From: Gretchen Miller Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 17:32:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: H-Costume Digest, Volume 24, 1/3/94 The Historic Costume List Digest, Volume 24, January 3, 1994 Send items for the list to h-costume@andrew.cmu.edu (or reply to this message). Send subscription/deletion requests and inquiries to h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu For archives of this digest, send mail to close@lunch.asd.sgi.com Thanks and Enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------- Topics: Dressing the part... More Corsets Sources for Spiral Boning Reeds for Boning Questions and answers about the holiday digest and lack therof ----------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 10:43:34 PST From: jgtifft@sybase.com (Jennifer Tifft) Subject: Dressing the part... Thought you all would enjoy this--- Happy Holidays! Jennifer Tifft (SCA- Wander Riordan) ----- Begin Included Message ----- >From leighann Wed Dec 22 10:10:13 1993 Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 10:10:02 PST To: ace@netcom.com, elton, jgtifft, mjl@igor.rational.com, jschmidt@netcom.com Subject: Dressing the part... X-Lines: 53 For additional amusement, check out the Chaucer quote in the poster's .sig... > >From folk_music@nysernet.ORG Mon Dec 20 22:19:47 1993 > Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 01:13:26 -0500 > Message-Id: <9312210445.AA29718@nysernet.ORG> > Errors-To: alanr@nysernet.ORG > Reply-To: folk_music@nysernet.ORG > Originator: folk_music@nysernet.org > Sender: folk_music@nysernet.ORG > Precedence: bulk > From: Jim Barrett > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: Musical Cross Dressing > X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0a -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas > X-Comment: Folk Music Mailing List > > Sender: Jim Barrett > Subject: Musical Cross Dressing > > > > ... you can't play in C wearing blue jeans, flannel shirt and denim jacket. > Blue jeans are the proper dress for tunes in G, D and A, the open > string fiddle tune keys. The musical theory behind this is that when the > fiddle players' blue jeans are so tight they can't bend their little fingers, > they have to be able to use all the open strings -- G, D, A and E. That's > called supply-and-demand music theory. And you can't do that in C. > To play in C -- you can sing in C, the people's key, wearing anything > you want to -- but to play in C you have to be wearing a sport coat, or at > least loafers with no socks. C and F are, in musicology, what we call the > folk-preppie keys, not blue jeans keys. If you have any khaki pants, you > might get by with the flannel shirt. > Now if you want to play in B-flat, E-flat or A-flat, that takes a suit. > You've got to have matching pants and jacket, white shirt, dark tie and > black, tie-up shoes for these keys. You also have to have someone else > count the beat for you and tell you when to start in these keys. You cannot > count for yourself and keep up with more than one flat at a time. It has > never been considered proper to begin a piece in A-flat on your own, without > someone else to give the starting signal. > D-flat and all the minor keys are tuxedo music. You have to sit down to > play in these keys, and you must look straight ahead while you play in a > minor key, and never at a another musician. He already knows he's playing > the wrong note, and doesn't need your glance to show everyone else he's the > one. > > --- Anon. (Dan Rowles ?) > > -- > Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge | > Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho | Katherine Rossner > That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge | jkr@netcom.com > Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so. -- Chaucer | ----- End Included Message ----- ----------------------- From: sclark@epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark) Subject: Corsets n stuff To: h-costume+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 15:49:00 -0500 (EST) Hi all.... Just back from the annual tript down to my parents' place, where, interestingly enough, I did up a 16th century corset for someone other than me for the first time. Since this was her first 16th century outfit (I made the rest of it down there, too--talk about your working vacation!) and she will only wear the thing occasionally, I did her a very simple, lightly boned thing. She is also rather 'zaftig' and was pleasantly surprised when she finally got the whole outfit on to discover that she didn't look like a "stuffed sausage'. One thing I did for the first time was include a layer of thin cotton quilt batt, which seemed to give the corset some shape--especially good for hers, which was lightly boned. Now