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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Category Archives: A Silk Sacque

So Hip

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by kittycalash in A Silk Sacque, Clothing, Making Things, Reenacting

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

10th Massachusetts, 18th century clothes, 18th century clothing, Costume, fashion, patterns, questioning my sanity, sacque, sewing, silk taffeta, style

I don’t always feel the need to enhance my anatomy; in fact, I rarely do, but then I started on the sacque. Ah, the sacque. I nearly abandoned the whole business but then I thought I’d look pretty silly dressed as the maid, or for George Washington’s funeral instead of his birthday party.[1]

I also don’t want to have a house littered with UFOs, because that is what my knitting stash is for. In order for the sacque to look right, I need hips. HIPS.

And while I planned to make panniers AKA pocket hoops, a simpler and easier solution occurred to me. Hip pads: I’d seen them on Sharon’s site and thought I could at least try a pair. They’d help my poor fake quilted petticoat (FQP, long story[2]), which will come in handy for a party in February. So I spent my New Year’s Day making hips and playing a bit with the sacque silk.

Half hipped, or me, right after my hip replacement.
Half hipped, or me, right after my hip replacement.
Whole hipped: symmetrical, and wide.
Whole hipped: symmetrical, and wide.

To make the hips, I started out by laying a piece of muslin against Cassandra, and tracing a waist arc. I worked between the muslin and paper to create a paper pattern, and then made up a muslin, which I filled with polyester stuffing and then tested under the FQP. Better, no?

Then I added the seam allowance to the paper pattern (which you can download here and print at 100% if you have a waist in the 30 inch range and want enormous hips yourself) and cut four more of linen.

After three episodes of Death Comes to Pemberly[3], I had hips. They weren’t quite the same size, but my right hip is larger or higher or something, so I put the smaller one on the right and the larger on the left to balance my own deficiencies.

The alteration to the silhouette is pretty amazing, though Mr S did laugh. Perhaps this figure is an acquired taste.


[1] All I have right now to wear with the Celebration Spencer is a black petticoat, so I’d be rocking the 1799 George-is-Dead look.

[2] The story is that I have a real one basted onto a frame but I cannot fit both the frame and a sofa in the apartment. We chose sofa. I am sad but comfy.

[3] I’m ambivalent. Though I do love Trevor Eve, I wondered why there was not more changing of dress for various times of day

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Still More Sacques

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by kittycalash in A Silk Sacque

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Tags

10th Massachusetts, 18th century clothes, authenticity, Colonial Williamsburg, fashion, Museums, Reenacting, sacque, sewing, silk taffeta

1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburh 1999-247,A-C
1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburh 1999-247,A-C
ca. 1770 Colonial Williamsburg, 1993-330,A
ca. 1770 Colonial Williamsburg, 1993-330,A
ca. 1755 (Silk), dress remodeled ca. 1770. Colonial Williamsburg 1990-12,1
ca. 1755 (Silk), dress remodeled ca. 1770. Colonial Williamsburg 1990-12,1
ca. 1750, altered ca. 1775, Colonial Williamsburg 1989-330,1
ca. 1750, altered ca. 1775, Colonial Williamsburg 1989-330,1
ca. 1775, remade late 19th century, Colonial Williamsburg, 1955-428,1
ca. 1775, remade late 19th century, Colonial Williamsburg, 1955-428,1
1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburg CW 1991-472, A-C
1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburg CW 1991-472, A-C

I’m particularly interested in remodeled gowns, not that I have the patience to make a ca. 1750 or 1760 gown and then re-make it, even though I suppose it would be the path to the greatest authenticity. In figuring out “what next” now that the pleats are stitched down and secured to the lining, and the front panels cut, and one even pinned, awaiting a seam, I looked at the sack/sacque in Costume Close Up. It’s both tiny and a polonaise, so it’s not the best example for me to follow, but when you’re trying to understand construction before you totally screw up  take the next steps, you look at whatever details you can.

That led me back to Colonial Williamsburg’s collections database, which I try to avoid because they don’t have stable permalinks to their records. However, they have good cataloging and an amazing collection, so it’s hard not to end up back there.

I feel a little more confident in thinking of a ca. 1770- 1775 gown with a compère front. A compère front is a false stomacher, where there are two halves sewn to either side of the opening in the bodice. The sides then button closed. Button, and not pin, people: sweet. I will gladly trade you a week of sewing buttonholes for a wardrobe failure today (Of course, I’m not sure whether a compère front is accurate for a ball gown, but I very much want to avoid a pin explosion at a public gathering.)

Trim is another tricky area: in my regular, 21st century life, I am not someone who wears ruffles and lace or even many colors other than black, brown, grey and red. When I chose the cross-barred fabric, it was a choice really grounded in who I am, and in my love of things architectural, bold, and elegant. (Thanks to my Dad and my education, I now wonder, can one make a Miesian sacque? Let’s find out.)

Serpentine trim, no matter how appropriate and accurate, is not for me. I like the simple trim on the purple gown (padded furbelows), and will probably replicate linear, and not serpentine, trim.

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Sacque Rationalizations

28 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by kittycalash in A Silk Sacque

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

10th Massachusetts, 18th century clothing, authenticity, Costumes, fashion, gown, LACMA, living history, Museums, Reenacting, sacque, sewing, silk taffeta

Sacque-Front
Sacque-Back

Before I get any farther along in the process of making a sacque (and I have not made much progress) I thought I should start to really look at gowns, and try to understand them.

