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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Search results for: monmouth millinery

Monmouth Millinery

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by kittycalash in 1763 Project, Clothing, Making Things, Reenacting, Research

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

18th century, 18th century clothes, 2nd Rhode Island, Clothing, Costume, fashion, Revolutionary War, Rhode Island

New hat!

New hat!

As Eloise or her Nanny might say, It is rawther warmer than I care for. Lucky for me, I have a new hat. It’s a black straw hat of a kind you might see called a bergère, along with 4 yards of silk ribbon, purchased at Burnley & Trowbridge’s tent at Monmouth. Jim and Angela and their assistants were very helpful, and this was rawther a splurge for me, as I mostly buy my ribbon from Wm Booth’s remnants, when they are available. (We are tenant farmers. Mostly.)

Coromandel Coast lined hat, from an auction.

Coromandel Coast lined hat, from an auction.

But in this instance, I wanted a lady’s hat, so I pleated up about two yards of green silk ribbon, and added a bow. To get the multi-vector bending effect, I stitched millinery wire from Abraham’s Lady around the brim. The inside of the brim is lined with pieced scraps of the purple “Fleurs d’Inde” I used for a jacket (also made from a Wm Booth remnant). It ties on with yet another yard or more of ribbon. This is really a frivolous hat, for me. There are extant examples of straw hats lined with chintz, as you can see.

As luck would have it, I got to wear it right off, the very day I made it. How often do you get the chance to do without panic and pain? We attended the Saturday version of the Rochambeau Tea on Joy Homestead, an event which has its dedicated fans.

First hat outing

First hat outing

I wore this same gown last year, and to Nathan Hale; to my delight, I am enjoying it more each time I wear it. I think this petticoat is the right one; madder was too close and black too contrasty. Since the Rochambeau Tea “year” is 1780, this dress passes (ahem) muster; for many of the events I attend, it is too fashion forward.

London Cries: the Fishmonger. Paul Sandby ca. 1759. YCBA B1975.3.210

This hat will, I think, also work for the 1763 event, as the woman in yellow here is wearing a similarly dual-plane twist hat. I’ll never have a yellow gown though: I look pretty horrid in yellow.

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Any old Shirts?

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Laundry, Living History, Making Things

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

10th Massachusetts, 18th century clothes, Bridget Connor, common dress, common people, fashion, interpretation, laundry, living history, shirts, style

DSC_0041
The photos people have of the Millinery Conference at Williamsburg– well, they’re a little envy-inducing. All the silks gowns on such a beautiful site are a little overwhelming if you like historic costumes, but if I was all about silk gowns it might be harder to do what I am doing.

I did discover a fool-proof way to unnerve the teenager in the living history household. If you get dressed in your 18th-century clothing early enough on a Sunday morning, the child will ask, “Um, Mom? Are you just fitting, or do we have an event?” You get one glorious moment to decide whether or not to torture the child before he figures out that even you are not crazy enough to go to an event in March without stockings.

Bridget’s gown is done, but for the hem, which is turned up and about a quarter sewn. I tried it on yesterday to make sure it fit. I threw most caution to the wind and made up the new Golden Scissors English Gown pattern without making  a muslin because I’d checked my own self-fitted pattern pieces to the English Gown pieces and found them nearly identical. Anything likely to need work– shoulder straps– I knew could be done in the lining and not matter terrifically.

Why, you ask, did I bother with a new pattern? In part because my own has migrated (my backs have been trending too wide of late) and because I needed a solid, step-by-step guide to more correct assembly. The sleeve pleats still annoy me, mostly because they get done on a dress form and not on me, but they allow movement and that really counts. DSC_0047

The stomacher front style is a compromise: I want to be able to wear this at events earlier than 1782, so I’m working on the assumption that Bridget didn’t migrate to the more fashionable center-front closing style in the 1780s because she couldn’t.

The accessories are chosen because they were affordable ways to upgrade appearance: it takes hardly any chintz for a stomacher, and a handkerchief is bright but small. The hat is more common than a bonnet among working women, and the mules were chosen because they appear in an engraving of a crippled soldier and his family. All Sandby’s women wear heeled and buckled shoes in styles not to be found ready-made in my size, so  mules are my compromise.

