From: owner-h-costume-digest (H-Costume Digest) To: h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Subject: H-Costume Digest V3 #211 Reply-To: h-costume Errors-To: owner-h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk H-Costume Digest Wednesday, October 4 1995 Volume 3, Number 211 Compilation copyright (C) 1995 Diane Barlow Close and Gretchen Miller Use in whole prohibited. Individual articles are the property of the author. Seek permission from that author before reprinting or quoting elsewhere. Important Addresses: Send submissions to: h-costume@lunch.engr.sgi.com (or reply to this message). Adds/drops/archives: majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com Real, live person: h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Topics: RE: Musings: woodcut and rollers RE: Musings: woodcut and rollers Re: Corset boning RE: Coloured Leather Straw Embriodery and Thai Silk Boning - plastic Re: Corset boning New business: Kimonos for sale. Re: Corset boning Re: Corset boning Knitting RE: Corset boning Re: Corset boning Re: Corset boning Grasses and Reed 2 cents worth on bone stays Re: Straw Embriodery and Thai Silk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 15:13:21 -0700 From: erin1@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Erin Harvey Moody) Subject: RE: Musings: woodcut and rollers It looked like they were laying down a dark pattern >on lighter material (paper? fabric?). There was one guy >printing/stamping, another guy laying out (for drying?), and there >were rolled up spools of it of various widths, looking like narrow >wrapping paper rolls. Maybe it was wall paper? I do remember >that there was no title or text for that particular woodcut. >Bummer. Ah well, just one more mystery....And if anyone comes >across it, I would sure like to find it again. Obviously I stared at it >a lot at the time, but I would sure like to have another look. Julie, are you talking about the woodcut from Jost Amman? Is it in the Book of Trades? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 15:43:17 PDT From: julie_adams@corp.Cubic.COM Subject: RE: Musings: woodcut and rollers >Erin asked: Julie, are you talking about the woodcut from Jost >Amman? Is it in the Book of Trades? No its not in there. It was in some other book, but I could swear it was by Jost Amman. I've looked through my Book of Trades several times (rather tattered at this point), but it isn't there. It is not in any of my woodcut books, zeroxes, art books, or Ren. military books (and my library is pretty extensive on this period). It was a very interesting woodcut though and I would really like a copy. Perhaps it was in a book on Printing? Hmmm..... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 15:58:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Kimberly Smay Subject: Re: Corset boning I, too, have been puzzled by all the boning alternatives that have been listed. I don't know enough to enter a rigidity vs flexiblilty debate, but steel boning is available through several mail order sources, eliminating the "I can't find it here" arguement. I know Richard the Thread in L.A. has it as does at least one of the big N.Y. mailorder firms(Green an Something, I think). Richard the Thread Dept. SN 1433 N Orange Grove Hollywood, Ca 90046 (800)621-0849 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 13:00:17 PDT From: julie_adams@corp.Cubic.COM Subject: RE: Coloured Leather >Can someone answer this question: >Was dyed leather available in the 12th Century? I mean like >black leather lacing in shirts etc., or was it all just natural? Leather can be dyed with substances which do not hold well on fabric, and I believe some are poisonous when worn against the skin (due to the use of peat, lampblack, and lead). A true black is actually much easier to achieve on leather than fabric, as are some other primary colors, such as red. I am not sure of an exact starting date, but I have seen renderings of people wearing what seems to be black shoes and boots prior to the 12th century. Middle eastern miniatures also show black saddles, shoes and boots with regularity, but most are from the 13th and 14th centuries. Leather dye can run when damp, or when wet from acidic liquids, such as sweat or lemonade. Leather dye is difficult to impossible to get out of some fabrics. Leather dye can also stain human skin (very unpleasant looking). For those reasons, I would not recommend using leather ties on a shirt of a different color than the leather, or an undershirt worn against the body. Commercially dyed leather will usually hold the dye better than a do-it-yourself leather dye from Tandy, but there are no guarantees. Cord ties, buttons, hooks, or brooches would be safer. - --julie adams ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 19:27:41 -0400 From: Christy546@aol.com Subject: Straw Embriodery and Thai Silk Hello all, I'm fairly new to this group and I have been excited with all of the information I've gathered. Now I have a couple of questions. First, many people have referenced Thai silk. I gather that it is located somewhere in the bay