Renovation Tidbits, Part Two

One of the windows in worst shape.

 The windows across the front of the house haven't been cared for since, as one of the carpenters put it, Daniel Boone last puttied them.

So with the help of my mother and sometimes Curte, I have scraped all the ages of paint, glazing, putty, and strange old fabric weatherstripping -- tacked on and painted over -- off the windows as well as possible, reglazed and painted the windows, painted the storm windows, doors, and sundry other surfaces, and caulked.

It takes approximately two hours to scrape a window, another hour to glaze it, and after two weeks' cure, another two hours to paint two coats on it and scrape the excess off the panes. If there are six windows and door and door frame and said storm windows and swing also needing paint, and twin boys adding their activity to the mix... you do the math.

It has been a month-long job, and I am not done yet.

Then there is the...

Other Project

One month ago today, we were in the middle of renovating our kitchen. As of this evening, we are still at it. The walls that needed moving are moved and completed even down to the paint, the ceiling is done, the plumbing is in, the wiring mostly done, the lighting in, and tonight Curte was plugging old piping holes with rounds of dowling, preparatory to the arrival of the flooring people tomorrow morning. The old, stained resin pine floor that we loved too well to replace will be painted like it was back in the 1920s, but in Adirondack green this time, rather than olive green.

Perhaps by this time next week the floor will be done and the cabinets and counters can start to go in? Certainly hope so. For my tiny cooking corner in the dining room, enjoyed though it is for its simplicity, is rather hard on the menu...it's stews in the crock pot or sautes in the electric frying pan or something in the microwave, and only one thing at a time can cook, for our 1920s-era wiring out there won't stand for more than one small appliance at a time. The water source is a big bowl of water drawn from the downstairs bath, and dishes are washed in the upstairs bath. That part is not pleasant: I am always reminded of running with scissors when heading up or down the stairs with cooking knives.

Still, it is very good to see this coming together. Perhap afterwards I will give myself the gift of another sewing project to be undertaken in quiet evenings over the winter: shall it be a proper 1795 long fichu (try six feet in length) or a black 1870 dress?

Then too, there are pillow covers and cushions and curtains to be made.

Meantime, it's back to brute labor :}

Mid-1790s Hair Tutorial and Hat Precis

Channeling 1794-1795.

Late eighteenth cenrtury hair was big, wasn't it? First we had Marie Antoinette and her giant poufs topped with sailing ships and whole birds. Then we had giant boufs with tails in back, as if ladies had slept in the poufs for months and then just teased them out in frustration.

By the mid 1790s, fashionable women transferred their passion from big frizz to big, long locks. A spiral-curl lock or two might hang fetchingly over a shoulder and inspire plays like The Rape of the Lock earlier in the century, but now those curly long locks multiplied until the head was covered with them.

The locks could be pulled up into messy masses, or sometimes woven more carefully with ribbons,or headbands, or left au natural. For this era was the prelude to Romanticism, and what is more romantic than tendrils around the face and shoulders?

Here are two mid-1790s fashion plates from The Gallery of Fashion that show two variations on the look.

As alway, please click the images for larger versions.

Please also pardon any typos...for an experiment, I typed the whole thing on my Blackberry...excepting image code, which I set up earlier. Um, sore fingers ahead.

By 1796, high fashion began to take the hair high up onto the head again and while curls were still the rage, they became sparser, set closer to the head, and kept more controlled, more in emulation of the Classical than of Nature's Child.

The Hair

My problem for the 1790s picnic we held Saturday was translating this look onto a 21st century head of hair, bobbed and straightened. Not good "lockige" material.

Lauren of The Lady of Portland House and her friends at the Oregon Regency Society, who favor the same decade our group does, seem to have gone for full wigs as a solution. There are variations on the Hair Metal theme out there in wig world, with names like "Lionness". Teased and shaped a little, these do admirably.

I had neither the money nor the chutzpah to go for a wig, though; I like my own hair, and wondered if I could do a variation on Vivcore's Georgian pouf wiglet (Google it for a great tutorial). Then I could use my own front and back hair.

But midway through making it, it began to look too poufy, and I had a Eureka moment. Are you familiar with the Paris Hilton headband wiglet that some stores sell? Have you seen the Costumer's Manifesto tutorial for hair for the play Les Liaisons Dangereuses? I have, and, a day before the picnic, the lightbulb blinking on after months of intermittent mindless musing, I pulled out a Scunci 1.5-inch-wide elastic headband bought years ago, some brown thread and a needle, and 10-12 curled wefts of imitation hair some 22 inches long, from Sally Beauty Supply that I bought for 5 dollars, again years ago.

The wefts I had cut into slices some 2 or 3 inches wide early this summer. I had found a wooden dowel a half inch in diameter, and had, one by one, wound wefts around one end of it like one winds hair around a curler, pinned the hair ends in place with a bobby pin, and plunged the dowel and its hair into a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, enough to make the strands on the weft take a permanent curl. Once gently worked off the dowel and dried, each weft was now a long sausage curl. Left alone, the ingredients for any formal look that requires sausage curls -- mid-eighteenth century, 1830s, 1850s, 1870s. Pulled out with the fingers, loose long locks.

You can see the wefts above, bobby pins run through them.

Certainly you can just pin the wefts onto your head with bobby pins, mixing wefts with your own hair, I tried that and it works -- just think hair extensions.

An easier route, the one I ended up taking, is to sew the tops of the wefts to the headband. I set a weft to the outer edge of the band, and sewed it to the band with a few stitches. Then I set a weft next to it and did the same...repeating until I had gone almost halfway round the band.

Then I sewed another row of wefts on a half an inch in from the band edge. That proved to be enough hair for me, but you might add as much as you like.

You can sew how rough the sewing is, below.

If you wish, cover the sewing with shorter locks or a period head wrap: since I was wearing a hat, I did not.

