Tag Archives: fabric

Frivolous Friday: Favorite Fabric

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Favorite Fabric? Are you kidding? Is it fabric? It’s my favorite.

Dat neckhandkerchief, tho’

There’s the hand-woven handkerchief made by a friend that is my absolute favorite textile accessory.

There’s silk taffeta, and the occasional silk satin, for bonnets.

And linen for shifts and linings.

But my all-time favorite fabrics are Indian block print cottons. I have multiple yards in storage, and multiple yards in the accessible Strategic Fabric Reserve. I try not to look at them in the online shops, for I cannot afford to be tempted.

My favorite three gowns are made of Indian block print cotton:

The Milliner in Red

The Bib-Front Tailoress

And the somewhat noticeable Nancy Dawson.

It was hot. And humid. That’s only water.

There’s an early red, white, and black calico based on a Philadelphia runaway ad, too, and though I’ve not had it on in a while, it may be due for a renaissance.

Once upon a time in Connecticut…

Oh, and while it requires some shoulder strap adjustments, there’s the brown Indian print I wear as a unsatisfactory Philadelphia servant and Boston sight-seer…and the red print I wore for a 1790 Providence housekeeper.

A terrible servant….
how does she get hired?

So, yes, pretty much my favorite, and of the prints? Nancy Dawson, hands down, though I was skeptical at first, for the yellow was so very bright. Made up and worn, though, I love it.

To Name a Thing is to Know theThing: Vocabulary Exercises

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, Research

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

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.

Fabric Selection Resources: Printed & Online

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Book Review, Clothing, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Jackie asked about fabrics: how do you choose?

I’m going to start with prints, cottons, linens and silks; the second part will cover wools and sutlers.

There’s no substitute for feeling up the real thing, or samples, and while I do not have the book, I’m told by a very reliable source that it is worth buying Swatches from Wm Booth or from Hallie. I also order Burnley & Trowbridges swatch sets, which are often  more extensive than what’s on their website. Those samples help me gauge fabrics online– comparing the actual square with a thumbnail online is helpful.

Barbara Johnson: a typical page

Barbara Johnson: a typical page, this from 1803

Where else can you look for guidance? One of the best books that spans a wide range of living history time periods is the Barbara Johnson book of swatches. Owned and published by the Victoria and Albert Museum, A Lady of Fashion is out of print, but the pages have been scanned and are available online. The print version is better– it’s big!– but you can download the images and get a better sense of the scale of the samples.

What is particularly useful is that Barbara Johnson dated the samples, and wrote down how they were used. You can’t get better than that!

Susan Greene’s Wearable Prints is neither small nor cheap, but it is extensive, covering 1760 to 1860. This is a very hand book to have to help sort out typical looks for different time periods, and the likely range of colors.

Textile Sample Book, 1771. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 156.4 T31

Textile Sample Book, 1771. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 156.4 T31

Other museums have digitized sample books: the Met, for example, has multiple images of woven fabrics from a 1771 sample book online.

What you need to remember here is fibre: those homespuns at JoAnn will not behave the way linens behave, even if they look the same. Hand and drape are everything, and cotton, or cotton-poly will not do want linen does. Buy the linen, it’ll look, feel, and wear better.

There are many more sample books, but you have to be careful: some are dated only “19th century.” Great. That’s where Susan Greene and Barbara Johnson can help you sort out which *part* of the 19th century you’re looking at.

Swatch book, 1763-1764. Victoria and Albert Museum, T.373-1972

Swatch book, 1763-1764. Victoria and Albert Museum, T.373-1972

For silks, you can see a very specific and detailed range of silks in Selling Silks, which reproduces another sample book at the Victoria and Albert. Not all samples are 1763-1764; you will need to read the descriptions, but this can be helpful in figuring out how to use fabrics. I have come into some red silk damask that I can make into a gown; it’s vintage silk from France, probably pre-World War II. The pattern is large, replicating a 1740s fabric, but when I make up my gown, I think it can be 1760s, but not a lot later.

Part of looking and buying is understanding how textiles might be bought, saved, made up, reused and repurposed over time.

 

Material Girl

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in Making Things, Museums, Philosophy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Yes, I am a material girl. The Strategic Fabric Reserve has grown beyond the allotted cupboards into plastic containers hidden under living room furniture and my desk. Reader, it’s true: I have a fabric problem.

But here’s the thing: you want to work with the best materials you can afford, and that means fabric, scissors, needles, thread, even measuring tapes. As a carpenter I know once said, “Life’s short; buy a good hammer.”

Just enough!

Just enough!

I’m currently working with a remnant of wool camblet from a friend’s stash, left over from making someone else’s coat. There’s just enough to make me a Spencer (with a little perfectly-accurate cuff piecing), and I’m finding that running the needle through the wool is like a knife through butter. Baby, it’s smooth.

