Tag Archives: CoBloWriMo

To Name a Thing is to Know theThing: Vocabulary Exercises

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

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Today’s CoBloWriMo prompt is vocabulary, which in my case usually means blue, NSFW, or unprintable in the New York Times according to their Style Guide, (but now OK in the New Yorker, thank you Tina Brown).

Captain Haddock proclivities aside, I find myself trying to remember to use period-correct terms as I work, which means trying to figure out what the terms mean. It isn’t always easy, but there are number of printed and online sources.

Here, for example, is the Robe de Marcelline fashion plate I’ve been obsessed with since at least 2011, when Sabine made hers. I finally tracked down some dark green gingham fabric in Framingham, but, d’oh! It’s cotton and not marcel(l)ine.

Google Books provides many useful lookups, through dictionaries and, best of all at the moment, The Dictionary of Fashion History, which helpfully illuminates marceline as “a brilliant but slight kind of sarcenet.” That helps narrow down “lining fabric for women’s clothes,” and confirms that this is a lightweight, probably plain weave, silk.

That doesn’t solve my fabric issue, but given that I am still lack full-time work outside the house, Imma stick with my remnant table cotton. But at least I know what I *should* be using, and have expanded my vocabulary along the way.

Wrap it Up, I’ll Take it: Made for Someone Else

07 Monday Aug 2017

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Banyan, 1750-1775. T.215-1992, V&A Museum

Banyan, 1750-1775.
T.215-1992, V&A Museum

Disclaimer: This is an adaptation of an earlier post, so if you think you’ve read this before, you probably have.

Banyan or wrapping gown: both terms are used,  but the wearer and I call this a banyan for brevity’s sake. Despite its simplicity, this project took longer than I wanted, mostly because I have a tendency to take on too many things at once and promptly get sick. I like to think of this ability as a very special talent.

In any case, this simple garment was made more fun by piecing– it’s the challenge that keeps you awake, when the majority of the work is in teeny-tiny back stitches.

I took the subject’s chest, arm and back length, and bicep measurements, and made up my own pattern, using the chintz banyan in Fitting and Proper and this one at the V&A as models.

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Measurements in hand, the patterning was straightforward: you know how wide to made the body, the center back length you need to achieve, how wide to cut the neck hole, and how wide and how long the sleeves need to be. Really, not that hard.

You can use a diagram like this to start you off. I did wing the bottom width, guessing at the angle to give the garment a fullness similar to the chintz at the V&A.

Pieced more than once.
A lining in two colorways.

I didn’t have quite enough fabric to accommodate the recipient’s full height, nor could I get enough of the red print lining material; I had to piece both the stripes and the lining.  Trying to match up the stripes was remarkably satisfying, both when I succeeded and when I was  little off. Life Goal: Dizzying, please.

It contrasted well with a blue woven coverlet, making a nice bright note as I prepped rooms for What Cheer Day 2016. This was the effect I had hoped to achieve waaay back in April 2016 when I failed to finish anything I wanted for the After Dark program thanks to a bout of strep throat.

Jimmie and Billie, unwell and unable to dress themselves without Gideon’s aid. Photograph by J. D. Kay

By October, though, I was able to finish the entire item and make a matching cap, allowing Billie Bowen to recuperate in style from an evening at the Cold Meat Club. I’ve drifted away from making things for other people (except to sell) in part because the Giant, heading to college, has drifted away from living history and thus occupies far less of my sewing time.

Styles Style: Book Recommendation

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Book Review, material culture, Research

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Please forgive the watch– a test shot of a gown from a runaway ad.

This is a quick one, because I’m writing in advance of a trip to New England, but for me, the best secondary source I’ve read that helped me understand the people I was clothing is John Styles’ The Dress of the People. That’s not to say that I haven’t read more, and found period resources and collections of resources equally useful. If you’re doing a poor woman in America, Don Hagist is your man, with Wenches, Wives and Serving Girls (now Wives, Slaves, and Servant Girls. Read Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Uneasy Patriarchs for more on period terminology).

I like Styles because he helps us understand the why of people’s clothing, and their wants. For me, context is key (I harp on this a lot) so insight into how many shifts are usual, the fashion for pocket watches, and the activity of the second hand clothes market is really helpful. So despite my love of shiny satin gowns and fashion of all eras, among the few books I didn’t send to storage when I moved was The Dress of the People. I think that’s a strong recommendation.

(researc

Bad, Mad Skillz: An Origin Story

05 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in Clothing, Fail, Living History, personal

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Aragorn: one of many modified patterns

I’ve been sewing clothes off and on for while, and sewing pretty constantly since the 1990s—baby quilts, piped slipcovers for vintage chairs, knitting needle cases, costumes for the Giant, and sundry other items. Making calms me, and since I tend to operate at a pretty high RPM, I make a lot of things.

Historical clothing took off for me after the Giant decided he wanted in on the living history thing. Hunting frocks, overalls, and shirts gave way to stays, petticoats and gowns. I’m largely self-taught, and although workshops with Sharon Burnston and Henry Cooke helped immensely, much of what I learned about fitting and draping I learned by reading (books and tutorials, especially Koshka and Sabine) and by making mistakes.

The best way to succeed is to fail, and I am an accomplished failure —you have only to look through the archives here, and you will find waistcoats sewn by drunken, crack-addled monkeys , upside-down Spencer collars, and stays gone wrong. I’m okay with those mistakes, because they helped me (and, I hope, some of my readers) make progress towards better sewing.

Really, I’m not sure how this happened. But there it is: upside down.

I’ve made things of late of which I am proud, or at least pleased with; I have taught myself new skills over the years from pad stitching (still working on that) to hand knotting (getting better) . I’ve gained patience (which is a skill itself) as I’ve learned new techniques, and that counts for a lot.

Hand-knotted lapis bead necklace: a new, slightly frustrating skill

Way back when (for the true origins), struggling through a design studio, I realized that the greatest frustration typically comes just before a breakthrough. That understanding is really the origin of my historical sewing: getting frustrated means you’re making progress. And what’s more frustrating that replicating a historical garment?

Fave Friday: Full-On Federal

04 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Clothing, History, Research

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Favorite Era? Easy-peasy! Federal, of course. Whether furniture or fashion, the early Republic is my thing. I spend a fair amount of time in the 18th century, since there are so many events in that time period, and while I loved the story of the American Revolution as a child, the early Federal* period intrigues me more. Furniture, porcelain, wallpaper, and clothing from 1790-1820 all appeal to me, as well as the notion that women’s roles were in flux in the earliest decades of the United States.

“American Women and French Fashion,” from The Age of Napoleon

I love the idea of women in mercantile businesses and trade, and the way that milliners provided access to fashion (and you can read more about that in The Age of Napoleon).

Merrymaking at a Wayside Inn, watercolor on paper by John Lewis Krimmel. 1811-1813. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 42.95.12

I also love the way that American women (and men) translated European high style into a vernacular, as seen in John Lewis Krimmel’s watercolors of Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

This is a time period I’m comfortable in (yes, the stays are part of that comfort) but aside from comfort and aesthetics, I think it’s also because for a brief time, women had slightly more freedom than they had previously.

It was short-lived, and Republican motherhood was confining in its own way before the “cult of womanhood” blossomed fully. But ideals of freedom and fashion very briefly aligned, and for that, I love the Federal– and vain creature that I am, I think it suits me.

*pre-Andy Jackson, amirite?