Put the headband on, bobby pin it to your hair to hold it in place, and style it as you like: push some towards the front of your head, other parts to the sides, pile some of the locks up on your head and pin in place as I did... If thick enough and of a similar color to your own hair, it blends with your hair nicely.

Remember to pull your own natural front hair forwards towards your face and to spiral-curl it with curlers or curling iron or foam curling rods. Using setting lotion on dry hair, and blow-dry your hair to speed things up. When you take the curlers out, your front hair will be curly, too. Now you can blend it with your new locks. If you have long hair, looping some of it up for slightly shorter by-the-face face curls looks nice. 

Use fashion plates and paintings of the era to help decide how to arrange it into a coiffure with hat, hair wrap, turban, ribbons, feathers. (See my Research Resources page...link in menu at blog top, to find fashion plates.) 

Here above is the sewing; rough, eh?

Here above is the completed wiglet.

The Hat

This is just a precis, for the hat was very simple.

You see the fashion plate above in which the young woman is wearing a hat with a band around it, tied in a 3-way bow in front and with the fringed end pointing obliquely up, and a plume set behind the bow? That was my model.

I used a hat bought my freshman year of college and modified it. The base hat is a boater of sorts, the brim width the same all the way around, with and three-plus inch straight crown.

I sewed two lengths of millinery wire to the inside from crown out to the edge of the brim and bent the wire to bring the hat equally down on either side, which style was also popular in 1795.

Then I tacked a scrap of shot pink and cream silk-cotton around the brim, tucking raw edges under the scrap for a more finished look.

Next, another scrap was formed into a bow, and one end, longer than the other, brought up obliquely in back.Because the fabric frayed naturally, I took advantage of it and frayed the bow's sides for a two-tone effect. Again, an idea from fashion plates, and you see fringing in trim of the day.

The bow was pinned with a silver hatpin to the front of the hat.

Finally, I took two medium ostrich feathers, tacked them together with thread to make a single fluffier plume, and inserted it behind the hatband, tacking it into place. Should have tacked it more: it twisted. The plume should be set so the top cuves forward -- that means the back of the feather faces front.

The Results

Here you go. A pretty 1790s look, with minimal outlay of construction time or funds. The research and thought time? Months and months. I have a slow brain.

A September 1790s Picnic



Come with us as we  wander the estate.

September cries out for picnics. This morning the air was washed clean for the first time in almost six weeks, the sky was the deep blue of early fall, and around us the foliage, so tired and dead just yesterday, had shaken itself off and perked up a bit. Not but that we could see real fall coming: most of the black walnut trees are bare except for their decorative green orbs, and underfoot we had to watch for their staining husks and the detritus of other trees who had given up some of their leafiness a little early, in the face of drought.

(As always, click the images to see larger versions.)

In honor of September and 1795, the year Jane Austen's first novel, Pride and Prejudice, was published, our little Jane Austen Sewing Society met at Henry Clay's Ashland Estate to picnic, and stroll under the trees and in the formal garden afterwards.

A formal portrait, with baskets.

There were just four of us today, and we missed everyone else, but what a time, what a time! Imagine sitting down to a table, properly clothed and decked, to Polly's cheese pie, and salad from Caroline's garden, with little glasses of rosewater flummery just waiting for the conclusion of that first course. A second, almond flummery, made in small pats like jewels, says Jenni, and dressed with gold leaf, to go along in case rosewater was not to taste. To finish up, a true antique cheese cake. These three dishes Jenni had worked up from eighteenth and early nineteenth century cookbooks, and she has told you you all about them in her blog, Living with Jane, for they were excellent, soft and smooth with cream, the flavoring just present enough to make you want more. I had forgotten the muscat in the flurry of packing all the baskets, but we had two excellent teas, and fresh-squeezed lemonade, both by Caroline.

Here are some shots of the event. You can see more -- and far better ones -- at Living with Jane. Jenni studied photography in college, and you can tell.

As usual, the morning was somewhat hurried. The tots were good ducks, as they mostly are, but Christopher had an accident as I was ironing my dress, and cleanup took awhile. Potty training takes time for a little boy when he has things to do and people to see.

1790s dress, from Collection Maciet.



So I was behindhand when Caroline and Polly arrived to dress, and still fussing with hair. We dressed with more dispatch than for the JASNA festival in July, being a little more confident and experienced, but despite the new modesty panels that line my 1795 cream silk dress and take the strain off, the pins to close the dress would keep coming undone, silly things. So, as last time I have gaposis. I will beat those pins yet.

Then too, the new fichu, made of the embroidered skirt from a vintage child's dress that was so scorched and stained that it qualified as a cutter to me -- and as trash to unkind others, had a dear friend not rescued it some years back -- wouldn't sit well without a brooch. I had set it in one of the ways it could be worn during the 1790s, as shown in the Gallery of Fashion fashion plate example on this page.



And I let the front wrap loosely outside the dress, which was allowable then, but it did look like a collar, and I won't be doing that again. Why did I not mirror-check before we left? We were late, of course, in leaving for the estate and I didn't care for the idea of Jenni wandering around looking for friends who weren't there.

Happy with the thought of a pleasant
lunch. Those are Jenni's antique
cheese tarts behind her, and a flummery.



To finish the rush, while I had packed the baskets the evening before, the fruit was still a-fridge, along with the wine, and it remained there...while we left without it.



Lunch itself as was described, was very, very good, and all of us agreed that the bar is very high for tea rooms these days, to match what we have learned to do. Cheeky little statement, but you get women together who enjoy cooking and who have access to local fresh ingredients, and nice things tend to happen. Why then no pictures? Not for modesty, sure...we shared camera duty, and my camera was asleep at the moment, because I was too busy with a fork.

