Don't Be Me.

WARNING TO MY INCREDIBLY DISCERNING READERSHIP: This post has nothing to do with historical sewing, and everything to do with things that aren't historical sewing.

'Tis the season of Cosplay, and I'm up to the body part of your choice in the final stages of making two costumes. I'm in the home stretch (oh, please sewing gods, let it be so), but things got off to a rocky start. In the interest of whining about That Which Can Not Be Changed, and motivated slightly by the genuine urge to help others avoid the same mistake, I'd like to make a Costuming Public Service Announcement:

DO NOT and I repeat in all caps for fans of repetitive prose DO NOT purchase fabric that is not what you need with the intention of somehow magicking it into what you do need.

Go ahead. Laugh. I'll wait here.

Isn't this just the most sage, incredibly insightful advice ever? I know, it's common sense. Or rather, it should be common sense, but if life has taught me anything (spoiler: it hasn't), it's that sense is far from common. In this case, the lesson was annoying more than painful, but on the off-chance that there is another soul out there who is as trusting and naive as I am, I hope that my cautionary tale saves them the same frustration.

Yes, I price-shopped, and realized that I could save LITERALLY TENS OF CENTS by buying two textiles in wildly inappropriate colors, and dying it to match the material I actually wanted. Tens! And I've dyed fabric before (from a light color to a slightly darker color), plus, I dye my hair all the time! What's the big deal?? So, with a generous amount of smugness over my "thrifty" intentions, I purchased the fabric. Everything was dyed with the dregs of dye packets and bottles that I already owned. So thrifty! So frugal! It didn't quite go as expected, so then, I purchased some dye. Still thrifty! And some of it was on sale, so totally still a bit frugal!

Then, I purchased some MORE dye.

Then, I purchased some different dye.

Then, one night, I found myself sweating over my long-suffering washing machine, waiting for the optimal moment to dump my very last bottle of red dye into the drum so that it could mingle Santeria-style with some mumbled prayers and a cupful of the wrong kind of vinegar. It was well after midnight, but since the lower southeastern US is currently under a broad-spectrum weather curse (your choice: deadly floods, or triple-digit heat), my porch was only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. In went the dye, in went the thrice-dyed "100% cotton" gauze, and for the fourth time in as many weeks, I found myself sitting on top of a running washer, contemplating my life choices.

Verdict: Not good, Threadlette. Not good at all.

In an effort to save myself the expense of paying an extra $1.60/yard for 3 yards of actually RED fabric, I spent $12 on dye. End result? Instead of red gauze, I have really really almost kind-of maybe mauve gauze that cost me the equivalent of an extra $4 per yard. Four dollars. And let's not factor in the bloody hours that I've spent on this little science project from creative hell, because that may actually sting a little.

Yes, I am somewhat pacified by the realization that it is a lot of fun to say "mauve gauze". But only somewhat.

I've learned my lesson. From now on, I'll only be dying large batches of fabric if the alternative is entirely cost-prohibitive, and/or the colors required aren't the two worst possible colors to try and dye fabric (red and black), and/or I don't have a vested interest in whatever unholy abomination emerges from my washing machine. Or maybe I'll forget all about this little lesson in three weeks. You just never really know.

Onward and upward!

Fortnightly the Second, being that which is Unfinished.

I'm not organized or motivated enough to offer a succinct list of my intended projects for the next few stages of the Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge, but here's the plan for HSF #2:

 Courtesy of the Met, of course.

And here's where things are at the moment:

Consider the irony of the "recycle" emblem on the box. Thank you.

The retro-looking brown stuff is to be the lining. I am using it as the lining because it's convenient and free, and because it bears more than a passing resemblance to some of the astonishingly modern-looking cotton prints from the London Foundling Hospital billet books. 

A textile from one of the London Foundling Hospital billet books, entry 6671. From Exhibiting Fashion.

