Category: Reenacting

Mummers Crash

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Reenacting3 Comments
Visards. chipboard, paint and ribbon

On Thursday, Mr S and I got an intriguing invitation from Mr Cooke: would we like to be part of a secret plan to create a disturbance? We are the sort of people who got thrown out of a mattress store just for asking questions, so we said yes. You’re invited to the best riot you know about, you say yes.

This plan involved crashing the Colonial Twelfth Night Party at the Major John Buttrick House in Concord. As mummers. In masks.

‘Mascara’, Givannbi Grevembroch. Venetian, 18th century

This morning, after some very cursory research and reading of the documents we were sent, I made our ‘visards.’ The form is based on the Elizabethan ‘visard’ shown here, and while that object is too early, it seems to be typical of the masks that persist, even into the 18th century.

In the Venetian carnival traditions, this round, black form is known as a moretta, held in place by a button the woman held in her teeth.

We were having none of that– I was supposed to make a ruckus, after all–so I opted for ties, which I sewed on despite the presence of a stapler. The basic form is an oval, 7 inches by 7 inches, but I would recommend cutting the forehead down if you will be wearing this with a hat or bonnet. (I had to trim Mr S’s, and should trim my own.)

Mr S borrowed my blue cloak, we both borrowed sticks for Mr Cooke, who had a very fine, knobby and thorny-looking shillelagh. In the kitchen of the Butterick House, we joined Mr C, Mr JH, and Mr GH to go over the plan one more time, and to try out our lines. Once we were gathered, we put on our masks, hoods, and visards/visages, and felt pretty creepy. Wearing a mask is very disorienting– you don’t look like yourself, but more importantly your vision is altered (especially those who couldn’t wear their glasses under their guides) and significantly limited. I wish I’d practiced a bit more, especially with the mask and bonnet combo’s bucket-on-my head sensation.

Mummer in the house.

We managed not to terrify ourselves but rather to compliment one another on our very fearsome and convincing appearances as rabble-rousing mummers. Mr JH gathered us up, and off  we went slinking out the door and to the street, where Mr Cooke and Mr FC began to sing. The two of them together made a fine and convincing racket, which I was only sorry that Mr S and I could not join (much to learn). We barged into the house and into the room where the very proper guests were gathered, and launched in.

Did I mention this was a secret? There were some confederates in the room, but the sedate civilians were caught unawares and were, according to reports, frightened. (Also very entertained, but also shocked.) A scene played out with the mummers begging for money, teasing guests, and generally causing commotion until the constable arrived and  read us the act prohibiting such behaviour. We protested each clause, but it was clear we had broken the law. Fortunately, the spirit of Christmas prevailed, and on this night before Twelfth Night, we were allowed food and drink if we would let the company alone. It was a happy conclusion for everyone.

So Hip

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque, Clothing, making things, Reenacting5 Comments

I don’t always feel the need to enhance my anatomy; in fact, I rarely do, but then I started on the sacque. Ah, the sacque. I nearly abandoned the whole business but then I thought I’d look pretty silly dressed as the maid, or for George Washington’s funeral instead of his birthday party.[1]

I also don’t want to have a house littered with UFOs, because that is what my knitting stash is for. In order for the sacque to look right, I need hips. HIPS.

And while I planned to make panniers AKA pocket hoops, a simpler and easier solution occurred to me. Hip pads: I’d seen them on Sharon’s site and thought I could at least try a pair. They’d help my poor fake quilted petticoat (FQP, long story[2]), which will come in handy for a party in February. So I spent my New Year’s Day making hips and playing a bit with the sacque silk.

Half hipped, or me, right after my hip replacement.
Whole hipped: symmetrical, and wide.

To make the hips, I started out by laying a piece of muslin against Cassandra, and tracing a waist arc. I worked between the muslin and paper to create a paper pattern, and then made up a muslin, which I filled with polyester stuffing and then tested under the FQP. Better, no?

Then I added the seam allowance to the paper pattern (which you can download here and print at 100% if you have a waist in the 30 inch range and want enormous hips yourself) and cut four more of linen.

After three episodes of Death Comes to Pemberly[3], I had hips. They weren’t quite the same size, but my right hip is larger or higher or something, so I put the smaller one on the right and the larger on the left to balance my own deficiencies.