The cups of tea brought Caroline to the subject of poetry and over the last of it, well caffeinated, we listened to some Wordsworth, a piece about going nutting in the fall. As you might expect of an early Romantic poet, the piece was a peaen to Nature, a celebration of the wild harvest, and a reaction against the practical gathering of nuts and what it wreaks. A conflicted poem, to say the least, but good.

At lunch. Image courtesy Jenni of Living with Jane blog.

Off to stroll afterwards, like any smart picnicker who doesn't want to leave for home over-full and sleepy.

Down a garden path slowly.

Through the formal garden, where the bare walnut outside
warns of cool weather to come,
and Christmas. Do you see the mistletoe?

The mandatory rose photo because
the blooms match the dress

Wouldn't you know, by this time the fichu had a life of its own. At least it was covering the gaposis.

Leaving the garden for a wilder walk...



...in the woods, watching for walnut hulls and other dangers.

The last of the stroll, back among the shadows.
Image courtesy Jenni of Living with Jane blog.



And so to home and naptime for the tots, although I was too full of tea and happiness to sleep, so here I am.

Renovation Tidbits

We are renovating our kitchen. Any thoughts of doing much else during this period have evaporated, pretty much. Sewing, blog posts...pouf. It's taken forever just to write this post; I 've done it in bits and drabs. Sans kitchen, and with a part-time job and 3-year-old twin boys, life must perforce simplify or Mama will collapse.

I rather like living without a real kitchen, because it forces creativity and also a visceral understanding of what it took great-great grandmothers to get meals to the table. I have few pots, limited heat sources, and as of today, no running water outside of the bathroom. Counter space is part of a table. I walk to to the basement to or to the fridge in a back room to get all but the most frequently used items. If I forget something, it's another trip. One learns to carry a tray everywhere.

Photo: A kitchen in transition: to the left, a door moved, to the right new windows, the old cabinets largely gone, the ceiling down and the new wiring and lighting in progress. Since this picture, the sink has gone bye-bye, too.

Most of the china, glass, and silver went to basement storage, and that has been a delight: it is very clear just how much mental effort went in, over the years, on selecting proper dishes and so on. Now the essentials are to hand on open shelves, and in the pretty, light-filled dining room that I've always enjoyed, so that table setting is a pleasure and dinners more elegant than in the family dining area in back, now taken over by drills, nails, and dust.

The blessed crockpot does its thing all day, and provided I have planned ahead and start in the morning, we have a relatively good dinner. A dinner not too far from the sorts that cottage folk would have provided nightly for their families. Read the early part of Lark Rise to Candleford and you will know what I am talking about. I have merely substituted stews and braises with pastas added an hour before serving for boiled meats and vegatables and puddings cooked in nets.

Photo: Household archaeology: the white tubes are ceramic spacers that neatly guided old fabric-covered wires carrying power to the original outlets, one or two per room. Houses were more dimly lit and more people used central overhead lamps hung from a chain. Curte had just removed the wires, in this picture; I rather wish he had left them for history's sake, for they weren't attached to anything. Curte's dad , a former contractor, says no one has done nice neat electrical work like that for fifty or sixy years.

The dark beams are the original 1923 beams; the gray lines showing on them are where the lath was nailed up, and the lines themselves are remnants of the innermost -- roughcoat - plaster, that was strengthened with horsehair.

The outdoor gas grill doesn't work for frying, as the gas is too far from the pan to heat it efficiently, but Curte's mother thoughtfully sent his Dad over with her mother-in-law's old electric frying pan recently and so now sautes and johnnycakes are back in the picture. My mother lent me a microwave, and I have had to play about-face with an old prejudice against them. We've not had one for seven years, and I distrusted them before that, and was always bold to tell Mom that I didn't like what came out of them. Well, guess who is eating her words, now it comes down to scratch? No, I am still not fond of them, but if we want separately cooked vegetables or potatoes or hot oatmeal, the machine does a nice job steaming the former and a gluey but edible job of the latter, and I am very thankful.

Now that the water source has gone today, it's out with the pail* and dipper. I've used one before: at the family cottages I grew up visiting on a pretty little lake, if you stayed at the red cottage you walked with your pail a minute or so to the square well, lifted the metal lid, which had a nice, scratchy-bell screech althat everyone knew, and dipped in your pail. An artesian well, the water bubbled inside in a three-cubic foot space, gravel and sand bottomed, visited by newts, and cooooold. The well would breathe a dank air in your face when you leaned down. I loved the smell. An outlet at the bottom sent the spillover running between the path's stepping stones and down a minute cress-lined stream to the lake. All of this shadowed in dappled woods. So beginning tomorrow, I have those memories every time I dip water to cook. I am looking forward to them, so long as the twins don't try to play water boy. Oh dear. Just thought of all the possibilities. How to keep them from thinking of them too?

Photo: More household archaeology. The bit of wall jutting out to the left of the door is the original brick flue. We discovered that the original wall color was a soft green then very popular for kitchens and other utility areas. That round mark? That's a portion of an old cover to a stovepipe. Now that was a discovery. We knew that the house was heated with coal, because the old coal chute it just outside the kitchen window. The coal man shoveled coal down the chute into a cellar bin. We did not, however, know that the earliest kitchen stove was coal-fired. I expected gas, for some reason. Between the kitchen stove and the coal chute nearby, no wonder there was so much old coal dust above the plaster ceiling!

(*Note: I live in Kentucky now and married into a Kentucky family here since this was Virginia. It's "bucket", in Kentucky. I've been saying bucket now for years, but when it's time to fetch and carry liquid, it's "pail" that I remember, just as "Did you check down cellar" or "The ash can's full" will come out once in awhile rather than "basement" or "garbage can". Curte has a good time with that, but he says "I reckon", so there. Once in awhile, staring at that thing we sit on together, I cannot recall any word at all except "davenport", when it's "sofa" everyone knows, or "couch", and when putting away laundry, it's to the "bureau" it goes, as much as to the "chest". And when I am dog-tired, darned if "broughten" and other strange past tense usages worm their way up from child-speak or the idiom of my birthplace, I don't know which.)

