Costume Parisien 1808 Cornette et Robe de Marcelline
One gets ideas. I often get ideas about checks. In particular, I get ideas about loud checks. The gown in the fashion plate is appealing, when you’re looking for checks, and all the more so when you know how similar it is to an extant garment in your actual location. The cornette I can do without– that’s the headgear, which looks like she’s crammed a sugar Easter egg on her head– but at least it could hide a short hair cut or the melting pomade of humid summer.
Costume Parisien 1808 Chapeaux et Capotes en Paille Blanche et Rubans
But wait! What check through yonder tastefulness breaks? It is the fashion plate, and the checked bonnet is my sun. My goodness, that bonnet on the lower left is satisfying. It appeals to me the most because it is by far the most check-heavy bonnet I’ve seen, and making it would not involve plaiting straw, which I know nothing about. It’s a direct trip to obnoxious via silk taffeta, and that’s a trip I’ll buy a ticket for.
Actually, as the result of a train ticket last August, I am the proud possessor of some delightfully bright lightweight cotton check in search of a fashion plate. The year I’m targeting (which is not 1808, but 1818) hasn’t yet provided published inspiration, but there are more places to search. In any case, an orange check gown with a blue check bonnet is pretty much crying out to be made. Bring your hanky, in case your eyes water, but make sure it’s check, too.
No, I did not take a notion to jump in the river, but I did take a notion to sew slightly more than the quilted waistcoat.
I couldn’t resist.
I got this unshakable great notion, you see, about some wool from the remnant table in Framingham. It was a lovely olive color, and paired up with some plain weave I already had, it reminded me strongly of World War II-era Army uniforms from the ETO, which I had been packing recently in Rhode Island’s alpine north. And yes, if I find a pinker tan for a petticoat, I will procure it.
Since I already have an olive wool petticoat that will also work for this notion, I started on the gown last week, cutting it out on Wednesday night so the table would be clear for Thanksgiving dinner.
The wool was a little slippery to pleat, and the twill slightly dazzling with its sheen. Let’s pretend it’s shalloon, shall we?
First the back
and then the sides.
A week into the project (after a brief annoying detour attempting to correct my mitt pattern), I have only half the hem and the bottom of the robings to finish. Not too shabby, thanks to a holiday weekend and hours of The Pacific, Band of Brothers, and The Purple Plain. Homage to the color, I suppose.
I’m never not smirking, so thanks for not smacking me.
It fits– which always seems like a miracle, even with a tested pattern– and better yet, it fits over that plush waistcoat.
The rustle of the silk and the swish of the wool are unlike anything I’ve ever worn. I think I shall feel quite fancy– let us hope I shall also feel quite warm.
If it bleeds, it leads. Waistband pinning is surprisingly dangerous.
Sometimes you end up doing things for reasons you don’t entirely understand. Remember that brief flirtation with the 1830s? Well… we met again, and this time, I said yes to the dress.
Gentle reader, it gets worse. While I had not planned to dress, I rethought this choice last week. Awake in the early morning hours of November 11, I thought about dress patterns, wool petticoats, and the contents of the Strategic Fabric Reserve. One of my wool petticoats fit the waistline of my 1820s dress better than the 1800 dress I made it for, so I figured I was on my way towards being warm outdoors in November.
Spot the error. It’s the dyslexic ’30s.
I have 1830s patterns, and a muslin was quick to make. Worse yet, once the muslin was made up and tried on over stays, it needed no alteration beyond a slight shoulder seam adjustment. Can you imagine? That hideous decade fits me? Doom or destiny, you be the judge: I had enough striped wool blend to cut a dress and a pelerine… so I did.
The other sleeve’s stripes are just slightly off.
The bodice went together quickly, and the sleeves were fairly easy at the shoulder and arm scye (I really enjoy setting sleeves). It was the length and width along the forearm that threw me, and I ended up having to piece on the lower sleeve. Twice.
The sleeves are where the meat comes in: you say pork chop, I say leg of lamb, the fashion plate saysgigot. I did reduce the arc a bit, which makes this a more late-1820s style than firmly mid-1830s. Since some of the folks I’m going with will be wearing a mix of late 1820s and 1830s styles, slimmer sleeves seemed reasonable.
Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458
More seriously, I’m taking cues from the William Sidney Mount painting I’m so fond of. The women in this 1830 painting have less flamboyant sleeves and possibly achievable hair. Honestly, the things I get into when I lie awake and think. I ought to know better by now…but every decade is a new adventure.
What remains to be done? Backstitching the waistband and waistband lining, hooks and bars at the back closing, the ever-popular hem of enormity, and a final pressing. Achievable, I think, with focus and some lunchtime sewing.
Henrietta Diana, Dowager Countess of Stafford, Allan Ramsay, 1759(c) Glasgow Museums. Fur: cozy, but not for me. Also too early.
Winter is bearing down upon us, and while I was not in Connecticut last weekend, nor will I be in New Jersey two weekends hence, I do have winter history plans, barring the proverbial 50 feet of snow, which even a Subaru cannot handle. The Noble Train: I could not resist, for, as regular readers know, I prefer my history to hurt.
Still, I try to avoid cold-related illness and extreme discomfort, so I’m making sensible preparations. Of course, I have not finished my quilted petticoat, and lack the time to make a proper hand-quilted silk under-waistcoat. Reader, I have done a terrible thing: I have compromised.
The saddest part of all of this is that the waistcoat I’m making is the most feminine and luxurious item, and the only item even close to lingerie (aside from shifts) that I have ever made myself, or even own, no matter its inaccuracies. There is a kind of irony built into this project, hence a post while the irony is hot.
Waistcoat. Silk quilted and bound with silk grosgrain ribbon. ca. 1745. V&A Museum, T.87-1978
The waistcoat: an item of occasional debate, these are not the most common beast in museum collections. Fortunately, Sharon Burnston has a handy article and pattern posted on her website. To be clear, I am not recreating the Atwater-Kent waistcoat. I am cobbling together my own inappropriate but satisfying item. I am also using the absolutely inexcusable excuse that no one will see this garment, as well as previous bouts of pleurisy after long, cold events in stays when I had the merest hint of a cold. (My boss kindly offered to cup me for a cure when I had to take time off work, but I declined. The look on her face suggested a lack of appreciation for my historic ailment.)
But here we are, “confessions of a known bonnet-wearer” and all that, so onward to the project. I started with Sharon Burnston’s scaled diagram of the Atwater-Kent woman’s waistcoat. The shapes are very similar to a basic woman’s jacket of the period, bonus: loose fitting, no sleeves. It was easy enough to pattern up in an afternoon, with limited fitting (I did test it over stays, just in case.)
The compromises I made are in the materials: pre-quilted silk (with a cotton backing), lined with wool-cashmere, and bound in silk grosgrain ribbon. The size of the diamonds and the machine quilting, plus the wool lining, make this an inauthentic, inaccurate garment. The shape, construction, and binding are at least correct, as far as they go. But the lusciousness of that remnant table cashmere and the soft colors please me immensely, and I do expect to be warm.
This has been a quick project, with the majority of time spent on the binding. As in the Atwater-Kent waistcoat, I’m top stitching with a running stitch on the inside, folding the ribbon over, and hem stitching on the outside.
Will this feel like a hair shirt of shame under my gown, compromise as it is? Maybe, but at least it’s cashmere.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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