Buttonholes Made Fun

11 Thursday Oct 2012

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For a time, I worked with a young man who sang at work. It wasn’t “Old Man River” or railroad work songs, but simpler, more repetitive phrases: “Up the stairs, down the stairs” while moving around the house, or “broccoli, broccoli; broccoli, broccoli” making his lunch. The habit had its charms and its hilarity, but now the little sing-song phrases get stuck in my head, like today’s “try not scream, try not to scream.”

20121011-064643.jpgButtonholes!! Board decisions! Bad fit! The last two are only hypothetical, I must remember. There’s been no real board meeting to cut that $100K from next year’s budget, and I haven’t laced into my stays and tried on the new dress yet.

I have been working on buttonholes, and have a new favorite sewing tool: a sharp chisel. It would be ideal to get one that could pass for period, and a mallet as well, because hammering a sharp blade through overalls has proven oddly satisfying. I might take on fancy waistcoats for the sheer pleasure of mallet use.20121011-064502.jpg

The dress is basted and hemmed and ready to be tried on and tested. there’s a little bit of minor finish work I can do at lunch today, but the big push this evening will have to be gathering up the gear and loading the car, fitting the ankles of the overalls to the wearer so those buttons and buttonholes, and the evil tongue, can be sewn.

That leaves Friday for finish work, which seems like a reasonable plan. I can always work on the shift during What Cheer! Day, as long as there is not too much running back and forth to do.

Death by a Dull Board

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Museums

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The New Parliament Pudding, Met Museum

On Monday, The Still Room Blog had a fun post about murder mysteries set in museums, and the dearth of deaths of collections managers and registrars because of their low profile. If no one knows you exist, how can you get killed off in fiction?

Well, folks, here’s how: turn a non-profit board loose in a room with the general figures that appear in an annual report, and ask them a ‘fictional’ question about cutting money from an NPO’s budget. Ask, “What program would you cut?” Be sure not to give them a list of programs or detailed financial information, but only the kind of broad-stroke, simplified information that is publicly available.

Guess what they’ll cut? They’ll cut the non-public functions of the museum program because it’s non-public. (I feel nauseated as I type those words, just as ill as I felt last night.) And after all, it’s reversible! They can always hire other curators, collections managers, photographers, registrars. Cataloging gets put on hold, so what? There are still all the displays up in the house museum–and that’s all it is, a house museum, not a real museum–so we can have those positions again if things improve. We just stop collecting objects, but that’s OK, because after all, we’re not a museum!

It’s enough to make a cat laugh, and a curator, collections manager, registrar, or photographer vomit.

It was an interesting choice, made primarily because the objects were perceived as having no constituents, and those who existed didn’t matter–what do we care about the experts at Yale or Winterthur, or the Met? What do we care about the curators at the regional museums? They’re the elite, and we’re not pandering to them.

Seriously.

I’m no Wendy Cooper or Morrie Heckscher (though I have met Mr. H and moved furniture with him in my museum, and my mother knew his father) but I suspect that the group I was with last night would let them go, too, in an “academic” exercise. After all, they could consult when needed–for a fee, of course, take it or leave it–and that would be a savings. See? Win-win.

Just to be clear, it was only an exercise last night, and nothing more. But it was highly instructive in the ways that boards function when they do not fully understand how museums work (they think the Director of Education does all the exhibits) and how important is it for collections managers, registrars, and digital imaging specialists/photographers and yes, even curators, to make clear and public what they do. Without those people, museums will not know what they have, where it is, who gave it to them, or what it looks like. They also will not know where, in other museums, there are related objects and make the connections between local, regional, and national collections.

Who else will tell you the stories of the objects, and how they relate to one another?
Who else will assemble the material, physical evidence of the past?
Who else will connect you to a real object, provide you with an authentic, meaningful experience?

I hope I don’t get to find out, because I think one of the board members once suggested Boy Scouts could catalog the collection.

Remember, it was only a exercise. Instructive, though, and urgent: behind the scenes workers need to raise their profile and explain what they do, and why it’s important. Cataloging librarians, this means you, too.

Weather and Wardrobe

09 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Making Things

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If only What Cheer! Day would look this good!

What to wear for 55-degree weather? Suddenly, “red and black and white calicoe” seems…foolish. The Cursing Sewing Mommy may have words for not having gotten her act together to make the red short cloak from the Wm Booth remnant. But there is a blue wool cloak (based on one in the RIHS Collection) that lacks only facings, but when I dress early next Saturday morning, will one layer of wool over cotton be warm enough? Hard to be certain, but I am not confident. And what does this mean for Nathan Hale? Is it past time to drop the cotton and drag out the wool?

None of this panic has anything to do with questions of fit, of course, or the schedule for today, which starts with boiler men and ends with a board dinner. Yes, that is sarcasm.

I’ll haul “red and black and white calicoe” in to work and perhaps while babysitting boiler men I can work on some of the issues—or if not, at least get the second sleeve set and the cuffs done. If I can make it passable, I can wear it over my black wool petticoat, and bring the wool jacket in my runaway-with-the-army bag.

The overall buttons are in progress, and I have chisels for buttonholes, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  One really can’t whack holes in clothes on private club tables…not if one wishes to keep one’s job.