The authenticity of the print doesn't worry me much because the fiber content of the exterior fabric is far more uncertain. (Impeccable reasoning! I haz it!) The gold brocade contains nothing truly synthetic, as best as I can tell, but it is probably a cotton/silk or rayon/cotton blend. Furthermore, I'm not sure if a fabric so heavy would have been used for a dress. (For those of you playing the drinking game at home, this dress was actually started BEFORE this happened.) 

With that encouraging denouncement of my costuming integrity, onward and upward we go! 

Just TRY to look at this fabric without getting motion sickness

I think that it may be more fun to do the whole "Oh! Look at this awesome thing I made while nobody was looking! It's completely finished and there is nothing wrong with it!" thing for some people, but I enjoy humiliating myself at all levels, all the time. In that spirit, here's a progress report on Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #1: Something Thirteen This Way Comes.**

**not remotely the real challenge title.

I'm not going to say what I'm making. This is for two equally important reasons. One, I enjoy some element of surprise even with an in-progress report; and Two, I would like to retreat to a place of "Costumer's Plausible Deniability" if necessary. You know, in case this thing must be quickly and surreptitiously made into some other thing.

What you see here is my incredibly precise draping method. This requires sacrificial fabric (done and DONE!), a sharpie pen, a mouthful of differently sized straight-pins (so that no matter what, you're always dropping some of them onto the floor to step on), and a dress-form or sacrificial human. Since I'm all out of sacrificial humans this week, Headless June stepped in as the draper's assistant.

After referencing seam lines on my inspiration garment, I draped the back center panel and front with allowances to trim the bottom edge. The side panel was challenging due to a lack of firm visual evidence of one of the seam lines, but I think it's oriented properly at this point. The side panel was cut to fit in the negative area left after the front and back were established to my satisfaction. Areas where I felt the need to document critical seams are marked directly on the fabric.

Since I'm not using a pattern of any kind, and I've never made... one of these things... before, I'm relying on past draping successes and a few experiments. The sleeve is cut in two pieces, like the original. The seam lines should fall close to those on the inspiration garment and I made the general shape with the curve of my arm in mind. I took the sleeve in 3 times after I initially cut it out, and will likely do another trim after I get the fashion and lining fabric cut. (This exquisite material does not adequately convey the 2 or 3 thicknesses of material for the finished piece.)

A particularly critical juncture. The back seam, sleeve cap, sleeve head and armscye will share some real estate in the vicinity of the pink triangle.

So far, the sleeve is working. I will probably re-drape it in a heavier material before I get into the "real" fabric to see if it is still successful.

And there we have... it! A word on the fabric: this was among several boxes of material that were bequeathed to me by a friend's mother in anticipation of a move. She bought it at a thrift store in Florida in the (you guessed it) 1980's. Isn't it just amazing? 99.9% of my childhood wardrobe was made out of fabric like this. Add a side ponytail, an over-bite and couple pairs of coordinated socks and you get the picture.

Hopefully I'll have something more to post in a few days. Hopefully. Good luck to everyone who is doing the Challenge this week!

Just in time for the first bitterly cold weather of the year!

I actually made this dress about 8 months ago. Does that count?

Of course it does.

This was something of a labor of love. Of most importance was the fact that this was the first thing I made after the Jehossee project wrapped up in the early Spring. I was sort of afraid to sew after all the 1840s-50's madness over the Winter.  So this project needed to be quick, modern AND special in order to satisfy my joint needs of catharsis and something "different."

Charlie's Angels!

Enter McCall's 3634. This is one of the few patterns that I have inherited from my Mother's youth. The date on it is 1973 according to the Pattern Wiki, but my mother could have acquired it at any time during the decade. It was well-used long before she passed it to me, and I delighted in the small notes she'd made to herself on the original pages.

The periwinkle plaid is a Fabric.com purchase from sometime last year. It's a fairly sturdy cotton voile, with a lot of ease. I don't remember why I bought it, but I only went for two yards. That turned out to be just enough for this project. (If I hadn't insisted on doing something fruity with the plaid pattern, I could have easily made it out of half of what I used. Lest you erroneously think I am a petite and lithe creature, the selvedge was close to 60" on this mess.)

