Busy, busy, busy

I'm working on an insanely ambitious project. I don't want to give out too many details lest I jinx myself, but here is Part 1 (I've heard it called a neck stock, a roller, a cravat ... I just know it's about 5" 5 feet long and has a rolled hem all the way around.) and Part 4 - an 18th century riding habit shirt.

1/8" narrow hems? Check. Stroked gathers? Check. Flat felled seams? Check. Button links for the cuffs? Check. All hand-sewn except for the long seams under the arms and up the sides? Check. Skin missing from the middle of my needle-pushing finger? Check.

Parts 3 and 4 are in progress. Maybe I'll post pictures as I go along ...

Test fitting the patterns for Parts 5 and 6 have begun. Part 7 should be the easy one. (HAHAHAH.)

Oh, and it needs to be done by Columbus Day.

Patching a shirt

So, our cook had an unfortunate incident at MTA last year. As he was bending over the cook fire, the fire went all Rice Crispies on him with a snap, crackle and pop. Fire do that all the time, right?

Well, “… man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” As he was bending down, some sparks went up, which, from the cooks perspective was down his shirt. But he didn’t know it at the time. He stood up and felt something warm. He looked down and saw nothing. Then he felt hot. And saw his waistcoat smolder. From the inside out. He yelped for help, and I grabbed the hem of my gown and shoved it down inside his shirt between him and the ember and patted it out.

We now keep a linen rag in the buckets of water we keep by the fire.

Anyhow, the shirt needed help. In the 18^th century one didn’t sew a square of fabric over the hole and call it a day. Precious little remains of original utilitarian garments. They were used, repaired, repurposed and then sold to the rag man. Near as we can tell, holes were patched from the back in fabric that matched as closely as possible to the original, and done in a neat and workmanlike manner.

Sewing a rolled hem. Ugh - I should have worn my glasses - this is horribly uneven.

 

Since I made the shirt to begin with, I kept the remnants of the lovely cambric linen, so I was good there. I matched the damaged front edge to the undamaged edge to see how much had been burned away. I took a scrap of cambric and made a new hand-rolled edge and positioned it in the gap and stitched it in place.

Completed rolled edge.

Patch pinned in place.

Then I pinned the edges of the shirt on top of the remnant. I trimmed off the singed edges, turned the raw edges under and carefully stitched them to the patch. Then I turned the shirt over and trimmed the excess patch away, leaving no more than a quarter inch. Then I turned the edge of the patch under, and stitched to the shirt.

Partially sewn - from the front.

Done. And now that I look at it closely, I'm not that impressed. So much for "neat and workmanlike". Next time, less of a rush and I'll wear my reading glasses. *sigh* Note the slight difference in color? The linen will continue to bleach as it's washed and exposed to sunlight.

Brief update

Wool gown sewn for MTA?

Check.

Weather forecast for 80 degrees?

Check.

Resulting in frantic sewing on dimity gown?

Gown bodice from the back.

Check.

Dump the responsibility for the cooking competition to include documentation on our cook?

Check.

Mend the hole in the cook's shirt from where a stray spark took up residence between said shirt and skin?

Check.

Tie for first place in the cooking contest?

One of our entries in the cooking competition - Salmagundi. There are greens, chicken, ham, anchovies, egg whites, egg yolks, anchovies, orange slices, fried chicken skin, rose petals, and butter in the shape of a pine cone.

Check. (Previous best has been third place. Twice.)

Frantic sewing this week for a coworker who “Fights With Foam”? to include a both linen and woolen fighting tunics.

Underarm gusset

The sleeves were lined with a linen blend and hemmed with this nifty stitch that keeps the wool from fraying but doesn't add bulk.

Triangular gore added to the center front and back. Quality materials make this so much easier.

Check.

Need to start a gown for Sweet Daughter’s best friend (birthday party next Saturday).

Check.

