Category Archives: Events

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.

The Lower Sorts Crash a Party, Again

05 Tuesday Jun 2012

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See the two women at the right? The one in the brown bonnet with a hand at her face is me, exhausted after driving to Malvern from Providence; the young lady in yellow stripes is Dana. We are in our best dresses, the Past Patterns 1796-1803 front-closing gown.

That wasn’t the party where we felt the most like country mice, but we did feel like country mice much of the time, and that’s because we are. (That’s my husband, veteran of the 2nd RI Reg’t, standing beside me.) Someone needs to represent the lower sorts, and honestly, at the reenactments I go to, I’m often the best-dressed woman, the recent ran-away-from-Newport. The excuse I can use for wearing Indian print cottons is that I am from a port city (Newport or Providence) and that I can afford small pieces, or second-hand items. Certainly in the Colonies there is economic churning, and Styles suggests that the common people are not forgoing style and fashion as a concern in clothing acquisition.

I know what a servant or housewife might wear for working: The short gown, certainly, is the most comfortable and easy option, and uses so little fabric that it can be easily and relatively affordably made in prints.

But how might a servant, or a soldier’s (or, in 1796, farmer’s or blacksmith’s) wife have dressed for a party?

What I Learned at Dress U 2012

04 Monday Jun 2012

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Some of us who re-enact the lower sort had to go to a party like this:
But before that, I learned a lot.
The Basics

  1. I am a better seamstress than I think I am
  2. There are some classes I could teach
  3. I’m going to need another hip replacement
  4. I need to learn to have fun!

The most important statements are probably the first and the last; I do actually know what I’m doing, more or less, enough to know that I learned a few other important things.

The Fine Print

  1. My 1790-1810 stays need to be re-done completely; they’re too long.
  2. I need a new 1750-1770 short gown pattern
  3. My black bonnet rocks
  4. I want a shiny party dress
  5. O.M.G., I met Sharon Burnston!! She was fantastic and I so enjoyed both of her classes. I learned the most in both of them.

Those stays have been troublesome since I began, what with tossing out the very first pair I attempted, and the wriggling and riding up with wear of the second pair. It was in Jenny LaFleur’s Fitting Yourself class that I figured out (slow, I know) that I should put my pair next to Dana’s. Dana is long-waisted, I am  not. Dana’s stays and mine were the same length. Light dawned: If our stays are the same length, mine are too long.

Sigh. Starting over… Oh, well. New stays will fit without irritating me, I can get the cup right and the busk will stop trying to meet new people, and when they’re done, I can make lovely dresses that will fit and that I will not fuss with.

I could even make something like this, and have a real party dress for the next time I go away.

Pork Pies in Dighton

31 Thursday May 2012

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The weekend before Memorial Day, we spent two days in Dighton along the Segregansett River. It was a Continental Line event, and as such it was interesting to see that different organizations host reenactments with subtle differences.

The biggest difference for us was we got to day trip it from home since Dighton is so close, and that meant two different lunches. Day one, a variation on pasties. Day two, bread and cheese and fruit.

For the pasty variation, I cheated with store-brought crust. I figured the week my guy fell in a 12-foot-pit, I could cut a corner or two that did not involve safety, since I was getting home so much later.

Here’s how the filling worked, riffing on a Daily Mail recipe:

  • Some olive oil (a tablespoon, perhaps)
  • Half a medium sized onion, diced fine
  • A teaspoon of sage
  • Half to two-thirds of a pound of pork cutlet or boneless chop, whacked thin
  • One firm apple, sliced thin
  • One carrot, sliced thin, or a parsnip, or both, or neither
  • One medium potato, diced small
  • Tablespoon of flour
  • A tablespoon of lemon juice
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Small amount of water, as needed
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat the oil in a skillet; add the onion and sage, cook until soft.
Add the pork, cook until lightly browned.
Add potato, apple, and lemon juice; this is the time to add carrot/parsnip.
Sprinkle lighly with flour or cornstarch.
Cook until pork is browned and vegetables softening but not soft; add water as needed to create some juices.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

It is best to let the filling cool before spooning it onto the crust.

Cut the circles of crust into halves. Divide the filling into four equal parts, and distribute among the half-circles. Fold the crust over, pinch closed. Brush with beaten egg to glaze, cut small slits for steam holes. Bake at 350 degrees until filling bubbles and crust is brown, about 30 minutes, depending on oven.

I Love a Parade…Until I Don’t

28 Monday May 2012

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The boys were in the Dighton, MA Memorial Day Parade today. I sat in the car, I didn’t even take photos. That’s how it is some days.

Here are the things I saw: Two Rehoboth, MA Special Operations Hummv’s, in urban camo.

The Lions Club truck, with stuffed toy lions affixed to cab and grill.

A brigade of tractors, including one from 1942, noting FDR’s presidency.

It was not immediately clear if the Special Operations vehicles were on hand to deal with an uprising by the tractor-borne army of angry squash farmers of Rehoboth. It was not immediately clear why Rehoboth needed Hummvs while Providence seems to have none, and North Providence has closed fire stations. My best guess is that Rehoboth has someone better at tapping into federal homeland security and/or grant funds.

But the weirdest, saddest things were these: no Civil War reenactors in a Memorial Day parade, and the line of tractors that could appear to consign family-farm-based agriculture to a past as foreign as the Revolutionary War.