Light talk and funny talk aside, let's quit the cooking and get to the real cause of why I haven't finished documenting the dresses made for the Jane Austen Festival. Here's the dirt: it's dirt. Literal piles of it. First it was lath and plaster and coal dust when Curte took the old cracked ceiling down. Maybe if I am feeling chipper sometime I'll regale you with the coal dust caper. Then it was lumber dust and drywall dust, and soon it will be plumbing mess and who knows what. This is an older house, built in 1923, and the kitchen is in the middle of a three-rooms-deep layout (not original), and whether Curte or workmen enter from front or back, they are tramping through other rooms, and they've been working in the cellar too, where the clean laundry is, and my pantry.

Photo: the rest of the kitchen. The wall moves back, and it's sayonara to the sink for a new one goes in another corner, to save space. Later owners colored the walls lime green. It was actualy a really sunny, pretty color. The original floor? Resin pine, painted bluey-green around the edges, with a rectangle of linoleum laid in the center. Years of water trailing off the linoleum and later stains from floors tacked on top left the original strong, but too stained to refinish. So we are painting it once again, a bluey-green, but in a checkerboard pattern. The original ceiling? Apparently either a mustard (unless that was a primer), or a soft robin's-egg-blue, a gorgeous color. I saved a little piece. Our porch ceiling we painted that color, so it's good to know that the first owners liked that color, too.

So we get to clean all of it, over and over and over and over and over. Curte and Mom and I split this work; I am expecially grateful for Mom's help, since it's not even her house. It takes an unholy amount of time and effort.

At this juncture I think I have a pretty good grasp on what living in a town where coal fires heated homes, or on a farm during a drought, would have been like to those who had to maintain the house, whether mama or maid. It's good to understand this. I am going to understand it very well indeed when the two-three months this job will take is over.

Addendum: A Tutorial: Sense and Sensbility Bodiced Petticoat

While I am still waiting to get pictures of the completed bodiced petticoat, here is an extant example of one of these garments from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA).

It's of a later date than the 1790s, but is a lovely object nonetheless.

The MFA refers to it as an underdress. There may be truly a difference between an underdress and a bodiced petticoat, or terminology used then and now differs, or synonyms are floating around. I cannot judge.

Anyhow, the museum explains that the garment dates to the early 19th century (the labeling that came with it said 1820-1825), and was worn by one Mehetable Stoddart Sumner (Welles). It comes from the Boston area.

It's made of plain-weave cotton, with cotton embroidery, and features the use of twill tape in addition to the cotton.

It has drawstrings at neck and waist, and back tie closure...whether that is separate from the drawstrings the text does not make clear.

Want to see it in detail? Visit the object, accession number 49.876.. If the link doesn't work, the garment's accession number is 49.876.

Lest you believe that all bodiced petticoats were complex, here's a dramatically simpler one, with twill tape for shoulder straps. Not something to show under a sheer dress, I would think?

And here is the link to the details for this object, accession number 99.664.5.

A Tutorial: Sense and Sensbility Bodiced Petticoat - Part 5

This is the fifth part of a multi-part tutorial about making a bodiced petticoat using the bodice portion of the basic Sense and Sensibility Regency dress pattern. The tips are designed to supplement Jennie Chancey's online directions. If you missed the first four sections, you can read parts 1-4 here.

As always, please click on each image for a larger version.

Our job at this point in the process is to have Polly try on the bodice yet again, to sew up the back and create the closures, and to make up the skirt and waistband.

I found this last part rather fun, really.

When Polly tried on the petticoat, this was some months after her last fitting, and she had been exercising, and lo, she had lost weight! It was too big now.  I thought a few moments about what to do, attempting to put my 18th century hat on, and said to myself, back then, people gained and lost weight too, but with cloth so dear, it's likely they'd have had a system to accommodate weight fluctuations. Aha: lacing! Adjust the lacing tightness to adjust the fit.

Second, I thought the bodiced petticoat would be more supportive if it contained a few bones in back. Asking her about it, she said that her favorite undergarments have support in the back anyway, so voila, that decision was made, too.

First, I pulled the bodice tightly on her, and marked the spot where the fabric overlapped, from top to bottom, with chalk. The line was not vertical, because her back is wider at the top than at the bottom, near her waist, no surprise there.

Then I measured in about inch and a half on each side and cut off the excess fabric. I wanted to leave an inch or more open across the back for the lacing to cross, but needed about half an inch of fabric for a seam allowance.  In retrospect, I should have cut off more, for Polly continued to lose weight :}

Adding Bones

Next, I turned in a narrow seam allowance and pinned it.

Here it is pinned. If you look to the completed side to the left, you can see that the next step was to run a seam very close to the edge. It not only closed the back edge, but provided a line against which to place the first of two bones.

Here I have taken inexpensive plastic boning out of its black bias tape wrapping, have slide it up along the edge of the seam, and am marking a sewing line to the left of it. This line of stitching will hold the bone in place.

Therefore, after marking the sewing line, I removed the bone from the bodice, sewed up the channel seam, slid the bone up into place, with the top edge nestled against the top seam, and trimmed the bottom pretty flush with the bottom of the bodice.

Now I measured about an inch inwards from the first bone, and marked a parallel line for a second bone, stitched a seam from top to bottom, slid a second bone along its edge, marked the channel same as for the first bone, and completed this second bone in the same manner.

Sewing the Back Closure Eyelets

Now we are ready to sew the eyelets. Like the stays used during the high-waisted era, these lace with a single lace in a sprial pattern, not two laces.

How far apart should the eyelets be spaced such that they would hold well but not overdo the lacing thing? To answer this question, I looked at my Past Patterns transition stays, numbering the eyelets and measuring the distance between them. The Past Patterns bodice is taken from an actual example, so I felt comfortable with its lacing pattern.

