An Old Woman, the re-enactor version

When I am an old woman I shall wear calico
With a chintz cap that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and crochet lace
And buckled shoes and say we’ve no money for cable
I shall sit down on the front stoop in the summer evenings
And gobble up samples in shops and ring fire bells
And run my stick along public railings
And make up for the modernity of my youth

I shall go out barefoot in the rain
And pick berries from the hillsides
And learn the squeezebox
You can wear six layers of unmatching patterns and be more forthright
And eat a whole basket of peanuts at a go
Or only cornbread and picalilly for a week
And hoard ink pens and sealing wax and teacups and pairs of pockets

Tasha Tudor

One of the hazards of living simply and not having much to do with 'outside things' is that you hear things later than other people. I have just learned that Tasha Tudor died last month, on 20 June. God rest her, beautiful lady. May she be at home in heaven in her 1830s way, with her friends and corgis. She has been a huge influence on my life, a tremendous inspiration.

The following is from her New York Times obituary:

Tasha Tudor, a children’s illustrator whose pastel watercolors and delicately penciled lines depicted an idyllic, old-fashioned vision of the 19th-century way of life she famously pursued — including weaving, spinning, gathering eggs and milking goats — died on Wednesday at her home in Marlboro, Vt.

She was 92, if one counts only the life that began on Aug. 28, 1915. Ms. Tudor frequently said that she was the reincarnation of a sea captain’s wife who lived from 1800 to 1840 or 1842, and that it was this earlier life she was replicating by living so ardently in the past.

Her son Seth confirmed the death. He suggested that his mother’s more colorful remarks might be taken with a pinch of salt.

A cottage industry grew out of Ms. Tudor’s art, which has illustrated nearly 100 books. The family sells greeting cards, prints, plates, aprons, dolls, quilts and more, all in a sentimental, rustic, but still refined style resembling that of Beatrix Potter.

In her promotion of such a definitive lifestyle, Ms. Tudor has been called a 19th-century Martha Stewart. Books, videotapes, magazine articles and television shows illuminated her gardening and housekeeping ideas.

For 70 years her illustrations elicited wide admiration: The New York Times in 1941 said her pictures “have the same fragile beauty of early spring evenings.”

Her drawings, particularly the early ones, often illustrated the almost equally memorable stories she herself wrote. Some details: Sparrow Post, a postal service for dolls with delivery by birds. Birthday parties featuring flotillas of cakes with lighted candles. Mouse Mills catalogs, for ordering dolls clothes made by mice, who take buttons for pay.

The Catholic Library World said in 1971 that Ms. Tudor shed “a special ray of sunshine” with pictures that carry “the imagination of children into history, into the human heart, into the joys of family life, into love of friendship itself.”

Two of Ms. Tudor’s books were named Caldecott Honor Books: “Mother Goose” (1944) and “1 Is One” (1956). Ms. Tudor was just awarded the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association.

But it was her uncompromising immersion in another, less comfortable century that most fascinated people. She wore kerchiefs, hand-knitted sweaters, fitted bodices and flowing skirts, and often went barefoot. She reared her four children in a home without electricity or running water until her youngest turned 5. She raised her own farm animals; turned flax she had grown into clothing; and lived by homespun wisdom: sow root crops on a waning moon, above-ground plants on a waxing one.

“It is healthful to sleep in a featherbed with your nose pointing north,” she said in an interview with The Times in 1977.

Starling Burgess, who later legally changed both her names to Tasha Tudor, was born in Boston to well-connected but not wealthy parents. Her mother, Rosamond Tudor, was a portrait painter, and her father, William Starling Burgess, was a yacht and airplane designer who collaborated with Buckminster Fuller.

Ms. Tudor could not remember a time when she did not draw pictures or make little books. She was originally nicknamed Natasha by her father, after Tolstoy’s heroine in “War and Peace.” This was shortened to Tasha. After her parents divorced when she was 9, Ms. Tudor adopted her mother’s last name.

In an autobiography she wrote in 1951, Ms. Tudor said she did not start school until she was 9, although other biographies say she began as early as 7. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for a year, but said she learned painting from her mother. Her art was often framed by ornate borders like those from a medieval manuscript, but more whimsical.