And that’s the thing: working with better materials is actually easier than working with lesser goods. Maybe you’re buying from the remnant table (I know I do): just buy the best stuff you can afford, and as much of it as you afford.*

It’s taken me a while to learn this, and I’ll confess: I still have IKEA furniture, because I still have a teenager living at home, and three insufferable cats. But we swap out as we find affordable better things, because they are more beautiful and more pleasing.

Shears: former fabric and current fabric.

Shears: former fabric and current fabric.

You can do the same with your sewing (or cooking or carpentry or cat husbandry) tools. My former fabric shears finally gave up after 15 years; I replaced them with better Ginghers (thank goodness for coupons) and downgraded the formerly “best” scissors to pattern-cutting duty. I have small thread scissors for home, and scissors for events that I’ll shed fewer tears over if I lose, because event sewing is often mending and not garment construction.

Second best for events; best for home.

Second best for events; best for home.

Buy it once: that’s an ideal that can be hard to achieve in reenacting. Research moves on, everybody makes mistakes**, but you can never go wrong buying the best you can afford. Ease of use and finished beauty will make it worthwhile.

*They laughed when I bought that striped velvet from Wm Booth at Bennington– until they saw the originals I had in mind.Quirky can be right and even amazing, but cheap requires caution.

**I hear this in my head as the refrain from a New Order song at least once a day. And then I sigh. But it’s true, and worth taking to heart without beating yourself up over it. You will survive whatever unfortunate yardage or pink-handled, blistered-inducing scissors you now regret. There’s always the office Yankee Swap or Goodwill.

Book Notice: Wearable Prints, 1760-1860

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Book Review, History, Living History, Research

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

This just in, literally, from the mail carrier: Susan W. Greene’s long-awaited book, Wearable Prints, 1760-1860. It’s discounted (and out of stock) at Amazon, but should be shipping soon, since I have one right here on my desk.

It’s fair to call this book lavishly illustrated (1600 full-color images in almost 600 pages), and while I have access to a copy at work, I am seriously thinking of buying my own copy, based solely on about 10 minutes skimming the book. There are images not just of fabric samples but also of garments, paper dolls and illustrations that help put the fabrics into context. Images of garments from collections I can’t get into? Delicious! Information to help me understand how to use a printed cotton? Even better.

The book is organized in three main sections: Overview, Colors, and Mechanics. Appendices include timelines, prohibitions, price comparisons, print characteristics, and more, as well as a glossary and an extensive bibliography.

The photographs are amazing, and show a range of print designs of greater variety than we may have credited heretofore. Particularly useful is the section on evaluating and identifying printed dress fabrics, and the questions one should ask about fabrics. I think that the criteria could be used forensically on modern as well as historic textiles, and we could think more critically about the fabrics we use.

ETA: I wrote this while the downstairs room was being painted with oil paint, and it’s loopier than I expected. The book is still an excellent resource, and I highly recommend it. While it’s heavy for carrying to the fabric shops, it would be dead useful while shopping online. I have definitely seen bolts of fabrics very similar to those illustrated in Greene’s book. As Anna notes on her blog, Ms Greene’s collection is now at Genessee Country Village.  Wow. It’s amazing. If you can’t get there easily, well, the book will certainly help, and the images will you visual access to a plethora of collections. 

…For the Approaching Summer

19 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Summer is, of course, fully upon us and those of us on the eastern seaboard feel its oppressive and sticky heat. Ordinarily, my town isn’t terribly hot and cools off at night, but like everywhere else, this is not the case. Last weekend, I wore wool; technically a wool and cotton blend, but more problematically, burgundy in color. This is the price of gowns inspired by London watercolors.

Summer

This leads to constant questions: Aren’t you hot in those clothes? Aren’t you dying of the heat?

There is an underlying tone that suggests that perhaps the people of the 18th century didn’t know enough not to wear wool, or perhaps they only had winter clothes. I’ve heard “well, they didn’t know any better,” as if they never took their clothes off, and if only they had, 18th century men and women would have promptly abandoned their stays, gowns, waistcoats and breeches for tank tops, shorts, and wife beaters. Of course, history is not a Fiat commercial.

Well, what did “they” do?

Barbara Johnson's book, 1764.

Barbara Johnson’s book, 1764.

They took their trade to James Green and merchants like him who offered “Piece Goods of every kind … suitable for all Seasons, but more particularly for the approaching Summer.” (Boston Post Boy, August 8, 1763.)

And what would be suitable? Cottons, fine linens, light silks, in light colors.

Barbara Johnson chose floral prints on white backgrounds in July and August of 1764, both could be “suitable for summer.”

And as you probably know, the answer to “Aren’t you hot?” depends on who you are, but is often, “Not really. Once my shift/shirt is soaked with sweat, I’m pretty comfortable.” This is true as long as your shift/shirt is made of linen; cotton and cotton/linen blends don’t wick as well as linen.

Chintz? Check!

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in 1763 Project, Clothing, History, Research

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Les Fleur d' Inde

Les Fleur d’ Inde: delicious!