area (CA). Can anyone give me further information on them? I am doing a lot of costume sewing and everyone seems to recommend them highly. Second, I am interested in 16th century straw embroidery. I understand that Queen Elizabeth had a gown embroidered with straw. I have seen "sales mens sample books" from later periods that show more than 1500 types of lace and bandings for clothing and hatmaking, done with straw threads. I know these threads were made by splitting wheat and rye stalks and the spinning them into thread. These threads were then woven into lace simular to bobbin lace, or crocheted (sp?) into lace and borders. Now, I would like more information on the earlier straw embroidery and beading. I understand that the first sequins were actually circles cut from the flattened straw and sewn with the shiny inside of the straw up. I do wheat weaving and am familiar with that aspect of straw work. I have seen examples of the embroidery at the "American Museum of Straw Art" in LongBeach Ca. They have several pieces that have straw work done on them. They even have a piece of "Cloth" used to upholster a chair that uses horse hair for the Warp and straw for the Weft (or visa versa). I would like to work this kind of embroidery into my period costumes. It is very unique and beautiful. Thanks for any help you can give! Christine ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 09:53:57 +1000 From: "GILLIAN RICHARDS (02) 716 3712" Subject: Boning - plastic My 1908-style (pretty pink with lace) corset had strong plastic bones but they snapped, so I replaced them with double-layers of the Rigilene boning. It seems that all it is doing is giving me a straight line - the holding is being done by the cloth of the corset. (THank god for a good pattern!) At the front, the cloth is losing the battle and my little tiny paunch is pudging forwards and ruining the line. Dammit - I will just have to mail-order from the States - unless someone knows an Australian supplier of steel boning? BTW all those people who sent me details for shirt making - thank you. Unfortunately, Rural Pennsylvania Clothing is thin on the ground in New South Wales, but everyone has been so wonderfully specifically graphic that I am going to take one particular piece of advice and teach the lad to make it himself. Gillian + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | Gillian Richards - TAFE NSW - (02) 716 3712 (space for ASCII | | aka: gillian.richards@tafensw.edu.au picture when I | | "The Midnight Fox", "Mummy" find the time!) | + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 15:10:06 -0700 From: erin1@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Erin Harvey Moody) Subject: Re: Corset boning > I also heard that a set of stays half-boned (a space between >each bone, or stay) with metal stays would work the same as a set >fully-boned (stays right next to each other with only one row of >stitching between them) with whalebone. I believe the two main considerations in making a corset are: a good pattern and quality materials. If you start with a good pattern, it will guide just where and how much boning you will need. If you look at "real" corsets (I have had the good fortune to examine many period corsets, and I personally own a few), they are far less boned and less stiff than one would assume. They are just VERY well made. > Corsets, stays, and jumps were also stiffened with cording. Some >19thC corsets (particularly 1820 - 1870) had sections of cording >between the metal stays. Someof the period corsets in my collection are stiffened with cording. The cording is TINY and very stiff. It is almost like thick kite string or the stuff we sew up large roasts with. I have found a cotton equivalent, although it is a little thicker, and not stiff. I am working with ways to stiff the cord but not use anything that will deteriorate when warm and moist. Still working on it..... Erin Moody erin1@uclink4.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 16:55:06 -0700 From: Susan Fatemi Subject: New business: Kimonos for sale. The following is going to several lists (with permission of the list owners), so I apologize for any duplication, just delete it! KIMONOS FOR SALE! I am selling vintage Japanese kimonos and jackets out of my home. The fabrics are wonderful and can be used for costumes, unique garments, quilts, throw-pillows, gifts, etc. Most of them are actually wearable "as is", and the jackets are exceptionally attractive and "wearable". The jackets start at $25, and the kimonos run about $40-60 (with a few exceptions). Most of them are silk or silk-lined, some are rayon or wool. There is a lot of black silk for Halloween! I am located in the San Francisco Bay Area (Richmond), but would be willing to do mail order, if you tell me what you want. Please e-mail me privately at susanf@eerc.berkeley.edu (I shouldn't really be using my work e-mail for business, but I don't have a computer at home yet!) - -- Susan Fatemi ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 16:35:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Dianne Karp Subject: Re: Corset boning On Tue, 3 Oct 1995, Carol Kocian wrote: > The other day, I asked, > > "Since corset boning is available, why are people so interested in > finding something else to use?" Actually, in some areas (like here in Reno, Nv) it can be impossible to get locally. This is also true of hat wire. If you dont have a connection to one of the catalogs, you could end up using stuff like metal box banding, etc. out of sheer desperation! Until I got on h-costume, all I heard from folks was - ~oh, I get it from _____, I'll get you the info~ but I never got the info! Living in the backwater has its disadvantages but I think I'll stay anyway. Dianne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 18:11:29 PST From: Kat@grendal.rain.com (June Russell) Subject: Re: Corset boning Carol wrote: : Whalebone, as we all know, was most commonly used through many :eras. Since we can't get it now, what is a reasonable substitute? :I've never had the chance to bend a piece of real whalebone to see :how flexible it is. Has anyone else? Museums are rather picky about :letting people bend their artifacts, and an old piece of whalebone :may be less flexible than a new piece. I generally use stainless steel corset bones. On one of my backroom visits to Williamsburg, one of the seamstresses gave me a small piece of whalebone (too short to be used as a bone and from the baleen edge so it's sort of triangular). It feels in terms of flexibility very much like the stainless steel bones. I've also used Rigelene (2 layers) because of its similarity to the reeds in corsets from the late 16th/early 17th century. It takes 2 layers to get the same feel, however. I prefer the SSboning because it is less bulky. As far as the reeds used for corsets in the the 16th/17th C, they were from a special sea grass on the English coast. From what I have heard, it is protected in the same way that Sea Oats are in the US. Ie: they're endangered so please don't go after them. (It might even be illegal to do so. It certainly is with Sea Oats.) kat Kateryne of Hindscroft ( June Russell ) pacifier.com!grendal!kat kat@grendal.rain.com Heu! Tintinnuntius meus Sonat! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 08:54:41 +1000 From: Sarah Randles Subject: Knitting From: Kjotvi@aol.com >1) In the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) the act of using two >pliers >to join wire rings into mail is refered to as "knitting" simply because, with >practice, it looks like a little old lady knitting (and the domestic >immagery >is amusingly ironic when applied to the concept of a verile warrior). I think the use of the term knitting for chain mail is much wider than the SCA. It probably derives more from the usage of knit meaning to join together (e.g. with broken bones), and I suspect that knitting as we know it (i.e. with needles and yarn) is called that because it was seen as a joining together. Does any one have an OED handy? Sarah **************************************************************************** ********************************************** Sarah Randles ser@adminserver.canberra.edu.au Research Office Phone: (06) 201 2955 University of Canberra Fax: (06) 201 5381/5999 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 01:27:22 -0400 From: kl94ag@badger.ac.BrockU.CA (Kathleen Leggat) Subject: RE: Corset boning >I've seen references to cane used for hoops, but not for corset boning. >The one person I know who has used cane to make a farthingale >disrecommends it -- she says the cane becomes quite brittle after it >has dried and aged. (You must wet the cane in order to shape it.) If >brittleness is a problem in a hoop skirt, I think it would be even more >of a problem in a corset. > The first time I tried to make a farthingale, I used cane. *giggle* It was like Carol Burnett doing Scarlett O'Hara...everytime I bent down, my skirt shot up at the back!! In other words, I wouldn't recommend cane as it is too inflexible. (At least the stuff I used was) And I tried the stuffed cloth hoops, too...they might work for a child's farthingale, but in hoops of bigger diameter, they simply won't hold their shape. Kathleen (Catriona) (Procrastinating on her Chaucer essay, so very chatty!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 01:27:19 -0400 From: kl94ag@badger.ac.BrockU.CA (Kathleen Leggat) Subject: Re: Corset boning People have been discussing the problems and benefits of featherweight boning. Plastic boning BENDS! And it stays bent. This can cause serious comfort problems. (Following two paragraphs are a boring story of how I found this out...feel free to skip them and go on to the practical stuff in the last two!) My first real gown was a black velvet Elizabethan. Since I had found evidence that corsets were sometimes dispensed with in favour of a stiffened and boned bodice, and making a corset scared me (yet I made full Elizabethan! Nuts!) I used just the bodice. I didn't have access to anything but plastic boning. I used it at the back by the lacings, in the sides, at the front-sides and down the point, with two layers of wide plastic belting used as a busk. I