I, on the other hand, also swear by spiral steel boning. I've got a corset so boned up I think it would stop a bullet, yet I regularly demonstrate the joys of steel boning bydoing a backbend (or part of one) in the thing. I also used corset material, which I found at the same store I found the spiral bones at-- it's a very sturdy stuff and hard to poke through. Well, back to the wrapping.... Susan Carroll-Clark known in the SCA as Nicolaa de Bracton sclark@epas.utoronto.ca ----------------------- From: sclark@epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark) Subject: Spiral bones... To: h-costume+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 15:57:59 -0500 (EST) Greetings.... My Toronto Source for spiral bones is MacDonald Faber, which is at 952 Queen West, pn. (416)) 534-3940--I am told thewill do mail order. They carry standard boning, metal tips to put on the ends of bones, and hooping wire, as well as corsetry maaterial. Dressmaker's supply does not carry spiral boning to my knowledge--and the other store is cheaper, anyway. If you're evr in Toronto and want to go to Dressmaker's you'll need to know that they've moved to Yonge street now.OC Cheers! Susan Carroll-Clark SCA Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester ----------------------- From: sclark@epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark) Subject: Reeds To: h-costume+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 16:40:09 -0500 (EST) Greetings.... Reeds do indeed make nice corsets. I saw a demonstration at the Kalamazoo conference two years ago focusing on Elizabethan dress (specifically "wheel farthingales") in which the two women giving the talk (Robin Netherton and Verna...now what's her last name?) had done up aa reeded corset using one of the patterns for a "body" (bodice) in Janet Arnold. One thing they mentioned was to soak the reeds before using them--makes them much more flexible to work with (just like basketweaving).... Whalebones may have been used as well, but not as much as we would tend to think. I've seen documentation for steel bones in the 17th century, but not for earlier (so far). I certainly would not use a Victorian corset pattern with my 16th century stuff (Victorian corsets are designed to do an entirely different thing than 16th century corsets, which are intended to smooth the line to make fitting easier, rather than squish the body into some "fashionable" shape). This is why I do like the spiral bones--they are extremely flexible in comparison to traditional steel bones, and when placed into a 16th century corset of the right shape do not do too badly at replicating the shape I saw with the reeded corset. Has anyone else out there tried a reeded corset? It's somewhere on my list of "things to try", below "new farthingale". I would love to hear how it went..... Cheers! Susan Carroll-Clark University of Toronto SCA Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester ----------------------- From: LSCRIBNE@charlie.usd.edu Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 13:58:22 -0600 (CST) Subject: RE: corsets The best sources I've used for steel boning and spiral boning are Greenberg and Hammer, Inc. Notions and dressmakers Supplies 24 West 57th St. New York, NY 10019-3918 800 955-5135 and Richard the Thread 8320 Melrose Ave., #201 Los Angeles, CA 92269 800 473-4997 Greenberg and Hammer are usually a little better priced. Both also carry coutil, a very strong weave cotton twill that is ideal for corset making. They also carry metal busks, corset lacing, bone casing (a tight weave channel casing for inserting bones that doesn't break down as easily as twill or bias tape) and many other items. I haven't used any of the Richard's patterns but like to do business with both companies for our costume shop supplies. If they don't stock something, they will try to get it for you. Hope this is of some use to the corset makers. Linda Wigley Scribner ----------------------- From: RAC@NAUVAX.UCC.NAU.EDU Date: Mon, 03 Jan 1994 11:51:26 -0700 (MST) Subject: Subscription Hello I have not received anything from the Historic Costume Digest for awhile, and I was wondering if something might be wrong. Thanks Bob ----------------------- From: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: List traffic during holiday season Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 13:07:51 -0800 (PST) > I have not received anything from the Historic Costume Digest > for awhile, and I was wondering if something might be wrong. Nope. Lots of newsgroups and mailing lists slow down over the holidays. It's nothing to worry about. It'll be back to being "noisey" soon enough. -- Diane Barlow Close close@lunch.asd.sgi.com I'm at lunch today. :-) ------------------------End of Volume 24-----------------------------