Tag Archives: Battle Road 2013

After Battle Road

14 Sunday Apr 2013

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Nooning on the field at Hartwell Tavern

Nooning on the field at Hartwell Tavern

In short: we enjoyed it, and yet we didn’t. Battle Road is the kind of event where those of us who come from Rhode Island and are on the fringes of the organization are not fully integrated into the event. Mr S  fielded in the morning, but the Young Mr could not, again, though he had been told at inspection that something would be found for him to do. He recovered pretty well, but there is a lot of waiting.

So lovely!

So lovely!

I was very grateful to have friends, new members of the Regiment, to chat with while we waited and watched the action. When you can’t participate, it’s fun to pick out your friends in the columns marching past. Sorry, no photos: authenticity standards.

Afterwards, we had lunch, and saw more friends. That gown is a copy of one in the Newport Historical Society. It has robings and front lacing–what an amazing artifact! I would love to get my fingers on the original’s front to find out how many layers there are.

At this point, though, my claustrophobia began to kick in. In the photo of my friend and her daughter you can see tourists taking photos of the Young Mr (by his buttons you shall know him) and Brian Jean of the 2nd Helpings.

The line to see Hartwell Tavern snaked through the yard, and the road was getting full of people, and dogs, and bicycles. We fled.

This is often my view. Good thing I'm tall.

This is often my view if I want space to breathe. Good thing I’m tall.

We slipped up to the MMNHP Visitors Center (flush toilets!) and watched the presentation on April 19, 1775.  When we walked out of the theatre, the ranger said, “Welcome to chaos.”  The Center was packed full of people, all talking, many pushing: we found a way through the crowd and snuck up to the National Heritage Museum (more flush toilets and a Coke machine!), which had a nice map exhibit. I had some ideas at the time about mixing maps and objects in a thematic exhibition, and vaguely, they remain.

I'm usually looking for where the arrow is pointing: The Kid.

I’m usually tracking the animal the arrow is pointing to: The Kid.

Here’s where the not-so-great part started for me. At Tower Park, I got left alone on the public side of the rope line. (We rode up with Brian, so my ‘getting around and doing things’ options were pretty limited.) To be a living exhibition with one other person is good; to be a living exhibition with a normally-dressed companion is bearable; to be alone is annoying.

Hands to yourselves, people, please. Also, those are my friends and family out there on the field, and I would like to see them, too.

I had a moment at Tower Park where I thought, Really, the hell with the public. This kind of reenacting is not for me; I’ll stick to something more personal, something for reenactors/living historians alone. But what I think I really wanted was a friend or a larger zone of personal space–you’d think petticoats and a cloak would help, but they don’t–a way for people to understand No Touching. Also, I like to be able to keep My Kid in view to manage my anxiety levels. Superstitious Mother Tricks…

The Brown Gown, which I do actually like

The Brown Gown, which I do actually like, 12 hours on

I was a lot crankier about it last night, which was probably the result of being rather tired (getting up at 5 to lace yourself into a new gown after a week of insomniac-style sleep and intense work is not how most folks start “vacation”), hungry, and cold (it settled inside my stays mid-morning and I will feel it for a while to come).

Will I do it all again? Yes. Will I try to make better afternoon plans? Yes…though I’m not sure yet what they will be.

To Lexington, Tomorrow

12 Friday Apr 2013

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The Battle of Lexington, 1775. Engraving by Ralph Earl. NYPL Digital Library

The Battle of Lexington, 1775. Engraving by Ralph Earl. NYPL Digital Library

We’re as done as we’re going to be. Buttonholes are stitched, the Young Mr’s garters are in process, so the last thing to do would be to replace the green ribbon on my bonnet with black, just because I feel picky and want to change it.

That, and pressing clothes and making lunches.

Mr S completed two hand-sewn market wallets so that the boys can have their own lunches and I do not have to be the walking buttery.

Clara Peeters (fl. 1607–1621) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On the menu? A Cheshire pork pie or pasties (apple and pork), apples, water, and gingerbread cakes. I may pick up a loaf of bread (I ran out of flour this morning and barely eked out enough for the gingerbread, so rising time is out of the question) and bring some cheese as well. It’s a long day outdoors, and we are likely to be hungry. When my family gets too hungry, we get weird. By the time we are done, I expect to be this tired, so I am considering making Saturday night’s dinner tonight.

The modernized recipes for gingerbread cakes and the pork pie are from the History is Served website, but this week I found a wonderful site from the Westminster City Archives, The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies. Almond puddings are not portable, but they look fun to try.

How Now, Brown Gown?

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, Making Things

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Finished. Hope it fits, right?

Finished, that’s how, with holes in my fingers and a split in my thumb.

Sure hope it fits…I have tried it on along the way, and it is an open robe, so chances are good it will fit. But after I dressed Cassandra, I did have that “What if…?” moment of dread. There’s a lot of this that’s like art school. Hours laboring alone, hours of studying precedent, craft/technique and theory, and then you have a presentation, i.e. you wear the thing in public. I try not to think about it too much.

I could take this apart for you (the sleeve is more ‘modern’ than the cuff; gowns are not known to have been bound at the hem, though petticoats were; didn’t finish the matching petticoat; did I use the fabric the wrong side out?) but Gentle Reader, I suspect you can supply your own quantity of anxiety, and need not borrow a cup or quart from me.

