New(ish) costumes: mending and adjusting one costume to work as a different one.

vintage 1940s poster.

I've been watching the Historical Sew Fortnightly costume activity for a while; although I've never had the time to finish anything on schedule, it's fun to see what everyone else does.  The current (well, the due date just passed, but you still get full credit even if you finish late) project is a "Make Do and Mend" theme.  I have such a pile of mending, both costume and mundane clothing, so I've gotten out a few projects to work on for this challenge.

The first one was fixing my hooped petticoat.  It's one of the cotton petticoats-with-tucks-filled-with-hoop-wire numbers that have been around for years, and it's served me pretty well for over 12 years.  I had removed the top hoop wire (it's a 5-hoop petticoat) because the petticoat was too long for me, and threaded the drawstring through the now-empty space where the wire had been, shortening the petticoat by about 6 inches.  No hemming -- all was good.  Unfortunately the drawstring was not all that strong, and it broke on my friend, who had borrowed it to wear to the Dickens Fair.  While she was wearing it.  Thankfully, it had been slipping down all afternoon, and she was in a dressing room when the breakage occurred, but we panicked for a while!  She ended up buying a new hoop petticoat at the Dickens Fair, and I brought my old one home, and shoved it in the closet.  Until now, when I looked through my stash and found a length of corset lacing that I had bought years ago, that ended up not being nearly long enough, but was a good length for a waist drawstring.  I promptly took it out, found my bodkin (I love those!), and threaded it in the empty drawstring space.  My hoop is usable again!

World War 2-era gingerbread for the new year!

Image from http//clipart.edigg.com

 Happy New Year!  While I didn't get Mrs. Beeton's Christmas Cake made this season, I did do a batch of my gluten-free cuccidati for my aunt and cousin, my rum-soaked fruit cake, and one of the recipes from my grandma's World War 2-era cookbook Burnt Toast Recipes: Victory Edition.  I have to be careful when making the recipes from this book; sometimes they're great (like the fruit cobbler recipe), but sometimes they're weird (like the mashed baked bean sandwich recipe) ... This one is a good one.  Of course, I didn't have all the ingredients so I had to improvise a bit, but it turned out a really yummy gingerbread that puffed up nicely in the oven (although it sank down once it cooled), and smells and tastes nice.  Here's the recipe [with my alterations in brackets]:

We all like our figgy pudding!

Figgy pudding just out of the kettle.

Well, the pudding is out of the kettle and cooling on a rack now.  It looks like the waxed paper did its job of protecting the pudding from the rust on the inside of the mold, although it looked like the rust didn't come off on the paper anyways!  Interestingly, there is now more rust on the outside of the mold, in a line halfway down from the lid, where the water level was.  I'm not sure how to remove that.  There was also a metallic black residue that came off of the outside of the lid when I took the mold out of the kettle, but that has disappeared now that the mold isn't covered with steam.

Figgy pudding out of the mold. 

In any case, the pudding came out of the mold perfectly (of course it was surrounded with waxed paper) and hardly stuck to the waxed paper at all.  I let it boil for the full 4 hours called for by the recipe, and when I tested the pudding with a knife stuck in the center, there were no crumbs or batter stuck to the knife, and it felt firm yet moist.  It didn't rise at all, so I hope it's not too heavy!  It smells good, like figs and butter, but I can't smell the nutmeg at all.  I hope we'll be able to taste it.  I haven't decided whether or not to make a sauce to serve with it tomorrow night.  We'll see.

Even though, as the saying goes, "the proof of a pudding is in the eating," I'm calling this a success! 

Oh, bring us some figgy pudding!

vintage pudding mold.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

I finally got started on my baking last week, and hopefully I'll get it all done before I have to start giving baked goods away as Christmas presents!  Don't want to give out any I.O.U.s for cookies ...  Anyway, I got the two kinds of Italian cookies baked, as well as two apple pies (for Thanksgiving), and the first historic recipe of the season: figgy pudding!  I recently bought an antique pudding mold in one of the antique shops in Niles, and I've been wanting to use it ever since!  Unfortunately, there was a bit of rust on the inside, so I wasn't sure if I could boil a pudding in it and avoid getting rust residue on the pudding.  I had received a tip that apple cider vinegar would remove the rust and leave the metal food-safe, but when I scrubbed the rust with the vinegar it didn't seem to remove any of it.  Granted, I didn't let it soak more than a minute or so before scrubbing ... I ended up deciding to line the mold with waxed paper instead of just buttering it like the recipe said, to give a little more protection.  We'll see if that was enough when the pudding comes out of the steamer!

Christmas preparations.

Italian cuccidate.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

I'm gearing up for my annual holiday baking marathon.  I usually make one or two types of traditional Italian cookies, fruit cakes, and gingerbread to both serve and give away as gifts to family and friends, along with homemade jam.  I also like to make at least one historic recipe as well.  I've tried Mrs. Beeton's Seed Cake and Currant Cake with good results, but this year I think I'll try her Christmas Cake.  Here is the recipe:

Mrs. Beeton's Christmas Cake

Victorian experiments: salve for sore joints

_Victorian Farm_ book.  Photo:
Elizabeth Urbach

I've been noticing quite a bit of soreness and stiffness in various joints in my body -- especially my hands and my knees -- in the past few years, and since that's where the women in my family have gotten arthritis, I think that's what's beginning to happen with me.  It's not extreme yet, but it is really annoying, especially when the seasons change and the weather turns colder, so I've been looking for ways to minimize the discomfort.  Painkillers seem a bit much at this point, and being a historian, I've been looking online and through my books for ideas for healing and soothing salves.  Yet another great tidbit of information in my _Victorian Farm_ book, from the ever-interesting Ruth Goodman, is a recipe for making your own lip salve by melting lard, almond oil, and a few other things.  On the _Victorian Farm_ program Ruth makes a few other home remedies, so I decided to modify her lip salve recipe by using some of the other herbal information in the _Victorian Farm_ book and my other Victorian domestic manuals, to make an herbal salve to soothe my soreness.  Many sources say that comfrey is a good herb to include in healing salves, and there happens to be some growing in the herb garden at History Park in San Jose, where I work.  Between that garden, and my garden at home, and my mom's garden, I have access to several good culinary and medicinal herbs, and decided to add basil and a few drops of tea tree oil to the salve.

New costume finished!

Trevelyan's Miscellany, 1602.

Well, it's finished *for now*, anyways!  My oldest nephew has been showing signs of an interest in history for the past few years, and has really gotten into Medieval, Renaissance, and WW2 history lately, exactly as my brother did when he was the same age.  Just as I did for my brother, I intend to encourage this interest in any way that I can.  I gave my brother a lot of history-related books and magazines when he was younger, and he's started passing them on to my nephew, so I have to take a slightly different tack!  This year my nephew turned 10, and asked my brother to take him to the local Renaissance Faire for his birthday.  My brother and I usually go together, and in costume (of course!).  I happened to overhear my brother agree to take my nephew to Faire, and I said "We usually go together, and we dress up, so if you're coming with us, I should make you a costume."  I expected my nephew to say "Well, I don't know ..." but he immediately said "YES!"  Good thing I hadn't bought him a birthday present yet: his costume would be his present from me!