My intention was to entirely machine-sew the thing, mainly as a way to put the epic bouts of hand-sewing behind me for a while. (Plus, I suck at sewing on the machine. I need practice.) But, like all good intentions, bad habits won out in the end.

That's how I ended up hand-finishing all of the seams. Plus, the elusive periwinkle invisible zipper that I purchased at the exorbitant price of full retail from Hanc*ck's proved to be unnecessary. My lack of... frontal endowments, plus the open-back halter style of the dress means that I can pull it off and on like a tee shirt. The top ties at the back of the neck... no frills, no problem.

And thus, it was done! I think I spent about 5 hours total working on this dress and it was an even split between the sewing and the cutting. Matching up the plaid on all the seams was challenging for me since it was new territory, but it somehow worked out. (The end product would look much better if I bothered to iron it, but this is me we're talking about. Just be grateful that I took the bloody pictures in daylight.)

I made a few modifications to the pattern, including one that my mother suggested from the not-so distant past. She wanted a length between the mini and the maxi, so she trimmed the pattern for the longer gown to the length you see at the back of my dress. The best part? I had already decided that I would like to go for an "in-between" length before I ever pulled the pieces out of the envelope. It made me laugh to see that she'd beaten me to the punch. As I was finishing the hem, I decided to make the front about 3" shorter than the back. It was a quick decision, and subtle, but I do like the look. (I have since learned that this is called a "mullet skirt" and is the social equivalent of having no front teeth. That's okay. Suits my winning personality.)

The finished dress is comfortable and easy to wear and got a lot of mileage over the hot summer this year. So if anybody out there is feelin' groovy and succumbs to the siren call of McCall's 3634, I highly recommend it. This falls squarely into the category of "If I can do this, dead circus monkeys can do it even better."

Except that the monkeys wouldn't have tarted up the hem. Monkeys have standards.

It starts innocently enough...

First, you gotta have a plan, right?

So here's the plan.

Via Ye Wiki of Vintage Papergoods. And how freaking awesome is it that there is a vintage pattern Wiki?!

Phase 1: Decide which vintage pattern hotness to use. There's the one up above, which I don't own and can't find for sale at the moment, so that adds a bit of romance and intrigue to things...

And then there's this one, recently resurrected from the depths of the pattern hoard:

Some modifications would be in order, but the bones are great.

Phase 2: Acquire yardage. The sudden passion for this project is entirely the fault of my midnight fabric trawling habits. (Thank you, Fabric.com for sending me helpfully harassing email alerts every day that I somehow manage NOT to browse.) But! The new fabric is totally cute and tacky!

Which brings us to Phase 4: Collect the new, totally cute and tacky fabric off the line tomorrow after it dries. Why? Because I am a bad not-so-housewifely woman who hangs her laundry up too late in the day for it to dry.

I suppose I could have waited til the morning to put it out, right before I left for work. But that would have totally killed Phase 3:

Pretend the laundry needs to go out RIGHT NOW so that I can enjoy the view from the field. 

And besides, I just don't know what I would do with myself if I didn't give the neighbors something to gossip about. Leaving your laundry up overnight 'round these parts is somewhere between Adultery and Horse-Thievery on the neighborhood Richter Scale of Socially Unacceptable Deeds.

I suppose that makes the angry mob "Phase 5." Updates to follow, but likely after Halloween and a weekend of Civil War tomfoolery!

Ga-Ga for Garthwaite

Anna Maria Garthwaite was one insanely talented broad. Not a great deal seems to be known about her early life, (this would be a fantastic time for one of you nerds out there to wave your Master's Thesis titled "All of the Completely Documented and Totally Relevant Things That are Known About Anna Maria Garthwaite" around and correct me) but the deficit is nicely filled by her later work. Despite her gender and uncertain credentials, Anna created hundreds of designs for silk textiles to be woven in Spitalfields, England during the mid-18th century.

