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| _Plucking the Turkey_ by Henry Walton, 1776, Tate Gallery. |
I won't be able to keep up with all the challenges this year, and will probably be finishing up the blog post and putting it online after the deadline on whichever challenges I can complete, but hopefully people will enjoy seeing the results anyway! Here is the challenge for February, in which I make a simple 18th century cap with a pleated ruffle. Although I'm posting this in March, the sewing actually happened at the beginning of February ...
Challenge
#2: Tucks & Pleating – make a garment that features tucks and pleating for
the shape or decoration.
Material:
¼ yard of cotton-linen blend fabric
Pattern: self-drafted
from Sue Felshin's instructions online
Year: 1775-ish
Notions:
white thread, 20 inches of cotton cord (kitchen twine) and 26 inches of 1-inch
wide ribbon
How
historically accurate is it? 75%, producing an accurate-looking, entirely
hand-sewn cap, from a modern blend of linen and cotton.
Hours
to complete: 6 hours (by hand; would have been less if done by machine)
First
worn: for photos only, in mid-February.
Total
cost: all from the stash, but it would have been less than $10 total if I'd
bought everything new.
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| _The Butter Churner_, by Henry Robert Morland, before 1797, Bonhams Auction House. |
As
many costumers have discovered, once your family knows that you make costumes,
they turn to you when they want to borrow an outfit for whatever
costume-friendly events come up in their life ... often not giving you much
advance notice for pulling something together!
As if you have a whole costume shop inventory – in their size – at your
disposal ... Anyway, as long as they don't expect me to let them do whatever
they want to the costume or give them the aforesaid costume to keep, at no
charge, I'm usually happy to put together an outfit for them, if I have the
time. This time around, it was my
cousin's daughter, who is in 5th grade, and who had a special social
studies theme day at school at the beginning of this month. The theme was the English colonial period of
America's history, and all the students (and teachers) in the 5th
grades were expected to dress up and bring a period-inspired lunch for the
day. The teachers had gone to Party City
and bought a bunch of cheap "Colonial" costumes for the kids to wear
if they didn't come up with their own costume, but I had seen those before, and
they were hideous, as those things typically are.
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| _The Sailor's Present, or The Jealous Clown_, Carington Bowles, c. 1778, Lewis Walpole Library. |
When
my cousin called me, two weeks before Colonial Day, and asked if I had a
colonial costume she could borrow, I told her I didn't have anything in her
exact size, but I would see what I could alter.
I looked through my stash of fabric and costumes, and discovered that I
had a few things that I'd taken apart to make into something else, in fabrics
that were appropriate for the mid 18th century in North America. I decided I could re-make those things and
come up with a more accurate – if less "blingy" costume (most of the
other girls were going to wear sparkly princess dresses as their costumes) for
my cousin, as if she were an average girl in the English colonies in America
around 1776. I didn't even have my cousin's measurements, but I do have a niece
who is almost the same size, and I had taken her measurements over Christmas,
for a Tudor costume to wear to the Renaissance Fair. I decided to use my niece's measurements, and
see whether or not the apparent sizing flexibility of 18th century
women's and girls' clothing would make it wearable for my cousin.
I
had, in my stash, a white cotton shift, very voluminous, with a drawstring-gathered
neckline and long puffy sleeves, that was originally part of an Italian
Renaissance-ish costume I made in college, and that I had wanted to re-make for
a while. I cut the sleeves shorter, so
they would be elbow-length on my cousin (I hoped – in reality they are a bit
too short) and gathered the hem edge into a band, with a bit of elastic holding
the ends of the band together, since I didn't know my cousin's arm circumference
for putting in buttons and buttonholes. I left the shift at its original
length, which was to the upper thigh on me, assuming it would be almost
knee-length on my cousin. I also left
the neckline with its original drawstring, which was too short to make a
good-sized head opening for me, but I assumed it would be all right for her.
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| my cousin in the shift, jacket, petticoat and neckhandkerchief I loaned her. Photo: Laura BeBeau. |
Several
years ago I threw together a Victorian-ish blouse, out of chocolate brown
linen, cut from a pattern I don't remember – I thought it was the Truly
Victorian 1880s' yoked blouse pattern, but I am not sure I even have that
pattern in my collection! Anyway, the
version I cut out didn't have a yoke, but was a basic jacket-style, darted
bodice with long sleeves, a standing collar, and since I literally threw it
together for a costumed skit, it wasn't lined and didn't even have proper
fastenings! I safety-pinned it closed
for the skit, and then promptly folded it up and put it with the rest of the
brown linen in my stash. This, I fished
out, and decided that I could take it apart and make it into an 18th
century-ish jacket or bedgown. I took a
look at several costume pages, like La Couturiere Parisienne and MaraRiley.net,
and original images online, as well as in my costume books, to settle on the
overall design I wanted to re-create. I
took all the pieces apart, took out all the darts, and then folded the center
front edges in, like, 6 inches. I also
took in the side seams a little bit, and added a center back seam, before
sewing the fronts and back together. I
also cut down and re-hemmed the neckline about 3 inches, so that it would be a
square, but not too low for my cousin. I
wasn't able to have the sleeves in one piece with the body, since they had been
separate in the garment's original incarnation, so I re-cut the sleeves to be
elbow-length, and sewed lengths of linen tape (from the Steampunk-style
scrapbooking supplies at my local craft store) to tie it closed across the
front.
