Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

I did it!

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 01:38:43 GMT

Yesterday afternoon/evening I sat down and used a basic form letter to request permission from every non-Fenimore museum for permission to use the patterns I took there. Oh, not the SLCHA either, though I should. Oh, and I ought to write to Clermont - I took a pattern of a gown there that was supposed to be for someone else to turn into a costume for an interpreter, which never happened, but now I have the pattern. Chapman already got back to me to say yes! So that's all of the patterns I did for their PastPerfect website (remember that? mostly wedding dresses, the Delphos dress, a slipper ...) as well as a couple I did randomly: two chemises, an 1845 fan-front mourning gown, an 1850s tarlatan ball dress, and a pretty basic 1860s day dress that I don't even remember why I bothered. Albany Institute has also said yes.

Drew out the diagram for the overskirt that goes with the Peacock Bodice. That went very nicely in Affinity, but the next step - making up the table to say what width the pieces should be at top and bottom for the different sizes, because I am not going to make enormous skirt pieces print-at-home - is very boring, so I may shelve it for a little bit and work on a fresh pattern ... now that I have a million new options!

I am thinking of doing one of the garments I patterned before we switched to a 1920s costume theme for the section with dressed mannequins in Great, Strange, and Rarely Seen at AIHA; I wanted to publish a little booklet with the patterns of all the dresses in it but this was denied, and then we ended up doing other things anyway, so. The first one was a late 1830s-early 1840s day dress and you know I love that style!! (I should do the crazy no-fastenings Regency dress but it's so complicaaaaaaaated.)

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Somehow I have ended up down a rabbithole reading about what some people have dubbed "squeecore" - imprecisely defined by the dubbers as quippy and with too much identity-politics (they're coming from the left but a more, um, "class first" left tradition) and dominant either in numbers or SFF awards. The general consensus seems to be that they're describing only a couple of works at best, and mainly drawing together a thing they dislike in this work, a thing they dislike in another, etc. and calling it a movement. Then beyond that I'm reading about the Puppies and all that, blog posts from 2012-2015 because why not.

(One of the dubbers is Raquel S Benedict, who was briefly fandom/writing Twitter's main character some time ago for some condescending tweet thread on writers who got started in fanfiction; she definitely seems a bit cool girl/pick-me girlish and RTs others. Can't help but notice that she calls herself a "dangerous woman" in her Twitter bio just like this person who applied for flair at AskHistorians and turned out to be a TERF, so now I'm mulling over how self-identifying that way seems cool to the doer but looks really pompous and pathetic to others, and how perhaps it signals a kind of "not like the other girls" attitude.)

Some links, which themselves have links to other posts in them:

Is there a dominant mode of current science fiction?
The follow-up to that, Yeah, but
Science Fiction Is Never Evenly Distributed
“Squeecore” and the Cartoon Mode in SF/F

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This weekend

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:30:06 GMT

Spent some time yesterday and today drawing a pattern for the basic cap from Garsault (it's one I made and had briefly in my shop like ten years ago) and writing the instructions, mainly as a way to learn to use Affinity Designer. It actually went really well, although I wish the saving of the print-at-home pages were simpler - it requires drawing a box for each sheet, basically. I just have to put it all together and I can get it up on Etsy. I added a paragraph on how to turn it into a lappet cap as well, which is a bit ... theoretical, but I think it would work.

I need to make a pattern diagram for the Peacock Bodice skirt and overskirt, and I really need to contact every non-Fenimore source for my Regency patterns to get permission to make them into Mimic of Modes patterns. I'd started with the spencer ages ago and they never got back to me after their initial response and I kind of went, "Phew, now I don't have to communicate with someone." Bad! I'm also afraid to talk to the Albany Institute because I kind of told them I would provide full-size paper patterns of the Pink Pingat before I realized how much of a pain in the ass it would be to actually do that. But the really cool gold gown with the amazing sleeves NEEDS to be done.

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Weekends are back to being enjoyable now that I don't need to rush around on Sunday to get everything done, particularly to get the week's lunches and preferably dinners made. Yesterday was below zero but I still walked downtown for lunch because it! is! my! special! thing!; today I just did the walk to get out and stretch my legs. I'm not anticipating having to do much shoveling in the days to come as it's mostly supposed to be sleet here.