6 Hours with the Cursing Sewing Mommy

07 Sunday Oct 2012

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Layout, 8:00AM. Started after cutting out the last parts for the red calico gown

Many thanks to Sew18thCentury  for  the Sewing with Babies award. I’ve seen the badge on people’s blogs and thought, How charming! At least I don’t sew with a baby anymore… the Young Mr is, after all, very nearly 14. But aside from some safety issues (pins are slightly less hazardous, as they only get trapped on the size 13 feet, not potentially ingested), sewing with a school-age child is sewing with someone who needs (wants) your attention.

Sewing With Babies was created by Sarah W. from the blog A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle to recognize, “mothers who try (and now and then fail) to find time to create something beautiful and/or useful with needle and thread, between feedings, nappy changes, laundry, nursery rhymes, and baby kisses.”

I have been sewing with and for the Young Mr since before he was born; the day I went into labor, I was home with a sinus infection, contractions, and seated at the sewing machine frantically making…Christmas stockings for our family, including the cat. After all, my mom was coming for Christmas! Clearly, while I was in the grip of something strong, what I really needed was to get a grip.

What did I do after he was born, when he was the Monkey and not the Young Mr?

Like most moms, I sewed during naptime, or gave him a creative, not-too-messy activity to do alongside me. Caution was in order, because at about 18 months, he did climb onto the table to ride the sewing machine like a horse.

I took handwork with me to sew at lunchtime—and I still do this. Since 1999, I have sat in buildings under construction, hand sewing or quilting. It’s a good thing to talk about if you’re babysitting a lobby during a members’ open house, or while men screw heat detectors into ceilings in rooms without internet access, and you may learn new words to use when sewing goes awry.

Mostly, I get up early. When he was the Monkey, the Young Mr woke up before the New York Times was delivered. People, that was just unconscionable—and worse in the dial-up internet era. St. Louis at 4:00AM was a lonely place. After I got him back to sleep, I was wide awake waiting for the paper, so I started planning pieces, cutting patterns, and sewing before Mr S got up and we had to get ready for work.

I still get up early, sometimes 4:00, usually 5:00, and have sixty to ninety minutes before the rush to work and school begins.

I’m struck by the mothers who sew for their children, and wish I had been able to sew historic clothes for the Young Mr when he was little. So even though some of these folks  have been nominated, here’s another vote to keep on sewing.

Romantic History I especially like historic clothes for boys…now that I’m stuck making man-size clothes for my boy. (How did that happen!?)

Dana Made It When my son was younger, I wanted to quit my job and sew for kids. Didn’t work out that way, but it’s great to see fresh ideas for sewing for kids.

Sewing with Kids This is how I started, felt animals and tense embroidery projects.

Today was more like sewing with The Cursing Mommy, though.

Legs, 16:42PM. On to hand work–tomorrow.

Still, from layout commencing at 07:59AM today to the cessation of sewing machine hostilities at 16:42PM, we have a garment. The words I have heard carpenters, electricians and pipe fitters use came in handy when the thread was– I swear–possessed by demons. Fabric wandered like it had grown legs, not been cut into legs, and I thought about how our mechanic said, “The Devil has many feet, Mr. S” when pronouncing the old Subaru unfit for resuscitation. I tossed the bad thread, rewound the bobbin, ate a sandwich, and started over. It was worth it to get to hand-finishing work, which is portable.

Now, it’s time for a beer (the cursing mommy would approve), and to switch to another project. Before I laid out the overalls, I cut out the stomacher and cuffs for my gown, and organized the finish work for that. Yesterday I decided to attempt to make a coral necklace, and that might be a good project for this evening. My thumb muscles need a rest.

History Dress-Tease

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Making Things, Museums

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What Cheer! Day is a week away, and exactly a week from now, at 6:30 AM, I will get into my B&G guy’s truck and head into the site. We’ll measure and tape out camp sites, fire pit sites, and safety lines, bring wood and gear out from the woodshed and basement. We’ll put out the handicapped parking only sign in the parking lot, drop the orange cones (I love the thick flexible plastic of a traffic cone), and drink some coffee. I haven’t decided at what point I’ll start to fret in earnest that day, but the trick to not fretting will probably be to get dressed in 18th century clothes as soon as we are done carrying items upstairs, because then I will have to take off my watch. Watches lead to fretting: there’s administrator time, and re-enactor time, which is more like artists’ time. Better to take off the watch and get closer to the past.

Half-pleated skirt, sleeves in progress

At the School of Instruction, I thought the “People of the Brigade” program worked well; at OSV, I really appreciated  the Military Fashion Show (I did not make it to Runaway Runway). Using these models, and knowing about the School of Instruction’s Women’s Dress program, I thought we’d combine these ideas. I don’t have a good name for the program yet, but the reason I’m going so nuts about the dress from 1774 is that I plan a “History Dress-Tease:” starting in shift, stays, stockings and shoes, I’ll demonstrate all the layers my runaway wore: 2 petticoats, pockets, dress, stomacher, apron, cap, bonnet.

Any soldiers I can convince to get down to small clothes and layer up with waistcoat, coat or frock, canteen, cartridge box, bayonet scabbard, haversack, knapsack, hat and musket, will demonstrate the gear they carried. I thought about a weigh-in, to record how much it all weighs, but my scale is a pathological liar, and varies by 4 pounds from one side of the room to another.

All this work has an educational, and not merely sartorial, purpose. Now, if only the public will come…