From: Gretchen Miller Date: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 18:57:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: H-Costume Digest, Volume 269, 4/3/95 The Historic Costume List Digest, Volume 269, April 3, 1995 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 Enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Topics: Articles of interest in Pieceworks ISO: Info on wedding gown collection Wool and fire retardancy New address for Elizabethan Costuming book Ren-Faire information Historic costume CD-ROM and market research Historic costume video? Question on picture in Davenport's "Book of Costume" The quest for authenticity Renaissance quilting One solution for mildew problems ------------------------------ From: VICKI@lib.uttyl.edu Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 17:21:18 -0600 (CST) Subject: current Piecework magazine Articles of interest to 19th century enthusiasts in _Piecework_, v. 3, no. 2, March/April 1995: "Textiles of the Victoria and Albert Museum" by Galer Britton Barnes, pp.10- 13. No 19th century items in illustrations. "Bands of Time: The History of Silk-Ribbon Embroidery" by Judith Baker Montano, pp. 28-32. revived in the 1870's, no 19th century illustration. also "Ribbon-Embroidered Frame to Make" by Judith Baker Montano, pp. 34-37. "The Flowers of Poverty: Ayrshire Whitework" by Lydian Green, pp. 38-44. Includes a photograph of an uncut collar, a mid-nineteenth century baby's cap with detail, an 1830's (my date) portrait, an cartoon from an 1863 issue of Punch, and a photograph of a numbered embroidered trade sampler. Also "An Ayrshire Flower to Embroider" by Suzanne Cowden Shearman, pp. 45-47. "Needle Tatting: An Almost Hidden Art" by Barbara Foster, pp. 48-49. with an illustration from _The Ladies' Work-Table Book_ (1843) and the cover of _The Ladies' Handbook of Fancy and Ornamental Work (1861). Also "Learning to Needle-Tat" by Jane Fournier, pp. 50-51 and "A Needle- Tatted Lace Edging and Corner to Make" by Barbara Foster and Leisa Refalo, pp. 53-55. "Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Embroidery" by Marina Carmignani, pp. 62-65 with nineteenth century patterns; "Berlin Work" by Deborah Cannarella, pp. 66-68, with more nineteenth century patterns; and "Berlin-Work Slippers to Stitch: Design Based on a Nineteenth- Century Berlin-Work Pattern" pp. 69-71. The instructions do not include actually making the slipper, but suggest that "you take the stitched canvases and lining faric to a professional shoemaker or shoe repair workshop to be made into slippers. They have the materials and the heavy-duty sewing equipment to make slippers worthy of the time you've spent stitching them." Vicki Betts University of Texas at Tyler vicki@lib.uttyl.edu ------------------------------ From: ccary@tiara.wpd.sgi.com (Christina Cary) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 16:10:51 -0800 Subject: Costume: Wedding gowns Hi Costumers, I just joined the list. I started to read the first digest that I received and accidentally hit the DELETE button. The first message concerned dyeing bridal gowns, which are my passion! Is the person who posted that message intersted in selling any? Where did you buy your collection? Why do you want to dye them? Also, I would really appreciate people sending me any back posts on this topic that they may still have. Thank you very much! Christina ccary@tiara.wpd.sgi.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 16:25:04 PST From: susanf@EERC.Berkeley.Edu (Susan Fatemi) Subject: Re: H-Costume Digest, Volume 263, 3/27/95 re: wool and burning Remember all those movies where they put the fire out with the blanket? It was a wool blanket not synthetic. Wool smolders and smells like burning hair but it *is* flame retardant. (I always wear wool trousers when I fly, just in case. jeans will burn up on your legs) For your own amusement, take scraps of various know fibers/ fabriics, e.g. wool, silk, cotton, synthetic ick, and burn them with a match or candle. It can be very enlightening (no pun intended) I use this test when I buy something whose fiber content I'm not sure of. keep the home fires burning. Susan Fatemi susanf@eerc.