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Thu, 13 Jun 2019 02:03:10 GMT

This evening I figured out how to turn an Adobe Illustrator file into a both a plain and a tiled PDF, so I'm basically unstoppable now. The final stone in the Infinity Gauntlet. (This is especially good as the thing I thought I had to do where I imported the AI file into Photoshop was not effective.) (I should probably upgrade to proper AI instead of continuing to use the free CS2 version.)

I've been poking around drawing up the patterns for a fancy Swiss waist kind of thing (it has straps and a peplum ... I don't quite know what to call it) and a very simple ca. 1911 dress (the entire bodice is one piece, with a narrow gore under each arm). The former has lots of pieces but the latter takes a lot of paper. Not sure which is better.

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Fri, 17 Mar 2017 14:25:34 GMT

I am getting there with Cameo. I've pretty much hit the anxiety threshold re: emailing the developer - I can't possibly look any stupider or needier, so I might as well confess my complete lack of understanding of the program beyond basic drafting and beg for help.

Well, I say "getting there", but despite slavishly copying the screencaps she sent me, I'm somehow still far from getting a good scaled-up pattern. A bit of the problem might be that my measurements for the base size are off - I can tell bust and waist circumference easily enough, but it gets tricky when trying to figure out the original wearer's cup size or bust depth. The developer is somehow better at this than me because the screencapped altered pattern she sent me was like ... a real pattern that would work on a human body, rather than the twisty mess I get.

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I have been asked to ride in a carriage in the Dairy Princess parade as Clarissa Wright! This is tremendously exciting but leaves me with a dilemma. The dress I am making for Civil War Weekend is 1850s, by which time Clarissa was in her forties and widowed, and from the one photo we have of her in the 1860s she did the mourning-for-life option (not just dressing in black, but very plain black wool). When Clarissa was my age, it was 1835. I've wanted to make this dress since I patterned it, and I happen to have five yards of a yellow checked cotton that would work very well. Nobody but me would know it's mid-1820s instead of mid-1830s, although tbh I play so much younger that even if anyone did notice that it's an 1820s dress, they would probably think I was Clarissa in her early 20s anyway. But that would mean making two dresses in time for this summer, which is asking a lot out of my sewing speed ...

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I hope you like locomotives ...

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:15:37 GMT

Because the wedding dress I patterned today has a BIG TRAIN. (Yes, singular - I did the stereotypical 1890s one because it's more to the point.) It's in terrible shape, mainly, I suspect, because in the 20th century (proooooobably after the Diana/Charles wedding) somebody decided they needed to wear it, so it's shattering and shredding. At least the alterations they made weren't too invasive. It was made with a 36" bust and a 26" waist, and they opened the side seams and inserted big triangles to make the waist 34". Which seems odd, who has a 34" waist and 36" bust? But it's a good thing, as I'm sure that adding more to the bust would have meant taking out the sleeves and rearranging the gathers.

It's a very impressive gown. The front and back are deeply pleated vertically, and the sleeves are enormous - bigger than the ones in PoF. They're cut on the bias and splay out as they go down, plus the lower edge is curved, which makes it more than five feet before gathering. Detachable lower sleeves on hooks and eyes. A highish square neckline filled in with net, and a high collar covered with lace. A two-and-a-half foot train, and the lower edge is trimmed with two satin rouleaux that wind around and around each other.

It took four hours, which occasionally made me what "omg whaaaaaat are you dooooing," but then it was incredibly humid today and in the high 80s (I know to some of you that's very reasonable but here it's a killer), and the museum is air-conditioned, so it actually worked out pretty well.

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Thu, 14 Jan 2016 00:21:31 GMT

Done with my last coatrack of clothes, loaded up another of 1930s-1940s-1950s-1960s. I think I can get one of the permanent racks out of the room now! I would really love to be able to space out everything that's hanging more, but IMO it's better for everything if I keep the hanging garments just as tightly packed on the racks but have some space to maneuver boxes around.

We desperately need a new vacuum, there's a hole in the bag of ours that blows stuff back out if it's held at a certain angle and also I can't take the bag off to empty it because I can tell I won't be able to get it back on. :( I plan to write another tiny local grant to get money to buy a new one, because grant writing experience! OTOH I might just buy us a vacuum with my own money as a donation.

