribbon to be pinned at the center front of a gown. Very pastoral (hoping for spring soon)!

Fabric: Not really much in the way of fabric in the traditional sense, although I suppose the flowers, leaves and ribbon are technically all fabric!

Pattern: I'm really unlikely to be using any pattern for any of these challenges, I'll just get that out of the way now...I feel much more free looking at photos and scale drawings and letting the item grow organically from that. For this simple little project, I looked at a couple of cute little nosegays pinned to display gowns like these: 

Year: Not sure there is a specific year although I'm most likely in the future to use this with my pink anglaise as it already has floral motifs and some green in it. 

Notions: ALL notion, really!

How historically accurate is it? I'm really not sure, I couldn't find any specifics about extant artificial nosegays, but silk flowers as ornament seemed to be in use on hats and other accessories fairly frequently.

Hours to complete: Not even 1...finished it up in about 15 minutes while watching Olympic figure skating.

First worn: Not yet! I need to take pictures of all my ensembles to date though and pair them with the best accessories so maybe as the weather warms up. 

Total cost: Nada...all stash materials.

The reason it's taking me SO long to get anything up lately is THIS:

Eventually, MAYBE, it'll be lovely light pink stays bound with cream linen tape, half-boned with cable ties, with straps and a stomacher, but right now I have never more regretted swearing a solemn promise to never use the sewing machine again on any of my 18th century clothes or accessories. Shoving a needle through six layers of heavy canvas-like material has been murder on my fingers when joining the pieces, and I'll never really love boning channels much, even less so by hand. If I'm wanting to make the #5 bodice challenge (will count this for #4 Underneath It All as well), I really have to book it. 

They are not very nice looking, but they are drafted off my first stays, which are machine-sewn and actually fit quite well despite some design flaws. Those are fully boned though and hot as Hades in summer so I'm going a lighter, less bulky/more flexible route -- I know there's not much documentation for half-boned stays with visible boning channels, but I just have this idea in my head of what they'll (hopefully) look like, so bear with me. If nothing else, it'll be a good exercise in humility and facing failure! 

My plans for the HSF for the rest of 2014 have changed drastically, and once I finish these stays up, I hope to be devoting the rest of my year to building two ensembles (click for accompanying Pinterest boards)

The Dusk Blue Silk Sacque

And

The Gold and Cream Stripe Regency Gown

More to come on those soon after the FrankenStays are done torturing me!

HSF Challenge #1 -- "Make Do And Mend"

The Challenge: #1 – Make Do and Mend
I’ve recently joined an F&I era group and the one winter event I went to, they just could not seem to leave me alone about not having cold-weather clothing (albeit in a very sweet and kindly way). I had mitts and a thick shawl and lots of petticoats, but I’ll admit my torso was a little chilly in the evenings with just a corduroy jacket. So my “make do” was to cut up an old wool blanket, line it with warm fleece (I know, cheater cheater), and make a very heavy bedgown to go over anything.

Honestly, I can't say for certain if that is something the French Colonial women around here would have done. Still, it makes sense...goods came up the Mississippi River infrequently in canoes, and somehow I don't think the women, when they first arrived in "New France," would have been adequately prepared for the sometimes frigid winters. I could see them whipping up a rough bedgown out of a blanket to throw on over many layers of clothing.

Fabric: Old grey woolen blanket, grey fleece

Pattern: basic “T” shaped garment, hits just above the knee. I know the sleeves look lopsided, but they're not...and I probably won't leave them rolled up and showing the fleece like that when I wear it. The back has a seam down the center until about waist-height, then releases to leave a little bit of a pleat and fuller appearance to the bottom half of the garment.

Year: 1720-1780? You might find something like it in just about any art depicting the lower class of the 18th century I guess, shapeless sack that it is.

Notions: Just thread

How historically accurate is it? I left the typically-seen shawl collar off of the bedgown because my skin doesn’t tolerate wool and even with a neck handkerchief I just KNOW it would end up rubbing against my skin and driving me insane. It’s entirely hand-sewn, but I think the fact I lined it with Wal-mart blanket fleece kind of negates that. But I think with my grey petti, an apron tied over it and the handkerchief, it’ll look very passable.

Hours to complete: Probably around seven

First worn: Not yet! This weekend at a women's event.

Total cost: The blanket was probably around $20 when I got it a few years ago, the fleece was about $6.

Tiny Treasures

Working at a library, sometimes I run across sources for 18th century details I would not have expected to find; my co-worker found this one for me when she weeded it out of the collection due to dis-use: "Classic Dolls' Houses" by Faith Eaton.

 The sweet little Delft tiles in this 18th century kitchen! Adorable!