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: BRuadh@aol.com Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 19:45:43 -0500 Subject: Address change Dear folks, Oops! Last week, I gave an address for a costume book that turned out to outdated. The correct address is: Other Times Publications 361 60th street Oakland, CA 94618 However, I am told they do not mailorder and will only do wholesale business. On the other hand if anyone has contacts with a book store you might be able to get it. I am also told that there are some retailers in California that do have the book on their shelves. Good Luck. Again the book is: Elizabethan Costuming 1550-1580 by Janet Winter and Carolyn Savoy ISBN 0-9630220-0-8 Brian ------------------------------ From: BRuadh@aol.com Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 19:45:28 -0500 Subject: Re: Renaissance Faire Costume Tracy and all you new friends, Ren. Pleasure Faire-South just started workshops this weekend, so four weeks from now we will open. Officially, opening day is April 22 ( the weekend following Easter) and will run every weekend until June 17/18. Definite closing date this year NO RAINOUT EXTENTIONS! In case anyone wasn't counting that is NINE weekends. Oh, Lord have pity on me a sinner. If anyone is planning to come out this year please do. If should be a great Faire, but make sure you drink lots and lots of water. I suspect the weather will be a scorcher. Again feel free to drop by the court glade and say hello. As Marshal of the hall I expect to be quite busy directing the household servants (I'll be the blue suited guy carrying the big club), but I should find some time to chat usually in the afternoons after the Queen has left. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 20:14:19 PST From: aterry@Teknowledge.COM (Allan Terry) Subject: CD-ROM project Linda is absolutely right about most people buying costume books mainly for the era they are interested in, rather than big general works. This is partly what I meant when I said the project would have to be focused. As for the CD-ROM allowing you to see a garment from all sides, and to view construction techniques in progress--a video would do as well. I've noticed that there are a number of construction videos for mainstream sewing, put out by small companies or perhaps self-published. I've never seen one for historic costume though. I'd think videos would be expensive to produce. My husband just told me a video his (computer software) company put out, with a professional camerman but amateur "actors," took one day to film and the filming alone cost $10,000. And in addition to this the company had to script the video ahead of time and pay the "actors'" salaries. Fran Grimble ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 21:17:42 -0800 (PST) From: "RuthAnn M. Saylor" Subject: Re: Re[2]: CD-ROM of Costumes??? > 1) Is there enough interest in seeing a Web page devoted to historic > costuming? Yes to the tenth!! > 2) Are the members ready and willing to send me materials, pictures, > descriptions, book lists, suggestions....you tell me... I am sure that one wouldn't have to twist arms too hard! Rhodry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 23:33:53 -0800 (PST) From: John Burns Subject: Davenport's > background, why not Millia Davenport's unsurpassed _The Book of Costume_, I ask this out of curiosity, I have and enjoy Davenport's book of costume and use it for planning new clothes. Recently I was comparing cote hardies pictures (looking at Davenport's and another costume picture book), and I found that what Davenport's had was a redrawing of a memorial brass which the other book had a picture of. It obvious the same brass, but was different in various details. I was surprized. While Davenport's reproductions are not always of the best, I thought they were all pictures of an orginal whatever and not redrawings. Is this an isolated case in the book, or should I be skeptical? Susan ------------------------------ From: jennyb@pdd.3com.com Date: Tue, 28 Mar 95 09:07:40 BST Subject: Re: sources >An area Lucy Barton never touches is the ultimate frustration of trying to be >e'absolutely authentic.' Personally I find it fun to pursue the unattainable goal of total authenticity, but I can see that it wouldn't be to everybody's liking > To be truly authentic, every aspect of the >manufacture and wear of historical clothing must be pursued, from the raising >of the fiber source, through the production of the fiber, through the (if >applicable) weaving of the fiber into whole cloth, through the cutting and >sewing of the garments, to the wearing of them. Each of these steps (not to >mention maintenance and repair) must be done with true period sources, in >true period methods, with true period tools. I'm currently working on a pile woven cape, it is based upon archaeological finds from 10th century York. So far the steps in its construction have been:- Use Axes, knives & awls to make a bow lathe (small hand operated lathe) Use same tools & lathe to make a pump drill (small hand operated drill) Use lathe & drill to make drop spindle Use replica Viking wool combs to comb fleece, Use drop spindle to spin combed fleece into yarn, Use axes, knives etc. to make warp weighted loom from windfallen trees Use hazel rods left over from building saxon longhouse for loom's heddle rods Size cloth using wheatflour size Weave handspun yarn on warp weighted