Partly to protect her from Jazz Age Greenwich Village, where her mother had moved, Ms. Tudor was sent to live with a couple in Connecticut, drama enthusiasts who included children in the plays they put on. She soon developed a love of times past and things rural, going to auctions to buy antique clothing before she was 10. At 15 she used money she had made teaching nursery school to buy her first cow.

In 1938 she married Thomas Leighton McCready Jr., who was in the real estate business. A fiddler played the wedding march. Mr. McCready encouraged his bride to put together a folio of pictures and seek publishers. She was repeatedly turned down before her first published book, “Pumpkin Moonshine” (1938), was accepted by Oxford University Press. It was the start of a flood, many still in print.

Ms. Tudor’s favorite of all her books was “Corgiville Fair,” one of several she wrote about the Welsh corgi dogs she kept as pets, sometimes 13 or 14 at once. Her 1963 illustrated version of “The Secret Garden,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, tells of children enraptured by a mysterious garden. The volume of Clement C. Moore’s “Night Before Christmas” that she illustrated remains popular.

She rebuked those who said she must be enthralled with her own creativity.

“That’s nonsense,” she said. “I’m a commercial artist, and I’ve done my books because I needed to earn my living.”

She and her husband moved to a 19th-century farmhouse in New Hampshire that lacked electricity and running water, but did have 17 rooms and 450 acres. Ms. Tudor painted in the kitchen, in between baking bread and washing dishes. She created a dollhouse with a cast of characters, two of whom were married in a ceremony covered by Life magazine.

Ms. Tudor was divorced from Mr. McCready, who later died, and from a second husband, Allan John Woods. In 1972 she sold the New Hampshire farm and moved onto her property near her son Seth in Marlboro.

In addition to Seth, Ms. Tudor is survived by her daughters Bethany Tudor of West Brattleboro, Vt., and Efner Tudor Holmes of Contoocook, N.H.; another son, Thomas, of Fairfax, Va.; eight grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and her half-sister, Ann Hopps of Camden, Me.

Ms. Tudor, who could play the dulcimer and handle a gun, once promised a reporter for The Times that she could find a four-leaf clover within five minutes and came back with a five-leaf one in four minutes. She kept a seven-leaf clover framed in her room.

She told The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk in 1996 that it was her intention to go straight back to the 1830s after her death.

Rest in Peace, lady.

Boiling Clothes

These last three weeks I have been working on a book (a novel) about plain living in Idyllwild (CA) in the 1970s - it is DONE! huzzah!- and one of the things that came up in it was how to wash clothes when you have no electricity, no hot running water, and no vitreous china bathtub. (I have washed clothes in the bathtub in my college days.) Well, you boil them, a'course! and according to those that know, it gets them cleaner and whiter than anything, even bleach, especially socks and men's shirts (no offence, lads).

Noodling about the net, since I have all kinds of time on my hands now... I came across this conversation over at A Purposed Life:

Do you boil your clothes? Silly me, I know how ridiculous that sounds, you are probably thinking, "Are you crazy, I slap them into the front loader, sprinkle a little soap and walk away!" Well, normally I do too, but occasionally that doesn't work for me!

Around here socks can get REALLY dirty, sometimes dish towels smell sour even after washing and drying, and hubby's pillowcase can still look dingy after washing with bleach! For these hard to clean items, I boil them...really!

I put whatever I'm wanting to sanitize into a huge pot, saved only for this purpose - just wanted to clarify so that I didn't scare our recent dinner guests, and fill with water. When the water reaches a boil I add a cup of OxyClean and the items I'm washing and turn the heat down to medium. I put a top on it and let it return to a boil then I turn the heat down to low and let it go for an hour or two. After the boiling I then toss the clothing into my machine as usual! This typically cleans these items REALLY well and I'm quite pleased with the results. Yes, you will need to stir the clothes around and keep poking them back into the water, and yes the water will be BLECK! but your clothes will be CLEAN. The first time I did this I wanted to rush right out and build a fire, put a black cauldron on top and boil all of my clothes, but I didn't! Oh and just so you know, no, your house won't smell like Christmas doing this, but by golly, your clothes will be SOOO clean!

I have never had a problem with this but I always keep a close eye on whatever I'm boiling because I would hate to tell hubby, "Oh I forgot about the pillowcase I was boiling and burned down the house." That wouldn't be too great of me. Try it, but don't blame me if the house burns down, I told ya to keep an eye on it! =)!

