Month: June 2012

8 Days, a Pattern, and some Taffeta

On By kittycalashIn Clothing1 Comment

I did decide to make a dress, or perhaps more properly to try to make a dress in time for the opening. Since I really can’t wear the new Indian print cotton dress, I chose a 1945 Vogue pattern.

The red plaid taffeta from Jo Ann’s was 50% off, and normally I do eschew all fibers unnatural and rustling, but this is 1945 and heaven knows nylon and rayon were THE thing to have. It’s fancier than I normally trend, clothing-wise, but that’s the fun of making things.

I bought buttons, just in case, though I was pretty sure I had some in my stash–and I did! (Photo surely proof that I need to replace the camera, or at the least, get the D40 sensor cleaned, stat!) These are from my husband’s grandmother’s stash, if not his great-grandmother’s, so they are of the period. Flowers and plaid, pretty scary usually, but moderately apropos here. It will be something to do in the awful heat we expect, though I am tempted to cut this out at work tomorrow night in the chilly realm of the Library reading room. I did not make a muslin of the bodice last night, I lazily drank two beers, ate pad thai, and fell asleep.

Lady Boss

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events2 Comments

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The exhibit opens in a little more than a week, and I think we’ll make it. Along the way, we’ve cataloged hundreds of items, photographed dozens, and discovered several in need of conservation treatment ranging from intensive to manageable in house. These are all good things, and I’d say my sole regret is the probability of not getting the 20th century’s world wars into the cases by June 28.

That, and having to dress for the opening.

Hence a crazy scheme: 1940s dressing. My mother gave me Lady Boss for Christmas a few years ago, purchased from her church’s annual jumble sale (it’s C of E in Main Line Philadelphia, so I think I can use that term). Lady Boss resonates on several levels: my mother knows I love vintage, I used to collect antique dolls, my grandmother Elsa was a Lady Boss in the 1940s, and now I’m a Lady Boss.

I could dress as Lady Boss for the opening, or some variant of 1940s style, and would probably feel more comfortable in recreated vintage than in my own work clothes. It makes a better armor, these re-enacting clothes, than my skirts and blouses. Now for a pattern….

Cake, and other Things

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Food

20120617-195748.jpg On Saturday, in preparing for the opening June 28, I made the Seed Cake, called Nun’s Cake, from the Colonial Williamsburg website.

Actually, I made half a recipe. And Baked it too long. That doesn’t mean it’s not delicious served with raspberries and lemon curd, but it does mean that the crust is, well, crusty. And cakes do not have crusts, so there you are. What I learned what that you can’t halve ingredients and not adjust time. Obvious, but not when you are simultaneously finishing a dress.

The dress is done, all but the cuffs and moving the interior lacings, though the photos are sketchy. Mr. S. used to be a photographer, and now he hates photography. He is therefore an unwilling documentarian, and hates even more the basic camera he was handed at the Joy Homestead.

We were there for a tea commemorating the day in 1780 when Rochambeau stopped on his march to join Washington. Rumor, or legend, has it that the Comte ate strawberries, and so we did, too, with biscuits, cream, and Lipton tea.

20120617-195837.jpgThere was some drilling, so the soldiers had an appetite. There were also photo ops aplenty, and some behavior that made me wonder if there are reenactor groupies. One woman was just determined to have a particular uniformed gent in every possible photo…and she took many, many photos of the troops. It’s a curious thing, this hyper-photographic behavior. Makes me want to keep my camera in my pocket.

In any case, the seed cake I made will work for the opening if I can manage not to over bake it and provide fruit with it. Now I just have to find an 18th century punch that isn’t overly full of rum.
And a new camera.
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9 Hours

On By kittycalashIn Clothing

20120616-060359.jpg Tea is at five. It takes me at least 30 minutes to dress 18th century. The house is 6 miles away, but in an obscure part of the state: that means I need to allow 30-45 minutes to get there. I’d better get that dress done by 3:00.

I am also planning to bake a seed cake, and need to hem up a new white handkerchief, as my white one is on a mannequin at work.

The dress needs the bodice sewn to the skirt pleats (the back is done), the front bodice edges finished, shoulder straps stitched down, back facing attached, and the skirt hem. I have 9 hours for all that, baking, and managing the boys. Easy-peasy.

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