Real talk time. Since things have died down, I've been thinking about pattern stuff for me'n'Julie. Since we've never done a graded pattern before, obvs the first one should be simple. But at the same time, it should be something people are interested in making (OBVS), and especially something people (you??) might be interested in pattern testing. The things I'm thinking of right now are:

- 1920s robe de style, unpanniered. The original is pretty fantastic, pink satin and gold lace, with a gold lamé-backed velvet ribbon

- more traditional 1920s waistless evening or afternoon dress (I don't have a specific one in mind)

- some type of chemise

- a 1910s shirtwaist with a, you know, a kind of stomacher front that buttons on one side

I'm leaning toward the robe de style, but then I'm like, what if nobody feels inclined to test the pattern because it's not something they planned on making? This is probably crazy but yeah.

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Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:37:30 GMT

The mention of a museum in mandie_rw's latest post reminded me that someone suggested I try Sturbridge for more 19th century clothing (I am going to have so many extra patterns ... but you know, wereleopard, my contract only says I can't publish specifically another Regency book ...).

(I still haven't sent you the Pingat yet, have I. DDDD:)

So for future reference, the gowns I'm asking about are 26.33.48, 26.33.37, 26.33.16, 26.33.76, 26.33.63, 26.33.195, 26.33.190a-b, 26.33.166a-b (A DIFFERENT BIB-FRONT), 26.33.134, 26.33.132, and 26.33.55a-b. (The ones I looked at but rejected were 26.33.114, 26.33.61, 26.33.183, 26.33.58, 26.33.35.) I also asked about spencers, because they had some in pictures but I couldn't find the individual records. Let's hope they don't say they charge $50/hr like the Rensselaer HS, or that they can't allow researchers to touch their garments.

Contra dancing last night was unbelievable. I was kind of awkward as ever, but I was in very high demand as a partner, probably because of people being welcoming and my not having any artificial joints - I got swung hard and fast by quite a few spry old men. (One was, I swear, an older and thinner Creed Bratton.) To the point where they overswung me a lot of times and ended up off-beat and with me in the wrong place. My feet are killing me because I wore my character shoes and my left hip aches from the turnouts in the swing. But I had a really good time! I hope I keep up with it and then take the skills to the next Regency dance.

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Quick pre-work post

Sat, 06 Sep 2014 12:08:21 GMT

So I had a fun surprise!patterning session on Thursday at the NYSHA storage facility - I didn't think they'd be able to take me on such short notice, but they were, and I hung out with this girl on a fellowship who was cataloguing men's clothing. As expected they have a lot of early 19th century clothing. They gave me printouts of the database search and we went through everything they'd gotten out for me; I nixed about half of it as too late, circled everything I wanted on the printout and then checked off the ones I'd done so that next time they know what I still need to see. What I patterned:

- a pair of 1790s short stays that I WISH I'D SEEN FOR MY THESIS but I didn't even know about this place. But they had no cups and would have been a lot easier to sew as well as being more supportive than what I ended up with. Not going in the book, but I'm going to make them. And maybe put them in my 18th century book when I get around to that.

- a spangled cotton mull ball dress with amazing botehs in the scalloped hem, probably worn over a white underdress. I'm dating it to ca. 1807 for now, but previous visiting experts put it at 1812 and the ~family lore says it was part of someone's trousseau in 1822, which is totally out of the question. I mean, maybe she took it with her when she left home or something, but it was not made for her trousseau and she probably never wore it.

- a print bib-front dress. At first I was really excited because I haven't found any of these to pattern yet, but it really is almost exactly the same pattern as Janet Arnold's. Bias bib, plackets added to the sides of the apron, long, squared train, reverse box pleats in back. Sleeves the same shape, back the same shape. I'll probably include it because a) I don't have any other bib fronts unless I go farther afield and find another big collection and b) it is valuable to show that two gowns have the same construction. But I wish I could find another. (This one was supposedly brought from Scotland by an immigrant in 1800.)

- another evening overdress, also related to the 1822 wedding woman. Later 19th century note attached claims it is her reception dress from after the wedding, but it looks several years later to me (the sleeves are enormous and the embroidery is pretty high on the skirt), and I'm not sure when the custom of changing into a reception gown arose, it seems kind of like a mid/late Victorian assumption based on contemporary habits.