Cherish the Ladies! as the song goes.

Moe's 24

Celestial Seasonings' original herb tea blend, Moe's 24 Herb tea is not made anymore. But I read a story (from the man in question ) about a guy who wanted the recipe to make up some for his wife for their 32nd anniversary, because they drank it when courting. He wrote to wrote to CS asking for the recipe, and they gave it to him.

(What a hubby!Bottle and sell him!)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients: Hibiscus flowers, raspberry leaves, eucalyptus, peppermint, spearmint, strawberry leaves, chamomile, anise, rosehips, alfalfa, rosemary, papaya, blackberry leaves, mullein, comfrey, nettles, golden rod, blueberry leaves, elder flowers, catnip, plantain, sage, yarrow, and red clover tops.

Sweet!

Found

I had an epiphany today, after studying and thinking, and more studying, of styles, my needs, and personality: I can use the fashions of 1910 -1919, in the Arts and Crafts colours which suit me, as an everyday work style that is both artistic and chic.

This happened, prosaically, as I was driving home from work, out in the Avenues, and saw someone wearing a jacket that was ivory and scarlet (I think it was a windproof, but no matter.) Now I can work things out, marrying artistry, detail and colour in clothing that is attractive, appropriate and timeless.

It does amuse me that it is the '10s I have gravitated toward; it is a decade I know well. I honestly thought the choice would end up being the 1930s and early '40s. But I want more coverage.

Marquise Cut

I have spent almost the whole day working on a toile for myself. I figured, since I have to get a pattern for one anyway for a client of mine and haven't had a new one in ages, it seemed a good idea. I got a size 10, because that's all there was (and no prob for the client, because I know how to draft patterns, I just was too lazy to start completely from scratch), figuring, okay I'll enlarge it. (According to the common wisdom of 'buy by your bust size' I should be wearing a 16. Even with Nancy Zieman's buy 'by your front chest width measure', it should have been a 12.) Well, I had to enlarge the bust only and had to actually take in both the back and front upper chest and shoulders a LOT. And the waist, but I'm used to that. Thing is, this is supposed to be a fitting pattern - it's supposed to have NO ease. Obviously, it had a lot, because I took off four inches' width front and back. Heck!

So I'm standing there thinking, 'man, I have to move these front darts or I'll look like Jane Russell', and I had a flash of my mother. She made her wedding dress, a scrummy ivory faille Jackie Kennedy suit that fit me like a glove when I was the same age she was when she got married (I wore it for several swank occasions). Woo, scary. But, she had to do this too. All this fiddling. It was very sweet, a very tangible link, like her dress.

Then I thought, hey, I don't have so awful a figure! (It's been ages since I've bought a Big Four commercial pattern for me that wasn't a costume 'cause most of them are very boring, WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE PRINCESS @£$%!! SEAMS?! Ahem. I digress.

So, I only got the actual bodice fitted, I have yet to do sleeves and (yikes) straight skirt - that sort of Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot 'sewn onto you' type, in which I look horrible. Let's EMPHASISE my WORST FEATURE! HERE IT IS BOYS, LOOK AT THEM HIPS. yah. sure. But I will do it because it gives me a template for other things and then I don't have to alter every pattern every time; I can simply lay this one on top and bob's your uncle.

I've been trying to figure what a woman of my age and figure, job and number of grown children should be wearing, but the only rules I have are about 100 years old (I am not joking) - and stuff in catalogues is A-W-F-U-L, and shops aren't much better. I can look like a frump, an old hippie/folkie, or like I'm wearing the patio tablecloth. Gee which shall I pick? I pick Olivia deHavilland! or Vivien Leigh, Elsa Lancaster, or Myrna Loy or Maureen O'Hara anyone in any film before 1960. I can't pick the Queen Mum; I look ghastly in pastels, and forget ginormous flowers. Maybe I could pick the Queen Mum when she was Duchess of York. Anyway, the straight PRINCESS CUT sold colour dress is out. So are elastic waist trousers. Even if I wore trousers.

My friend Mrs. Washington (Mary Wiseman that is) wears beautiful ethnic print clothes with modern jewellery. About as far flung from Lady Washington as possible. But she always looks smashing.

I'll find what I'm looking for. Meanwhile, I'll stick to my vintage Laura Ashley.

