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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: Spencer

New England Spencers

07 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by kittycalash in Book Review, Clothing, History, Making Things, Museums, Research, Snark

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

19th century clothing, cataloging, common dress, common people, Dublin Seminar, Federal New England Fashion, Federal style, New England, Regency, Research, Spencer, Spencers, Sylvia Lewis

You may recall how tortured I was (sort of) about making a Spencer for What Cheer Day, concerned that Spencers could not be documented to Rhode Island, let alone New England. I had the same worry about the Not-Quite-Good-Enough Coat.

JDK_8210_1

Things will come to those who wait, and what came this week was the long-awaited Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar for 2010, Dressing New England. In it I found an article by Alden O’Brien, Federal New England Fashion in the Diary of Sylvia Lewis.

Sylvia Lewis [Tyler], Diary (1801-1831), MSS 2899 in the Americana Collection of the NSDAR provides the basis for O’Brien’s article and my joy. It begins routinely enough with my favorite stuff– spinning!– and carries on to knitting: stockings, mittens, gloves, a hat or two, and even “comforters,” or scarves. Shag, or thrummed, knitting is mentioned, so at least those of us interpreting the world of 1801 and later can be war.

The real excitement comes on the third page: in the winter of 1803-1804, Sylvia Lewis cuts and sews a greatcoat. Then, in 1806, she makes a green Spencer, and in 1808, a black one.

Spencer ca. 1800 French. silk. Purchase, Irene Lewisohn Trust Gift, 1991 1991.239.2

Spencer ca. 1800
French. silk. Purchase, Irene Lewisohn Trust Gift, 1991
1991.239.2

1806 is still later than I wore my Spencer. They’re shown in fashion plates of the 1790s, and here’s a pattern, too: so they’re clearly worn in Europe earlier than 1806. The similarity between the French silk spencer at the Met and fashion plates gives me confidence that they are being made and worn in the 1790s and early years of the 19th century; Spencers are also mentioned in tailoring manuals of this period.

1797, with a similar shape to the Met's French silk spencer.

1797, with a similar shape to the Met’s French silk spencer.

They’re placed in New England with written documentation, but how early are they here? And what did they look like? I know of one in a private collection which I am slavering to see, based on the description of the wool. The MFA has a few that seem to be local to Lexington, and there is one in Maine with a catalog record that shines with passive aggressive crankiness, and delights when compared to another in the same catalog. And no, I’m pretty confident that gentlemen did not wear spencers, or tailed spencers, at any time.

"wearing a spencer"
“wearing a spencer”
"she *says* its a spencer"
“she *says* its a spencer”

But there’s really good stuff in Sylvia Lewis’s diary for anyone who wants to know more about clothing production, use, and costs in early Federal New England. Even if your Library doesn’t have it, your Librarian can get a copy of the article for you through ILL or you can buy the entire proceedings here.

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The Very Specific Spencer, Finished!

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Fail, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1790s, 1797, 18th century clothes, 18th century clothing, fashion, Federal style, sewing, sewing project, Spencer, Spencers, style, What Cheer Day, wool

Ta da!
JDK_8197_1

Yes, finished! And just in time, too! The braid arrived in the mail three days before the Spencer was wanted, and fortunately I had finished the garment by then, and the baking could take care of itself after a while, and I managed not to get eggs beaten with sugar on any lovely wool or mohair.

JDK_8210_1

I think it looks well enough with the gown and bonnet, though I am fairly certain the darts are too far to the sides in this iteration. How that happens when you use the same pattern twice I do not know.

You may recall that this is the Spencer where I demonstrated an uncanny ability to sew a collar on upside down. The braid went on pretty quickly, again proving that good materials make good sewing.

As mentioned previously, the cuffs are pieced, but this is a perfectly accurate way to deal with a shortage of material and/or cuffs.

I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out, and very pleased with how warm it is.  Over the cotton gown, the Spencer was plenty warm– and I certainly wished I had it after we left the house and went down to the river!

On the whole, I suppose I’m pleased…as pleased as I ever am …which means you can expect pattern revisions in the future!

 

 

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Woolen Woes

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Fail, Living History, Making Things, Research

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

19th century clothing, Costume, dress, failure, fashion, fashion plate, Federal style, Joseph Taber, living history, Making Things, Providence Journal, Regency, Research, sewing, Spencer, Spencers, style

imageOn Saturday, I got a very nice piece of wool from Mr C’s Strategic Fabric Reserve, just the color and weight I’d been looking for to make a Very Specific Spencer. The VSS is not a replica, but rather specific to a gown: I want it to go with a 1797 V&A print.