Let’s talk about the fun parts:

For a while, I hated this gown. Seriously. The closer I got to being done with it, the more I flat-out despised it and found it ugly. Why? Too nice. That’s a respectable gown, that is. It’s the gown your mother would tell you to wear, or the one she thought you ought to change into when she said, “You’re going out in that?” As if you were planning to run away in a red and black calico gown… And I hated the color. Then I thought the wool was too heavy.

Mrs Sylvanus Bourne, JS Copley, 1766. MMA, 24.79

I am not this old. My impression is not this wealthy. My dress is not silk. But when I look at what I’ve managed to make, and I look at this (my own white apron is coming; I almost finished it yesterday, but the alarm company called and I had to go deal with an early-morning bat) I feel better. I have white mitts, a white kerchief, and there will be a white apron, bats or no bats.

It’s a neat presentation, the brown and white will look well together, and with a black hat or black bonnet. And by the time I’ve sat on dirt and ground some soil into the skirt, and burned a hole into the hem, I’ll probably like this gown.

But it seems so…proper…and that just doesn’t seem like me.

Hat, Rescued

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Reenacting, Thanks

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Really, the power of the interwebs. Not that I shouldn’t have contacted the hat maker, but the hat is soft and lovely and looks just like one in a painting at work. And I so readily saw it ornamented with ostrich plumes that would have made it twice as pettable.

20130410-054451.jpg
But the hat maker emailed and recommended a technique I will call “steam and cram” but which involves the judicious application of steam followed by placing the hat on the head. So I pulsed steam into the crown of the hat, avoiding a) the neat label pasted on the top and b) the sides, which have such a lovely feel and verticality. And then hat was then placed firmly on Mr S’s head.

Felt is such amazing stuff: I love the way the wool changes as you felt knitting. There is a moment when the fibers change– it’s hard to describe, exactly, but there’s a feeling of release, and then the knitting as a whole becomes more plastic and malleable.

The same thing happened with this hat: while atop Mr S’s head, he felt it relax, and voila! Hat! Fitting!

He looks pretty happy about it, doesn’t he?

I did find an article comparing Concord and Lexington in the pre-Revolutionary period which included a statistical analysis of the Lexington Militia with a small number of non-tax payers and men with small holdings, justifying the appearance of the two this household will provide. Apparently they do not have my same need for fully-researched, found-it-on-JSTOR fantasies.

Getting My Mitts On: HSF #7

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Clothing, History, Making Things

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Mitts, 18th Century. MMA, C.I.44.8.9a, b

I got in a lather about not having mitts. I have been trying to knit a pair from the Mara Riley pattern for some time, as in well over a year. It’s just an unfortunate thing. I understand the pattern, I like the yarn I have, the needles are authentic enough for events, and yet: I cannot get these things done. As a result, I get cold. (I don’t mean that to sound whiny.)

There’s debate in some circles about whether or not knitted mitts were worn in New England, though there is a nice pair of black frame-knit mitts at the MFA, with a history of use in Lexington, MA. That’s a long way from what I can knit, a fair distance from what lower-middling Kitty would wear, and vastly unsuitable for a woman following the army. Still, I want mitts.

In the Fall, I tried to make myself a pair. It did not go well.

‘Camblet’ lined with linen, linen lined with cotton. More pix on flickr.

Fortunately I have developed more patience or bloody-mindedness since then. This allowed me to spend the time scaling up the pattern in Costume Close-Up. That’s where I started in the Fall, but things went better this time, and I actually have a pair of mitts.

Two pairs. I have problems, I try to solve them with sewing.

The Challenge: HSF # 7: Accessorize.

Fabric:
Left: Silk and wool “camblet,” lined with light-weight linen, both from Burnley & Trowbridge
Right: White linen from Fabric-Store.com, lined with printed cotton from Wm Booth Draper.

Pattern:
My own, scaled up from Costume Close-Up, available here for you if you have large hands,  print it at 100% on 11 x 17 paper. You will need to tweak the thumb placement. Make a muslin. Make two muslins. It’s worth the effort.

Year:
1750-1800. Narrower than that I cannot get, yet.

Notions:
None.

Mittens, 1790-1800. V&A,

Mittens, 1790-1800. V&A,

How historically accurate is it?
Say 8/10, since I have never examined a pair and don’t know exactly how they were made. Yes, I’ve read the descriptions in Costume Close-Up and Fitting and Proper, but at this foggy insomniac moment, I couldn’t tell you much about those descriptions.

Hours to complete:
The bulk of the time was in the patterning, which took a couple of evenings and 4 muslins. But once you have a pattern that works for you, finishing a pair from cutting to wearing is about 3 hours all by hand. You could cut that significantly using a machine instead of hand back-stitching, and add decorative embroidery, which I really cannot do. Really. Photos to come.

First worn:
To be worn April 13…probably the white linen pair.

Total cost:
Nothing, really, as all fabric was left over in the stash. The pretty printed scraps came in handy.

Garters! Jo-Ann plus Wm Booth Draper, but so far no implosion

Oh, I made some garters, too. Easy-peasy. Use the Pragmatic Costumer’s Ten Minute Tutorial. Completely makes up for whatever project you think you just screwed up. The main lilac ribbon is silk, the decorative ribbon is so not silk. These are better than no garters, but I expect my stockings will still droop around my ankles, as required by the laws of physics and reenacting.