Because I am prey to a pretty print as much as the next princess costume blogger tenant farmer’s wife, I thought I should go  looking for evidence before I launch into any cotton sacques, and to justify the use of the print remnant I’m stitching up into a jacket. (Apologies in advance to my friend who bought enough for a gown, because you know we’ll wear them to the same event…)

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765

American Historical Newspapers to the rescue, once again. Here’s an ad for Alexander Black and Archibald Stewart, from the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of March 16, 1765.  Chintz and calico: it’s here in Providence in 1765. I knew there were merchants selling calicoes and chintzes in Providence in 1768 (including Samuel Young, who printed his broadside in red).

Chintz and chip hatsThree years later, Joseph and Wm. Russell at the sign of the Golden Eagle are selling (lately imported from London and Bristol) “A neat and genteel assortment of dark ground calicoes and chintz.” This ad runs to four columns in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 1768, April 9. It’s a tantalizing list, and no, I did not miss those chip hats and bonnets!

forks!

Digression: I was attracted to this bit about forks as I recall being told by a historic house tour guide once that “forks were not in common use until the Civil War.” It’s an early house, maybe he meant the English Civil War, but I think forks were here to stay and be bought for a variety of prices long before the American Civil War. How else to explain those archaeological finds that show forks of some kind at Rev War forts and camp sites? /Digression. New digression: OMG, knitting needles! /New digression.

William Eliot

Back to chintz: Here, in 1771, is William Eliot, selling chintzes in Providence, and advertising in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of June 1, 1771. He also has “flowered and sprigged lawn in aprons,” and Kenting and check handkerchiefs.  (Kenting was a fine linen fabric)

In the limited search I ran (1754-1783 newspapers), plenty of references to chintz appear in Providence alone (there were 166 hits, but the ads repeat). This completely unscientific approach in which I stopped looking in 1771*, has turned up 5 merchants, if you count the RIHS Library’s broadside for Samuel Young. Chintzes and calicoes were everywhere. Dark grounds were “genteel,” checks and spots and stripes are popular and common.

Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries... ca. 1759. YCBA, B1975.3.206

Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries… ca. 1759. YCBA, B1975.3.206

I begin to see 18th century Providence, if not all of the Colonies, as a variegated, kaleidoscopic place of pattern and color. I think there was more than we realize, even if only in small amounts.

Look again at the cherry seller: her petticoat is yellow and blue, if not yellow, blue, and white striped,  her apron is blue, her stockings brown or faded reddish, her cap is affixed with a pink or red ribbon, and she wears a checked kerchief. She’s poor and sort of faded, but she’s colorful–more colorful, perhaps, than we have credited.

*I do have to head out to work, but I can search again.

King of the Coats

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Living History, Museums

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton on his Grand Tour, © National Museums Scotland A.1991.156

He’s hard to miss, the 8th Duke of Hamilton, in his red coat. I’d hazard it wool, because of the contrast with the sheen of the blue coat his physician, Dr John Moore (at right), is wearing. Dr Moore’s coat gleams like silk; the Duke’s looks dull and woolen. (Look at the way the light strikes the Dr’s shoulder; another clue is the way the button holes are worked.)

The coat below is a simpler, provincial relative of the Duke’s coat. This is the Amos King coat, owned by Colonial Williamsburg. I love the description:

“Wool plain weave fulled and napped “broadcloth”; twill worsted “shalloon” lining; tabby linen lining center back. Pocket flap lined with twill worsted; sleeves lined with tabby linen; right lower pocket is linen; left pocket is leather; inside pocket on left breast is linen, with broadcloth welt.”

Man's Coat, red broadcloth ca. 1770, CW 1953-59

Man’s Coat, red broadcloth
ca. 1770, CW 1953-59

Shalloon. Tabby. Pocket leather. That paragraph is comprised of many of my favorite fabric and clothing words. And fabrics. And a leather pocket. As you may recall, I have a thing for fabric that is not at all about hoarding, and but rather about establishing reserves. When I see two yards of quality material at discount and purchase it, that yardage becomes part of the Strategic Fabric Reserve so vital to this nation’s safety. (We are all unsafe when a fabric addict is deprived of his or her fix. I’ve got a threaded needle, and I’m not afraid to use it!)

Part of this household's Strategic Fabric Reserve.

Part of this household’s Strategic Fabric Reserve.

Yardage arrived in the patriotic red, white and blue “if it fits, it ships” box on Wednesday, and when opened, we all proceeded to pet the lovely nap of the wool. Mr S wrapped himself in it, and I knew then that I would be making a red broadcloth coat of one kind or another.

It probably won’t be the “Quemans Pattern” coat John Buss mentions, not when I’ve got silk fabric for a waistcoat. The silk is from the remnant table at Artee Fabrics in Pawtucket. With careful cutting and a plain back for at least one waistcoat, there should be just enough to make both a 1770s and a 1790s waistcoat. We’ll get fancy around here eventually.