Or perhaps bellows, considering it’s soldiers’ clothes I’ll be sewing for a while. I made significant progress on the Curtain Along gown since last weekend, when it was a mere bodice. It’s meant to be worn with the fluffy Ikea curtain petticoat for maximum “I’m not a window, but I dress like one” effect. There’s a set on Flickr to show you the pitfalls of 18th century sleevils on Cassandra (without a scapula, poor thing, she can’t really fill a sleeve).
1795-1800, V&A
It’s based on the chintz gown from the V&A seen here before. For a pattern, I used the Past Patterns Front Closing Gown because I know how it fits. The waistline has been dropped on the bodice just as I did on the wool version I made, to suit my age. There’s more to do than the hem; I plan to add a thin band at the bottom edge of the bodice to carry the drawstring and drop the waist in front just a bit. I think it will fit better, and hide the petticoat’s waistband.
It won’t be done today, but I think I have made enough progress for something I won’t need until the end of May. It’s time now to switch to menswear. We have an overall appointment this afternoon, which could diverge into fitting coats. I’ll be seated at the feet of a master, and for that I am grateful. Scheming about how to get a wool gown down by April while basting and stitching and buttonholing, but grateful nonetheless.
An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, Diego Velazquez, 1618. National Gallery of Scotland, NG 2180
…could be pewter. Or do I mean tin? Carolina had excellent points about pewter being, yes, that shiny, though we think it is not. Our perception is probably based in large part upon the extant items in museum collections. And museums don’t polish their pewter–at least we don’t, and I don’t know anyone who does. Is it because we’re so unaccustomed to using pewter daily that we no longer know how to care for it?
Covered chalice, pewter, c. 1756-1780. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2008-110-1a,b
I thought it could be interesting to experiment with polishing pewter (not in the collection) so I turned for advice to that touchstone of housework past, Hannah Glasse. In The Servants Directory, Part V: The Scullion Mrs Glasse lays out To clean Pewter, Tin, and Copper.
Take a pail of wood-ashes (either from the baker’s dyer’s, or hot-pressers; the latter is the best) half a pail of unslack’d lime, and four pails of soft water; boil them all in a copper together, stirring them; when they have boiled about half an hour, take it all together out of the copper into a tub, and let it stand until cold, then pour off the clear, and bottle for use.
When you clean your pewter, lay a flannel on the dresser; set your dishes one on another by themselves, the plates to likewise; then heat liquor according to the quantity you have to clean, pour some on the uppermost plate and dish, and as you use them pour it on the other. Take a piece of tow to rub them with, then having two little basons of red sand, pour some of the liquor on each; with the first scour your plates well, and rince them in cold water; with the second clean them, rince them into two waters, set them to dry, and they will look like new. Thus you may clean them at any time with very little trouble.
Very little trouble for you, Hannah Glasse! The red sand is definitely something museums won’t do: we have this prejudice about not abrading the collections, or applying chemicals, so the lime/ash/soft water mix probably won’t appear in our workroom either.
Willem Claesz.Heda, Still life with gilt goblet, 1635. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
I also took a look in my books for paintings that showed pewter with sheen, and for objects. I suspect that pewter’s softness will not allow it to achieve the high-gloss shine of tin, but that it can be brought to brightness. I do think the best way to find out is to start polishing, so I’m in the market for some wood-ashes from the hot-pressers, and a good place to lay a fire and boil some chemicals. Who wouldn’t volunteer for open-fire chemical boiling?
Remember that shift I couldn’t finish in time for HSF # 2, UFO? I did get it finished for HSF # 3, and a bonus petticoat as well. They don’t go together, but in honor of the excessive amount of snow we got this weekend, they’re both white. The snow is also how they got done: nothing like snow days and travel bans to keep one home and sewing.
For the petticoat, one of a pair of Ikea curtains found on sale one day. The light-weight cotton appealed to me and suggested filmy late 18th century petticoat better than anything I had seen at a fabric store.
The petticoat, over another petticoat. It’s that sheer.Back view (again with cat bowl)
Petticoat: None, draped & patterned myself based on the late 18th/early 19th century riding skirt in Janet Arnold.
Year:
Shift: 1775-1783
Petticoat: 1795-1800
Notions: Both: Just thread. And some left over white cotton twill tape.
How historically accurate is it?