For this bodice, I came up with six eyelets. I spaced the top and bottom eyelets as directed in the Past Patterns #30 stays directions. The eyelet positioning is such that the top and bottom eyelets on each side line up horizontally, but the rest of them are offset, to take account of the single lacing. Given the vertical distance to be covered, and the number of eyelet holes I had made, I ended up with a rather funny look…the top two holes on each side are rather close together, but I see that in period spiral-laced stays. Probably I should not have been so rigid in following an existing lacing pattern and should have just reset all of them except the top and bottom ones a little, but the end result works well, so, as they say, all’s well that ends well. Just think carefully when you do your eyelets, and you most likely will do better than I did.

I marked the eyelets with a pencil, placing them in the center of space between the two bones.

Then I created the eyelets.

Important: when you make an eyelet hole, you do not want to punch through the fabric, cutting the threads that make it up, as if you were setting a grommet. That only makes the equivalent of little tears in the fabric, and as everyone knows, little tears soon become big ones.

Instead, you want to spread the threads and nudge them aside into a hole shape without breaking them. Mantua makers used to have a special tool for this. I used a candy thermometer, which has a blunt-ended sharp point and the diameter of an eyelet hole.

First I used a great big crewel needle to find a space between the threads at the center of my eyelet hole mark. I put the needle through and slowly spread the threads apart. When I had a hole big enough for the end of the candy thermometer to go through, I put that through slowly, working the threads apart into a nice eyelet hole.

Then I overcast the edges to finish them. There are lots of tutorials out there for making eyelet holes, and some of them differ from each other. I used linen thread (that came with the Past Patterns kit and with which much of the work on the stays was done) to do the job. It’s strong and thicker than sewing thread. Basically, all I did was to overcast stitch all the way around the hole. I did NOT do button hole stitch. It’s decorative, but the horizontal edge created will wear off over time. Plain overcast was what was used during the period, so I understand.

My first eyelets are always a little wonky, until I get into a groove, and so it was here, but eventually they turned out evenly.

How many stitches to do all the way around? Looking at close-ups of stays and other laced items of the day shows a bit of variety: some are beautifully, neatly overcast, leaving not a hint of a raw edge all the way around, and all the stitches the same length. The vast majority, however, use just slightly more than enough stitches to make the eyelet strong, and the stitches are not always perfectly even, and in some cases, are downright sloppy. Depends partly on the quality of the original garment.

Finishing the Bodice Bottom

I decided to finish the bottom of the bodice with bias tape, for a neat, clean edge. That way if needed the bodice can be worn alone, but more importantly, the skirt can be changed out relatively fast. Very early Regency dresses (1790s) were quite full, but as the years passed, they became slimmer and narrower.

All I did was to take a length of white double-fold bias tape somewhat longer than the length of the bodice bottom, and pin the right side edge of it to the raw edge of the right side of the bodice.

Then I stitched perhaps a quarter inch from the edge...or conveniently on the first fold of the bias tape...cannot remember the exact measurement.

Then I folded the bias tape over the raw edge of the bodice, and hemmed it down. Or stitched. Cannot recall. Hemming would be neater, but we were in a hurry to finish.

Voila, a completed bodice, ready for any skirt to be put upon it.

Adding the Skirt and Finishing the Petticoat

I apologize for not having pictures of this section. Somehow the camera just wasn't in play...we were just counting down days to the event and I was flying :}

Since the dress that Polly was to wear was designed for a circa 1796 look, we went for a full look.

You do not want the petticoat to drag the floor and it should end above the hemline of the dress so it doesn't peek out. So Polly donned the bodice, and I measured from the bottom of the bodice to about her ankle bone.

I took two pieces of muslin, 45 inches wide, and the length needed, plus 1/2" for a bottom hem and 1/2" for a top seam allowance. Then I seamed them up the sides at their selvages. with a 1/4" seam allowance.

I slit the center of what would be the back piece down 9" for a placket, to open at the back at the bodice opening. I turned down one raw edge of the slit about 1/8", then turned it down again to make a tiny hem, and hand running-stitched it up to the top. I did the same thing to the other raw edge and voila, a placket done much as it would have been in the day.

Then I hemmed the bottom, using the same procedure as for the placket, but turning down 1/4" each time. Period hems would be even narrower, often, but this seemed right for her.

Then, 1/2" down from the top of the skirt, ran, by hand, gathering stitches of about 1/4" or less each, all the way around the skirt, in four separate sections. For speed, you can run just two sections of gathers, one for each skirt panel, but it's better practice to measure the skirt into quarters (center front to side, side to center back, center back to side, side to front) and run four sections, because you can distribute the gathers more evenly. Even better, run two rows of gathering stitches, and stroke them, like I did for the midcentury petticoat. In a hurry? Gather by machine. It's up to you.

I then divided the bottom of the bodice into sections and marked these sections with a pencil, thus:

• After I marked the center front of the bodice with a pin, I placed a pencil mark about 3" to each side.
• On the back of the bodice, I measured in about 3" from the edges and marked there, on each side.

These markings show where to gather heavily and where to gather minimally.

Then I pulled in the gathering stitches of each skirt section until the result fit the length of the bodice. I pinned the raw edge of the skirt to the finished edge of the bodice. In practice, this means laying the skirt on a table, raw edge nearest you, and with the center front lying right side up. Then you lay the bodice on top, with its bottom edge (finished with bias tape) aligned with the skirt's raw edge, and its center front touching the center front of the skirt.

Then you pin the skirt to the bodice pretty roughly, from the center front out to each side for an inch or two. Then lift up the skirt, and pin the edge of one placket to the edge of one end of the bodice, and do the same with the other edge. Add a few extra pins to hold the rest to the skirt.

Now you distribute the gathers. It's easiest to start at the back.

