Category: Events

Pouting over Putnam

On By kittycalashIn Events, Fail, Reenacting2 Comments
James Malton, 1761-1803, A Military Encampment in Hyde Park, 1785, Watercolor with pen in black ink, with traces of graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, beige, laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
James Malton, 1761-1803, A Military Encampment in Hyde Park, 1785, Watercolor with pen in black ink, with traces of graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, beige, laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

This Saturday is the BAR event at Putnam Park in Redding, CT. This is an event with an early set-up time, one of those “early enough to be worth packing the car Friday night” events, as Mr S will need to depart at the time he usually gets up. I’m pouting not because of the early departure time, but because I won’t be going.

The Young Mr has his first swim meet Sunday, so Saturday he’ll have to get his homework done. That means someone has to stay home, or he’ll sleep till noon and spend the rest of the day eating meat and playing video games, all normal for a 15-year-old, but not helpful when most of Sunday will be spent marinating in chlorine.

I did a strange and awful thing to my back in an altercation with the face plate of an UPS unit for a server, and find that two weeks on, I still have a mis-aligned rib and occasional searing pain when reaching for Amelia Simmons’ cookbook to find something for Mr S to take with him to Putnam Park. At first, it seemed that it would be like Fort Lee, where one does not cook.

However, it seems that a camp kitchen is planned and there could be cooking, if only someone could tend the fire during the tactical, but no. I will not be there to stir meat of any kind, in any way, and the gentlemen, if one can call them that, will have to scrounge in the corners of their haversacks, take pot luck from the Boy Scouts, or find other means of nourishing themselves. I’ve also been told that it might be as well for me not to lace up my stays and push my ribs around, though on the whole, I think I might be better off wearing them more often. No matter what, home I shall I be, and the gentlemen will have to shift for themselves. Having seen them in action, I have no doubt that they will do well for themselves, and I might still bake them a pie.

Projects and Deadlines

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, Living History, making things3 Comments

Here’s what needs to be made, or that I want to make, in the coming months.

Yes, there is a tent on that list. Madness, but what a thing to make! There are also some wool items for November, because Fort Lee tends to be cold.

Project For Due Date Event
Red wool short cloak Kitty 11/22/13 Fort Lee
White shirt, coarse Young Mr 11/22/13 Fort Lee
Blue wool gown Kitty 11/22/13 Fort Lee
Red wool cross-bar kerchief Kitty 11/22/13 Fort Lee
“Quilted” silk petticoat Kitty 11/22/13 Fort Lee
Silk Sacque & petticoat Kitty 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Pocket hoops Kitty 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Sleeve ruffles Kitty 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Fancy cap Kitty 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Wool frock coat, 1770-1780 Mr S 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Silk waistcoat, 1770-1780 Mr S 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Plush breeches, 1770-1780 Mr S 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
White shirt, fine Mr S 1/15/14 Grand Ball, Stetson Hall
Breeches or trousers Young Mr 4/18/14 Battle Road*
Waistcoat (striped, sleeved?) Young Mr 4/18/14 Battle Road*
10MA Regimental (1781) Mr S 4/25/14 BAR School of Instruction
Wool waistcoat (white, welted buttonholes) Mr S 4/25/14 BAR School of Instruction
Knapsacks Mr S 4/25/14 BAR School of Instruction
Tent Young Mr 6/1/14 Monmouth*
Kettle bag(s) Camp 6/1/14 Monmouth*
10MA Regimental (1781) Young Mr 6/1/14 Monmouth*
Wool frock coat, 1790-1800 Mr S 10/24/14 What Cheer Day
Breeches or trousers, 1790-1800 Mr S 10/24/14 What Cheer Day
Green wool Spencer Kitty none None
Shirt/chemisette Kitty none None
*Presuming it happens again

Green Indeed

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, making things7 Comments
Regency Green: Kochan & Philips + Robert Land = Matchy-matchy.

As expected, Mr Najekci dispatched the K&C wool before the Hook, so last Thursday evening when I arrived home after Gallery Night, there was a box of delicious waiting for me. And, also as expected though mostly hoped for, the wool and shoes were super simpatico. This will be a fun project when I get myself sorted to it.

I have not yet had the time to put all the projects into a spreadsheet, but I think it would help keep things organized and on schedule. For example, I have:

  • to work out the details and rationale of the sacque, vis-a-vis date and style
  • to finalize the Spencer pattern
  • to pattern and fit a frock coat, waistcoat and breeches for Mr S ca. 1775
  • to ask about the regimental for Mr S, which will be wanted eventually
  • to face making a tent by next summer
  • a plan for kettle bags, since I’d like us to pack lighter & more authentically
  • to fix my stays situation
  • an inordinate desire for a splashy bonnet to go with that Spencer
  • two shirts to make up for Mr S and the Young Mr
  • a red short cloak, for easier movement

Once I have a schedule and a plan, making things by deadline is somewhat easier. It’s “bridge” season now, between cooling and heating, summer and winter fashion collections, and that’s as good a time as any to work out plans for the winter. There’s nothing the guys must have for an event that they haven’t got already–for Fort Lee, they can wear their short wool jackets under their 10th MA hunting frocks and be perfectly authentic and warm. (The brown and green coat is 1777, and the Fall of Fort Lee is 1776. The blue and white short-tailed regimentals are 1781. No coat for you!)

So it’s worth taking the time to regroup, even as I rush headlong into projects…and considering I have jury duty (no scissors!) this week, maybe I should add hand-knit stockings to that list.

Catastrophic Wardrobe Failure

On By kittycalashIn 1763 Project, Clothing, Events, Fail3 Comments
Table at the Bostonian Society, infant stays to the lower right.
Table at the Bostonian Society, infant stays to the lower right. Photo courtesy Sew 18th Century

Several weeks ago now, Sew 18th Century and I went up to Boston to be part of the People of 1763 event at the Bostonian Society. I hope she knows how grateful I was and am to her for her help and thoughtfulness in preparing an excellent table of examples. The infant’s stays were, by far, the most interesting thing people found all day. (While Sew 18th Century ate her lunch, I did hear about how a woman from California was appalled there were not more Boston terriers in Boston, and when I suggested that perhaps the financial district wasn’t where you’d find dogs, in general, but that the Common and the Garden might have more dogs and terriers in particular, I got to see cellphone pictures of her Boston terriers. I’m still intrigued by this conversation.)

Too big, and destined for re-making
Before total failure. Photo courtesy Sew 18th Century.

But all day I fought with my gown, which proves you should not wear something in public until you have fully tested it at home. Finally, packing out, the fronts and the straps separated with a flourish of leaping pins, and all decorum was lost. I began to wonder about exactly what had prompted earlier male compliments on the gown, especially when I discovered the loose stay lace at the top of my stays…and then found the lace had come untied and was unlacing itself from the bottom up! And of course, while outside looking for my husband (reportedly carried off by bears), my hat and cap blew off, and since the gown was coming undone, they were all the harder to catch, adding to the wardrobe mayhem and my discomfiture.

I have since re-looped and double-knotted the stay lace, so I hope it will not come undone again at the base (and of course I had no bodkin handy that day). But still, there were other, “bigger,” issues, to be explored tomorrow.