I seem to have some thoughts on Kindle Unlimited. Mainly I think it could potentially be a bad thing for libraries, but I already barely try my library for ebooks anymore as it never has what I'm looking for (no Waugh! no Powell! I WANT TO READ BRIGHT YOUNG FICTION), and I don't think the solution is to handicap other services but to fix the libraries' problem and lower license fees for libraries or something. But I mean really, how many people saying it's wrong to use Kindle Unlimited for books you could get at the library would also think it's wrong to watch old seasons of a show on Netflix instead of getting that from the library too?

So many blog comments to respond to! I hope I get as many next week. IDK if you noticed but Lauren of American Duchess shared the link on FB and I've gotten over 1k hits from that.

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:(

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 19:44:32 GMT

Got an email back from ATHM turning me down. It wouldn't sting so much if I got the better rejection ("your credentials are/many candidates were good, but we went with someone more qualified") - instead I got the "no thanks". It sucks, I thought I stood a good chance of at least getting an interview because of my enthusiasm.

Finished the camisole this morning, but then the next gown I'd requested turned out to be a costume - a very good costume, I thought initially that it was just a mucked-with original, but a lot of things didn't add up. I asked about a petticoat, but when she brought it out I was eh, it wasn't bodiced or anything and I wasn't secure on the dating. The last thing I asked for was a gown that only remained as a bodice and hem, which I thought would be a cool thing to show (since that's obviously never likely to be displayed) and which had some great puffing, but the location in the computer was not correct. So I went.

I've been trying to find my egg rings and cherry pitter in Dad's basement, but they just don't seem to be there. There must be another box - maybe in the shed or garage - with all sorts of kitchen stuff. I did find my shift, which I don't really want to wear as the neckline doesn't quite work with my gown ... I could very easily keep it to use on the costume table tomorrow and just use a tank top.

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Today's work

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 01:18:50 GMT

The first dress I patterned was supposedly worn to a ball for the opening of the Erie Canal in 1821 - I believe it. The styling fits perfectly for the date, for one thing. And the bodice is decorated with pink satin dents des loups (bands with zig-zag edges) and chains made of thick, satin-covered cord. It's kind of a stretch, but it seems to me that it's possible for someone to have commissioned chains on their gown for an industrial-related ball. Stop judging me! It makes sense! Anyway, the main fabric is a very light crepe, doubled in the bodice and with no lining. Worn with a slip, or just very light? Not sure. But it's definitely for dancing. And there's a lovely pink belt with a point à la Mary Stuart or Catherine de' Medici or someone historical.

The second is a bit boring, but that's good as I want to represent boring daily wear. Though the high number of stitches per inch is anything but boring - 22-24 in various spots. They're minuscule. Probably 1824 or so? Sleeves very full at the top, lots of very impressively ruched trim applied over the bodice and inserted in the sleeves. I think it's a good addition, but I'm almost certainly going to end up with more patterns than I need for the book just so I can make decisions later.

Then I started in on a camisole/morning jacket(? I haven't done LBA yet, not sure of all the English terms) with teeny weeny Van Rensselaer initials on it. Plain heavy white cotton, excellent condition, and not something that's already been done AFAIK. But I didn't get to pattern the sleeves today as it was suddenly 5 o'clock, so I'll finish it tomorrow. I can't remember what else was left for tomorrow - there's a child's dress (I think) that looks really fancy, and a petticoat, but I might not spend another 4 hours.

LEE PACE AS A REALLY MINOR CHARACTER IN THIS EPISODE OF SVU AAHHHHH

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Again?!

Sat, 24 May 2014 01:29:18 GMT

Yes, once again I spent the night at Dad's and once again I ate lunch there before going off to pattern and once again I had a nasty stomachache and a bit of a temperature. (Of course it's hard to estimate your own temperature, but I looked in the bathroom mirror before I left and noticed that my cheeks were prettily pink instead of flat pale. And I felt fairly hot.) I'm not sure what to do about this. It's so handy to be able to stay near Albany so I can knock off a chunk of driving. Nothing that I'm eating is spoiled, or the same two visits in a row, or even meat.