loom. (I haven't got around to working out the finishing process yet, but was considering making some soap, as that was around at the time.) So far the steps I have not contributed to the garment are:- Linen spinning, I didn't spin the linen used to make the loom's heddles (I'm hoping to have mastered this by the time I weave my next garment). Blacksmithing, - this was already a specialised trade in 10th century england Grinding the flour for the size -this would have been done in many homes raising the sheep - I used breeds with coats resembling those in the archaeologists fibre analysis (such as the double coated Gotland sheep), Urban weavers probably obtained fleece from outlying farms, so I do not feel it compromises the authenticity of the manufacturing process to do the same myself I'm not suggesting that the emd result will be 100% authentic, too little is known about the textiles of the time to gaurantee that, but I do find it interesting attempting to replicate a garment beginning from Raw materials. I got a small hand operated forge for Christmas, the next step is to make some of the iron tools aswell, this will actually result in a less authentic overall procedure! (It is unlikely that all the stages in manufacture would have been pursued by one person.) >And how many of us are using true period tools in our sewing? Well, recently whilst camping out in a replica Viking tent it acquired a rip in it's woolen cover. I hand teased a bit of fleece spun it into yarn with a drop spindle I had been using that day & used one of my bone needles to sew up the rip. O.K. so it wasn't clothing, but the tools were correct for the period of the tent, AND they had been made using tools correct for the period. > Did >you know that changes in the production of hand needles greatly changed the >results of handsewing I didn't find the needles make that much difference to my sewing, except that I'm a lot more careful not to lose them as they're a pain to make. Was it sonmething to do with iron needles that changed sewing? I've tried handmade bronze & iron needles & found I preferred the more common bone & antler types that were in use throughout northern europe a millenium ago. Do you know what the changes in sewing associated with the needles were? I'd be interested to hear about it & I'm sure other people on the list would be interested too. >And none of the above addresses the human element of historical costuming. >We all have 'cultural baggage' we carry inside our heads which determines >how we wear our clothing. This is one of those great un-knowables, it is quite fascinating how one's views of the clothing change when one tries to pursue contemporary activities in it. For instance as mentioned in an earlier thread woolen dresses make a lot more sense when you've cooked over an open fire & had a few sparks alight on them & just go out, where they would have turned many modern dresses into pyres. I'm sure I still have a lot of inaccuracies in our costumes caused by our modern knowledge & assumnptions. Learning more & improving the costumes I make is part of my enjoyment of historical costuming, I've got a sneaking suspicion that if someone handed me a time machine so I could get the definitive answer to all my costuming questions I'd lose interest alltogether! Jennifer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 19:28:25 +1000 From: S.Randles@UTS.Edu.Au (Sarah Randles) Subject: Quilting reference >From: walter@tandem.physics.upenn.edu (KAREN WALTER) >Subject: Renaissance quilts >I believe the Sicilian quilt (actually a set of wall hangings >depicting >the romance of Tristan) is linen, but the wadding is cotton. The >technique is what we would call "trapunto" today. Only the raised >areas >are stuffed, there is no "batt" covering the whole thing. It's >really >cool, I recommend you check it out. There are actually three of these quilts, two of which seem to be made as a pair, or as fragments of one larger piece. (I am working on these and other medieval embroideries showing the Tristan legend for my masters.) The outlines of the chanels to be stuffed (which depict the picture) are sewn in brown thread, which may have been black or red at one stage, and therefore if the design had been drawn directly on to the quilt, it would probably be covered up by the quilting thread. It is not certain that they are bed quilts, as oppose to decorative hangings. A useful reference for the history of quilting is Averil Colby, _Quilting_, Batsford. I can provide more details if anyone wants them. In this she gives some information about early quilted clothing, including the quilted jacks and gambesons, and cites a sixteenth (?) century quilted jacket. I would need to look it up to be sure. Sarah ********************************************************** Sarah Randles