It details several doll houses; "Mon Plaisir" - an 18th-century German court, the 18th century Dutch doll house of Sara Ploos van Amstel, the 20th century fairy castle of Colleen Moore, West Wood House - a 20th century English dollhouse, and the Thorne and Carlisle Miniature rooms.

The 18th century houses were of course of the most interest to me, but all the houses were beautifully crafted...I remember seeing Colleen Moore's fairy castle in Chicago once, came home with a beloved coloring book of it and built my own equally grand house (so my eight-year-old-self thought) out of shoeboxes.

I would definitely recommend that you try to get this through interlibrary loan...it's probably not worth shelling out a whole lot of money unless you really love historical dollhouses, and in fact I couldn't even be sure I found the correct title on Amazon. However, the textiles and color combinations and accessories on the 18th century dolls are extremely valuable in my opinion because they haven't been disturbed or re-dressed based on some well-intentioned museum director's best guesses...they are perfect representations of what was worn at the time by various classes. My pictures here don't even begin to capture the detail - it's quite crisp in person.

 ^Can you believe this is a miniature? It looks like a real room in a colonial house!

 

Also the tiny dishes and furniture, bed-hangings and curtains, miniature artwork and other housewares are wonderful sources of detail for any re-enactor, arranged just how they would have been used in a domestic setting. Worth a look!

Historical Sew Fortnightly 2014...hurry up, January!

Oh, I am SO excited for this coming year as far as sewing goes. Please pardon the long absence....I have been struggling with increasingly severe migraines, leading to an MRI and trying various medications that make me drowsy and sedated most of the time, and finally the doctors seem to have figured out the correct drug and dosage. It's really hard to focus on sewing when either the drugs are knocking me out or the teeny weeny stitches are giving me terrible headaches, so I sadly didn't complete nearly as many challenges as I wanted to these past few months. BUT...fingers crossed that drugs keep working...here are my plans for the first few challenges Leimomi has already posted!

• #1: Make Do & Mend – due Wed 15 Jan. 

I have an old grey woolen blanket...and no good cold-weather 18th century wear. Could the resourceful Frenchwomen in the Mississippi Valley area have repurposed a blanket into a rough but warm bedgown? Well why not!

• #2: Innovation - due Sat 1 Feb.  To celebrate the way inventions, introductions and discoveries have impacted fashion, make an item that reflects the newest innovations in your era.  Be sure to share the research you did on your innovation, as well as your finished item. 

While browsing through the thrift store for fabric, a neat cotton print jumped out, it looks sort of like an Indian chintz on a dark red background.  Kendra at Demode writes "Although some countries passed legislation against the import, manufacture, and sale of painted and printed cottons in order to protect domestic textile industries (as in France from 1686 to 1759 and England from 1700 to 1774), by the 1730s printed cottons were serious contenders in the European clothing and furniture market".  I would like to make a neck handkerchief out of the material to go with the "new" bedgown from the previous project, in honor of the Europeans figuring out their own version of fabric printing.

• #3: Pink - due Sat 15 Feb.  Make something pink!

Many of the projects during the first half of this upcoming year will hopefully be leading up to this Court Gown nonsense I foolishly bought into (ok who am I kidding, I'm so excited)....possibly I can cut down on the amount of work by finding little "double duty" projects for both that endeavour and the HSF. Little nosegays of silk, ribbon or paper flowers always look so sweet at the bosom of a beautiful gown, for this challenge perhaps a pink and blue flower nosegay is in order. My birthday falls during this particular week and friends and relatives like to cut into my sewing time (imagine that!) so I figured it would be best to keep the project small.

Eye-candy...I mean...examples: 

• #4: Under it All – due Sat 1 March.  Make the foundations of your outfit: the things that go under it to provide the right shape and support, and to protect your fancy outer garments from sweat and grime. 

AND

• #5: Bodice - due March 15th.

New stays. Ugh. This moment has been coming for a few years and fills this seamstress with much dread. Combining these two challenges makes the project a little more doable. My last set is all machine-sewn with metal grommets, the tabs turned out bizarre, and fully-boned turned out to be uncomfortably unnecessary for me, I'm kind of small of bust. Really cannot avoid tackling it at this point because constructing the upcoming court gown over ill-fitted stays is just a complete waste of my time, so I will just have to buckle down and get on with it. Partially-boned with cable ties is the plan; I would never use anything else, having seen enough comparisons from other bloggers that lead me to believe its sturdiness is comparable to baleen without the ethical issues. No interest in trying cane/reed/wood; I am too active at events to want to have to deal with snappage and replacement of my boning materials. 