Patterning went well. (You get preview pictures if you follow on Twitter!) Two white cotton dresses yesterday, wonderful examples of how different those can be - one with a very gathered bodice and short puffed sleeves, the other a little later, with long sleeves, and with a bodice shaped very slightly like this, hard to describe but I can tell it would slant off and give the "divorce" look. Then today was all about the Pingat, which was in great shape as it's faille. IRL it's more salmony than that picture; also, not shown is a weird organdy/bobbinet/tulle chemisette with satin rouleaux on it in vertical stripes to be worn under the bodice for non-ball wear, which was a surprise. I'm still not solid on the date, because the trouble with the transition from elliptical hoop to bustle is that the skirt was cut the same while the underpinnings changed. So there's no clue there. But looking at fashion plates, it'd be highly unlikely for a couturier to make a gown after 1868 without an overskirt, so 1865-1868 at a loose estimate. I'm going to compare the construction details with ones in books tomorrow. Interesting fact: much of the bodice is machine-sewn.

In other news, my wrist and knee still hurt, but you knew that.

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Many Exciting Things

Mon, 12 May 2014 17:58:16 GMT

Julie and I had a tremendous time at Tulipfest and Fort Ti! Ticonderoga is always a nice place to go, the temperature is always comfortable and there's a lot of stuff to look at. Unfortunately, there weren't any merchants, and it looks like none of the events there later in the year have them, either.

But Wilson Friedman was there, and he did our portraits, and that was probably one of the coolest things ever.

Also, I laced down 3.5".

Then later, I got an email saying that once the numbers people do some numbers, I may have a contract! I'm going to do a Regency book - long Regency, for organizational purposes - because there's more interest in the Regency, and then my 18th century book can go out. So I'm going to get started working on that now.

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I think there are squirrels in the walls

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 02:07:14 GMT

Installed at Mom's house. It's so small - my dresser is literally two drawers, and I could look out for a bigger one on CraigsList but it simply wouldn't fit in the room. I only have a twin bed, which is tricky to get used to, but it has a good mattress. And it's basically cold all the time. But it's nice here, and it's nice being back in Greenwich and being able to walk to the stores and library.

Which we did today, and I bought a box of antique/vintage books from the library basement which I am now putting on Etsy, since I've (mysteriously) sold all the rest I had up.

Still trying to decide how I feel about this Robin Hood fanfic I'm reading. It's clearly based on the BBC show with strategic details changed so it's public domain fic. See, on the one hand I have a juvenile "lol Mary Sue" reaction to the author's OFC, who loooves Guy of Gisbourne when that horrible Marian couldn't. On the other, I'm kind of rooting for her because hell yeah, you publish your self-insert fic for real money like all the rest of us wished we could have at 15. On the third hand, I'm disapproving of how the heroine can't understand that Guy pressing Marian when she was in love with someone else was the issue, not Marian's inability to stop spurning Guy. On the fourth hand, I realized that there's a big difference between Rhapsody/Ayla Sues that are just soooo amazing, and the kind of Sues that are not that amazing in and of themselves (ability-wise, looks-wise) but are ~special~ because of something emotional, the way they connect with someone or fulfill someone's need. And that second type doesn't annoy me half as much as the first. And one of the reasons Twilight irritates me is that Bella is so much the second that she becomes the first.

I am probably going to get one of Kay Gnagey's hoops at some point - the pictures on her website are pretty sketchy, but looking at LR Stern's 2013 wrap-up it actually is a really good shape.

AAAAHHHH so nervous about first day tomorrow even though I'm going back to a place where I know everyone, I know some of what I need to know and am going to learn what I don't, and what I don't is something nobody there knows so it's not like I'm going to be held up to some standard. Plus I REALLY, REALLY want to do some patterns for the website, and what will I doooo if they say no. But I mean, that would be an excellent draw, wouldn't it? If I did a good enough job and did interesting enough garments, people could care about it and use them, right? And it would be like "oh, you want an 1880s walking dress with an asymmetrical closure? or an everyday cotton dress from the early 1900s? or a sexy Directoire evening dress? Here's this site, they have a few of these patterns, if you're okay with scaling up." (Is anyone else okay with scaling up? It used to seem to me like most people used Arnold and Waugh, but now it feels like everyone uses Reconstructing History/Past Patterns/Truly Victorian/etc. and the people who can drape patterns just look at the books for general shapes. But I can't tell if this is real or just paranoia/confirmation bias.) And maybe that would increase site traffic and even give them some more visitors and researchers. I don't know, would you use them if there were some new free patterns posted, within the range 1850-1950 and not generally super fashionable (don't think there's any Paris couture)?

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Book Update

Sat, 12 Oct 2013 01:19:56 GMT

When I submitted my proposal/query to Laurence King, I got an out-of-office reply so I tried to put it all from my mind. But now I've heard back!