Early Regency skirts had the most gathers at the back. So at one placket edge, distribute the gathers most heavily from there to the first marking out from the placket edge of the bodice. Pin the skirt to the bodice as you go. Try to pin in the valleys of the gathers rather than on the peaks. Do the same for the other placket edge.

Flip the skirt over to the front. Distribute a good bit of the gathers front the center front to the marks that are three inches to either side of the center front. You don't want it as full as in the back, but not scanty.

At the sides between the marks front and back, use the most minimal of gathers.

Why do it this way? Why not go flat in front? Because in the 1790s, skirts were still fullish there! Why go skimpy at the sides? Because you still wanted to show a waist, and this looked less poofy.

Now, from here you have several choices.

If you are going by machine, you can sew down the gathers as they are. Go carefully, trying not to smoosh or bunch up the gathers. Sew just outside (towards the skirt's raw edge) of the gathering stitches, and sew them just up from the bottom of the bodice. You will have raw edges on the inside of the skirt.

I frankly prefer to whip the skirt to the bodice by hand, instead. To do this, I lay the the two edges to be attached together, and then whip stitch them to each other, using very small stitches just inside the edges of both pieces. Not sure how to whip stitch? It's an ancient stitch, and the tutorial at the Medieval Tailor is quite nice. Or you could try the "Attack Laurel" method of whip stitching, illustrated in her excellent article, "The Elizabethan Seam".

Why qhip stitches? The whip stitches act like little hinges and the skirt hangs beautifully, with no seam line, no bulk. In the mid-century petticoat I whipped every gather, but if you are in a hurry, you can whip every 1/8 inch or so and be just fine.

Feeling a little iffy about raw edges? Encase the gathers in bias tape, and stitch the tape down down by hand or by machine, again just outside of the gathering stitches.

Then either sew the tape to the bodice or whip it to the bodice.

Either way, you now have a completed bodiced petticoat. Polly said it was very comfortable. It provided good support and was cooler than something made of synthetics.

Our only remaining fitting issue: she continued to lose weight, so the petticoat meets at the back when laced and the cups are too big, so that we had to take in the straps a week. My advice? Make the thing at least a size too small!

Soon as I can get the petticoat back from Polly for a photo shoot, I will add pictures of it here.

Wearing the Petticoat

Wondering how to lace the petticoat? Again, I need to show pictures, but frankly, La Couturiere Parisienne shows how to do it best in a diagram in How to Make 18th Century Stays: Wear and Care. You can get more of the history at The Zen of Spiral Lacing.

At last, we are done.

On to finishing the documentation on Polly's block print robe and petticoat and my white silk robe and petticoat!

Dolley Madison, Online

I am slowly completing posts that conclude the construction of the bodiced petticoat and both open robes that have been in progress these many months...they are taking a good long while to do because the closer the event came to which we were to wear them, the less documentation I made.

In the meantime, there is a good bit of material about the Dolley Madison film that PBS made, online.
Right now I cannot get the film itself to play, but some of the behind the scenes items work. For example:

• Behind the Scenes with the Costume Designer
• Behind the Scenes with the Turban Maker

On YouTube, a good many bits seem to be preserved.

Top two photos: early scenes from the film.

And on a related American Experience Flickr site, photo shoot photographs, in two sets:

• A short costume set
• A photo shoot set

Why am I especially pleased? Because fairly early on in the film, we see Dolly in the 1790s, the era our sewing group has been studying. And the look of that dress you seen in the photos above? That's one of the looks we aimed for. Handsome, isn't it?  Dolley's gown is a round gown, but shares many of the characteristics of the gowns we have designed...and I see a round gown, in plum, of course, in my future, not to mention her hairstyle, which is handsome and understated.

Photo: screen capture from the costume designer's video, showing star Eva Best trying on the plum round gown.

The costume designer video puts the fashions of Dolley's lifetime into costume context, and how they traveled from late 1780s to the the end of the Regency era we know so well. It's well done. She also offers some detail into how the fit of gowns changed over the years. Important! For example, in the screen capture above, you see the very tight arms, the residual conical shape of the stays beneath the dress, but the boufy front created by both the bodice gathering and the fichu.

Do enjoy. I cannot wait to have a look at the film!

1795-1797 Printed Indian Muslin Open Robe for Polly, Part 1

Important Note, 11/07/10: this entry is being rewritten and is in progress.

As part of the preparations for the Jane Austen Festival, I made Polly an open robe. This one is made of a sheer fine, soft muslin hand block-printed in India. The fabric just floats and is amazingly similar to the drape and patterning on extant garments I have seen pictures of.  In fact, have a gander at the image of a similar dress, in the Design section below.

The next paragraphs cover high points of its making.  If the verb tenses in this diary switch around a bit, it's because I reworked some in-progress blog entries and then added a good bit of material.

Level of Authenticity

On starting the robe, I wrote:

The garment, which is lined in white linen, is assembled entirely by hand using seam techniques and stitches from Costume Close-up and Costume in Detail because the muslin is so fine that mounting it with a machine might risk risk pulling and tearing it and I cannot afford to waste a scrap. Besides, gives a far more authentic feel in the result. Plus it's easier not to get a machine out.

Further, in line with period practice, part of the garment is actually sewn upon her. Pins bother me when fitting, anyway, so most pieces have been recut and then basted directly on her. She's patient :} Here, for example, I have just lengthened a sleeve and am cutting the front edge on the fly so that it will hang elegantly down over her knuckles. How could I have done this properly if she was not wearing the toile? The completed garment can be worn with the sleeves over the knuckles or pushed back to ruche a bit up the arm. Extant sources? See Janet Arnold.

When it comes time to set the sleeves, I will sew them right in place on her in order to get the best fit. Once again, Costume Close-Up explains how this was done.  What a gem of a book. Linda Baumgartner and her colleagues are terrific curators, too...their Colonial Williamsburg eMuseum site is far and away the most informative in its garment documentation of any museum site I've yet uncovered.