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| ca. 1770s re-created linen cap, outside view. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. |
For
the petticoats, I found a red cotton petticoat in my stash, that I had taken
off its waistband, intending to shorten the skirt and put it on a larger
waistband to fit my waist. Originally I
thought I would just shorten it to my cousin's height, and put it back on its
tiny waistband, but I didn't like the shade of red, and the fact that it was
thin, flimsy cotton (it was a hand-me-down from someone else). Then I found 1 ½ yards of a green checked
cotton in my stash, that I had set aside for an apron, or a working-class
Victorian blouse, and decided that I liked that better as a petticoat. With a narrow hem, a casing in the top, and a
long shoelace for a drawstring, it was the perfect length petticoat for my
cousin. I ended up only making the one
green checked petticoat, but with the length of the shift underneath, it was
fine.
I
also pulled out a linen square that I had hemmed to make a neck-handkerchief,
but it was too small for me. I thought
it would fit my cousin, but it was a bit too small for her, too; she ended up
just tying the ends around her neck and wearing it like a bandanna instead of
tucked down the front of her jacket like I had showed her, but oh well. I wasn't able to get an apron the right size
for her, but her mom said she had a white apron with ruffles (1940s or 1950s,
but whatever), so she wore that. I had visions of making a red heart-shaped
pincushion, and a pocket, for her out of other scraps, but those didn't even
get cut out in time!
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| ca. 1770s re-created linen cap, inside view. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. |
And
now for the subject of this challenge: the cap!
I looked at my costume caps, and I didn't have anything the right size
or style, but my cousin said they were going to make "bonnets" in
class. I had my suspicions about those
"bonnets" (which turned out to be correct: they were
barely-large-enough circles of white cotton, with baby ribbon stitched through
in a line about 2 inches from the edge, to make a "mob cap"), so I
decided to make a cap for her out of some cotton/linen scraps from my
stash. I found some really cute cap
styles in portraits and illustrations from the mid-to-late 1770s, and decided
to do a simple dormeuse cap style, with a blue ribbon tied in a bow on
top.
Using
Sue Felshin's cap-drafting instructions at the 18th Century New
England Life webpage, I drew an oval, cut off on one end, making a sort of
bowed arch that measured 15 inches over the curve. I then made it about an inch longer and 2
inches wider to serve as the crown of the cap.
I also measured and cut a rectangle of linen for the band, or brim, and
several strips for the ruffles. I did a
narrow hem on all raw edges, and then butted the hemmed edges together and
whip-stitched the band to the curved edge of the caul, slightly gathering the
caul across the top to fit. I
whip-stitched the ruffle strips together to make enough for one ruffle
(unfortunately, I didn't make it long enough to pleat as full as I wished), and
then pinned the pleats around the short edges of the band and across the long
edge. I whip-stitched them into place,
and then threaded two lengths of cotton cord through the hem at the nape of the
neck, and pulled the ends out of the hem/casing in the center, knotting the
cord at their ends. I also tacked two
horizontal pleats in the band, pulling the center of the band back from the
forehead for more shaping. Then, I cut
two lengths of blue grosgrain ribbon (unfortunately I didn't have any silk
ribbon), tacked one end of each just behind the ruffle on each side, and then
tied the other ends together in a bow, which was tacked down to the pleats in
the center of the band. Unfortunately,
the cap wasn't finished in time for my cousin to pick it up the night before
with the rest of the costume. I did
finish the cap that night, though, and brought it to school (I work there, too)
in case she wanted to wear it, but all the other girls were wearing the
"bonnets" they made, so she wanted to wear hers.
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| ca. 177os re-created linen cap, side view, on a "model". Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. |
The
cap I made turned out really cute, however, and I wish my cousin had tried it
on! She looked really cute in the
costume; the jacket was only a little bit loose, and the sleeves were too
short, but otherwise it fit perfectly. The
ties on the jacket and the drawstring on the petticoat made it very flexible in
sizing. I saw her swishing the petticoat
hem around, with her friends, at recess, so it looked like it wasn't getting in
her way. She ended up liking the costume
so much that she asked to keep it ... I reminded her that my niece was one year
younger, and might want to borrow it next year for her class, and that she had
a younger sister who might want to borrow it after that ... As for the cap, I
may have to make one in a bigger size for myself!
For more information:
"Colonial shortgown sewing pattern" from World Turn'd Upside Down
"Howto make an 18th century cap" by Sue Felshin
"Ministryof Silly Hats" by Sarah Lorraine
"Shortgowns"
by Mara Riley
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