Search results for: fine sewing

Fine Sewing

20 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Reenacting

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

20120720-211927.jpgI made the time today to finish something I’d started back in June at Dress U. I was fortunate enough to be in Sharon Burnston’s Fine Sewing class, and got started on an apron. Even before I started reenacting and sewing 18th century clothes for myself, I admired Sharon Burnston’s work and the fantastic Fitting and Proper, which I ordered for the library at work several years ago. Ms. Burnston is the living definition of a stitch counter or thread counter in the very best way, and here’s why: she counts threads, and that counts.

20120720-212029.jpgOne of the key points I learned was the relationship between the threads and the stitches– essentially 2 x 2 for this project. Using a traditional New England fabric makes it easy–with a linen check, you can just about “cut on dotted line” and know you’re set.

We started by hemming each side of the apron for a couple of inches, just to get started. Stitch two over, in little crosses. Then, at the top of the rectangle, we gathered. The gathers were the illuminating part: Stroke gathers. Using the check as a guide, we ran even gathering stitches twice along the top.

20120720-212120.jpg I used the every-other check pattern, so the gathers were small. Ms. Burnston suggested that the best way to think of stroke gathering was as proto-smocking, and to make an evenly spaced running stitch with cotton quilting thread. The top row of gathers will be buried in the waistband, the bottom row gets pulled. Just make sure the replicate the top row exactly!

When you pull the threads, the fabric makes lovely even gathers. Pulling them down with a needle or pin–stroking them–makes them lie down even more evenly and nicely.

Then its on to the waistband and finishing with linen tape ties.

So, at last, finished object, green and white check. Along the Connecticut River valley, the predominate check was blue and white, but I look at this and think, maybe that’s what they mean by “bad color” in the runway ads– a kind of end-of-vat green.

ETA: Thread! I forgot the thread part. Fine stitches are achieved by using a fine needle and thread–obvious, right? Size 12 needles, if they suit your hands, and a fine linen thread. When I got home, I used 80/2 white linen thread. It worked really well, with infrequent breaks. Use plenty of beeswax, and the thread will break far less frequently–if at all–especially if you use shorter lengths. Since you need to run the gathering thread the entire width of the linen, cotton or even cotton/poly is best used for the gathers. My hands are really big, but even so I use fine quilting needles from England and manage pretty small stitches. I’ve used John James and Richard Hemming & Sons, but both had to be ordered online. Dritz applique needles can be found at Jo-Ann, if you’re in a hurry, or, like me, discover all your favorite needles are bent, blunt, or stuck in a crack in the floorboards…

Three Simple Tricks to Change Your (Sewing) Life…

05 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Clothing, Living History, Making Things

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Practice will make you as happy as this cat.

Yesterday was #difference day in Pinsent Tailoring’s #modernlessmarch challenge, and while I’m not participating, finishing up a cap order yesterday got me thinking about what makes a difference in what I make.

I fished out the very first cap ever made, and here’s what’s made a difference:

1. Practice. Make more things. Make practice pieces. The more you sew, the better you get. That is the only way to get better.

As with writing, “butt in chair” is what will make a difference, and there is no short cut.  But the more you sew, the better you get.

Cap the First
Cap the Recent

2. Materials. Buy the best materials you can afford. This first cap was made of linen from JoAnn’s, while the most recent cap is made of linen cambric from Burley & Trowbridge.

Here’s silk
and here is linen

Selecting the right material for the task is critical, and higher quality materials will give you a better result. Silk and linen will give you very different results (yes, silk caps are a thing. They show up in inventories and ledgers in the Carolinas). Even poor and working-class women’s caps were made of finer materials than we can typically get today, so for caps, you are looking for a fabric that combines fineness of weave and thread with crispness.

Cap the First was made nine years ago, while Cap the Recent was finished this week. The first real cap breakthrough I had was in 2016, with the Cap of Floof, made with a finer material that allowed me to make smaller seams and successful whip gathers for what felt like the first time.

Floof!
and more Floof!

Lance needles: the best I’ve used.

3. Tools. The smaller the needle, the smaller the stitch. You want to use the smallest needle you can (different sizes are appropriate for different fabrics; thicker fabrics need longer needles). It can take time to get used to using a smaller needle, but the practice (see point 1) will pay off. Appropriate thread (finer for finer fabrics), a thimble, and sharp thread snips will make your work easier. A good iron is another necessity, and while you can substitute a rolled towel for some pressing forms, tailor’s hams and sleeve boards also make life easier and sewing smoother.

All of these things take resources, whether time or money, but the rewards are worth the investment.

Sewing for Zombies

13 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Making Things, Museums

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Death by Fitting

He doesn’t always look this horrible, but when the Young Mr sets out to look like death, he does it very well. Dressing 18th Century style comes at the price of fittings, and while we like to cut a fine enough figure at an event, we want no part whatsoever of the process. Even the promise of playing with a dog won’t get us to a fitting. And he dearly wants a dog…so you know fittings are a trial.

