Tag: sewing

Temporal Anxiety

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Fail, Living History1 Comment
First draft, heading towards a Pierrot jacket.

I like to have a selection of things to wake up and panic about at 4:00 AM, don’t you? If it isn’t sewing, it’s some weird noise I think the car is making, whether the post office has lost a package, or if that noise is not the cat but instead a pending disaster. My brain generously provides me with a Whitman’s Sampler of anxieties.

To start with, that ball. For one thing, Mr S will probably have to wear his Saratoga coat, which means anything nice that I have won’t match him, temporally. For another, anything nice I think I could make in time is French and not American. So I have temporal and geographic anxiety disorder about something that is supposed to be fun. But there is this jacket I think I could make (and want to make), so I started playing with the pattern in my “sketching in muslin” method.

I haven’t got a lot of the purple, but I might have enough.

I know this is not party wear. I know KCI says jackets like this were worn with white muslin petticoats. But I note that this woman in a Pierrot is not wearing a white muslin petticoat, and I carry on. My other option is my brown wool gown, and perhaps I will wear that.

Mr S still needs a frock coat, so that has to be patterned and fitted; his breeches are still being sewn. He’ll need a wool coat no matter what, but whether it will be done by February is up for grabs.

The last two parts of my current crazy are a program in Newport on early March, with an early date of 1813, and programs in late March in Providence, which I have yet to develop. At least in Newport I don’t have to create the program, just dress and deliver.

Portrait of Sarah Comstock Coffin and Children, ca. 1815. Nantucket Historical Association, 1917.0034.001
Portrait of Sarah Comstock Coffin and Children, ca. 1815. Nantucket Historical Association, 1917.0034.001

1813 is a fun place to start, and I have been looking at images for inspiration.

At right, Mrs Coffin  is a nice example of a New England woman in 1815, wearing the kind-of cross-over, v-neck, apron-front gown I’m thinking of making. I have some fabric reminiscent of a gown at the V&A, and I have some purple sheer cotton, as well as some green silk, so there’s a whole set of what-ifs? to enjoy.

Because that’s the rub: I enjoy all this planning and fretting and picking over details. I just wish it let me sleep a little longer some days.

Wintery Mix

On By kittycalashIn making things4 Comments
Frozen lavender cleaning solution

Yes, it has been cold here.

Pewter buttons on plush

The buttons came from Roy Najecki earlier this week, which was exciting. They aren’t for the plush breeches currently under construction, but rather for the green wool frock coat I’m making for Mr S to wear with the breeches. And, luckily, there is enough plush for me to screw up and recut select portions of the breeches should I need to. That’s always a relief, and not a luxury I always have. The pockets won’t be plush, though– or he’d always have a hand stuck!

A Cloak for the Cold

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things4 Comments
January 11
January 11, 1777. Providence Gazette

We’ve had a bit of snow and cold, which kept me at home (when there’s a parking ban, most businesses have to close, as most parking is on the street here). We have plans in another century this evening, so I thought a second cloak would be in order. The first cloak I made was based on one in the collection at work as well as on a Rhode Island runaway advertisement.

Long blue cloak, in 2012

Although I’m not displeased with the cloak, the length can be annoying and I knew that the blue cloak for a runaway was not what I wanted to wear with the sacque. So I sacrificed some yardage from the Strategic Fabric Reserve, read up on cloaks, and got out my scissors. A cloak is a fairly simple thing to make, so I don’t know why it took all day, beyond getting distracted, making dinner, shoveling, re-learning high school geometry, and trying to do a very careful job.

Hood, with lining, pinned to the body of the cloak

Because I’m tall and have long arms, I made the new cloak a little longer than I would have for a true short cloak: it is easier to trim than to add, though this is pieced on the fronts and on the hood and on the hood lining.

Pieced across the front.

The front piecing is more noticeable than I really like, but that’s how this came out and how cloaks often work out. I won’t really care, as long as I am warm and able to move my arms. When it’s really cold, as it is today, I can wear both red and the blue cloaks with a wool gown and petticoats and wool kerchief. Or perhaps I should just wear a sheep.

Back pleats. By a third cloak, I might get them really right.

I found the trick to getting the pleats/gathers on the hood to flip correctly was to work from the outside, or right side, once the back seam had been sewn up partway. It took three tries to figure that out, but somehow working the pleats/gathers from the right side worked. I did backstitch the pleats/gathers on the inside to hold them in place.

Inside the hood. with lining in place.

In all, this took less than a yard of yellow silk Persian, about half a yard of red wool twill tape, and two yards of crimson broadcloth, all from Wm Booth, and all but the Persian purchased as remnants. There’s a fair amount of broadcloth left, so a yard and a half with aggressive piecing might work, especially if you want a shorter cloak, and are not as tall as I am.