The alteration to the silhouette is pretty amazing, though Mr S did laugh. Perhaps this figure is an acquired taste.

[1] All I have right now to wear with the Celebration Spencer is a black petticoat, so I’d be rocking the 1799 George-is-Dead look.

[2] The story is that I have a real one basted onto a frame but I cannot fit both the frame and a sofa in the apartment. We chose sofa. I am sad but comfy.

[3] I’m ambivalent. Though I do love Trevor Eve, I wondered why there was not more changing of dress for various times of day

Ironing on Grass

On By kittycalashIn Laundry, Living History, Reenacting4 Comments
Paul Sandy, The Laundress, 1780. British Museum, 1904,0819.624
Paul Sandy, The Laundress, 1780. British Museum, 1904,0819.624

This print makes me think of Gertrude Stein, “Irons on the grass alas” because I think I would be pretty alas if I were ironing on grass. Still, I’m glad to know that ironing in camp is plausible, because it’s one more thing I can do, though also one more heavy item to pack.

I continue to chase laundry in my spare time, with a Pinterest board of collected images, which will give you a sense of the timeless drudgery of washing clothes. There will be stooping.

A Washerwoman, by John Varley (1778-1842). Tate Britain, T08695
A Washerwoman, by John Varley (1778-1842). Tate Britain, T08695

In this sketch by John Varley, he has helpfully given notes to supplement the lines.

“neckhandkf
spots Drab stays
blue check apron”

The symbol in front of ‘spots’ suggests the neckhandkerchief’s pattern, a dot in a square, much like the ones you can today from Burnley & Trowbridge.  “Drab stays” suggests a very utilitarian pair of wool stays, and that the washerwoman has stripped off her gown or bodice, and is working in shift, stays, and petticoat(s). This seems to be the same woman is in the “Woman with Wash-Tubs” drawing, and I’d guess her hat is straw.

A Scotch Washerwoman. Crayon drawing by Pauil Sandby after 1745. British Museum, Nn,6.61
A Scotch Washerwoman. Crayon drawing by Pauil Sandby after 1745. British Museum, Nn,6.61

There’s a remarkable consistency in the English drawings, though Varney and Sandby are about two decades apart. The tubs, the tools, the stooping: laundry is hard and unglamorous work, Sandby’s Scottish laundress aside. I can guarantee you that the 10th Massachusetts would have to outsource laundry in that style. (In any case, Scotland typified poverty and backwardness for late-eighteenth century Englishmen, so Sandby’s drawing, in addition to being titillating, is perpetuating English stereotypes of Scottish dress and practices and is, thankfully, not a reliable source.)

Sweeping Clean

On By kittycalashIn making things, Reenacting4 Comments
Sweeper 1746, Etching with some engraving Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953 MMA 53.600.588(56)

This is how we’ve spent our time off: quite a bit of cooking, though I did much in advance (the oven is large enough to cook only a turkey and nothing else, at one time), and even more cleaning and clearing and rearranging. After all, my mother will arrive in three weeks, which is not very much time at all when you have working weekends along the way.

with any luck, there will be a tidied up office/ironing room in which I could sew out of the way of certain felines, but at this point I’d settle for folded laundry and calmer cats. They remain convinced that cleaning is an exercise in cat assassination, though they can offer no proof that any cats have ever succumbed to death by vacuum cleaner.

Servant Girl Plucking a Chicken
Follower of Nicolas Bernard Lépicié, French, 1735–1784
MFA Boston, 65.2650

Living history, reenacting, historic costuming: whatever you want to call what we do most weekends, it runs to a lot of gear, in the end. The year we took my mother to Fort Lee, she remarked on how much baggage we had. “You’ve got lives in two centuries,” she said, and it’ true. We just about do. So how to store all that stuff, while making more and improving what you do have, is a challenge. Most reenactors I know have somewhat cluttered houses, or at the least houses where the historical items are integral to the decor. That is probably the most rational tactic, since most of us love what we do and enjoy how chairs or mugs remind us of fun, if challenging, weekends.

We have tried to be ruthless this weekend chez Calash, channeling deaccession rules (duplicate? unrelated? irrelevant? away it goes!) and hoping that when we are done we will have only what is necessary, useful, and beautiful. Or, at the least, a clean house to survive my mother’s eye.