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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: 1820s

The Warren Commission

06 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by kittycalash in 1830s, Clothing, Events, History, Museums

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1820s, Arcade Providence, first person interpretation, interpretation, living history, Mrs Russell Warren, Rhode Island Historical Society, Rhode Island history

Mrs Russell Warren, oil on canvas by Henry Cheever Pratt ca 1824. RIHS 1917.8.2

Mrs Russell Warren, oil on canvas by Henry Cheever Pratt ca 1824. RIHS 1917.8.2

In addition to the Pabodie Project due in November, I recently committed to appearing at the Providence Arcade on October 14 as Mrs Russell Warren at the party celebrating the launch of the Russell Warren project. As you might have gathered, she’s the architect’s wife, a role I know something about having observed the species in its native habitat for the better part of my life.

This look seemed achievable, once a few compromises were made. To begin with, I scrapped the notion of replicating a silk taffeta gown: too dear for so short a time. I felt some comfort in  this decision as I think the sleeves indicate a rather later date than 1824, and I am, in fact, striving for an Arcade-opening-appropriate dress suitable for about 1826.

So, what to do? Well, thank goodness men like to shoot at plywood and win feathers. My plan is to wear the brown striped gown with the existing belt and accessorize with a new antique lace pelerine-collar type device, I also  plan [hope to] make a new extreme jellyfish cap and possibly a new bonnet.

I have the supplies. Do I have the time and will power? Stay tuned for the next installment of, “Yes, I may be overbooked.”

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An Afternoon in N’port

15 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#WalkNPT, 1820s, 19th century, 19th century clothing, common people, Costume, dress, Events, Kitty Smith, living history, millinery shop, Nathaniel Sweet, Newport, Newport Historical Society, Rhode Island history, Whitehorne House

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New coat!

I set off for Newport yesterday to spend the day at Whitehorne House with Sew 18th Century. I was pleased to have my coat, and pleased as well to see the ads for “lead colored pelisse cloths” at Nathaniel Sweet’s shop at 112 Cheapside in N’port. Everything fits better when you have some documentation.

We occupied the kitchen at Whitehorne House, interpreting the lives of mythical maids and cousins Eliza and Kitty Smith.

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The Whitehorne Kitchen

We hope to save enough to reopen our millinery shop, which flourished once in Salem just a few years ago. Times are hard in Newport, but there are some promising lotteries–a $10,000 prize in the Kennebec Bridge lottery and an incredible $25,000 prize in the New York Literature Lottery! We will have to save our wages to buy even one ticket– difficult to do with so many tempting’ wares in the shop–but the rewards would well worth our efforts.

A shop on Thames Street is to let not far from the Great Friends Meeting House. We think ’tis a fine location, for while Friends may be plain, they are well dress’d. One of our visitors offered to spread the rumor that the shop is haunted, so no one else will rent it, but I worry that such a tale might drive off custom.

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Gingerbread, bread-and-cheese and apples form’d our repast

Visitors called from as far away as New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, but found Mr Whitehorne at the Coffee House and Mrs Whitehorne out makin’ calls. As prominent citizens, they are busy about the town. Mrs Whitehorne is well-known for her receipts, and we were pleased to offer callers a sample of her fruited gingerbread. Indeed, ’tis delicious, though not as sticky as the late Mr S preferred.

Some visitors thought our plan to invest in woolen mills was a fine idea, and in addition to the mills on the island (there is one in Portsmouth), we hear there are several in Hartford. Providence has not the monopoly on industry she imagines.

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There is much washin’ and mendin’

The laundry does pile up in a household of seven children, and since we have run out of wood, I suspect the laundress has as well. The island is short of lumber now, and wood must come from Swansea. Still, there is always mending’ to be done.

Perhaps if we had known how many visitors would call, I might have taken more care in tidyin’ up the kitchen. ‘Twas a surprise to see so many, from so far away, but we do think N’port is due for a revival. ‘Tis a busier day of visitin’ than I was accustomed to in winter at the farm on Poppasquash Neck, but with Mr Smith now dead, and our lad on a brig in the coastal trade, we could not keep the lease. I am grateful to my cousin for helpin’ me find work in such a lovely house.

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A Valentine’s Puzzle Purse

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History, Making Things, Museums

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1820s, 19th century, common people, living history, Making Things, Museums, Newport, Rhode Island, Rhode Island history

Puzzle Purse Valentine. RIHS Graphics Collection Lot 42

Puzzle Purse Valentine. RIHS Graphics Collection Lot 42

Here’s a nifty little thing you can make: A puzzle purse. This is from the collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, but the form seems to have been fairly common; I know I’ve seen other fancifully-folded letters.

Because I’ll be spending Valentine’s Day in 1820, I thought I’d try to replicate this token. News on how it turned out later… I don’t feel clever enough to write my own verse, but here is the Rhode Island example transcribed.

