For your viewing pleasure

1899 bride’s going away dress Glasgow Museum

I love the color and the over lapping closure detail.

Bite me

On my last volunteer session at the Canadian Costume Museum of Canada I saw this Edwardian hat that caught my eye.

I don’t recall the exact date on this but I think it is early 1900’s.

It is a mixture of velvet lace and fur.  Obviously, a winter hat.

The lace is quite lovely don’t you think.

They have done this odd thing with the fur-wired it so that clumps of it stand up (left side of the photo).

But that isn’t the oddest thing.

I’m not 100% sure what the front of the hat is.  I think it is the first photograph in this post.  That would put the above vicious face right near the wearers left eye.  Imagine having that in you peripheral vision!

Isn’t it just the way things are!

A few posts back, I was moaning and pouting about how I had the fabric, notions and time to sew but no patterns.  Well, the patterns arrived and I don’t have time now.

The day the patterns arrived, I got some buttons that I had forgotten that I ordered.  It was like Christmas all over again!

They are old…at least vintage, possibly Victorian. Most importantly, they were inexpensive, pretty, plausible and plenty.  

I think the motif is 3 strawberries with 3 strawberry leaves.  The hubby saw 3 flowers on pot leaves.  Kinda hard not to see how he could get that idea now.

Anyway, I think they are going on the project that I got the patterns for.

Cozy mitts for me

I wanted a pair of blue mitts for myself, to replace some blue gloved I have been using.  Gloves are not practical when it is cold.  Fingers need each other to help keep them warm!

I’ve been using the same pattern that I adapted from a Victorian pattern and I like it.  The thumb isn’t “perfect” yet but it is getting there.  If I work out that kink, I may write it out here for you guys.

Turn the page: 3/4 profiles

It has been awhile since I have done one of these. If you are new to this blog, I received a cabinet card photo album for my anniversary gift and I have been sharing the pages here on this blog. To see the other pages, click on the “cabinet card album” link on the left side of this page.  On to the next page…

A man and a woman with 3/4 profile head shots

The man, out of the album sleeve.

The photographer is G.C. Arless and comes from Montreal Quebec.

G.C. Arless seems to have worked alone from 1878-85.  (He worked for other people before that and was “and Co.” after that date range.)

The back of this card is covered in artistic advertisement and this was common starting around the late 1880s.

So the card could be made in the transition period before he incorporated in the mid to late 1880’s.

The lady out of the album sleeve.

Look at the smocking at the neck line of her bodice.  Very nice!

C. G. Wynn and Co. 242 Woodward Ave, Detroit Mich.

A Google search places this photographer at that location from the 1880’s to 1890 and those dates suit the style of this woman’s clothing.

The back side of her card gives a clue…

June 7th 1890
To Lucy from Maggie

I think this is the first time one of my cabinet cards gives the exact date to the day.  A moment is time frozen…. We also have the second reference to Lucy as the receiver of this card.  I’m convinced now that this album was owned by a Lucy and most if not all, were photographs put in by her.  (I acknowledge the possibility that a family member could have removed photographs that were significant to themselves before getting rid of the album and that a collector or seller could have filled in the blanks with unrelated people.)  If all the photographs were of people in Lucy’s life, how many were family and how many were friends?  Are any of these women actually Lucy?

Vacation prep and apologizing

I will be leaving on vacation tomorrow.  (Back to Mexico-yeah!)  In years past, I worked ahead on blog posts for a couple of weeks so that the posts would come up on autopilot.  The mind set of that, is to keep my 3 regular readers from thinking I have given up blogging or just plain died.  A golden rule for blogging is be fairly regular so that people form a habit of visiting your blog.

Well, that is the mind set and that is why I worked for weeks on several full sized blog posts. But, this year with all the crap at work  with all of my stimulating extra curricular activities I haven’t had the energy or the brain power to plan that far ahead.  In a couple of short hours I have to come up with 5-8 posts.  I will now apologize as these posts will resemble text messages more than actual posts.  

You take my breath away.

Last night’s volunteer session yielded this beauty!

 

1909-12 Side view

I had a front view as well but some how it got lost in the email from my camera to computer.

Back view.

Do you get the idea of the size of this thing with the hands holding it?

It is made out of a stunning loose weave in the straw, lace and silk flowers. Nearly brought me to tears.  The silk flowers are an amazing color…they match the straw so they have the illusion of being dried flowers.

For those of you interested in how things work, the bigger crown hides a normal sized head size inside…kind of like a super big hat over top of a little hat.  The big crown, small crown and brim are all wires covered in lace and straw a bit of silk at the top of the inner crown.

Time, supplies all organized…

My next project is lined up in the queue.  Fabric and trims purchased with Christmas money.  And I have time this weekend and a couple of days at the end of the week to work on it but I can’t.  The patterns haven’t arrived yet.  

May be I can pre-assemble some of the trim.  Can I do that without creating more work and waste for myself?  Sigh.

Project idea: labor intensive and totally impractical!

I have seen a couple of beetle wing dresses and I’ve always wanted to make one.  The dresses themselves are simple in silhouette but the embroidery and attaching of the wings themselves would be insane!   That would be a year-long project all on its own!

After all that work, a dress like that would be more or less useless for me though.  I have no opportunity to wear a high-end evening dress or ball gown.  My costuming group is too small and our venues are too limited to do much more than a dinner out.  And historically speaking, I doubt there were many beetle wing dresses in the wilds of Canada in the mid-Victorian era.

But when I look at a dress like this one, I covet it in the worst way…

It comes from Kent University.

1863 to 1867

I hope this link works.

I wonder if the beetle wings break if you sit on them.

I also wonder how many thousands of wings were used in this.

Knitting up a storm

I have been enjoying the clickity click of my knitting needles lately and I have a ton of completed projects to share with you-and all have been completed in the past month and a half.

The first project is a pair of fingerless gloves using scraps from the long gloves I made for Shirley’s Christmas gift.

I adapted this pattern (found here for the first page and here for the second page)The pattern calls for thinner wool than I had so I had to decrease the number of stitches and rows.  I’d like to try this in a thinner silk or wool thread as I believe it was intended more as a fashion glove than a keep me warm glove.

I really like the Greek Keys in the pattern.

I liked this so much that I made full mittens out of the pattern using the left overs from the long gloves I made myself.  

Neither of these are strictly authentic but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that someone with thicker wool and colder weather wouldn’t have done the same as I did so I will use them with my costumes if the need arises.

I also made a more modern pair.  I tried to purl rather than making the holes or the color change.  Not a great effect but neither is it nasty.

I have another set on the go now in some blue wool.  Knitting is just the perfect thing to do while watching Netflix.