She was born in rural obscurity to a rector and his wife in March of 1688. At some point in or around 1705, she finished this...

 1707. Paper-cutting embellished with feathers. Anna completed this at the age of 17. In the collection of the V&A. This is amazing. Why isn't this the cover of a really over-priced Jane Austen novel??

...And then about 20 years afterwards, she moved in with her sister and started a rewarding career as a professional silk designer in the most respected and prolific silk district in England.

Yeah. 

So basically, that's the first 40 years of her life for you. You're welcome!

Lady's green silk banyan in the collection of the V&A. (1750-1770) 

A Garthwaite watercolor for a silk design, 1742. V&A collections.

From the Metropolitan Museum Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History:
"Anna Maria Garthwaite began designing silks in the mid-1720s, when she was in her thirties. It is not known how she learned the art of designing for silk weaving, but her efficient use of materials and, more importantly her graceful designs show that she thoroughly understood her craft. Her family was acquainted with several naturalists of the period, which may account for the skilled rendering of flowers seen in her work."

The previous watercolor painting is a good example of her naturalist-influenced aesthetic. (At least, as it was in 1742.)

The two images above are respectively a finished woven silk (left) and the design template from which it was born (right). (The fabric appears to be oriented upside-down. The paper template has writing that appears to be original to the piece at the top border which can be used as a compass for the intended "top" of the image.) Both are from the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

From the V&A again. This is a remodeled gown. The silk and original design date from the 1740s, but the current dress arrangement was made in the 1780s.

Despite her design exploits, Anna lived a quiet life with her sister on Princes Street in East London, near Spitalfields. Though her sister was twice widowed, Anna herself never married. Her active years were dedicated instead to the silk works at Spitalfields, and the creation of a legacy of hundreds of enduring designs.  Anna died in 1763 but her designs live on.

This painting of apple and pear trees was used as the cover of a 2009 edition of E.M. Forster's Howard's End:

Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. 

I think that the trees may be my favorite Garthwaite design. It feels very fresh and modern, doesn't it? However, I must confess that I can't look at this without hearing Bob Ross saying "...happy little trees..." in my mind. Thanks again for stealing my soul, PBS.

Mrs. Charles Willing, 1746 by Robert Feke. The gown in this painting is made of Spitalfields silk woven from a 1743 Garthwaite design. Source: Totally jacked from Wikipedia, though I think I ran the portrait to ground in the Winterthur Collections.

Despite the preponderance of Victoria and Albert Museum images in this post, Anna Garthwaite designs can be found in museums all over the world, primarily in the form of surviving garments made from Spitalfields silks. The V&A seems to have the lion's share of her work though, including books from Spitalfields silk district depicting most of Anna's designs as well as hundreds more by other artists. 

To review:

1. Anna Maria Garthwaite was a nationally renowned graphic design artist in an era when a woman had a better chance of becoming renowned for giving birth to a pile of dead rabbits than forging a career as an industrial textile designer.

2. Anna Maria Garthwaite was totally super cooool.

3. See #2.

In Alison news, school starts back on Tuesday. Since this isn't (usually) the kind of blog where I talk a whole lot about my personal life, I'll refrain from gabbing about my recent and very unpleasant struggle for both a place in a graduate school program and a work-study scholarship. The main point is, school starts back on Tuesday and it's a whole new world. My plans for the blog are to post about as much as I've managed this summer. Expect the content to get a lot sloppier and more vulgar as the semester drags on. 

Yes, it really could get worse.

Stripes!

I have a problem.

Not the kind of problem that requires the use of rash ointment or special shoes, but a problem none-the-less.

Many moons ago, when I was a little younger and a lot dumber, I purchased a lot of striped silk taffeta from an online retailer. I had intended to use the material for Harriet Aiken's dress for the Jehossee project. However, when the fabric came, it was obvious that the repeat was too damned big for a classy gown of 1850.