Photo: Cutting the front edge of a sleeve toile while Polly wears it. The sleeve original from Jennie Chancey has been lengthened -- you can see where I basted on the extension and I am cutting the shape of it.  After the picture was taken I cut some more and then hemmed the edge to get a final sense of the look, and then narrowed the fit of the entire sleeve to the very tight fit for the 1790s.

The Design
[insert 1793 dress image]

Unlike Laura's robe, this robe is fitted in front and pinned shut at center front like earlier round gowns, since Polly prefers a more tailored look.  The overall design is taken from extant examples in Nancy Bradfield's Costume in Detail,  along with pictures of dresses from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Colonial Williamsburg, a dress from the Kent State University Age of Nudity exhibition, and this dress, shown in the image, for which I embarassingly have no documentation. It comes from a blog called Pride and Sensibility: Women's History Through the Ages, and is, I understand, from England.  What I have changed from the design you see is to remove the deep point at the center front, like several dresses in the Bradfield book, and have kept the waistline just above the waist.

Basic Construction
Once again, I used the Sense and Sensibility ELC pattern as a fitting base, but all bodice pieces were lengthened by two inches and then the back was recut to new shapes more in line with the mid 1790s, straps cut from the original front piece, and the front entirely redraped and recut to suit her, and with the addition of two bust darts.

[image of Polly]

The darts created themselves when the fronts were draped on her, and it was fun to look at Costume Close-Up and see the darts in extant examples in exactly the same places. I wish I had taken more detailed pictures and notes at this juncture, but the festival by then being two months away or less, that did not happen.



Attaching the Skirt

A few weeks later...

Each evening after the twins are in bed, it's sewing time. Am so close on Polly's open robe! At this point I have pleated and whipped the skirt on to the bodice.

The bottom of the bodice is finished by turning the lining and dress fabric raw edges inwards to each other and then sewing them with spaced backstitch. Should Polly want to trade out the style for another one or even wear the bodice as a spencer (you see this treatment in Heideloff fashion plates), she can easily, for the bodice could stand alone.

In tune with practice of the day, the skirt is made of two full-width panels of the dress fabric.  Conveniently, only one side of the fabric features the banding pattern, so on the selvage sans banding, I sewed the two panels with a 3/16" or so seam in combination stitch (running stitch with a backstitch every needleful). Because the fabric is so light and translucent, I felt it necessary to sew medium-close stitches, perhaps 10 to the inch. The selvages with the banding serve as the skirt front decoration, something you see in extant robes.

The robe is quite full, perhaps a little fuller than most were, at 90". However, I did not want to cut the panels, for then they could not be reused later, and the fabric is so sheer that I worried about tearing. Best to keep it whole. This seems to be the attitude mantua makers took whenever they could.

Photo: Robe from the side. The fine muslin is very sheer and it's billowing into a circular shape in the breeze from a fan.

Again due to the very sheer, light fabric, I probably ought to have gathered the panels, but chose to pleat them instead: Polly likes a tailored effect. I examined all the open robes in Janet Arnold's book from 1780 onwards, and found that pleating practice varied, so, taking what I hope is a late eighteenth-century view of options, I concentrated the deepest pleating at center back, with a series of three double inverted box pleats to either side of a central inverted double box pleat that is centered on the center back seam. Knife pleats facing outwards then travel to approximately under the arm. Then from the front selvage back to the underarm, the pleats face backwards. Therefore we avoid the potentially awkward flow of a pleat at the front opening out towards the front in an unflattering manner.

The box pleats bothered me a bit because I am not sure they were extensively used, except in saque backs. However, I had 90" wide of fabric to gather into a 24" space, since I wanted to attain the favored cutaway look, and I couldn't do it and maintain 1/2" wide pleats without stacking some of them. With the fabric so sheer, the result is not bulky so I hope it's a plausible solution. (An edit: Renna_darling wrote me to say that Costume in Detail features such pleating treatments, and to please see pages 83-84. Thank you kindly!)

Then I whipped the skirt onto bottom of the bodice.

The Sleeves...Ooph

The sleeves have been a problem. Somehow, despite a well-fitting toile, I cut them too big and too long and when I fit them on Polly, great was the OH, NO factor. How in the world... As Jennie La Fleur calls, them, sleevils!

Whatever. We recut them and I sewed one on Polly and pleated the sleeve head to the bodice but it was clunky, and in frustration that evening I went back to Costume Close Up, to find that the Sense and Sensibility pattern's sleeve really only works for a gathered head sleeve. More fitted sleeve heads have a strange, angular shape. I checked the sleeves on my own robe, which Jenni and I had cut on the fly to fit, and sure enough, there was that angular shape, in line with originals.

Photo: the robe from the front...you can see the skirt puffing out courtesy a breeze from a fan, and the sunshine coming through at the back.

So tonight or tomorrow, it's back to fitting them to Polly. She has been so patient...

At this point I wrote...So there we are. I have two weeks left and have to finish my robe (hard), two outer petticoats (easy) for Polly and I, and an under petticoat for me (easy), and cover a hat and shoes, and do a reticule (easy), and deal with hair (hard or easy, we shall see).

My goodness. These months later, as I complete the documentation of the project, it is hard to remember just how intense those weeks were, for not only was I doing the above, but I had the family to care for, springtime outdoor work, and a job. Goodness. I am not likely research, coordinate, and make, so many garments for so many people all at once for quite awhile.

1790s Project Update: a Quick Strapped Petticoat

My goodness, have we been busy bees lately! Getting ready for this festival is a great deal of fun but it is occupying whatever leisure or late moments I have and almost my dreams.

As Always, please click the images to see larger versions.

I would imagine that Jenni and Polly might say the same. See what Jenni has been doing over at Living with Jane and you will see what I mean.  From very good fake Regency men's boots to an entirely handsewn straw capote (!) and mitts she has done it all. Hats, off, Jenni, you take my breath away.

