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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: Frivolous Friday

Frivolous Friday Returns: Dressed Intentions

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Dressed Intentions, Frivolous Friday, Making Things

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Dressed Intentions, Frivolous Friday, patterns, personal, sewing project, silk taffeta, silk velvet, vintage sewing, wedding dress

Every morning, I sit at the table in the main room of our townhouse in the dark with my SAD light. To my right, I watch the sun rise over the fence, and every morning the orange-blue-pink-purple morning sky delights me. This hasn’t been the easiest year, but it has been bittersweet, cold and warm, like a winter sunrise. Lady Cat’s death was dreadful, and the last memory I have is ugly but goading. She fought so hard to stay alive, every single moment; remembering that, I am ashamed any time I verge towards the hopeless, and try instead to reach for the light.

So, despite the creeping feeling of hopelessness that lurks around the edges of something I want very much, I thought I would carry on with a partial fulfillment of desire. Three weeks ago, I more-or-less asked Drunk Tailor to marry me.*  This was exciting, and pleasing, and generally felt like a good thing to finally express. The hopelessness creeps in because, after an unhappy afternoon and evening of calculations, the truth is we can not afford to marry until I land a job with health insurance benefits.** However, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a party of some kind at some date-and-place-to-be-named.

The sunrises make me think of fabrics and dresses, colors and textures. What began as an idea for a wedding dress has morphed into a party dress, which was easy enough because I never intended a “traditional” dress— unless we are talking about being in an enormous pile of Turkish Angora kittens, white floof isn’t for me.*** The sunrise colors appealed to me, and I ordered swatches from Silk Baron, planning on a dress-and-jacket combination.

I played with combinations for a while before settling on two groups. I’ve narrowed those down, I think, to cordovan silk velvet with winter sage taffeta. Cross your fingers there’ll be enough in stock when I can afford to order the fabrics! In the meantime, any Vogue pattern called “Average” is likely to create excitement in fitting and sewing– plus, a zipper! I haven’t set a zipper in years, so this project should have all the funs.

One way I thought I could cheer myself up and make the best of this intractable situation was to make this a blog-able, documented project. It’s outside my usual time zone but within my style preferences — you say bolero, I say Spencer– so why not make it a project I have to do? Pretty clothes can be a way to get joy out of disappointment, so from muslin to finished garment, let’s do this thing.****

*More-or-less because in the written proposal I made, I recognized that marriage might be a financial impossibility.

**This revelation capped a pretty awful seven day stretch that began with one day of excellent news, followed by multiple job rejections, frightening health insurance premium calculations, and the now-quarterly revelation that my workplace cannot afford to pay me for the hours I’ve already worked this month (and possibly not through the end of the year).

*** The best nap I ever had was in the back of a Subaru Outback, on a stack of bayonets. I dreamt I was in a pile of kittens. It was a warm spring afternoon (kittens) but I was getting poked by sharp things (bayonets, also, kittens).

**** Pending supplies. $212.50 for fabric is right out of my budget scheme at the moment– that’s a lot of chickens, cat chow, or half a health insurance premium, depending on the metric you prefer.

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Frivolous Friday: Favorite Fabric

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

18th century clothing, 19th century clothing, CoBloWriMo, dresses, fabric, Federal New England Fashion, Frivolous Friday, strategic fabric reserve

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....
A terrible servant….
how does she get hired?
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.

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Frivolous Friday: All of Everything

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, Museums

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Clothing, Exhibitions, fashion, fashion plate, Frivolous Friday, RISD Museum of Art, style, Todd Oldham

All of Everything: Todd Oldham at the RISD Museum of Art

All of Everything: Todd Oldham at the RISD Museum of Art

Some days were made for a bit of hooky. This week, it was Tuesday– though how much can you consider a museum visit hooky when it’s the business you’re in? We took an outing down the street to the RISD Museum, long one of my favorite places in Rhode Island. The Costume and Textiles curatorial staff mount some amazing exhibits, from Artist Rebel Dandy to this latest, All of Everything: Todd Oldham Fashion.

Every time I go to the RISD Museum’s exhibits, I have serious wants, whether mochaware coffee pots or the Chinchilla Outfit– which my grandmother would also have coveted. There was a tinge of nostalgia in the visit, since most of us had lived through the 1990s, and recognized the styles that eventually leached into ready-to-wear from couture. Cropped sweaters. Shrunken jackets. Embellishments. Pattern mixing. Hey– I still dress that way!

Chinchilla Outfit (left) and Librarian Outfit (right)
Chinchilla Outfit (left) and Librarian Outfit (right)
Another outfit my grandmother would have loved.
Another outfit my grandmother would have loved.
Unknown artist Horace Vernet French, 1789-1863 Illustrations from the Journal des Dames et des Modes, ca. 1810 Engraving on wove paper, hand-colored Museum collection INV2004.506

Journal des Dames et des Modes, ca. 1810
RISD Museum INV2004.506

And legit it is, this pattern mixing. Funny how we stick to the same shapes and forms once we find what we like; so much of what I make and wear are variations on similar themes, no matter the century.

For some, dressing in the past is the only time they’re dressing up; their daily style is almost aggressively (or passive-aggressively) anti-style. But when the top hat comes out, look out: they’re dressed to the nines.

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Frivolous Friday: Something Fishy

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Frivolous Friday, History, Making Things

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

18th century, 19th century, entertainment, fishing, fishing tackle, Frivolous Friday, hobbies

Fishing Tackle kit, Winterthur Museum, 1961.0492 A-Y

Fishing Tackle kit, 1820-1860 Winterthur Museum, 1961.0492 A-Y

The best things turn up when I’m looking for something else (in this case, the shell-printed pocket). These serendipitous finds always lead someplace interesting, in this case, to historical fishing (and my personal interest in historical hunting prints).

It’s a pleasantly refined sporting activity, suitable for ladies and gentlemen, with the pleasant result of dinner– presuming you manage both to catch a fish and not fall in. Standing up in boat seems unwise, and that hat surely casts an incredible and unmissable shadow on the water, but Morland’s party has caught a fish nonetheless.

Always something new to learn, and heaven knows I need yet another line of inquiry to pursue with all the others…though this might at least be a useful pursuit, if only in the meditative quality of an afternoon spent outdoors catching nothing.

George Morland, 1763–1804, British, A Party Angling, 1789, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection B2001.2.22

George Morland, 1763–1804, British, A Party Angling, 1789, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection B2001.2.22

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Frivolous Friday: Foot Guard Officer

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Frivolous Friday, History, Museums

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

18th century, Frivolous Friday, JMW Turner, officer, style, Turner, uniform, watercolor

Officer of the Third Regiment of Foot Guards, 1792 British Museum 1890, 0806.2

Every now and then, my interests collide in unexpected ways. While searching the Tate Collection for something completely different, I came upon this image of a fine-figured officer. I love a man in a uniform, and this one comes with a bonus: the curator’s comments.  “According to Binyon the outline etchings are by Thomas Kirk, after a drawing by Edward Dayes, coloured by Turner as a boy.”

You can see Turner’s  style latent in those trees and in the dramatic sky, and even in the shadow that lies at the officer’s feet. 

18th century coloring book, or image defaced by inchoate genius: you be the judge. 

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