Category Archives: Clothing

9 Hours

16 Saturday Jun 2012

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20120616-060359.jpg Tea is at five. It takes me at least 30 minutes to dress 18th century. The house is 6 miles away, but in an obscure part of the state: that means I need to allow 30-45 minutes to get there. I’d better get that dress done by 3:00.

I am also planning to bake a seed cake, and need to hem up a new white handkerchief, as my white one is on a mannequin at work.

The dress needs the bodice sewn to the skirt pleats (the back is done), the front bodice edges finished, shoulder straps stitched down, back facing attached, and the skirt hem. I have 9 hours for all that, baking, and managing the boys. Easy-peasy.

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Bodice in Progress

15 Friday Jun 2012

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Pleated back: of course, I managed to pleat in the opposite direction of most gowns, though there is one extant pleated this way (towards center back, not away from center back).

What to do? Mr. S says, It’s pretty.
I say, there’s only one gown pleated like this.
He says, You’re one of them.

The problem is, I have always been one of them, but I’m also a woman who wants a dress to wear and spent some time pleating already. So I think I will. Baste the pleats and try this one, and see what I think. If the back doesn’t behave properly, then I’ll re do it. What better way to spend a vacation day at home than sewing and annoying the lad on his first day home from school?

Looks like Chaos, but It’s Not

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

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Pattern and re-pattern, trying to get a robe a l’anglaise to fit properly. After I made new stays at Christmas, the brown dress that sort of fit really no longer fit.

Eventually, cutting muslins and re-stitching and pinning and undoing and redoing will get you to this.

I used a mirror and my husband took photos of the back, since I couldn’t manage that. Then I borrowed a friend from work to help with the sleeves, since the pin-behind-you method wasn’t working well. After I re-cut the sleeve head and found that a better fit, both sleeve heads are re-cut and seem to be working, so I’ll stitch them in by hand at work.

The goal, from patterning on Sunday, is a finished dress by Saturday afternoon’s tea for Rochambeau. Depends on when the tea starts, I think.

Fashion Plate Treasure Trove

09 Saturday Jun 2012

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The interwebs: evil bringer of spam and annoying chain emails, but also home to fantastic surprises like the Casey Fashion Plate Collection at the LA Public Library. I can sit in New England and browse thousands of images from 1780 to 1880, a virtual time warp J. Crew catalog of “I have to make that!” and “Color! Regency in Color!”

You can’t blow them up to the kind of size you’d want, but if you know clothing, the enlargements they allow are probably enough to get you where you need to go.

Now I have more ideas than I have time, but at least some will use up fabric I bought at the silk store in Pawtucket, and remnants from Wm. Booth Draper (I think I have enough wool/silk “stuff” for that blue spencer.)


Red. I love red. And that’s a lot of detail that holds up pretty well under zoom. Thank you, LA Public Library!

Shake Your Tail Feathers

08 Friday Jun 2012

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Men’s 18th century coats amaze and delight me. On some of the earlier fine suits, the pleats are exuberant but controlled, layers of fabric tucked together in the skirt.

You could argue they’re feminizing, and somewhere I read that men’s suits have evolved in cut and design to make the male body less threatening. You could argue that they have the formal appeal and function of a peacock’s tail, signaling financial health and status.

This is perhaps most true of the tails on court coats, fancy and fine yet restrained, conservative, and non-threatening. After all, you cannot exceed your rank.

Fortunately for me, I need only construct a simple linen coat by tomorrow. The back seam was sewn this morning, and I started on the pleats. The pattern lines did not clearly mark the peaks and valleys, so I’ve played with it four times.

This evening, Costume Close Up will be my guide, and with any luck, a coat will be “done enough” for an event twelve hours from how. The coat may not be lined in 12 hours, but it will be wearable enough for an evening march that recreates part of the Gaspee incident of 240 years ago tomorrow.  I’ve only known since Wednesday night that I was needed, but with any luck, some of the Second Helping Regiment will come and help.