• #6: Fairytale - due Tuesday 1 April:

Leimomi mentions that Cinderella is often portrayed in an 18th century light and I have been meaning to get to a common brown a la anglaise that is cut out but not sewn. I have some really cute ideas of a pre-Princess photoshoot for Cinderella, involving a dirty apron, sweeping with a twig broom by an old stone hearth, and a few fake bird "helpers" (ok that might be too much cheese...but I'm willing to embrace the cheese for a fairytale)!

Cannot wait to get started on this after a somewhat failed 2013 HSF, although certainly I finished more projects than if I'd gone without it! Do you have any projects brewing and bubbling over in your mind for this upcoming year?

I have confidence in confidence alone...

Ok, I'm trying to convince myself that I can do this:

Kendra is inspiring crazy seamstresses everywhere to make Court Gowns, and I was sitting back and shaking my head at all involved for a while there. See, I have very little confidence in my sewing skills. My projects have been turning out a little more polished and advanced each time but when I look at what other people are doing, I feel inspired, overwhelmed and inadequate all at the same time. Plus, being an extremely poorly paid librarian, I feel terrible buying expensive fabric and not sewing from my stash of bargain fabrics and tablecloths.

Last Saturday though I went to the local thrift store for a sweater and found 14 yards of a dusky-blue silk-like material with a visible weave to it, I think it's maybe what would have been termed "tabby" in the 18th century. For only around $5 for it, I took it home and subjected it to a burn test, which was strangely inconclusive. It melts like a synthetic in that it doesn't make a nice soft ash, which I wasn't surprised at...it seemed too good to be true that it'd be actual silk. However, it did not "catch fire" and keep flaming when I took the lighter away from the scrap, so that doesn't quite fit with the supposed profile of a synthetic. Could it be a half-and-half? Is that even possible?

At any rate, the fabric is really pretty...it's not super shiny, it's subtly changeable, and not at all slubby like dupioni. The weight of it is light, but not flimsy. It's got some definite body while not being heavy. It looks like it could hold a crease but won't unnecessarily wrinkle much. Ideal for a robe a la francais in my opinion and I'm willing to use a synthetic for the first time I attempt anything with this much fabric, especially before shelling out big money!

My inspiration is a gown I've drooled over for a while, a portrait of Catherine Havers by Barthelemy Du Pan:

 It's dated 1735, but it looks later to me! What do I know though. My fabric is close to this color in daylight, and while the gown isn't as over-the-top as a full-on court gown, I'm thinking about making it to fit over bigger paniers or at least large pocket hoops. Also I've always wanted to try fly fringe, and have a gown to be dressy enough to merit lace and satiny accessories, so this is my chance! And it's not "due" till next summer! I am telling myself: you have made three gowns already by drafting them from sketches, and a rough pet-en-l'air a la Chardin's Governess...you can do this!

HSF #18: Re-make, Re-use & Re-fashion (18th century shoes, picture-heavy)

The Challenge: #18: Re-make, Re-use & Re-fashion
 
Fabric: White linen for the heel, heavy crewel-work (machine-made, though) upholstery fabric.

Pattern: Eyeballed it! I seem to say that a lot on HSF projects. But I did really look at quite a few neat extant shoes from museum or auction databases like these two:

     

(and then mine for comparison!)

Year:  If only the heel were thicker, the pointed toe would be great for 1720-1740ish, which is what I would like to wear them for as well.

Notions: just thread and ivory vintage petersham ribbon (curves around corners much better than grosgrain) AND of course at the end, the lovely American Duchess "Fleur" buckles.

How historically accurate is it?  The uppers are hand-sewn onto the existing shoe, but considering I just molded it around the frame already there rather than adding the sole over everything once it was done, plus a decent bit of fabric glue in some strategic places, and the smaller-than-accurate heel...it's about 50% I guess.

Hours to complete:  Way more than I wanted. Probably a good 10 hours if I had worked straight through but I watched too much Jane Austen, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars marathons. Oops. But really it was rough going, my fingers are pretty sore and torn up even though using a thimble much of the time...I was sewing through leather quite a bit and I do not think I had a sharp or strong enough needle.

First worn:  Just the other night for a try-on. They are TIGHT when I have stockings on. They will only be worth wearing for special occasions where there's no dirt anyway so I'm not too worried.

Total cost:  I think I talked the seller on Etsy down to $10 for the shoes, I personally think they were hideous before but some people are saying they were pretty, so what do I know. The nice thing was, though I didn't know it when I bought them, that even though they're vintage they have never ever been worn, the soles were totally unmarked. The upholstery fabric sample was about $10 also, and the ribbon about $5 I think?

 Before: 1980s? "Mootsies Tootsies" (Ew. Sorry, but, ew.)