Did women wear Spencers in 1797-1800 Providence? At least one tailor, Joseph Taber, advertised that he made Habits and Spencers, but as far as I know, there are no extant Rhode Island Spencers. Given how few collections are fully online here, and how few Spencers survive anywhere, I’m not too surprised. Julia Bowen’s diary covers Spring and Summer, when she’s quilting (mighty lazy work, she says), but she doesn’t say much about outerwear.

Providence Journal, 11-13-1799

Providence Journal, 11-13-1799

I’ve been on the fence about how common Spencers were– after all, the drawings in Mrs Hurst Dancing show women clearly wearing red cloaks– but might a Spencer and cloak combination have been just the thing to keep warm on a raw October day? With a wool petticoat and long wool stockings, you could be fashionable and warm.

There’s no firm documentation of any of that– which does not mean, as I once muttered in the general direction of some recalcitrant docents, that rich people in Providence hunkered naked in cold corners of curtain-less rooms gnawing on raw meat.** What it does mean is that much of what we make and wear is conjecture, based on examples from the same time period in other geographic areas.

Can I have a Spencer in New England? I’m not sure, but I’ve made another one anyway, and here it is, still underway. (The thing about Cassandra is that while she is a very patient model, she has terrible posture. I can verify the back fits me a great deal better than it fits her.)

Cassandra's posture is very different from mine. She will not pull her shoulders back!

Cassandra’s posture is very different from mine. She will not pull her shoulders back!

This wool is buttery and soft, and takes the needle well. Waxed thread glides through it and grips. It does have a tendency to fray a bit at the cut edges, but has a good pinked edge, and there are examples of pinked-edge facings in extant men’s wear. Sweet, right?

I’m not showing you this to boast about my skills, but to show off an dandy mistake. In working the folded edge of the collar, I trimmed a bit too much at the neck edge, and found the collar a bit small when I basted it in. Of course I removed it, and started again, easing a bit more as I went: Huzzay! It fit!

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

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

Oh, reader: rejoice not. I backstitched that bad boy on upside down. Expletive deleted! Mad Skillz: I even managed that bit of genius before my pre-work panic attack.

I took the garment in to work to seek council from my tailoring-class-educated friend who possesses native common sense and Yankee practicality. It came down to this: is it worse to have the collar upside down, or to have it not fit as well right side up? Decide with the knowledge that working the fabric more will affect the cut edge badly. My friend suggested stitching in the ditch with contrasting thread to make this flaw an Intentional Design Element.

Black trim on a Spencer?

That is a good idea, but I thought the flaw will still be too noticeable. Then it came to me: trim. Just as the construction guys are spreading drywall mud in the chinks around the window frames, I can spread some wool braid love around this collar. There’s certainly evidence for trim use on Spencers in fashion plates, and trim would push the men’s wear aspect of this garment even farther. As soon as I got home, I double-checked extant garments and fashion plates, Roy Najecki’s lace page, and measured my edges.

Four yards of quarter-inch black mohair braid should do the job, stitched around the edge of the collar and lapels, the cuffs and possibly the hem edge.

Do I run the chance of looking like a black-outlined cartoon drawing? Yes.

Did I just buy endless hours of tiny stitching? Yes.

This is a crazy, work-making solution that may leave me with a garment not suited to my class in early Federal Providence. But I think it’s going to look amazing when it’s finished.

**(The docents argued that textiles were SO RARE and SO PRICY in late 18th century RI that NO ONE in Providence had curtains. NO ONE. The lack of fire was my own bitterness coming out at this Great Curtain Kerfluffle which took place at a public lecture I gave explaining what we knew about the use of textiles to furnish Providence homes of people who would be as rich as Bill Gates today.)

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HSF # 26: Celebration Spencer

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Historical Sew Fortnightly, Making Things, Research

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

18th century clothing, dress, fashion, Historical Sew Fortnightly, patterns, Research, Spencer, style, wool

Cassandra in her new Spender.

Cassandra in her new Spencer.

This was supposed to be for #25: One Metre (yard) but things went awry. now it’s cause or #26, Celebration.

Make something that is celebration worthy, make something that celebrates the new skills you have learned this year, or just make something simple that celebrates the fact that you survived HSF ’13!

Heck, I survived the last two weeks of 2013, and that’s reason enough to celebrate. Water at work, relatives at home, high-stress holidays: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything. So on to those pesky facts!