Not only do I need to understand how they’re made, I want to understand how they change over time, and what’s appropriate for different time periods and situations. This will, or could, have some bearing on what I make for the gentleman accompanying me to the celebrations for which this gown is being made. If I start from Mr S, whose best coat right now is the 1777 Saratoga private’s coat, then I ought to have nothing better than a second-hand sacque several years out of date, and that is reaching indeed.

SacqueBySacque_back
What good fortune it is that the LACMA dress seems to be a gown in flux! This is the brown silk cross-barred gown with an assigned date of ca. 1760, which seems to have been abandoned in mid-alterations. Trim down the rights and left fronts ends abruptly at the waist, and two halves of what might have been a compère front lack any trim but boast plenty of holes. The front skirts come close together, but it’s hard to tell if they are meant to nearly close, or if the gown is fitted to a mannequin that’s too small and not adequately padded out.

Replicating a gown in mid-alterations would be interesting, but not what you’d wear to a ball, so I kept looking. In Hamburg there is another cross-barred sacque-back gown from about this era. There are similarities and differences, and never as much information as you’d like to have. Who owned and wore these? Who made them? When and where were they worn? We’ll never know, but at least with two similar gowns one can fill in some details for another, or help us understand them both.

The serpentine trim on the pink gown in Hamburg makes clear how unfinished or mid-alteration the brown gown in LA really is despite the visual interest created by the fabric itself.

Sacque_by_SacqueFront

So, what to do for my gown? And when will it be from? LACMA is hedging their bets with ca. 1760. I think Hamburg is pushing it a bit late with ca. 1775, but a ca. 1770 date for a gown based on the two seems reasonable. That would mean that the coat Mr S wears should also be ca. 1770, or newer than his green linen coat and older than his Saratoga coat. And luckily, I already have a plan, some fabric, and a pattern as a place to start.

While the ball itself has no date per se, it is in celebration of Washington’s Birthday, which puts it after 1775 at the earliest (think transfer of command of the Continental Army in Cambridge). Does that make a ca. 1770 gown too early? It would depend, I think on how one imagined the ball and oneself. If you’re a frugal woman who has lost much in the war, you’ll remake your gown; should the flounces become the shirred cuffs of later gowns? Could the kind-of compère front of the LACMA gown be a stomacher cut in half and stitched to the sides, with the pin hole indicating where trim had been removed from a once-was stomacher? Is it reasonable to make a compère front for a ca. 1770 gown? I want one mostly to avoid the stomacher angst I always seem to have, and in a way it marks a place between stomacher-front and front-closing gowns.

These unprovenanced gowns stand without the particular context and personality of their owners; the fun and the challenge for us, as costumers and reenactors, is in trying to bring our personalities to the fact-based garments we create.

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Sacque it to Me

12 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by kittycalash in A Silk Sacque

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

18th century clothing, better sorts, party clothes, robe a la francaise, sacque, silk taffeta

Every now and then, by which I mean quite regularly, I lose my mind and agree to participate in something that I know little about (tallow candles? hadn’t dipped a candle in decades), haven’t really got time for (Saratoga coats, though I managed one in a week), or feel woefully unprepared for (my life in general). This is either madness or a form of life-long learning.

When the lovely Mrs B proposed the group Sacque-a-palooza, I said, “Sure! What fun!” and meant it, too. (We nearly went to an 18th century party last year, but it was snowed out. We would have had to wear our tenant farmers’ clothes, and we would have been embarrassed.) A sacque with a venue? What’s not to like? (For sacques-piration, which is different from what you do while dancing in a fancy silk gown, I’ve started a Pinterest Board.)

Brown Silk cross-bar sacque, 1760s. LACMA
Brown Silk cross-bar sacque, 1760s. LACMA
Really, how lucky was this find? And I got 10% off!
Really, how lucky was this find? And I got 10% off!

What was not to like at first was the yardage requirement: 10+ yards, and I really can’t skimp because of my height. I looked and did not find enough silk (though that didn’t stop me from picking up 7 yards of lovely pinky-lavender taffeta, because you never know when you’ll need to become a Ralph Earl painting). But, I got an afternoon when I could leave work early, and Sew 18th Century and I headed up to Boston to hit the fabric store before descending upon Mr and Mrs B. We did quite well and I like to think we were rawther restrained, considering the table of tropical weight wools at $2.99/yard…thank goodness there wasn’t enough of a grey cross-bar to make a gown for me! Despite my initial dithering, Sew 18th Century talked me into a cross-bar silk taffeta after we confirmed a very similar extant example.

Mrs B is a patient teacher, and helped guide us through the beginning construction steps. This was fortunate for me, because I’m not sure I was qualified to  open an envelope last night, let alone pleat silk. Making a gown under tutelage is a far different and far better experience than wrangling fabric yourself on the back of a recalcitrant and unyielding dress form.

Getting the party started: find your center.

Get the party started: find your center. (Thank you, Mrs S!)

This morning, though I am a trifle bleary-eyed since the tsunami of What Cheer Day finally hit me on Thursday, I am in proud possession of a back lining and a pinned back ready to have the pleats sewn to the lining. That is quite good for a few hours work among congenial company.

I also learned a new mantra, which will be good for me, and a change from wielding the center-finding ruler: Done is better than perfect.

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