 I drafted a pattern with some "junk fabric" and had to re-do it a few times, but better with that than my limited upholstery fabric!

 I pinned all the pieces on to make sure they would fit with plenty of room around the edges to turn under.

Only needed to make the pattern once though because you can just flip the pieces over to the wrong side for the opposite shoe!

I tried to center the pattern on parts of the crewel work that I liked best and wanted to be visible.

Pinned it all on once I got it cut out to make sure it would still work.

 This is where I would do it differently if I got a "do-over"...it would have been much easier to rip the entire sole off and sort of corset-lace the fabric snug against the bottom, then glue the sole back on. I really wanted to avoid that because I was worried if I took the sole off once, it might never go back on securely; instead I rolled the fabric under in a hem and stitched it as close to the sole as I could get.

It was too difficult to try to get my needle in and out of the point of the shoe, so that last inch and a half you see is mostly glued down with fabric glue. I cheated. When I got to the tip though I was able to gather up the excess fabric and sew it into an even more pronounced, slightly turned-up toe. 

 One down! The petersham ribbon I bought intentionally wide enough to fold over equally on both sides of the fabric, so it was just stitched in a straight running stitch to bind the rough edges.

I'm sorry I didn't get a good picture of how I attached the linen to the base of where my heel would be in the shoe...I did that part first, whip-stitching it to the upholstery fabric as invisibly as possible, then smoothed it over and down the heel and made a seam where it would be hidden under the sole. 

I'm really unhappy with how the heel got covered. I cut the linen on the bias, but the heel was just too curvy and I got nasty wrinkles and loose fabric around it no matter what I did. But it's a low heel so it shouldn't show too much. Sorry I don't have good advice where that is concerned! Ideally I would have covered it with the upholstery fabric as well, but I struggled and struggled with it and it just frayed so much even with Fray-Check that I had to give up the idea. Maybe some day I'll figure out the magic formula for making it work and go back and re-do the heels.

Most shoes like this you can pry the tip off the heel, carefully. Mine had two plastic nubs that slid into the heel itself. DON'T use your scissors to pop the tip, like I did. I just about gouged into my leg open before I went to get a screwdriver instead.

This is why I should have just ripped the sole off when I started: I ended up having to do it for the heel anyway. Luckily it was just a bit that needed to be pulled back, then I trimmed the linen as close as possible to the seam I made.

 Then I glued the little bit of sole and heel tip back down with super glue. I wasn't messing around with fabric glue where the sole was concerned. I think I got the upholstery fabric sewn pretty close to the sole! It won't ever come off, that's for sure. You can see how un-used the shoe is here, brand new sole.

 Tada! Finished shoes!

 Interestingly, I did not need to poke any holes for the prongs of the buckles to go through. The fabric, though it looked tightly woven, separated completely naturally to make way for the prongs when I added the buckles. No holes, no broken or snapped threads...it was really interesting to see because I'm guessing that might have been the case with real 18th century fabric shoes as well!

 Coal decided to photobomb...or is that...photobun?! He hates it when I work so hard on a project I ignore him, and he was particularly pesty during this whole project, jumping on the bed, jumping in my lap...I stabbed myself more than once due to his antics.

And my lovely new babies in the midst of my American Duchess eye-candy! If you think I have an 18th century shoe problem, I won't tell you about my modern-day footwear hoarding issues. 

Don't hesitate to leave me any questions in the comment section, I will do my best to be helpful! This was my first (and possibly only) attempt at covering shoes so I am a total amateur, but it was a fun experience!

Sort of not really here

NOT that I think anyone is eagerly hanging around here for my every post, but I just wanted to throw out a warning that I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now...still sewing quite a bit, sometimes for the HSF, but rarely on time and too lazy to post about it. Lately I've done a woman's banyan, modified some modern shoes into mules, and worked on some UFOs, but my heart hasn't been in it as much because of a different (but related) project.

I'm trying to do some serious scholarly (read: over-eager amateur) research and writing on French women in the Illinois country, hoping to compile enough information from primary sources and consolidating tidbits from other researchers to make a short not-for-profit e-book. Most of the researching around here has focused mainly on men...trappers, merchants, farmers, soldiers, artisans...and mention of women is really just thrown in as an aside, so I have spent (wasted?) countless hours poring over whole books for just a few scraps that might be useful to me as a re-enactor. The laid-back, community-oriented, "it'll get done tomorrow after we play billiards" predominately Catholic society of French Illinois was certainly a very different culture to the orderly, Protestant-work-ethic-driven English society on the East Coast!

So that's what I'm up to, and why I might not get back to posting here for a little while, because I'm destroying my vision peering at heinous microfiche copies of already awfully scribbly French handwriting.