*That Petticoat* and Venetian Carnevale

I have come close to accepting that I will simply never catch up on the posts for the outfits I've made during my PhD. Happily, I'm about a month or two away from submitting said PhD, so maybe after that you'll get lots of posts. In the mean time, here's a post about a petticoat I've been working on for about seven years.

Here's a photo from Venice in February to whet your appetite for the rest of this post, because I'm going to be talking about quilting a petticoat for quite a while before we get to the nice Venice photos:

(The thing I'm holding is a black velvet moretta mask - more on that later)

This post is mostly about the quilted petticoat in the background image for this blog; the one I've been in love with since Dr Lynn Sorge-English first pulled it out of the collection to show us in the (second?) year of my undergrad at Dalhousie University. This petticoat:

It's mid-eighteenth century, made of emerald silk lutestring/lustring (a flimsy plain weave, like a really thin taffeta or habotai), hand-stitched to a linen backing, and it's just ideal in every way. I'm very grateful that Lynn allowed us to examine it, learn from it, and photograph it on two occasions during my undergrad.

I decided almost immediately upon seeing it that I needed it, and I was going to make a reconstruction. A couple of years later, when I took a class on textile dyeing at NSCAD, I went in for extra time in the studio so that I could use their vats to dye some silk using weld and indigo - one of the most common early modern natural dye combinations for green. Unfortunately, the indigo vat was pretty exhausted by the time I was able to get my silk in, since I had to use it for some class assignments first, so my green isn't quite as deep and vibrant as the original petticoat. But it's still a lovely colour!

Then, when I was at Colonial Williamsburg, the curator of textiles in the DeWitt Wallace Collection at the time, Linda Baumgarten, very kindly pulled a number of the quilted petticoats in her collection so that I could examine them, and she allowed me to take photos. Most of the ones there are more elaborate than the Dalhousie petticoat, and are backed with wool rather than linen. Since I'm always cold, I decided to adopt this method. The Williamsburg petticoats are also bound with ribbon on the hem in many cases: something that was either not applied to the Dalhousie petticoat, or was applied but later removed. I liked it aesthetically, so again decided to borrow this technique. I collected the necessary materials from Burnley and Trowbridge while in Williamsburg - wool backing and many yards of green silk ribbon to bind the hem.

A petticoat in the DeWitt Wallace Collection at Williamsburg

When I started my masters, I brought the materials with me and got as far as basting all the layers of silk, wool batting, and wool lining together, and then I got distracted by the Bath Victorian Ball and our trip to Versailles and my dissertation, and I put it in a box. Then I started a PhD, so that was that for a while.

But then, last October, James surprised me for my birthday by telling me that we were going for a weekend in Venice during carnevale in February, and I'd better get ready. Naturally, when I thought of an appropriate carnevale costume, I thought of the quilted petticoat just waiting to be quilted.

I had months!, I thought. Lots of time! Easy!

Here's my quilting process:

This is the petticoat pinned to my big embroidery frame. It was a permanent fixture in my living room between November and February.

And here's a photo of the original to show the hem design, which I slightly enlarged based on some of the other originals I'd viewed:

As you can see, the Dalhousie petticoat has a rectangle of glazed cotton pieced in at the back, up by the waistband. This saves on silk, since this area would be invisible under a gown. However, I knew I wanted to wear mine under a short jacket, so I went with silk all the way up. I did have to do quite a bit of piecing, though, since I only had a few yards of narrow-width silk.

I also liked that the original quilter had made some mistakes and had just corrected the line instead of pulling the stitches out. This implies that the original was quilted by eye, without lines drawn as a guide.

For mine, I used pins to mark general guide-points, and eyeballed the curves:

Excuse this extremely washed-out image

Anyways, it turned out that I did not have lots of time, because, as I remembered, I was writing a thesis. I finished about a third of the quilting before Christmas, and couldn't take the frame with me for the holiday, so that was that until January. And then I had about a month left to finish the other two thirds.

The first third done

I quilted like crazy for the next month. The finger tips on my left hand were literally shredded for several weeks of it, and I punched through my thimble (again, RIP). But the night before we flew to Venice, I was able to pull it off the frame and pin it into a set of waist bands!

Front

Back - extra poofy! There are no other petticoats or pads under this. It's just that fluffy.

On the flight to Venice, I attached the skirt to the waistbands. In our hotel the next evening, I hemmed the bottom edge with the silk ribbon. And it was wearable!

I wore my little silk brocade jacket and the stomacher from my Louisbourg Gown, did my hair 1760s-style, and added some silk mitts, colourful silk stockings, and a harlequin-pattern pin ball for a carnevale-appropriate look. Then we headed to Ca'Rezzonico, an eighteenth-century palazzo in Venice, to take some photos. I couldn't have asked for a better location, and I love that, in Venice, all the historic sites let you come in wearing costume! British sites do not like that, for the most part.