With a form letter which is mainly about acknowledging receipt, but the assistant didn't say "this has absolutely no home here, go away," so that's a positive.

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Have to leave soon for house to be shown

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 15:39:32 GMT

Working on my descriptive text and going through my patterns, and I'm happy to note that my hypothesis about the lower edge of the bodice of closed-front gowns - that when the point is wider, it's earlier, and when it's ... pointier, it's later - seems to hold true. Which makes it even more likely that my closed-front mantua with a very flat lower edge (and the one in the MMA I linked to before) really was originally made like that in the early 1750s. But how. I mean ... dang.

I'm going through and putting photos in. The pictures I took are not publication-worthy and I'm planning to draw all of these at levels of detail somewhere between Arnold (simply not possible for me) and Waugh (too cartoony) to show the overall look, but at a certain point my descriptions of fabric pattern are not helpful and I think my pictures are good enough to show just a portion of skirt or bodice.

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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:23:37 GMT

Ugghh, unemployment makes me need to move out even more so I can get away from my dad's rules on what I need to be doing with my time, yet it also makes it even more impossible for me to do so. *shakes fist*

I am working on another Regency frill - atm I think the frills and chemisettes make the most sense to build up stock for, because I think that to a visitor to the shop, it seems more worthwhile to buy a full accessory for an outfit that took little fabric than to buy what appears to be a piece of trim for an outfit that may have already cost quite a bit. But I stopped to work on a basic draft of a query letter for my pattern book. Dad is being an utter pain in the ass about it so I didn't want to, but a few hours after he went to work it seemed like a sensible idea, so I sat down to work on it. The nice thing about non-fiction query letters is that there doesn't seem to be as much pressure.

I'm supposed to send my resumé to this pastry shop, but I'm feeling very ambivalent about it. I would LOVE to work in a bakery, but sending them my resumé is pointless. There is nothing on it that will make them want me. It will only make them uninterested. If they don't want me just based on a friend's recommendation, my resumé isn't going to do anything for me.

Having a good time reading Raspberri Cupcakes and imagining getting to eat all that food, but it is also making me feel inadequate. Oh bother.

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I knew it would happen

Sat, 29 Jun 2013 00:59:20 GMT

Nope, not the last visit. I got through two things and had to leave two others for a next time that I said would be in the next month, so here's hoping I go through with it. But what did I look at this time?

- A ca. 1800 maternity dress with crazy sleeves: the tops are plain, straight, old-fashioned sleeves, which stops above the elbow; then under that there's a wide trapezoid, making a kind of miter to cup the elbow, which was approximately A MILLION TIMES easier to pattern than the kind with darts behind the elbows and pleats above them, yet is probably more obnoxious to fit and sew. Then there's one of those big 1760s-70s ruffles, assembled on a linen tape but weirdly sewn to the sleeve by the top of the ruffle. The dating is hard. The bodice is very definitely 1790s, there's no indication of remodeling ... but it's small enough that the bodice could have been entirely recut from a petticoat, and there's a little piecing at the top of the skirt. The fabric is dark red striped with white, and with brocaded polychrome sprigs, so yeah, that sounds pretty 1770s, the ruffles are old-fashioned, and the cut of the sleeve says to me "I'm not used to making this shape, but I saw a picture and I'm going to figure out how it works through experimentation."

I think I answered my own question. Never mind. It's not hard.

- An off-white/ivory/greyish satin sacque and petticoat, which turned out to have been donated by the Fenimore Coopers and may have belonged to James FC's mother, Eliza Fenimore (1751-1817), who married in 1774, which means it may very well be her wedding dress. Which comes from the utter fanciness, not the color. First off, satin. The number of satin gowns I've come across is very, very low. It lasts like iron, so when I have seen it it's in brilliant shape, but it is and was very expensive because it's basically six times as much silk as the yardage due to all the warps. Second, française, formal. Third, SERPENTINE TRIM. Some of it's double-layered, some single, a little bit fallen off, but it is fancy. And the petticoat has three rows of flounces across the front. Unfortunately, the gown's been a bit mucked with - a pair of flaps has been added in the front to close it under a stomacher, probably Victorian for a costume party. The petticoat ... I don't know. It all looks original to me, but the front and sides are pleated and the very back gathers on a tape, which is obviously not standard.

