A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

Castle of Love, from the Pseudo-Heloise Poems, 1475-1483; BL Royal MS 16 F II f.188 I mentioned the other day that I'm really interested in the very early Tudor period - and lately I've been laying the groundwork for potential sewing/experimental archaeology in that era. This is difficult, because I'm used to doing rigorous research in the Early Modern Era forward, where you have access to: - extant garments of all kinds to look at online - extant garments fairly easily found for individual, in-person study (after about 1750) - patterns taken by other researchers of pieces chosen to be either representative or unique - lush, detailed portraits and genre prints - works of fiction that describe clothing or show which aspects of it are important to society - manuals for tailoring and dressmaking - magazines intended to disseminate fashions and/or sell commercial patterns If I want to make a gown for 1874, I can be very sure of what was fashionable, what was comm...

Surely  I've said everything I feel the need to? No, because I've continued conversations on the Historical Sew Monthly Facebook group and on Reddit, and Sarah Chrisman did a follow-up interview with SheKnows and then kindly sent me the full text of her answers, some of which were not used. Basically this is like an exclusive interview, in a way. If you see a quote here that's not on SheKnows, that's where it came from!

There's a piece on Vox that's been going around Facebook - I Love the Victorian Era, So I Decided to Live in It - by Sarah Chrisman, who's probably familiar to many of you as a blogger and author , even if you haven't read blog or book. Sarah Chrisman is the more public face of a married couple who live in Port Townsend, WA - and as much in the Victorian Era as possible. They very rarely use electricity. They have an icebox, mechanical clocks, fountain pens, oil lamps, etc. etc. etc. They wear pretty accurate historical clothing, which for Sarah includes a corset. (I don't know her measurements, but it looks like she skirts the edge of the period definition of tightlacing, and if she were wearing modern clothing she'd be classified as a tightlacer.) The response has been astoundingly negative . (Although some responses have been thought-through and eloquent.) I'm not totally surprised, because I know that a lot of people see the in-depth study of ...

So, I spent the past week engaged in making a Regency day dress for myself.  Fastest thing I've ever fully put together!  Albany's TulipFest is not really intended as a costumed event, but the Empire State Costumers (join us!) can turn any party into a dress-up party. (I'm the second from the right.) To start, I used the pattern I took from an evening dress in the Albany Institute's collection (combined with some Janet Arnold sleeves) and striped cotton from Renaissance Fabrics .  As usual with extant pieces, I am not quite as dainty, so I knew I would have to enlarge it.  Unfortunately, I chose to widen it from the center front, which made the straps set at the wrong angle and there were just all sorts of issues.  Think I'll definitely take another go at it, raising the waistline and fitting it better, but for now I need to move on. l'original Next up: I'll be doing a talk at Clermont on women's fashion in the 1920s in June, and I would ...

Lately I've been thinking about what I want to do re: costuming.  Several weeks ago, when I went to the Saratoga Battlefield for the Artificer's Weekend, I decided that I really was going to start going to events.  The next weekend was Defiance and Independence at Fort Ticonderoga, and I was all set to go ... but then I found out that there was an Iron Man competition thing going on that would make horrible traffic, and I thought about driving in my stays, and how the only member of the 62nd I knew wasn't going to be there, and the last few weekends had been really busy, so I didn't go.  So I've spent the last few weekends chilling, because I push myself at work and can't handle being "on" on the weekend as well. Me at Saratoga, after having shaped my hat - much better!