I still think Bridget looks too clean and too pretty, but until I find fabric I like for a bedgown, this will have to do. The details, should you care for them:

Hat, Burnley and Trowbridge, lined with a Wm Booth remnant, trimmed with B&T ribbon. My hair is out up with straight pins from Dobyns & Martin, and under the hat in a lappet cap with the strings tied on top of my head.

The coral necklace is from In the Long Run, I’ll replace the grey poly ribbon with black silk ribbon once it’s in from Wm Booth.

The neckerchief is from B&T, again, and selected because the pattern was similar to the one worn by the young woman in the Domestick Employment: Washing print.

DSC_0051The gown fabric is from the second floor discount loft at the Lorraine mill store in Pawtucket. It’s 100% cotton, yes, it really does flame, and I’ll just have to be careful. (The women who cook in cotton at OSV are probably vastly more graceful than I, and do not fall into things.) It’s a light brown and white tiny check weave, and looks a great deal like a homespun gingham. I chose it because it tends to wrinkle badly and should show the dirt well: in short, I chose it because I don’t expect it to wear particularly well.

The petticoat is from the last of some ‘madder’ linen Burnley & Trowbridge had a few years ago, and the mules are from them; I think the apron linen was, too, but I can’t remember.

Those shirts are blue and white check from Wm Booth, and I have no idea how they got into my apron. Stop asking, or I’ll get my stick.

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Virginia Cloth in Maryland

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by kittycalash in Living History

≈ 2 Comments

Did I really need another English gown? Well….that cinnamon Virginia cloth, though. Reader, I saw it and I bought it, because: Paul Sandby. The color of the cloth struck me as being about as close as I am likely to get to this image, and since I own a yellow petticoat and suitable accessories, it seemed nearly a necessity.

At this point, I’ve made enough gowns that I can pretty much fit the shoulder and sleeve myself (especially since I sprang for the new dress form). I’ve lengthened the sleeve, and tweaked the shoulder strap to compensate for the curve in the original (a straight-cut piece works better for me). Future sleeves will need to be made a little wider across the bicep, as I have gained some muscle.

In progress
In progress
Shopping with a basket at Fort Fred. (photo by Denise Wolff)
Shopping with a basket at Fort Fred. (photo by Denise Wolff)

The fabric pleats well, though the edge has a tendency to fray a bit, as I learned when I made the first gown I ever really liked. But these fabrics have much to recommend them in color and weight, bridging seasons and locations–the weather in the South being rather different from that in New England. That gown was good for cleaning in Trenton and hiking in Rhode Island, but really needs to be taken apart and remade (at some future date).

As I made this gown, I thought about what I told The Giant when he said, “I wish I was a better writer.” It’s butt in chair that makes you a better writer, and a better seamstress, or a better tailor, and better at just about anything other than an active sport. Practice, and patience, are what it takes to improve. The first things I made were not nearly as nice as the things I can make now, many gowns, dresses, coats, caps, and bonnets later. Sewing is a discipline and a craft, and perseverance pays off.

The Fort Frederick Market Fair is the place to wear new clothes and shop for curiosities, I took the opportunity to wear the new gown with some older favorites, including the best neck handkerchief I’ve ever had (hand woven by a friend), and a hat made ages ago that is finally achieving a salty patina suitable for someone of my usual station. That’s one of the best parts of perseverance: putting old and new together for a new and different look.

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The Material World of Widow Weed: an interpretation

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Living History, material culture, Research

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

18th century clothing, britishareback, fashion, historical clothing, material culture, mourning, Occupied Philadelphia, Philadelphia

Pomade, powder, a pad, and a liberal dose of hairspray got me closer to Big Hair than I’ve ever been.

Part four of a series

Widow Elizabeth Weed: what would she wear? What would she own? My first inclination had been to wear the grey tabby wool gown I already had, until I realized how much of George Weed’s estate Elizabeth had received. As detailed in the first post, the strategic fabric reserve (SFR) provided a “just enough” remnant of shiny silk to make a gown. Second mourning seemed right, for six months past the death of her second husband; with Mrs. Mifflin’s 1773 gown style in mind, I decided to make an English gown with robings and stomacher. (To be honest, I’m pretty pleased with how close my cuff came to Mrs. Mifflin’s, considering how badly I can mess up a cuff, and that this was my first finished silk gown in an 18th century style.)