should point out that I had deliberately made it a bit small thinking I would lose weight (go figure, I gained!). A stranger with very strong arms laced me until it joined. The plastic boning was just fine UNTIL I sat in a car. Bending like that bent the boning, so it was pressing right into my solar plexus, and it remained in that position. Within a couple of hours I thought I was going to throw up or pass out. I got a friend to take me home (I changed first), and before we got back I was feeling fine. If you do use plastic boning, get the stuff that comes in its own casing. The other stuff, although it is convenient because you can sew through it, WILL poke through eventually, biting into your poor abused flesh. It sort of distintigrates, and the tiny bones seperate and can therefore poke through any fabric like a needle. Something Scadians use are plastic coat hangers. You cut them to the size you need, then melt the ends to a nice rounded shape. They are firm yet flexible, but rather bulky in your garment. Another possibility is hoop wire...strong, flexible, flatter than coat hangers but still a bit too bulky for my taste. Personally, after using steel boning, I wouldn't use anything else. Why make a corset that ADDS inches? (And makes you look corrugated!) Kathleen (Catriona) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 23:27:55 -0700 (PDT) From: "Sarah E. Goodman" Subject: Re: Corset boning > Someof the period corsets in my collection are stiffened with cording. The > cording is TINY and very stiff. It is almost like thick kite string or the > stuff we sew up large roasts with. I have found a cotton equivalent, > although it is a little thicker, and not stiff. I am working with ways to > stiff the cord but not use anything that will deteriorate when warm and > moist. Still working on it..... If you don't need to make the corset completely authentically, then "weed wacker" cord (available from your local hardware store) works rather well. It's a flexible but stuff plastic of about the right thickness. I'd try looking at a hardware store, and maybe a feed&grain to see what other sorts of cord and string they have, too, if you wanted to stick to period-available materials. I'd think that you'd need something in the twist besides cotton to stiffen it, though--jute maybe? ------------------------------ Date: 04 Oct 95 09:53:00 BST From: Mrs C S Yeldham Subject: Grasses and Reed Janet Arnold does show an Elizabethan corset stiffened with bundles of grasses or reeds in Patterns of Fashion. I thought it referred to reeds (will have to check home copy) and had assumed it meant Norfolk reed. This is the best stuff for thatching, although straw is also used. It is grown for thatching, which is undergoing a revival in England, having nearly died out, so I don't think it is a protected plant. However, many native plants are protected in the UK, and there are penalties for picking or uprooting them. Caroline ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 12:08:59 -0400 From: lrp@westol.com Subject: 2 cents worth on bone stays Bone is primarily calcium, with a mixture of some small amounts of other minerals and collagen. Collagen is soft, spongy, and springy. This is what gives some smaller bones the ability to flex before breaking. Whalebone, and bones of other marine mammals are denser (and heavier) than landgoing mammals. Whalebone is very tough and dense. If bone is subjected to acetic leeching (vinegar works well) then, the calcium is removed and the collagen remains. The collagen is flexible enough that it reminds me of a gum eraser. It might, just might be possible for those of you wanting to use bone stays to try an alternative approach since whalebone is harder to get...and definitely not PC these days. Try using a flat rib of something like a cow or even deer, and with some prior shaping, soak it or lightly boil the bone in vinegar. I suggest doing it outside. Boil on several occaissions, for short periods of time until it gets springy enough for your preferences and then stop. I can't vouchsafe this as being a historically correct approach, but it should work with patience. Don't blme me if you boil it in the kitchen, or it doesn't turn into jello on the first attempt. Les ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1995 09:13:21 U From: "Carole Newson-Smith" Subject: Re: Straw Embriodery and Tha Reply to: RE>Straw Embriodery and Thai Silk Christy, I cannot help you with straw embroidery, but I can point you toward Thai Silks (sometimes called Exotic Silks). They are located at 252 State Street, Los Altos, CA and are open Mon through Sat, no evenings. Give them a call at 415-948-1848 for directions. The China silk and noil are toward the back of the store. Carole Newson-Smith ------------------------------ End of H-Costume Digest V3 #211 ******************************* A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, send the command lines: unsubscribe h-costume-digest subscribe h-costume end in the body of a message to majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com. Thanks and enjoy the list!