The shift is pretty close. The fabric is, well, not the linen they had, but it’s as fine as I could afford. It is entirely hand-sewn, and the sleeves have bands and tie closed.
The petticoat is also hand sewn, and uses a historic garment for a basis. (I also looked at bodiced petticoats at the Met.) However, it is made from a curtain and while I unpicked all the seams, the machine stitching holes remain. It gets the job done that I wanted it to do, though: fluffy white stuff.
Hours to complete:
Shift: Killer. Started it last August and have worked on it off and on since then. It went to so many events in the basket that it smelled like woodsmoke. Intensively completing it probably took 24 -30 hours, so it could be a 40+ hour shift. After a while I stop paying attention.
Petticoat: Like candy. Started it Saturday morning, finished it Sunday afternoon. Best guess, about 10 hours.
First worn:
Shift, probably April 13.
Petticoat? Probably Dress U.
Total cost:
No good way to know…the fabric was bought so long ago! The petticoat curtains, when not on sale, are $20, so $10, because I only used one. For the shift, it’s harder to say. I piece aggressively when cutting out, so I bought less than the pattern recommends. Remnants were used for the petticoat bodice and various linings, including the Curtain-Along robe currently underway.
Sandby: A Milkmaid. ca. 1759, YCBAPyne: Milk Woman, 1805, MoL
What do pewter and tin have to do with costuming? Well, aside from the many expensive buttons Mr S and the Young Mr wish to sport, I got interested in the milk maids’ pails because of their similarity to the tinned kettles used by RevWar reenactors. The uses converged in December in a conversation I had with a colleague about Carl Giordano’s beautiful kettles. (He made my wash basin, but my kettles came from Missouri because I needed them very quickly; the fur trade & rendezvous reenactors have similar material culture interests and needs, because of time period & culture overlap.)
Milk Below Maids, 1793, V&A
The milk pails look like tin, don’t they? One from ca. 1759, the other from 1805, and both appear to be carrying shiny, seamed metal buckets with brass details at the base and rim. The captions call them pewter, though. So I went to the V&A and the Museum of London looking for pails, but only found more milk maids.
I began to wonder: if the pails were really made of pewter, wouldn’t they be awfully heavy? And wouldn’t there be extant examples? Pewter is highly collectible. There’s a George II pewter milk pail on Worthpoint, but it looks nothing like the pails in the images. Is pewter ever so…shiny? And I’ve never seen seams in pewter the way they appear in the Pyne illustration.
Here’s something that reminds me of that George II milk pail. I think I trust the Met more than I trust an online seller. On the right is a “bucket carrier” from the National Trust (UK) Collections.
Mid-18th century dinner pail with cover, MMAMid-19th century bucket carrier, NTC (UK)
Google defines pewter thus:
pew·ter
/ˈpyo͞otər/
Noun
A gray alloy of tin with copper and antimony (formerly, tin and lead).
Utensils made of this.
Synonyms
tin
178, Collet: The Sailor’s Present, LWL1785: Spring & Winter, LWL
Synonym: tin? That’s pretty interesting, even though I don’t trust Google with etymology. But don’t these tin kettles look a great deal like the milk maids’ buckets?
Carl Giordano Tinsmith: Kettles
The Giordano tin kettles can be made with brass ears (that’s the part the bail, or handle, goes through). Look at the ears in the photo, and at this detail from “Spring and Winter:”
Detail, Spring & Winter, 1785, LWL
The ears may be the best lead to follow. There are plenty of ears (handle attachments) if you search the Met for bucket or pail and limit the search the metalwork… but they’re bronze, and Roman. The National Trust (UK) doesn’t turn up much, or the Museum of London (yet).
ca. 1750: Silver cream pail, MFA
There’s a silver cream pail at the MFA, and it sort of looks like its handle attaches with ears, but not in the riveted-on kind of way, but in a purposeful and elegant way. This is just about where I start to ask myself why I care, but then a number of other questions present themselves, like:
Where are the milk pails? Are there really no milk pails in museum collections? (Yes, this could be true)
Was this pewter milk pail with attached measures specific to London, as my colleague thinks?
How does milk taste when it spends quality time in pewter (or tin)?
How heavy would a pewter milk bucket be?
Things to ponder as we prepare for heavy snow… In this state, that means dashing out for “French toast supplies.” I’m not originally from here, and I solemnly swear we are legitimately out of bread, eggs, and milk.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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