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9CBCCED9-0B10-4F75-97B6-1E64B779A3C1-6511-0000074A680FAF83
67984192-B06D-4844-8C60-DB5B715FFC5F-6511-0000074A9217E259

A gown is one thing, but what about the rest of the ensemble? The Widow Costard print provided some guidance, despite being some years later than 1777. The black hood and cloak or mantelet over a white cap appears in other widows’ portraits, although the black silk cloak is not an uncommon accessory. I had been toying with making one already, and had patterned one from the original in Costume Close Up; extant examples aren’t thick on the ground, but there are enough to demonstrate some consistencies.

Cloak, figured cerise silk satin with a lace trim, 1760-1770. Victoria and Albert Museum, T.61-1934

1760s example at the Victoria and Albert has a shape similar to that in the Williamsburg Collection, while another at the Met (dated, without a reason cited, to 1820-1829; perhaps the reason is in the selvage or the lace), provides some clues to construction and materials. So, with another remnant from the SFR in hand, I worked from my muslin to a paper pattern, using the neck cutout from my red wool short cloak as an additional guide. It went together in fairly short order, since it is mostly hemming, with just two seams and some pleating. While I wore it untrimmed due to time constraints, self trim or lace or would be ideal additions.

Portrait of a Woman called Lady Fawkener ca. 1760. Jean-Etienne Liotard.

Additional clues to Elizabeth Weed’s status as a six-months widow are found in the black silk ribbon of her cap; black and white hats are common enough that the hat alone does not signal “widow.” I chose to make mine from a black figured silk taffeta lined with white, based on an ad in a Philadelphia paper. On October 15, 1776, John Brown advertised in the Pennsylvania Evening Post for a runaway Irish servant girl, Judith Kennedy, wearing, among other items, a “black spotted silk bonnet lined with white.” Obviously, this might well mean “bonnet” in the form we are most familiar with, and I have taken liberties by extrapolating the spotted silk to my hat cover. Nonetheless, black and white hats are a thing, and I was looking to upgrade from my tatty and faded black chip hat.

Gathering white linen evenly is a challenge: literal thread counting.

Gown, hat, cloak, updated caps: so far, so good. I had a black wool petticoat already, suitable for mid-Atlantic autumn (there was no way a black silk quilted petticoat was happening in the time allotted), and black worsted (woven) mitts. What else would Mrs. Weed need? Upgraded shoes are tempting but beyond my budget, so the last article of clothing was an apron.

The majority of my aprons are check linen, with one clean unbleached linen apron and one stained white linen apron (coffee is my weakness). Fortunately, I found 30 yards of vintage white linen on a trip to New England, and thus had apron fabric handy. After making five aprons, this one went together in less than a day.

The final piece was jewelry. A few years ago I found a “Georgian” cut steel and glass locket suitable for hair that I wore as a widowed housekeeper; on a fresh black silk ribbon, that would be a cornerstone. I added a three-strand necklace of black glass beads to contrast with the locket (thanks to the local hobby store and a stash of findings). Earrings also came from the stash, made up quickly from modified buttons and black faceted drops.

Accessories. I finally have them.

I added a white silk neck-handkerchief for warmth, and bought a black one just in case. Based on images, I thought white most appropriate, but somehow, with the grey gown, the image of “Pilgrim” was hard for some visitors to overcome, so on Sunday, I switched to black. Sometimes you have to choose accessories to lower the hurdles for your audience. Explaining that I was not a Pilgrim, but in mourning–while providing an opportunity for interpretation–was not my primary objective, so the easy color switch seemed well worth making.

The remedies (as promised) were another, slightly strickier matter. While making them according to the receipts I found was relatively simple– this is long before big pharma– carrying them was another challenge. I opted to make a box, and fill some bottles, as will become plain in the next installment.

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