Oh, and at some point, after spending a morning in the wind selling Girl Scout cookies in February, I decided our table needed to be upholstered. Sweet Daughter picked the font for the lettering. I am so not like other moms.

More when I come up for air.

What in blue blazes

... was I thinking?

I have 33 yards of 45" wide (that's over 371 square feet) hot pink taffeta sitting there waiting to be made into can-can skirts for a baker's dozen of 5- to 7-year-olds. It didn't seem too terrible when I thought it was only going to be for eight or so. And when I thought I could get the fabric in town. And before I had the great idea to put a 4" x 50' strip of netting gathered into a ruffle on the bottom.

Since I couldn't find 33 yards of coordinating (much less matching) fabric at the Big Name fabric stores (even on-line!), I turned to eBay. The fabric arrived today. I've got the netting already cut and in a corner of the dining room. I made up a prototype tonight and figured out what changes I have to make. Thankfully the design was spot-on, I just need to tweak the execution a bit. And get them all done in a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Projects

Let's see ... I've been working on these and they're almost done:

And there was this little project for Michael W. (cutler to the stars). Bless his heart ... if it involves a needle and thread, he figures I'm good at it. I haven't done any real embroidery work in ... um, I think I did something with yarn for my sister when I was in first grade. Counted cross-stitch just isn't the same. I won't tell you how many times I ripped those stars out and started over, but I quit counting after 6 or 7 attempts. Well, that and the fact he told me needed it at the end of January which translated into needing it in his hands on by today. The photo is horrid, but it hides a multitude of sins. I haven't decided if this has poisoned me on embroidery/crewel work altogether, or if it's now something I need to do more of to prove to myself that I can.



These are on the back of a Civil War sailor something-or-other.

Then there are the skirts ...

Sweet Daughter is in Daisy Scouts. In two weeks time, all the Girl Scouts in the county are getting together for "World Thinking Day". Each troop is representing a country, and is doing a dance and providing food samples, and stamping passports and the like. Her Troop is representing France. Their dance is the can-can. For some reason, I thought that by volunteering to make the costumes (skirts), I could help control the cost. Somehow, I neglected to see how many I needed to make. Look forward to more info on that as we get closer to the event as I'm having problems finding enough inexpensive fabric. Even Joann Fabrics online doesn't have enough in stock. Wish me luck, and send rum.

Banyans (Part 1)

Shorter Half summarizes a banyan as casual dress for gentlemen. “Think 18th century Hugh Hefner in a smoking jacket, but more acceptable in public. They were worn by men to indicate refinement -- to show that they appreciated the wonders of the orient, had the wealth to afford expensive fabrics, and the leisure to not have to worry about ruining a garment with manual labor."

A banyan was considered “undress” wear, meaning it was worn for informal occasions. It was paired with a cap or turban-type head covering instead of a wig. (If you wore wigs a lot, you tended to keep your head shaved. It just made things easier.) Very generally speaking, banyans ranged from loose, flowing, T-shaped robes early in the century to more fitted, Asian-inspired garments later.

Benjamin Rush observed that:

Loose dresses contribute to the easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind. This remark is so obvious, and so generally known, that we find studious men are always painted in gowns, when they are seated in their libraries.

So, without further ado, I present to you the Gentlemen of the Detached Hospital, a.k.a. the Z.Z. Top of Colonial Williamsburg.

Presenting the ZZ Top of the Reenacting World

Everybody's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

Michael W. eschews the negligee cap for something cooler with more protection from the sun. That silk brocade is heavy, and hot.

Mike's lovely wife made this banyan for him.

Shorter Half vamps for the camera. This is a hand-block printed cotton from India, and is patterned on  a banyan in the Sharon Ann Burnston book, "Fitting and Proper". More on the construction of this later.

Chris looks refined and relaxed while he coordinates beautifully with the crepe myrtle in bloom behind him. This is also a hand-block printed cotton from India, and uses a French pattern. The cap uses a pattern from Linda Baumgarten's "Costume Close Up". More on this later, as well.