The Challenge: #26, Celebration! with a backward glance at #25, One Metre

Fabric: 34 inches of double-faced Italian wool, bought at Apple Annie Fabrics as a 50% off remnant after she found it in a pile. The collar is lined with black silk taffeta and interfaced with buckram. The sleeves are lined with black silk Persian from Wm Booth Draper, but I used taffeta on the bodice to give it more body. Technically, that’s almost two yards because it’s two kinds of fabric. Initially I didn’t plan to line this, but the edge did not hold as well as expected so I ended up breaking the rules in order to make a better garment. Celebrate rule breaking! Also, better sewing skills!

The pattern pieces on 34 inches of fabric. One cuff is pieced.

Pattern: My own, mostly. I started with the Sense & Sensibility pattern, and then modified it to make the first Spencer, working my way towards the double-breasted broadcloth of the Swedish Spencer. I first modified the lapels, and then, in order to match the arm scye to the sleeve correctly, modified the bodice at the side, and at the shoulder point. I used the Janet Arnold Spencer/riding habit as a reference, and then measured up the Leloir pattern to check my work. The two-part sleeves are borrowed from Henry Cooke’s 1770s man’s frock coat pattern taken from that extant suit; the collar and cuffs came from the same place.

Once I reshaped the sleeves from the elbow to the wrist (as I do not have a gentleman’s forearms of steel), I concentrated on adapting the bodice to make the seam sit properly on the shoulder line. Watching Mr Cooke manipulate Mr S’s garments made this a lot easier to do.

Inside view in progress.

Inside view in progress.

My theory was that if you thought of a Spencer as a miniature frock coat, starting with a man’s pattern might be the way to go. I played with that in a theoretical way, but did not pursue it fully, as I was committed to the double-breasted look.

Year: 1797, if you take the Amazon as the inspiration and marker, which I do. This style, and even the revers, persists for a while, at least in fashion plates. 1797-1800 seems about right. (See the expanded Pinterest board for examples)

Notions: Thread counts, right? Also button molds. But that was it.

How historically accurate is it? This is always the toughest part! I have verified the revers, the style, the fit, and the pattern pieces. The garment is entirely hand-sewn of the most period-appropriate materials I could find. I found reference to a very similar example in a Danish museum; if I had possessed enough fabric for a cape, I would have made one. The inaccuracies will be in details of techniques and the lining materials, which were chosen to ameliorate the very snug fit. Is it 90%, with points off for not being able to time-travel back to buy my fabrics from Providence merchants in 1797? Aside from the Andes Candies coat, I think this is the most accurate and nicest thing I’ve made yet.

The shaped back piece.

The shaped back piece.

Hours to complete: 12 to 18 for the pattern and muslins. Each sleeve took 30 minutes to pin and stitch into the armscye, but the long seams were more time consuming. 12 hours of sewing, perhaps? It seems like more than 30 hours, but once the pattern was done, parts of this moved quickly. (Personally, I love setting sleeves and sewing curvy back pieces.)

First worn: Not yet. As soon as I can talk Mr S into taking photos, I’ll wear it, but right now I have no firm plans for wearing it, which makes me sad. Wouldn’t it be a fun thing to ice skate in? Except for the very authentic way it pulls your shoulders back, which could compromise your balance.

Total cost: $15 for the wool, $6.50 for thread, and $2.80 for button molds; $8 for the amount of silk Persian for the sleeves, the taffeta was in the stash, so $24.30.

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Dogs in Coats

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Making Things, Research

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

18th century clothes, Clothing, Costume, dog coats, dogs, dress, fashion, fashion plates, Spencer

[An amazonian dress]. London : Pubd. May 26, 1797, by G.M. Woodward, Berners Street. Lewis Walpole Library Image Number lwlpr08972, Call Number 797.05.26.02

[An amazonian dress]. London : Pubd. May 26, 1797, by G.M. Woodward, Berners Street. Lewis Walpole Library Image Number lwlpr08972, Call Number 797.05.26.02

I was wondering about contrast revers on women’s clothes, and if I could really get away with such a detail on a Spencer, when I happened upon this image on Pinterest. Well found indeed from 1797, and very nice hat as well. Bonus: Giant Muff.

The dog has a coat, too, and now that it’s cold in New England, the local whippets are turning out in their winter coats. Mr S and  I had a slightly crazy notion to dress a dog we know in a canine-scaled replica of a certain very special coat, but would need access to the hound (for measurements) and a particular scrap pile. With those circumstances not in the offing, let’s just be delighted that dogs in 1797 wore coats, and had bows in their topknots, which means that the end of civilization has been coming for a lot longer than previously thought.

Of course it may be that the dog has to dress as a human to keep from being eaten by the ENORMOUS and possibly carnivorous MUFF of DOOM. I think you could make one from the sheepskins at Ikea, if you could settle for white.

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