Going Pear-Shaped

I am making a sloper for a dear friend of mine, for some yummy scrummy 1920s garments. Among the questions I have asked (after securing measurements in 72 different places) are the following, which she probably has never considered before (most people wearing RTW and taking what they get):

1) Ease -There is, now, at least 2" of 'ease' in patterns, if not more. This is too much for my taste (the vintage Laura Ashley I am wearing at the mo has 1" and that's plenty). How much ease do you like in your clothing?

2) Armscyes (holes) -they are cut very big now (I liked Tom Wolfe's comment that on mens' suits they were the size of the Holland Tunnel!)I like a smaller armscye for ease of movement and line (everything before about 1968 had smaller armscyes.) What do you prefer? (NB, if they are too big, they restrict arm movement, unless the garment is VERY loose-fitting.)

3) Shoulder pads -From the 1940s to now, I hate them, and remove them from patterns or garments (where possible). Do you like them? If so, what size?

4) Fastenings -personally, I HATE zippers, and prefer buttons, hooks and eyes, snaps, or ties. How do you feel about them? If you like them where do you prefer them - back or side?

Of buttoning garments - almost any back-fastening garment can be changed to fasten
in the front, side front or shoulder/side. Do you like back buttoning things? If you like back buttoning things and they are a pain, a zip or hooks or snaps can be put in the side (the LA I am wearing right now has this.)

Because I also have some - ahem - middle aged figure changes, I am making a new sloper for myself. Some problems remain: I have a 'classic British figure' and have always been short-waisted (2 full inches from commercial patterns and RTW!) and had a short waist to full hip ratio; I have always had narrower shoulders and a smaller upper chest than patterns and RTW. But now everything sits (or falls) differently, and unless I wear my half-boned corset, I am hopelessly squashy, which I hate. Ah Collagen! No amount of exercise will bring that back.... But I digress.

Anyway, in remeasuring self, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I am pear-shaped. Now, when I weighted 105 pounds this was not noticeable. 30 years and pounds and three children later, it is. 'Hourglass' I can deal with. 'Edwardian' is preferable. But 'pear-shaped' has terrible connotations; it means something really rather hopelessly bad across the Pond in Blighty. I am not 'zaftig' and probaby never will be, but my ancestors (Scots-Irish and 'five-feet tall' Welsh) are showing. If I could I would simply wear period clothing, which solves most of these problems, but I have to function in the workaday world. I can get away with 1920s-40s (and do) but by 'period' I mean anything before that.

I realised, in writing the questions to my friend, that all of my clothing preferences come from period clothing. All of them. I suppose that could be charming, but it certainly makes me an odd duck.

Nothing else to do but waddle along, pear-shaped and glory in being a femme Celtic lass.

Clothes make the Man

In the midst of refurbishing some old things (including old pattern ideas and ancient methods of stitching) and making new, I came across the following in an article by Tom Wolfe in the New York Herald Tribune's Sunday magazine "in 1963, '64, or '65":

Real buttonholes. That's it! A man can take his thumb and forefinger and unbutton his sleeve at the wrist because this kind of suit has real buttonholes there. Tom, boy, it's terrible. Once you know about it, you start seeing it. All the time! There are just two classes of men in the world, men with suits whose buttons are just sewn onto the sleeve, just some kind of cheapie decoration, or—yes!—men who can unbutton the sleeve at the wrist because they have real buttonholes and the sleeve really buttons up. Fascinating! My friend Ross, a Good Guy, thirty-two years old, a lawyer Downtown with a good head of Scotch-Irish hair, the kind that grows right, unlike lower-class hair, is sitting in his corner on East 81st St., in his Thonet chair, with the Flemish brocade cushion on it, amid his books, sets of Thackeray, Hazlitt, Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, Cardinal Newman, and other studs of the rhetoric game, amid his prints, which are mostly Gavarni, since all the other young lawyers have Daumiers or these cute muvvas by "Spy," or whatever it is, which everybody keeps laying on thatchy-haired young lawyers at Christmas—Ross is sitting among all these good tawny, smoke-cured props drinking the latest thing somebody put him onto, port, and beginning to talk about coats with real buttonholes at the sleeves. What a taboo smirk on his face!