S.Randles@uts.edu.au Research Office Telephone: (02)330 1252 University of Technology, Sydney Fax: (02)330 1252 ------------------------------ From: VICKI@lib.uttyl.edu Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 8:12:14 -0600 (CST) Subject: historic costume video Fran mentioned the lack of historic costuming videos. After seeing the "With Grace and Favor" exhibit from the Cincinnati Art Museum, I wrote them and suggested that they produce a video which would look at each item in detail, with a curator explaining construction techniques, fabrics, etc. They wrote me back indicating that they thought it was a good idea, and that they had forwarded it to their education department. I don't know what might come of it, but it didn't hurt to ask. If you saw the exhibit book, you also saw a couple of pages out of a wonderful swatch book kept by a young woman in the mid-19th century mid-west, if I remember correctly. I also suggested that they print that, all in color, but they said that it would be too expensive. Well, you can't win them all. Personally, I am for any and all sources of well-researched information that I can find, in whatever format--the more detailed the better. Vicki Betts University of Texas at Tyler vicki@lib.uttyl.edu ------------------------------ From: "Cindy Abel" Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 10:10:11 CDT Subject: trampunto quilting I am copying for a doll the costume worn by Mary Graham in the Gainsbourgh portrait "The Honourable Mrs. Graham." After some experimentation, I have discovered that the rose-pink petticoat was probably trampunto quilted(Apologies if I got the spelling wrong). Does anyone on the list know of any source materials on this type of quilting--when was it used(as early as the 17th-18th centuries in England or not--and how to do it. I sew by hand so I can do it authentically. Thanks for all help. Cindy Abel Health Sciences Library Creighton University 2500 California Plaza Omaha NE 68178-0400 Phone: 402-280-5144 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 11:48:41 -0500 (EST) From: dbrowne Subject: Re: sources OK, Jennifer who are you and where do you live? Do you compete with these things? Do you have adiquite level awards for them? This sounds like a really neat project. --Kathy B --Katrinn ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 11:50:33 -0500 (EST) From: dbrowne Subject: Re: Quilting reference Yes please give the whole citation and ISBN # if possiable. --Kathy B --Katrinn ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 09:35:19 -0800 (PST) From: Deborah Tarsiewicz - 3528981 Subject: Costume CD-ROM A friend of mine mentioned the other day that she had gotten a packet of info from Thrifty's describing Kodax's CD-ROM services. She says that Kodax can make a CD-ROM for anyone using any material. She seemed to think that the cost is around $1.50 per picture with all pictures used being either in the form of a slide or negative. She didn't mention the cost or procedure for text. However, this might be an option worthy of investigation if there is truly a demand for a CD-ROM of costume. Personally, I think that a resource on costume which can have pictures, text, sound and even live animation is a wonderful idea. Deborah Tarsiewicz Riverside, CA ------------------------------ From: "Pamela C. Rowe" Subject: Elizabethan Costuming book Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 12:32:24 -0600 (CST) > Elizabethan Costuming 1550-1580 > by Janet Winter and Carolyn Savoy > ISBN 0-9630220-0-8 Chivalry Sports P.O. Box 18904 Tucson, AZ 85731-8904 1-800-730-KING inquiries and out of USA 1-602-722-1255 I ordered this book from these people about a year ago for $15.95, catalog # Q-220-0-8. (This data may be out of date.) Hope this helps! Pam -- prowe@us1.msrcnavo.navy.mil ------------------------------ From: "Pamela C. Rowe" Subject: Re: Need Advice on Cleaning Mildew Stains (fwd) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 12:40:59 -0600 (CST) Forwarded message: > Is there something I can put in my closet to absorb moisture? > > It must be going around (all the rain in northern CA?) - I > too discovered just this weekend a few historical creations > of mine with mildew on them, any suggestions? > Loren Dearborn I lived in a mobile home some years ago and was paranoid about mildew. I used a product called "Damp Rid" in my closets to absorb moisture. I found it sold in a couple of places, including Wal-Mart and Eckerd Drugs. I live in the south Louisiana/Mississippi area, so it may be a local product. I always found it in the housewares departments. It is a toxic chemical, but used with care it may be of help. I can give more details in email. Pam -- prowe@us1.msrcnavo.navy.mil ------------------------------ End of Volume 269 -----------------------