The mitts, stomacher, and pinball. I'm taking off my mask here, hence the weird pose.

All the photos from Venice were taken by James, by the way. He is very patient.

By the canal outside

I'm holding a 'moretta' mask here, which was the most popular mask choice for female carnevale attendees and masquerade-goers in the eighteenth centuries, if portraits are to be believed. There are lots of portraits of women with them on, or holding them as if they've just taken them off, which I tried to replicate in my own photos.

They're a bit creepy, as the black velvet absorbs all the light coming onto your face (they're descendants of sixteenth-century vizard masks, which were used as a form of sun protection), and you hold them in place using a bead that you clamp between your teeth, so theoretically you can't talk (although I managed pretty well).

They did give women some additional freedom of movement, however, because while wearing a mask you were protected to some extent: you couldn't be immediately recognised, you didn't have to greet or respond to unknown men, and it was a way to appear demure. Kind of like wearing sunglasses to avoid talking to people on the train.

Here's a woman in a jacket-and-skirt combo much like mine. She, and characters very like her, make appearances in a number of Pietro Longhi's paintings of Venetian Carnevale from the eighteenth century

François Boucher (1703-1770), 'Le Soir or La Dame allant au Bal'

Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651-1717), 'La Comtesse de Bersac'

There are dozens more along these lines. I tried to keep them in mind as we went through Ca'Rezzonico.

I think this one looks like the old photos where they're trying to prove the existence of ghosts or faeries or something.

So there we are! I could say a lot more about Venice. I've been wanting to go there since I was really little, and it didn't disappoint in any way. I especially loved how many traditional craftspeople still had individual shops in the city - bookbinders, printers, gilders, painters, furniture restorers, and on and on. But all of that will have to wait for another post. We also got into 1890s kit for an afternoon, so I'll have to post about all of that (and the new c.1903 corset I made over Christmas, when I couldn't work on the petticoat!) another time.

I'm really glad I finally got to make this petticoat - and it was a perfect inaugural event for it!