Polly has been almost as busy, finishing the skirts to the bodiced petticoat bodice I made for her...and this week, undertaking a hand-drafted buckram base for a hat based on a 1790s Heideloff fashion plate.  I am to cover and trim it. Polly is an extraordinarily talented milliner so it will be really, really neat so see how she takes a fashion plate and runs with it. Did I say really twice? Meant to repeat it thrice.

A Strapped Petticoat

Then Caroline, who is relearning to sew, hand-sewed the strapped petticoat you see in the image, while I did the cutting and fitting. This was a fun project. Since we're recreating 1790s, petticoats are somewhat full, and two full panels of 45" good-quality muslin gives an appropriate look.

Here is all we did, girls and boys. It's not hard and can be undertaken sans pattern and sans experience. All you need, really, is fabric, needle and thread, and a measuring tape or string, and some  1" and 1/8" twill tape.

Make the skirt tube:

• Measured her from below the bust to the floor.
• Cut two lengths of muslin to this measuremant plus an inch for hem allowance and seam allowance at the waist.
• Caroline seamed them together into a tube. Each seam is about a 1/4", made with combination stitch...a needleful of running stitches followed by a backstitch, repeated to the end of the seam.
• Then we held the skirt up to her to check the fit and since she is very slender, we did not need to cut the front at the waist into a dip or do anything else to level the skirt hem on her body. Notice that we are leveling the skirt at the waistline, not at the floor! So much easier to do a skirt this way.

Hem the skirt and make the placket:

Photo: Caroline in her strapped petticoat at the second fitting. I have just set the straps and we are about to create two tucks at the skirt hem.

• She hemmed the skirt bottom with a 1/2" hem (turned twice), with running stitch. Stitches were set towards the top of the hem.
• I made a 9" deep slit at the center of one panel to serve as a placket.
• Caroline made a 1/8" double-turned hem to each side of the slit with conbination stitch.

Set the waistband:

• I measured her chest below the bust but not right below, consistent with the mid-1790s waistline height, and cut a two-inch wide strip of muslin for a waistband to this measurement plus 1" for allowances.
• We folded the waistband in half.
• Caroline ran a single row of gethering stitches a scant 1/2" below the waistline seam. Each stitch was about 1/8" or a little more long. Normally we would have done two rows plus stroking, but we chose a simple route.
• Now, I learned from The Historical Sewing Blog (thank you) that the best look was achieved in this era by moderately gathering or pleating the front, minimally gathering or pleating the sides, and heavily gathering or pleating the back.  This mode would produce the slenderest silhouette from the front.
• So, I set the waistband on  Caroline, and on each side, marked it at the front of her side and the back of  her side, if that makes sense -- that is, marked out the thickness of her body front to back -- with chalk.
• We then gathered the skirt to the waistband marks, and completed the waistband just the same as I had last fall for my stroked gathered mid-century petticoat.  The process and stitches, so far as I can see from Costume Close-Up, are pretty much the same. We did not add a button for closure.
• Look carefully at the photos and examine the waistband. You will see that the front is somewhat gathered, the sides barely so and the back very so and the result on Caroline is lovely. She carries herself so well that she could wear a barrel and still be chic, but still, I think you see what I am getting at.

Assemble straps and skirt tucks and skirt closure:

• Caroline tried on the skirt. I cut two pieces of 1" wide twill tape and set them over her shoulders out towards the arm joint.  Pinned them in place in front and back and marked them with chalk. Sewed them to the inside of the waistband with backstitches, sewing a little square shape at top and bottom of the waistband and each edge of the tape.
• At the same try-on, I set a 1/2" tuck some six-eight inches above the hem to take the skirt up off the floor, and Caroline sewed the tuck with running stitch while I sewed the straps...we were both working at the same time at either end of the skirt! :}
• Then we set a second 1/2" tuck below it, leaving about 3/4" space between the tucks so that if the petticoat is seen both tucks will  appear as separate pretty shadows. Caroline then sewed that tuck. The two 1/2" tucks eat a total of 2", setting the skirt the right height above the floor for the period. If it proves a little long, another tuck remedies the issue.
• The last step is to attach two 1/8" wide tapes to each placket end so she can tie the skirt closed.

The entire project was pretty quick and fun: I hope Caroline enjoyed it and I love fitting garments to people by sight like this.

Their Third Birthday

Babies no more, babies no more. Welcome to boyhood, tots!

The twins turned three on Monday and it's been a week of joy and reminiscences as a result. They are of an age to ask, "Mama, tell us about when we were babies", and for me to reply, "Well, when you were babies, you would wrap your little hand around my finger, like this [demonstrating] and you were so tiny we had to carry you everywhere!" The age to want to look at our photo albums. The age to ask for stories: "Tell about the bat, Mama, about the shutters, Mama, about when you and Daddy found our house, Mama, about how we got Ladybug kitty, Mama..." The age to want these tales over and over again as bedtime stories.

The age to receive a four-by-eight-foot sandbox that Curte built for them as their birthday gift.

Oh, I miss my babies, but oh, I love my boys.

We  had chocolate cupcakes with animal crackers stood atop them instead of birthday cake. The cupcakes are made from a recipe Mom has had since girlhood,  and so it dates to somewhere during the 1950s. It came from a newspaper, I believe, and produces a very moist, chocolatey result without fancy ingredients.

Wanting to gild the lily? Add chocolate chips? Wanting to 24-carat gild the lily? Make them fancy dark chocolate chips.

Betty's Chocolate Cake

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mom did not include the directions to mix up the cake, but this is basically what to do:

In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar.
Beat in the egg.
Sift the dry ingredients into a different bowl.
Fold the dry ingredients into the batter.
Slowly add the water and vanilla.
Put into a baking dish and bake 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees F.