Tag Archives: Clothing

6 Hours with the Cursing Sewing Mommy

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Making Things

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

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…

Images and Ideas

27 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Clothing, History

≈ Comments Off on Images and Ideas

Tags

, , , ,

If the museum date is mutable, what to do? How to take non-illustrated Vogue for the Lower Sorts and turn it into an actual plan for a garment? By using period images.

Anne Carrowle runs away in 1774 in “an India red and black and white calicoe long gown,” but what does that mean?

Start with the negatives: It means she is not wearing a short gown or a bed gown or a jacket. She’s probably wearing what we most commonly think of women wearing, an ankle- or near-ankle length dress, open in the front (remember that the petticoat is described!) that pins to a stomacher or is fastened with bands or a band over a handkerchief.  (Excellent info on the topic At the Sign of the Golden Scissors blog.)

 When I start thinking about a gown for 1774, I start looking for earlier images. Not too much earlier, but a range. In this case, Anne left England in 1769, so 1769-1774 seems like a reasonable time frame. I made a Pinterest board for 1765-1774 ideas, which is easier than posting them all here.

To the left is a robe that’s clearly open: it’s hanging open. Laundry-work, women washing at Sandpit Gate, Paul Sandby, 1765; watercolor. Royal Collection.

1765 gets us closer to the time period, and it is before Anne left England, and it’s likely from the class she was born into. But it is early.

The two prints above are both from 1774; on the left, note the maid’s gown, which hangs open and has robings. On the left, the old woman asleep wears a gown laced over a stomacher.

But best of all perhaps is this image, of Thomas Mifflin and his wife, Sarah Morris Mifflin, painted by Copley in 1773. Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) and his wife, Sarah Morris Mifflin (1747?-1790), were the only Philadelphians painted by John Singleton Copley. Mifflin was an ardent patriot and by the time this portrait was made, had established himself as a successful merchant; later he rose to the rank of major general in the Continental Army, and was elected the first governor of Pennsylvania after the United States achieved independence.

Why does this work for me? Because these are Philadelphians, and my woman ran away from the Philadelphia area. The detail really shows that Mrs. Mifflin is wearing an open robe with robings and stomacher over a quilted petticoat with a filmy white apron. This is multiple tiers above Anne Carrowle, but the style is what I’m aping, not the materials (obviously silk).

Another Copley portrait, of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Winslow, depicts a woman in a gown with robings and a stomacher. Jemima Winslow is 41 in the painting, putting the style into my ballpark, and better still, the gown is of a patterned fabric.

Below is a detail of the fabric and stomacher. Though it will be a vastly simplified version, I think I have a model for my dress.

What time is that dress in the museum?

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Clothing, History, Museums

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Guess what: they might not know for sure. Many garments donated to museums are given without clear dates, especially older garments donated in the 20th and 21st century. That means that dating the garments is, well, tricky.

You can find many dated to 1776 by donors. Everybody wanted to be associated with such an important event…especially around 1876, and 1976. Where I work, a dress like the one to the left was given to us with the firm statement that the fabric had been brought from England to RI (how did that work with Newport blockaded?), and that the dress was from 1776. Clearly, it is not.

To the right is Deborah Sampson’s dress, possibly her wedding dress: Don’t know who she was? Read here.

Deborah Sampson’s is a closed-front round gown. Look at the catalog record, and you’ll also note the date: 1760-1790, a thirty-year spread. Why is this? Fabric gets remade, for one thing. Deborah Sampson Gannett’s dates are 1760-1827, so if this is her dress, we know she didn’t wear it in this size or style in 1760. But fabric can easily pre-date a garment. The V&A sometimes had three dates for their Spitalfields silk gowns: the date of the fabric, the date it was first made into a garment, and the date it was altered into a new style.