Fishing in Fife

Oh hey, I wrote this and then never posted it! I've just found it in my drafts. It's from December 2016. Whoops. Better late than never.

~~~

Well, as usual, it's been a while since last I posted! Sorry about that. I've been working away, but haven't attended any events to show you photos from. That changed this past weekend, though!

A friend and fellow St Andrews student, Adam HL, pulled me into the project he was putting together on eighteenth-century maritime fashion, and, in particular, the material culture of early modern fishing communities in coastal Fife, Scotland, for his undergraduate honours course. Some of you may know Adam from his work on the French reproduction frigate Hermione, which stopped to call in various spots up the North American coast in the summer of 2015. His deep interest in maritime fashion resulted in his choice of honours project, and also in the project's, er, *expanding* past the usual bounds of university coursework! I was very glad to get involved, and it's been very fun - we put on two public talks at the University of St Andrews, co-led a walk down to the ocean estuary near St Andrews to learn about historical ecology, foraging, and fishing work, and did a photoshoot down on the St Andrews pier and harbour-side. For next term we're planning some further demos at the Anstruther Fisheries Museum, and hopefully a trial-run on the Firth with a recreated sma'line (ocean fishing line). You can read lots more about Adam's project here, on his excellent blog 'Fishy Fashion and Maritime Modes.'

First of all, here is a watercolour by David Allan from the end of the eighteenth century (#D404, National Gallery, Edinburgh), showing one of the very few depictions of Fife fishwives from this period, and a photo of me next to Jigger's Inn, an eighteenth-century cottage on the Mussel Road that fishwives would have walked down to get to the estuary.

The basket is a back creel, which would have been loaded up with mussels to bait the lines or herring to go to market. Fishwives walked many miles on foot down to Edinburgh or up to Dundee to sell their wares, and came back with the goods their families needed in their fish baskets. They were also responsible for using the mussels they gathered to bait the fishing lines their husbands would take out to sea. Fishwives were the backbone of these communities, and their hard work resulted in quite a bit of power - they had control of the money, the households, and much of the daily running of the town. We re-created three baskets for this project - the back creel and two smaller baskets - with the help of Liz Balfour.

The photoshoot we did on the St Andrews pier, with photographer Noël Heaney, re-created a series of photos taken by Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill in the 1840s. Their work, now held in the National Portrait Gallery in London, gives us some of the best and earliest documentation of coastal Fife's fishing communities. Although our impressions are based on 18th-century sources, we chose to re-create this photoshoot because we wanted to show the continuity over time that made these looks iconic. Indeed, the fishwives' back creels and striped petticoats survived with little change until fishing declined here between the World Wars, and became so iconic that locals were able to immediately recognise my impression as I walked around St Andrews.

Here's my impression, alongside an Adamson and Hill portrait of Elizabeth Hall.

And Adam's impression, alongside an Adamson and Hill portrait of David Young.

Adam had reproduction seaboots made, and they are top-quality but very difficult to get off:

Behind us is one of the original fishing cottages in town, which you can see in another of Adamson and Hill's images:

So there you have it! It was quite a different impression for me, as my non-medieval kit tends to be more suited for ball attendees and suffragettes, but I really enjoyed putting this together and I learned a lot.

~

Note, 2019: Adam is still working on expanding his maritime impressions and is conducting further research into eighteenth-century dress and maritime work, particularly with regards to the material cultures of sailors of all sorts (except pirates). He's now based in the U.S., so definitely have a look at his work and public lectures if this is a topic that interests you!

HSF January: Regency Foundations

If you've just arrived to the HSM-nee-F party and aren't sure what's going on, you'll find a button on my sidebar which will take you to the page for the Historical Sew-Monthly (formerly the Historical Sew-Fortnightly) on Leimomi's blog 'The Dreamstress.' It's great fun!

January's challenge was "Foundations," and I'm only a couple of days late! Well, four...but the stays and petticoat were both done by the second week of January, and the undergown was done on time except for one of the hem tucks and the sleeves; I just didn't have a chance to get photos until this morning. But anyways, here it all is.

I interpreted 'foundations' fairly literally, as I made all the undergarments necessary for my 1815 ball gown, which needs to be ready by the 14th of this month (sdkjfkdsjf!!!). However, these garments also provide the 'foundation' for a whole new era in my wardrobe, as I have never done early 19th century before. To this end, I made each of the garments quite versatile, and able to cover everything from around 1800-1830. Everything is hand-stitched, and made as accurately as possible.

The Challenge: Foundations

Fabric: Mostly cotton, of several types and weights.

Pattern: All my own patterns, draped based on museum garments and with some pattern-shape cues from Janet Arnold.

Year: 1800-1830, but for my current purposes, 1815. The stays and petticoat are the most versatile; the undergown is best suited to around 1810-1830, as it is quite stiff and full.

Notions: Cable ties for boning the stays and the lacing panels on the undergown, a wooden paint stick busk, some hooks and eyes on the petticoat, and a bunch of cotton twill tape.

How historically accurate is it? Around 90%, I think. All the patterns are accurate and based on museum garments, the fabrics are accurate, everything is made of natural fibers, and I stitched everything by hand, but the boning is plastic and I did use polyester thread because I hate sewing with cotton and I didn't have any linen fine enough.

Hours to complete: I never keep track. Not as long as I expected, actually. But a while.

First worn: Only to take photos. But it will be worn on the 14th of February!

Total cost: The undergown is around 3 yards of mercerized cotton at $5/yard, the petticoat is 2 yards of muslin at $2/yard, and the stays are entirely stash fabric. The paint stick was hanging out in my basement, the cable ties are from my considerable selection of various weights and widths, the hooks and eyes and thread were all stash, and the cotton twill tape was purchased for about $10 altogether. So for the entire set, around $29 Canadian. Pretty good!

And here are some photos!

Stays - began stitching December 27, finished in the first week of January.


I put a blog post up about the short stays and the petticoat about a week ago, so you can click back a couple of entries if you want to see worse photos but more information on those. =)

Right now I'm being lazy and just posting the pages from my portfolio, because they're all nice and formatted with the best photos, but if you're curious about construction photos or shots of the insides, please do let me know and I'm happy to post a few!

Petticoat - began stitching in the first week of January, and finished about four days later.

The bodice is double-layered, and the skirt is a single, very sheer layer.





















These photos are from a photoshoot I did with my friend Greta, who was lovely enough to come over and take good photos for me even though she's super busy. I'm afraid the photos of the undergown are not nearly so nice.

Undergown - began stitching about half way through January, and finished yesterday. Made of 3 or 4 yards of mercerized cotton (I actually can't remember how much...woops). Drop-front construction with lacing under the bib and a tucked hem. Hand-stitched. Made so it can be worn under both day and evening gowns. This was my first ever attempt at the bib-front construction, and although there are a couple of things I would change next time, I'm pretty happy with it.

Below, you can see a close-up of the front when all done up (sorry for having the tie in front; I had no one to help me and I can't get it tight enough behind my own back), and a photo of just the lacing under the bib done up, with all the other pieces and ties hanging loose. First the back piece wraps forward, and the twill ties go through little thread loops along the bottom of the bodice to tie at center front. Then the front comes up, the bib gets pinned through all the layers at the top (I pin it right through to the stays straps to keep everything in place), the ties go through more little thread loops along the back bodice edge, and tie (usually) at center back.



Overall, I'm quite happy with everything. I guess the true test will be in 10 days, when I put the finished ball gown over top of everything...