..."I want to tell you a funny thing," he says. "The first time I had any idea about this whole business of the buttonholes was a couple of Christmases ago, one Saturday, when I ran into Sturges at Dunhill's." Dunhill the tobacco shop. Sturges is a young partner in Ross's firm on Wall Street. Ross idealizes Sturges. Ross stopped carrying an attaché case, for example, because Sturges kept referring to attaché cases as leather lunch pails. Sturges is always saying something like "You know who I saw yesterday? Stolz. There he was, walking along Exchange Place with his leather lunch pail, the poor bastard." Anyway, Ross says he ran into Sturges in Dunhill's. "He was trying to get some girl a briar pipe for Christmas or some damn thing." That Sturges! "Anyway, I had just bought a cheviot tweed suit, kind of Lovat-colored—you know, off the rack—actually it was a pretty good-looking suit. So Sturges comes over and he says, 'Well, old Ross has some new togs,' or something like that. Then he says, 'Let me see something,' and he takes the sleeve and starts monkeying around with the buttons. Then he says, 'Nice suit,' but he says it in a very half-hearted way. Then he goes off to talk to one of those scientific slenderellas he always has hanging around. So I went over to him and said, 'What was all that business with the buttons?' And he said, 'Well, I thought maybe you had it custom made.' He said it in a way like it was now pretty goddamned clear it wasn't custom made. Then he showed me his suit—it was a window-pane check, have you ever seen one of those?—he showed me his suit, the sleeve, and his suit had buttonholes on the sleeve. It was custom made. He showed me how he could unbutton it. Just like this. The girl wondered what the hell was going on. She stood there with one hip cocked, watching him undo a button on his sleeve. Then I looked at mine and the buttons were just sewn on. You know?" And you want to know something? That really got to old Ross. He practically couldn't wear that suit anymore. All right, it's ridiculous. He probably shouldn't even be confessing all this. It's embarrassing. And—the taboo smirk!

Yes! The lid was off, and poor old Ross was already hooked on the secret vice of the Big men in New York: custom tailoring and the mania for the marginal differences that go into it. Practically all the most powerful men in New York, especially on Wall Street, the people in investment houses, banks and law firms, the politicians, especially Brooklyn Democrats, for some reason, outstanding dandies, those fellows, the blue-chip culturati, the major museum directors and publishers, the kind who sit in offices with antique textile shades—practically all of these men are fanatical about the marginal differences that go into custom tailoring. They are almost like a secret club insignia for them. And yet it is a taboo subject. They won't talk about it. They don't want it known that they even care about it. But all the time they have this fanatical eye, more fanatical than a woman's, about the whole thing and even grade men by it. The worst jerks, as far as they are concerned—and people can lose out on jobs, promotions, the whole can of worms, because of this—are men who have dumped a lot of money, time and care into buying ready-made clothes from some Englishy dry goods shop on Madison Avenue with the belief that they are really "building fine wardrobes." Such men are considered to be bush leaguers, turkeys and wet smacks, the kind of men who tote the leather lunch pail home at night and look forward to having a drink and playing with the baby.

...The secret vice! A whole new universe! Buttonholes! The manufacturers can't make ready-made suits with permanent buttonholes on the sleeves. The principle of ready-made clothes is that each suit on the rack can be made to fit about four different shapes of men. They make the sleeves long and then the store has a tailor, an unintelligible little man who does alterations, chop them off to fit men with shorter arms and move the buttons up.

And suddenly Ross found that as soon as you noticed this much, you started noticing the rest of it. Yes! The scyes, for example. The scyes! Imagine somebody like Ross knowing all this esoteric terminology. Ross is a good old boy, for godsake. The scyes! The scyes are the armholes in a coat. In ready-made clothes, they make the armholes about the size of the Holland Tunnel. Anybody can get in these coats. Jim Bradford, the former heavyweight weight-lifting champion, who has arms the size of a Chapman Valve fire hydrant, can put on the same coat as some poor bastard who is mooning away the afternoon at IBM shuffling memos and dreaming of going home and having a drink and playing with the baby. Naturally, for everybody but Jim Bradford, this coat is loose and looks sloppy, as you can imagine. That's why custom-made suits have high armholes; because they fit them to a man's own particular shoulder and arm. And then all these other little details. In Ross's league, Wall Street, practically all of these details follow the lead of English tailoring. The waist: the suits go in at the waist, they're fitted, instead of having a straight line, like the Ivy League look. This Ivy League look was great for the ready-made manufacturers. They just turned out simple bags and everybody was wearing them. The lapels: in the custom-made suits they're wider and have more "belly," meaning more of a curve or flared-out look along the outer edge. The collar: the collar of the coat fits close to the neck—half the time in ready-made suits it sits away from the neck, because it was made big to fit all kinds. The tailor-made suit fits closer and the collar itself will have a curve in it where it comes up to the notch. The sleeves: the sleeves are narrower and are slightly tapered down to the wrists. Usually, there are four buttons, sometimes three, and they really button and unbutton. The shoulders are padded to give the coat shape; "natural shoulders" are for turkeys and wet smacks. The vents: often the coat will have side vents or no vents, instead of center vents, and the vents will be deeper than in a ready-made suit.