Sampson marries in 1785. That seems like a plausible date for this dress, given its style. That’s where the 1790 comes in; yes, it could be that late, it’s conservative in New England and makes a nice ending to a “circa” date. So how else might this dress be dated? 1785-1790? 1780-1790, fabric possibly earlier? Given the database I know HNE uses, the date field is a little tricky (we use the same one). If I were to catalog the dress, I think I’d use 1783-1788. Why 1783? Because we know Deborah Sampson was probably not wearing dresses in 1783: she was in the Army roughly 1778-1783. I’d add 5 years to that because it encompasses the date of her marriage, 1785, and indicates that I’m not convinced or have no firm documentation that this was in fact her wedding dress. That’s just how I would approach this if the dress was in my museum and is not intended as a criticism of HNE’s cataloging. And it’s not to suggest that my own catalog records don’t need work, because they do.

What does this mean for researchers and costumers? When I do research, because I know how the process can work, it means I’m often skeptical, or wish that the reasoning behind the date was explained—especially behind a 20 or 30 year range. It also means you have to fact check yourself, with independent verification. For that, I use period images, which I’ll explore in another post.

Runaway! Ambitions

20 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Making Things

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

The Met, ca. 1774

Regular readers know I have a tendency to make things, especially clothing, especially for events. So another event–actually two: What Cheer Day! and Nathan Hale–approaches, and the question, as ever, is what to wear?

I like to start with the runaway ads for inspiration and documentation. The ads for Rhode Island runaway women can be limited, so I look in Boston and New London as well, and sometimes Philadelphia. My mother lives outside Philadelphia, and I know that trade connected Providence and Philadelphia in the 18th century, in particular through the mercantile house of Brown and Francis.

Of course, I do also have a fabric problem not unlike my bonnet problem. I buy fabric, and stash it. Most sewers do, and after regretting a pair of very-marked-down red leather Andrea Pfister pumps I did not buy at Marshall Field’s one winter, if I like something, I buy it. It is often red, viz:

I know what merchants were selling in Rhode Island, and as early as 1768, Samuel Young in Providence at the Sign of the Black Boy, is selling “Chints, calicoes, and patches of all figures and prices.”

When I found the ad for the runaway wearing the red and black chintz gown, I knew I wanted to make that gown.

“Run away, on the 30th of last March, from the subscriber in Fourth street, near the Post office, an apprentice girl, named Anne Carrowle came from London with Captain William Keais, in the year 1769, she has a fresh complexion, brown hair, near sighted, left handed, round shouldered, and about 16 years of age; had on, when she went away, a green silk bonnet, an India red and black and white calicoe long gown, a blue halfthicks, and striped lincey petticoat, a white apron, and new leather shoes; she has been seen trolling on the Lancaster and Gulf roads, on pretence of going to service at Esquire Moor, and the Bull Tavern, and then at Carlisle….” [Pennsylvania Gazette, 27 April, 1774]

To add to the fun, I know Lancaster and Gulph, and this could be close to where my mother lives now. Too bad I am so far from 16.

Moving on…Here’s the dilemma: front closing or not? Open robe or round gown? The last one seems easier, as the petticoat is described, and thus probably showing, so an open robe. But the bodice, what about that? Stomacher front or closed?

There is a gown in the National Trust dated ca. 1770 with a closed front. And there is a gown with a missing stomacher in the National Trust dated ca. 1770. There are many gowns in the Snowshill Collection with closed fronts, but what is documented to New England? Before 1773, it seems, only stomacher front en fourreau gowns.

PMA, ca. 1775-1780s

I think the answer is that the runaway in 1774 is not wearing the height of fashion–though at 16, she will trend as new as possible, and could be wearing a closed front gown. For me, as a middling to lower sort, I think the best choices will be a stomacher front gown with robings. I have a bodice block for a front-closing gown, know the fit works, and have a back a like and a sleeve I can live with. So on to a muslin for the stomacher front, I think. The center front closings of the striped cotton gown in Philadelphia are probably too modern for what I’m doing, and for my age.

Really, it should be brown linen. Sober. Mature. Not running away. But what are costuming and living history, if not a kind of running away?