Like I don't have enough projects to do

So, in the comments of my Charities post, Linda in TX suggested that I check out Quilts of Valor. I used to quilt – that’s how I learned to sew by hand. Miles, and miles by hand… *grin*.


I sort of tucked it away in the back of my mind until I got home from work today and I found a minute to start paging through my quilting books. I wanted to do something patriotic that wasn’t cliché. Not that there’s anything wrong with cliché, I just wanted to come up with something original and a little low-key. I found a block that triggered an idea, and I think I’m good to go. Now, I just have to wait for the math side of my brain to kick in so I can calculate the size of the blocks and how much fabric I’m going to need.

I want to include a rather long quote that will run across the horizontal strips between the blocks. Other than embroidering it by hand, anybody got any ideas on the best way to do this? Fabric marker? (Not my first choice, I have crappy handwriting.) I’d like to do it in 18th century-style script but I don’t know what my options are. I’m pretty good with 18th century sewing technology, but I don’t even know what’s out there for the 21st century.

UPDATE: Ooooh! Thanks to Bob S. in comments, I poked around a bit and found I can allegedly use an inkjet printer. I'll check in to this ....

Death by petticoat - or how to do an 18th century patch job.

One of the prevalent reenactor myths is that the second leading cause of death for women during the 18th century was by what we call “death by petticoat*”, or women dying from their clothing catching on fire and burning them to a crisp. (With the leading cause of death believed to be complications of childbirth.) Those myths are busted here, but I can tell you from personal experience that your skirts catching fire is not an automatic death sentence.

I was assisting the costumer at a film shoot, dressed in my linen working gown with the back polonaised up off the floor. It was a bloody cold, windy day in December, and the cast and crew were inside one of the interior sets trying to stay warm while a couple of exterior kerosene heaters were going full blast. These heaters had the heating element/flame set up about three feet above the floor. I was standing about a foot in front of one, feverishly sewing one of the “talent” into her gown as the director was standing in the open door bleating “We must go NOW! We’re losing the LIGHT!” I felt what seemed like someone brushing against the back of me and thought nothing of it until the talent was out the door and a nice young man said to me “Ma’am – your butt was on fire. But I put it out for you!” Who said chivalry was dead? (And proof that at least once in my life I had a hot ... backside.)

Upon further examination, I found that my gown had some rather interesting holes burned in it. Had I been dressed in polyester, or some sort of poly blend, I would have been shrink-wrapped like a package of bacon. Wool would have shown less damage, as wool is self-extinguishing and won’t hold a flame. This is good to know if you are shooting anything that requires a priming pan filled with black powder. Wool is a good choice for your upper body garment.

Patching the gown was one of my projects this past weekend. In the 18th century, labor was cheap and fabric was dear, so patching was done a little differently – it was patched from the back.

First step is to find a piece of fabric that matches as closely as possible to the original. Or, at least as closely as practical for the character you are portraying. I had scraps from the original gown, and had my gown been old and faded I would have used these to show a subtle change of color. Since I was wearing for the gown for the first time when it caught fire, I found another shade of brown to use. I wanted them gown to be neatly patched, but still noticeable enough to use as a talking point.

Next, with the right side of the fabric facing up, place the patch behind the hole and pin in place making sure the garment fabric isn’t distorted. Try to match the straight-of-grain. Turn under a narrow hem (like about an eighth of an inch or less) and sew with tiny overcast stitches.

 

Partially done on the back.

Turn the garment over and trim the patch to about a quarter of an inch away from your stitching. Turn that raw edge under, and repeat with the tiny overcast stitches. Repeat for each hole.

Done in back.

Finished in front.

Five of the ten holes patched.

*Petticoat – what we today would call a skirt – a garment (usually at least two at a time) worn under your
gown (what we would call a “dress” today). Your skirts were the bottom portion of your petticoat or gown.