There are two fairly standard 1750s/60s and early 1780s gowns left, which I might not even technically need, but I do want, so. We also got out something marked "ca. 1780, remade ca. 1845", which I'm leaving for 1800-1849, but I did tell Erin that it's probably originally 1740s/50s as it's got pretty wide back pleats and is a white damask with a large-scale floral/vegetal pattern. Good deed for the day.

Driving there was crap - my brakes are AWFUL and getting worse, that grinding, it's painful and every time I had to slow down or stop my whole body tensed up, it's a good thing it's getting fixed tomorrow; a few roads and bridges were out because there's been flooding in Otsego/Fulton/Montgomery counties - but the landscape was absolutely beautiful, possibly even better than Washington county, and the Palatine area is Amish country, so I saw a girl in a dark burgundy bonnet and a cloak in a horse-drawn buggy (whiskey? shay? Wikipedia is overwhelming) as well as a kid in suspenders at a farmstand. Which really made my day and brought back my recurring "I could totally be Amish apart from the religion stuff" feelings.

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DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE DOCTOR. sigh

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:48:00 GMT

The internet has been absolutely shitting it up so far all day, which was mildly annoying while I did other things but then enraging when it turned out that my ep. 6 of Broadchurch had the sound all out of sync from the video from about five minutes in and I of course couldn't replace it. Blogger is having its own problems, refusing to let me post today's plate. I post it, but it doesn't show up on the main page of the blog or in the "All" or "Published" sections in the posts page. Well, I finally got it to work, but only by pasting it all into a new post and deleting the old one.

I've made a mock-up of the gown I'm making for Clermont - the bodice, anyway. One side of the bodice. But now I'm conflicted about if it should be lined, or if it should just be a sheer overdress. Better talk to Kjirsten.

So I've finished going over my 18th century patterns in PS, and now I need to get back to the writing :| and also make some appointments to finish patterning. Two more sessions should do it, which means that I could theoretically have this turned into a book within 2013.

Debating over buying the first Bad Machinery book. Probably will.

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Wow

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:52:35 GMT

Just downloaded a free CAD program to try it out. Um ... I'm kind of considering just honing my handwriting because fuck there is no way I'm going to become proficient in this. I need a program that shows you a grid with clear axes where I can just put in simple coordinates and have it draw the lines and curves I need.

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Day Three (was yesterday)

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 03:00:37 GMT

NYSM was excellent. I knew from going there for thesis research what I was going to see, and that Connie is super-nice, so there were no surprises. But I know have a great 1750s pattern (I don't know what to call its color - Vile Yellow or Horrible Yellow?) and two normal-length shortgowns, and I'm going to go back the same week I go back to the Farmers Museum to pattern the gown I used as a basis for my thesis dress (which is technically nearly identical to the one I already patterned at AIHA, but there's value in showing two near-identical patterns, right?).

NaNo is killing me. I used the lyrics to "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" and I still had 1k left to write. The trouble is I also need to keep working on my book and I need to add to my buffer of Galerie des Modes translations. If I can get this story written, though, it'll give me hope that I can go back to another one of my Great NaNo Ideas and start it over and get it finished as well.

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Today was EXCELLENT

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:41:04 GMT

I was not expecting much of the Farmers' Museum, because it's a museum about farmers, right? It's probably going to go back to the 1880s, maybe have a few 1860s dresses ...

They're actually a decent-sized institution with a large costume collection! They had out seven or eight boxes and we went through all of them, and then I set-to and started patterning:

- ca. 1795 open robe of glazed cotton with a floral print
- very very short (ca. 1800 or so) shortgown/bedgown of linen with a woven check
- pink satin quilted petticoat with six vegetal motifs on the bottom (two patterns, alternating) and pointed arches in rows above them (similar to this one)
- matching gown and petticoat of pink satin with deeply pointed back (in gown), with applied white satin zig-zag-edged bands around bottom of sleeves and petticoat and on skirt front edges

So this fills a lot of holes. 1790s non-muslin gown, anglaise with a full waist seam, quilted petticoat, bedgown. The satin gown strikes me as more high-fashion than the usual silk gowns I come across - not just because it's a step up in fabric, but because those appliqués would be pretty time-intensive and remind me of fashion plates like this or this.

And they have more! There's a white satin sacque, a silk 1790s gown I didn't get a good look at, a couple of en fourreau gowns, and a more intricately-quilted petticoat. So I'm probably going to go back sometime soon (despite the two-hour drive).