...You walk into a room and you can't tell whether somebody has real buttonholes on his sleeves or not. All of these marginal differences are like that. They're so small, they're practically invisible. All right! That's what's so maniacal about it. In women's clothes, whole styles change from year to year. They have new "silhouettes," waists and hems go up and down, collars go in and out, breasts blossom out and disappear; you can follow it. But in men's clothes there have only been two style changes in this century, and one of them was so esoteric, it's hard for a tailor to explain it without a diagram. It had to do with eliminating a breast seam and substituting something called a "dart." That happened about 1913. The other thing was the introduction of pleats in pants about 1922. Lapels and pants leg widths have been cut down some, but most of the flashy stuff in lapels and pants goes on in ready-made suits, because the manufacturers are naturally hustling to promote style changes and make a buck. In custom-made suits, at least among tailors in the English tradition, there have really been no changes for fifty years. The whole thing is in the marginal differences—things that show that you spent more money and had servitors in there cutting and sewing like madmen and working away just for you. Status! Yes!

Yes, and how can these so-called Big men really get obsessed with something like this? God only knows. Maybe these things happen the way they happened to Lyndon Johnson, Our President. Mr. Johnson was campaigning with John Kennedy in 1960, and he had to look at Kennedy's clothes and then look at his own clothes, and then he must have said to himself, in his winning, pastoral way, Great Hairy Ned on the mountaintop, my clothes look like Iron Boy overalls. Yus, muh cluths look luk Irun Bouy uvverulls. Now this Kennedy, he had most of his clothes made by tailors in England. Anyway, however it came about, one day in December, 1960, after the election, if one need edit, Lyndon Johnson, the salt of the good earth of Austin, Texas, turned up on Savile Row in London, England, and walked into the firm of Carr, Son & Woor. He said he wanted six suits, and the instructions he gave were: "I want to look like a British diplomat." Lyndon Johnson! Like a British diplomat! You can look it up. Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States, Benefactor of the Po', Lion of NATO, Defender of the Faith of Our Fathers, Steward of Peace in Our Times, Falconer of Our Sly Asiatic Enemies, Leader of the Free World—is soft on real buttonholes! And I had wondered about Ross.

The Perfect Cap

For everyday wear, for me.






http://www.modehistorique.com/ elizabethan/coif.html
http://www.modehistorique.com/elizabethan/images/hoods/coif1.jpg

Of course it is Elizabethan, what else? (rolls eyes)

There is also this, actually. Jacobean (there we go again!)

http://www.extremecostuming.com/articles/howtowearthecoif.html

which shows at the bottom of the page how to wear a coif with a forehead cloth. The author of this site is a re-enactor at Jamestown, which was literally down the road from me at Williamsburg (I lived in an unincorporated section of James City Co., off the Jamestown Road.)

I could get very elaborate with embroidery (OMG! yes) but probably shouldn't.

Anyway, I'm happy.

Turned Dresses

I have been given the wonderful gift of a ticket to visit friends on the east coast in August (they all pitched in for it - like a rent party!) - I am delighted, except that I realised I have no clothes for Virginia in the summer. Now, it is long enough away that I could make some things, but as 'we is pore' and I otherwise have no need of dresses to survive Virginia in August, I decided I would remake some old dresses of my daughter's.