My love is true to none but you
My heart expires for your sake
And if you don’t me pity show
My true and tender heart will brake

Here a question you will find
A sweet question you will find
Sweet is the question mark it well
Heart upon heart and so farewell

My Dearest dear and Blest Devine
I’ve pictured here your Heart and mine
But Cupid with his fatal dart
Has deeply wounded my poor heart

There between us sat a Cross
Which makes me to Lament my loss
But I am in hope when the Cross is hone
That both our hearts will be in one

My heart is fix’t no more to Range
I like my Choice to well to Change
Oh that my Heart to yours could meet
Then all my joys would be compleast
If you take this in disdain
Pray send it back from
Whence it Came L M

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Maid to Order

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

1820s, 19th century, 19th century clothing, common dress, common people, Federal style, living history, maids, servants, sewing, sewing project

DSC_0572 I play the maid a lot, or one the lower sort, both at home and abroad.

I’ll be a maid in Newport again this February, and for that event, I’ve made the skritchy rust brown gown.

Not quite finished, it still requires hemming and something to finish the sleeves, but in three days, I got pretty far, considering.

This back-closing bodice with bust darts was pretty awful to fit– strange relationships developed between the bodice neckline and a waistband now discarded and on its way to Johnston.

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The back closes with a drawstring at neck and waist, as simple as possible. Mr S and I discovered that fitting a bodice back was deleterious to our relationship, so drawstrings won over buttons. I can tie the lower string, but not the upper– annoying, as I was trying to make a gown that was easy enough to put on solo at 4:30 AM. Vanity won over a pinned apron front gown, though I know they exist in Rhode Island collections. The skritchy rust-brown cotton pays homage to that extant garment, which is a rough homespun brown wool. I may not be stylin’ extant, but I’ll be itching correctly.

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Good Enough Coat

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Events, Living History, Making Things, Research

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1820s, 19th century clothing, fashion, fashion plates, Federal style, greatcoat, sewing, sewing project, style, tailoring, winter, winter coat

The great coat is nice, but how ’bout them gaiters?

Winter is firmly here, with the snow, fog and ice that marks the season in the Ocean State. It’s not fun weather for living in the past, though there’s not a lot of that happening right now. Even so, there’s a February program on the horizon and what better excuse for fastening on a garment and making it?

Even if I’ll likely spend the day in a kitchen interpreting life below stairs in 1820 (while the light infantry occupies my living room and denudes my kitchen), an early 19th century event on a winter weekend seemed a worthwhile excuse for making a greatcoat, and, eventually, gaiters.

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With no pattern, and only 2 and 3/4 yards of thick, soft, grey double faced wool*,  I’m adapting my standard Spencer pattern. I didn’t upsize this too much, because women didn’t have frock coats and waistcoats to wear under their greatcoats or Carrick [carriage?] coats or Reding cotes. (I’m too engrossed with sewing to parse garment names.) The skirts will be attached at the waist, with a belt to hide the seam. At my height, cutting a back in one piece takes yardage I do not possess. Happily, the Taylor’s Instructor describes Redingcoats or Habits for women with attached skirts.

It's a new collar shape.
It’s a new collar shape.
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The collar shape diverges from my usual 1790s collar, and is based on another fashion plate, this time from 1815. The program I’ll be doing with Sew 18th Century is set in 1820. As a maid, I think an 1815 coat is pushing it a bit, since red wool cloaks hold up well, but I’ll take any excuse for some tailoring, I suppose.

1815, with a round collar that can stand up.

I plan to use this button arrangement, too, stylish as it is in not-quite-double breasted. Bring on the button-making– we all have to go death’s head sometime, and this wool is too thick for covered buttons without much heartbreak.

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The lower front pins are there from the moment when I realized the front was hanging strangely — because I had neither marked nor sewn the bust darts. That oversight, and the pain in my ear, do suggest that the delightful cold I’ve had for weeks may be affecting me more than I think– but that’s just another argument in favor of a cozy wool coat.

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The sleeve pattern (again, not upsized) is once again the old standby two-piece sleeve from Henry Cooke’s 1770s unlined man’s frock coat, so of course it fits well.

I’m hoping to stitch up the sleeves this evening, and set them later this week. I’m still pondering lining materials– there’s just enough silk “persian” to do the body and sleeves–but I have some twilled wool that would increase the warmth and still provide some ‘slip’ in the sleeves.

And those blue gaiters? They’ll come in time, from the scraps of blue wool a friend is making his first ditto suit from. I’ll spot him some remnant table chintz for a summer waistcoat, and expect greater sartorial splendor will grace the spitting stamp inspector in Newport this August in exchange for my blue wool ankles.

*Holy burned hair smell, Batman! Mr Cooke’s right when he says this almost feels like foam, but put a flame to it, and you might as well be smoking sheep.

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#literature is the theme for day 21 of #federalerafebruary, and while "Kindred Spirits was painted by Asher B. Durand in 1849, the painting depicts William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), author of "Thanatopsis," published in 1817, and Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School, and Durand was one of its most famous members, noted in part for his paintings depicting scenes from Bryant's "Thanatopsis." In the New Republic, landscape and perceptions of divinity became entwined, and by the end of the 1830s, an American vista over the mantel was as necessary as a Bible-- and Bryant was instrumental in changing how Americans came to see both nature and art. This painting is in the collection of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York http://ow.ly/feqs50lEe6x #art #landscape #hudsonriverschool #asherbdurand #thanatopsis #williamcullenbryant #thomascole #kindredspirits #metmuseum #nature #transcendentalis

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