Or so I thought at the time.

Since then, I've harbored notions of using it for 18th, 19th and even modern fashions, though I have no real direction for modern use other than a flirty 50's dress or something.

Anyway, here are the top contenders for striped silk use:

I like this. A lot. The repeat on this silk is a dead ringer for the scale of what I have. Definitely appropriate in terms of color as well.

A perennial favorite, from the New Brunswick Museum site. I have loved this dress for years. The salmon stripes in this are much thinner than the larger green stripes in my fabric, but the overall scale of the stripe is comparable. Enough to justify making an 1840's dress out of my fabric, though not necessarily a ballgown.

Again, the size of the stripe is a bit narrower here, but the vibrant red and unapologetic duo-chromatic scheme make a bolder statement.

Despite the early fears of her parents, Prudence Cavendish was able to overcome her apparent handicap, and, along with the albino rump roast which had claimed her hand, lived a long and full life.

This feels pretty "right" to me too. So many choices... Anyone care to weigh in? I promise to mock you for your opinions.

Draped Mantua

I stumbled across this series of images recently on the V&A website:

It's a lovely mantua, crafted of (probable) Spitalfields silk woven in 1733-34. The dress was constructed a few years later. It's fascinating to see the economical use of the textile in the construction of the garment and careful geometry at play in the gown while it is in repose (undraped)...

...And how it is transformed by artful, expert draping on the human form. I've read several times that mantua draping was an art, and that particularly skilled ladies maids were highly desired for their ability to drape their mistresses' gowns.

I guess I understand now.

Well, I'm poorer but...

THIS is now mine:

From Amazon, with love.

I've wanted this book since before the only people who cared about the "Kardashians" were folks who just couldn't let the O.J. Simpson trial go.

It's been on my Amazon wish list for a while in the original hardcover printing. Back when I added it, the book was selling used for about $160.00 on a GOOD day. I work at a book store and appreciate the value of the printed word well enough, but $160 for a single book is a major life event for me. (For me and my neighbors. As it turns out, I live in one of the top 10 most impoverished states in America. The statistic also reflects obesity rates and education ranking. So we're winning at being poor, fat AND stupid. But it's nice to be in a top-10 list of any kind when you're from South Carolina.) I started saving money to buy one, then noticed the price dropping on the hard backs last year and fortuitously found out that a paperback reprint was due out this year! The official release date is February 28th, 2012, but apparently the publisher didn't get the memo because I'm holding my copy right now. 

Final price? Under $30. This is good for a lot of reasons, but namely because it's a fantastic source and now it will be readily available for a new generation of collectors, seamstresses, reenactors and historians. And people who have a fetish for large books with waistcoats on the cover.

Second Boo-Yah of the day concerns the purchase of fabric. Tax season is a good time to buy fabric, if you've got the capital laying around. Great sales abound in-store and online. I love Fabric.c*m for the variety and general value, but it's like a giant flea market over there sometimes. You never really know what you're going to find.  It's been admittedly dry lately, and I had half a heart to disregard the pleas of the petulant nymph pimping a pile of cotton novelty prints in their recent email advertisement. I'm glad I didn't. They currently have a remarkably good selection of wools (some blends in there, but a lot of 100% too) including some great olive green wool melton for under $4 a yard, and several lovely twills and merinos for under $7 a yard. 

So yes, there shall be wool via FedEx as well as some necessary osnaburg. I am in the last leg of the Dreaded Jehossee project and I ran out of osnaburg a few weeks ago as the direct result of making "rustic goat pillows" for unsuspecting friends and family for Christmas. I got yer Christmas present right here...

Upcoming: I will attempt to post some pictures and notes regarding the construction and patterning of my 18th century leather stays in the upcoming week. A fellow blogger is making a pair of her own and lamented that nobody has documented leather stays as of yet. Surely more people have made them? Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print for now.