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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: workshops

Bed Gown, my Bed Gown

08 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Events, Living History, Research

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bed gowns, bedgowns, chintz, Research, workshops

The female orators/ M. Rennoldson sculp. etching & engraving on laid paper, hand-colored. 1768. Lewis Walpole Library

I’m teaching a workshop in a few weeks, and that is giving me all kinds of reason to re-examine how I do things, what I know, and how I know it. After a few years, I worry that I take the knowledge I’ve gained for granted– which is a dangerous thing to do! Even when you have the good fortune to be building on the work of notable experts (like Sharon Burnston), you have to fact-check yourself. In part, I did this to verify that the pattern I use will work for the time period in question (last half/quarter of the 18th century). The other question I had was about material and prevalence. I’ve maintained that the bedgown is the most common, cozy, and cute garment of the 18th century, but is that true?

View near the Ring in Hyde Park, looking towards Grosvenor Gate, during the Encampment, Paul Sandby, 1780. Pen and watercolour |RCIN 451581

Many of the images of women in bed-gowns seem to depict older women made deliberately unattractive, poor women with their clothes in rags, or bawdy women. All of those are great in their own way, but most of us want to look our best (even when being our worst). For me, this affects the fabric choices I make. Fabric cheers me up– the varieties of color, texture, pattern make winter bearable, job rejections tolerable, and future plans graspable. I have a predilection for pattern, particularly Indian patterns, so I’m always looking for references to prints and chintz being worn.

Maryland Journal, July 17, 1776

Well, bless Jean Shepherd’s heart for running away (with a “down look”) from York, PA in 1776. She took off in a dark calico bed-gown, a brown worsted petticoat, and a half-worn white pelong bonnet. The images of printed bed gowns I’ve found thus far have light grounds (the yellow of the orators being more light than dark, though certainly saturated).

But I can find dark ground cottons, and while what I have is not documented reproduction, I am comfortable with it. The lining will be off-white plain weave wool because it’s winter. I don’t have documentation for this combination but among the fabrics on hand in my reduced-but-accessible Strategic Fabric Reserve, the wool has the best hand and the correct yardage, so wool it is. (It feels like brushed cotton, and was meant for a shift but needs must.)

Blue chintz lining in a man's banyan, 1731 - 1760. Museum of London, 53.101/10
Blue chintz lining in a man’s banyan, 1731 – 1760. Museum of London, 53.101/10
detail, banyan at left.
detail, banyan at left.

Newspaper ads for runaways show a fair range of fabrics: red baize; red calico; brown linsey; stamped linen; black and white calico. That last sounds so graphic– and, worn with a black calimanco petticoat, must have been striking. This same woman, Katey Norton, also took with her “an homespun Cotton tight bodied Wrapper” which is appealing indeed– and which I can picture. But that’s another patterning exercise.

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Workshop Wednesday: Accessory to the Past in June!

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

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

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authenticity, Clothing, dress, fashion, sewing, workshops

Neck stocks: just so.

Neck stocks: just so.

Drunk Tailor and I will be up to more mischief this summer, and you can join us! We’re teaching a class this June at Historic Eastfield Village. Among the things you can learn to make are chemisettes, reticules, gaiters and neck stocks.

We plan to start with the basic question: who are you? And what does that mean for what you wear? What visual and extant sources can inform your choices? From John Lewis Krimmel to Sophie Du Pont, images help paint a picture of a distinctive early American style.

Mrs Pabodie attempts to remember when she was born (1771). Photo by J. D. Kay

Mrs Pabodie attempts to remember when she was born (1771). Photo by J. D. Kay

Collections from Rhode Island to New York contain examples of early garments that help us understand how people dressed in the early 19th century, as well as diaries that tell us how they lived. Fortune telling? Sewing for money? Bored with quilting? Church as a social experience? There’s much more to the early nineteenth century than Jane Austen. Come find out more this June.

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Women’s Lives in Early America: Symposium

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History, personal, Reenacting

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conference, first person interpretation, interpretation, personal, presentations, Washington's Crossing, workshops

Eventually, the to-do list will catch up with you. Vague ideas about things you’d like to make turn into thoughts about why you don’t have whatever the thing is. Dreams of summer are supplanted by the nagging of cold feet– I failed to take my own advice last Friday, for once, did not wear wool socks or stockings.

But beyond cold feet, I find the end of January to be when distractability kicks in: too many ideas! Too many desires! Too many things I want to do!

One of the things I agreed to do, and to which I am really looking forward, is this:

Beyond Boom-Boom Sticks & Fancy-Dress Balls:
​Women’s Lives in Early America

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You can learn more about the presenters here, and register here.

For me, winter is a time to revamp my wardrobe and interpretations, rethink my accessories and objects, and get ready for a busy living history season.  This will be a learning experience for me as much as anyone else: another chance to interrogate, rethink, and reconsider what I’m doing, and why.

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#literature is the theme for day 21 of #federalerafebruary, and while "Kindred Spirits was painted by Asher B. Durand in 1849, the painting depicts William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), author of "Thanatopsis," published in 1817, and Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School, and Durand was one of its most famous members, noted in part for his paintings depicting scenes from Bryant's "Thanatopsis." In the New Republic, landscape and perceptions of divinity became entwined, and by the end of the 1830s, an American vista over the mantel was as necessary as a Bible-- and Bryant was instrumental in changing how Americans came to see both nature and art. This painting is in the collection of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York http://ow.ly/feqs50lEe6x #art #landscape #hudsonriverschool #asherbdurand #thanatopsis #williamcullenbryant #thomascole #kindredspirits #metmuseum #nature #transcendentalis

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