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This weekend's patterning

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:55:35 GMT

- Interestingly enough, the skirts of the Cherry Hill gown and the first gown I did were both cut in curves on the front corners. Neither were polonaises or had loops to pull up the skirt. Also, they're self-fabric trimmed down the front and just around the curves.

- I have something to add to my usual caveats about trusting museum-given dates. Today I looked at a closed-front en fourreau gown in a striped floral fabric that was marked "1760-1770, remade 1780" - because the fabric is early-looking and the general thought is that fourreau gowns are earlier, and so if you have that plus closed front it must have been remade. But there's no indication that any seams have been changed at all. It's patched, but under the arms, where it was worn. So what I'm saying is, don't assume remodeling when a museum's database/catalogue says so and back pleats go later than most people think.

- I touched a pair of sleeves from the 1720s or 1730s today. With my hands.

- Another gown has nine (original) loops down the inside of the skirt for drawing it up - not something I can find in Arnold or Waugh - and they skew at the top towards the front. I need to mock that up somehow and see what the end result would be so I know what to draw.

- Very, very happy to say that pretty much everything I've worked on for the whole project so far has at least one attribute that makes it worth inclusion. Most have two.

- It seems kind of common for lining and silk sleeve seams to be sewn together, the front or back folded under and lapped around the other, then sewn all the way through. Baumgarten mentions lapping, but not the sandwiching. So that is a plus to learn.

Still would like to find a riding habit, a round gown, and a full waist seam, but

Fixing dates on paintings came up naturally in conversation, and I was able to tell Doug I thought the Zoffany was dated too early! I've been sitting on that since December. The best bit was that after I said it and explained about the woman's dress, he admitted that he'd thought the man's uniform was later! He also suggested I try the Schenectady Museum for clothing. I'd previously counted them out because they're a science museum with a planetarium, but apparently they used to be a local history museum, and they kept their costume collection when they changed their mission.

( Power of Three )

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So: today's visit

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 01:16:02 GMT

Patterning 18th century clothing is becoming strangely relaxing. This is because, I think, the pieces and methods are similar enough that there's a certain amount of routine to it. Even though I had to deal with the center back seams being on the bias for some mad reason.

I am really happy about this pattern, though. Pleats toward the center back aren't something I see anyone do; it's a nice variation.

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Today stuff

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:38:51 GMT

So I finished up the pink dress fairly quickly - I did have to redo my pattern of the pleating on the front and back because I realized I'd done it stupidly wrong, but the way of doing it correctly was actually easier. I didn't end up measuring each tuck and drawing the skirt panels untucked, because a) I realized it would be hella long, the drawn-out pattern piece I mean, and b) they're graduated in size but they go from 1" to 1.5", which really isn't that much. So then I got out this blue and black 1860s dress and did it so I'd have done more than just half a pattern, but I'm not sure if I'm going to end up using it because the type of sleeves actually are represented in (I think) the first pattern in PoF2 - they're just not drawn as extremely curved in the picture as the pattern pieces appear to be. Although I kind of think I'm getting a bit too caught up in THEY MUST ALL BE WILDLY DIFFERENT FROM ALL PREVIOUS PATTERNS, which is silly.

I'm going to try to draw them. I did manage to get the 1840s one by basing it off one of the dresses I'd already done and posted to the blog, but I'd like to do the other two, maybe accompanied by cropped pictures that show the texture and color of the fabric.

Heard back from the Washington Co. Historical Society - they have a GAR coat, a petticoat, and a box of things from ca. 1914, so I don't know if I'll be making an appointment with them. And I wrote to the Old Stone Fort to ask for an appointment and permission, and the Schenectady CHS to ask about their collection.

Dad suggested I contact Quite Specific Media to ask about release forms and waivers and things, what legal stuff you need to publish patterns like this.

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Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:27:32 GMT

Huh, this is interesting. Summary: speculation that ACD!Sherlock was able to be completely fooled by Irene at the end because he underestimated her intelligence because she was a woman, but Moffat!Sherlock eventually "won" because he didn't.

I'm working on calling museums (have to take breaks) - two I left messages at, one of which didn't have a personalized voicemail message so I'm not entirely certain it's the right place, and the Old Stone Fort has nothing 18th century but some women's clothing in the first quarter of the 19th century, which is good because I needed more sources for that.

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