Cutting Out on Sunday

The pattern is by Henry Cooke, based on both a Rhode Island original in a private collection and a jacket in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. It is solidly 1770s-1780s, unlined, and both originals made up in brown linen. (From the pattern notes and what I know of the CHS jacket, accession number 1981.110.0; their catalog links are unstable, search for 1981.110.0.)

It goes together well; I started without directions, but as I am more idiot than savant, I got myself confused. I did have to alter the sleeve for the Young Mr, as he has long, thin arms. The rest of the pattern seemed to fit him pretty well, all in all, but a few untoward things happened between measuring, mock-up, basting and fitting. Still, it can be worn, with improvements made next week after he wears it in Cambridge this Sunday. 

Sewing for the Adjutant

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Living History, Reenacting

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Falling In, OSV 2012

Falling In, OSV 2012

We were invited to join a Massachusetts regiment after the event at Old Sturbridge Village last summer, and we did. This has been a good thing, though it’s sometimes a little tricky to figure out which unit to “be” with. It is also a challenge because even though the Rhode Island unit has careful (if unwritten and slightly out-of-date) standards, the Massachusetts unit is another thing altogether.

Gathering the first sleeve head. Destination: Saturday afternoon

Gathering the sleeve heads. Saturday is soon!

The women last weekend kept asking what I was working on so assiduously. It was the hunting shirt (to become a frock) for the Young Mr for the new unit. Cut by the master, entirely hand-sewn by me. This is not something they would do.

“Sewing for The Adjutant, ” I said, “is another thing altogether.”

“Don’t even try. Who can sew like that? He’s a professional,” I was told.

What we're aiming for.

What we’re aiming for.

Well, yes.

So wouldn’t that be the very thing to reach for? It’s not like he’s not helpful. I have his shirt to copy, he answers my questions patiently, and I haven’t yet felt like an idiot.

The skill I have I owe in part to my mother and grandmother, and to the Dress U workshop with Sharon Burnston.  Stroke gathers, two-by-two stitching, using the tiniest needle possible are all things I learned or honed in Sharon’s workshop. And thanks to that workshop, this hunting shirt-(perhaps)-soon-to-be-frock is a great deal easier to tackle.

The other part of skill is practice. It’s as true for piano or soccer as it is for sewing. Just keep stitching, and it will come.

And after the fitting, the fringing. That's for someone else to do.

After fitting comes fringing. That’s for someone else to do.

What I find hardest is fit: not only is it hard for me to judge how much to take in a garment to achieve 18th century fit while maintaining enough ease for the wearer to swing an ax (or to accommodate teenage wriggling), alterations annoy me. I suspect that the key may well be not to fit at the end of a day, but at a beginning, or at least a middle. Fitting after a long day of sewing could make you think you were tossing away a whole day of work. It also feels, still, like taking a car to the mechanic or the cat to the vet. There’s something wrong, and I don’t quite understand it. Yet. But with Shoulders Roll Forward and Monkey Arms, I bet I’ll understand more soon.

Baking with the Cursing Sewing Mommy

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Events, Food, History

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Meet the cursing baking mommy! On Friday last, she started a full day of work that included a reenacted regiment backing out of the major event at work, a panic attack during her physical, a camera crisis during the visit of an Ambassador, as well as the full complement of broken things, paperwork, Section 106 reviews, and requests for meetings. So of course she came home with a plan to bake, in addition to packing up a full kit of 18th century camping equipment and finishing buttonholes and hems on overalls and that devil dress.

I did bake, actually. I tried a recipe I found on Let’s Burn Something, lavender tea bread.

Nooning with the Reg’t. They enjoyed the tea bread.

The recipe is pretty simple; the cursing part came in when I discovered that baking distracted has its dangers. Yes, I forgot to chop the lavender blossoms before steeping them in the milk. I did it after wards, and then tipped them back into the milk. You’d think the final result would look like, well, a loaf of pound cake with mouse excrement baked in, but it doesn’t. The little flowers look like seeds, so if you’re OK with a Rich Seed Cake, this will be fine, too.

Oh, I also used too much butter. Fortunately, that turned out to be fine, as too much butter usually is. And no, I don’t know my cholesterol levels, but let’s eat some more cake before the test results come back!

The Receipt, from Mom’s a Witch , via Let’s Burn Something :

Lavender Tea Bread

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 2 Tbsp. dried lavender flowers, finely chopped, or 3 Tbsp. fresh chopped flowers
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 6 Tbsp. butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs

Method:

  • Grease a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  • Heat milk with lavender almost to a boil, then steep until cool.
  • Mix flour, baking powder and salt together in bowl.
  • In another bowl cream butter and gradually add sugar, then eggs, one at a time, beating until light and fluffy.
  • Add flour mixture alternately with lavender milk, in three parts. Mix until batter is just blended, do not overbeat.
  • Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool.
  • When completely cool, drizzle with a simple sugar glaze or sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar. Garnish with sprigs of fresh lavender.

I skipped both the sugar glaze and the confectioners’ sugar on the basis of sugar being expensive in the 18th century, and because I thought the final result would be less conducive to transport. It seemed fine, though with white linen uniforms, you wouldn’t notice the powdered sugar if it spilled. It’s just be the informal markings of the Second Helping Regiment.