Yes, you read that right - hand-me-downs from my daughter. When she was ten, no less! She is now eighteen. She outgrew two calico shifts I made for her (princess cut, short sleeves) rather quickly. I put them by, and use one of them for a nightgown in extremis, when all else is in the wash. But I swim in them. At age ten my darling girl was half a head taller than me and about a size larger. So, I decided to cut these at about the 1830s waist level, slightly raised, refit the bodices, and sew them back together. Voila! ankle length cotton dresses to live down on the farm in Albemarle for a week.

As I was picking the bodices apart, I thought of the old custom of remaking and turning clothes. Also of what a wasteful society we live in. How many times have I seen genuinely old clothes - Elizabeth, Jacobean, Georgian, Victorian - that have been recut, remade, turned and retrimmed until they are unwearable - then saved because they are old. Fabric used to be much more expensive than it is now (and good stuffs are not cheap now, either), and people did not waste it. If the clothes could no longer be made useful for a child or baby, they were cut up to put into a quilt. There are famous stories during the American Civil War of 'twice turned dresses' in the beleaguerd South (I make no bones that my sympathies lie in Virginia), and during the Second World War on both sides of the pond remaking things was the manner of the day, with clothing rationing and new fabric unobtainable.

There is something very pleasant about getting something new out of something old, apart from the thrill of thrift. It is as much a gift as that magical plane ticket sent to me by my friends.

Here's to old ways and old days.

Haying

I have discovered that my very own local hardware shop has 'grass whips' - otherwise known as scythes - and they are inexpensive. I have wanted something non motorised for ever, and was inspired by friend Susanna's tales of cutting grass with a scythe; a much more leisurely affair that I can engage in at the end of a day's work, as compared to the smelly, difficult, noisy and messy hauling out of the mower at the weekend. The mower gives me blisters and sore arms, as it must weigh as much as I do. My other option was a push mower, but this is much more friendly, in so many ways.

I can think of several songs to sing while working, mostly very old - the Mingulay Boat Song and Oro Se Do Beata Bhaile, among which. I confess to a romantic image in my mind from Tess of the D'urbervilles. Canna help it.

Huzzah!

Au Naturelle

Before I cut my hair two years ago I used to henna it; naively, I used only red henna and didn't know I could add other things to it to change it from a very orange colour to my natural red-gold, so for a few years, I had really technicolour hair. This was fine as I was wearing vintage clothing and it 'matched.' I could only leave it on my hair for about five or ten minutes, and even that was pretty strong.

But when I cut my hair, donating the 27" to Locks of Love, I gave up on all that. I had found some Marigolde Blonde henna (cassia, chammomile and calendula) and thought to 'fade to blonde' as I have about 30% 'grey' (it's white, actually), but I could never get it to work, even leaving it on for an hour. I was annoyed because it worked when added to the mix of a brunette friend of mine (half and half with red henna) to cover her grey. What was wrong with me? I know that natural red hair doesn't take dye very well, but this is henna! and red henna takes on my hair like a house on fire.

Then I read that cassia, so called neutral henna, needs something to stick to, so add some red. Being really depresed by beige hair, or sandy, if you prefer (which is what my red had faded to, as most natural redheads) I thought I would try again. It worked. I have something very close to my natural colour now, with 'strawberry blonde' streaks where my white is. I am happy that I can use this formula forever with progressivly less red (it's only a tablespoonfull now) and fade to blonde. I also read that the dye in cassia (which is pale gold) releases better if it's let to sit overnight, which may be why my first attempts were unsuccessful.

For those of you who are not redheads, you can mix red henna with indigo and cassia to achieve shades from light brown to black. If you are a cool blonde or brunette, add amla (this fixes the problem of henna reducing natural curl as well.)

Some recipes below:

Pale gold (to lighter colours and white)- 100% cassia
Marigold Blonde- 1/3 henna, 2/3 cassia
Copper- ½ henna, ½ cassia
Red- 100% henna
Light Brown- 2/3 henna. 1/3 indigo
Medium Brown- ½ henna, ½ indigo
Burgundy- 2/3 henna, 1/3 indigo
Mahogany- 1/3 henna, 2/3 indigo
Sherry- ¼ henna, 3/4 indigo
Black- two step henna, indigo process

Update 6 October 2010:
I am now using a mixture of marigold blonde henna (cassia, chammomile and marigold) and rhubarb, mostly the latter, so my hair is much more gold than red. Now people call me a strawberry blonde, and I agree with them.

1926—The New-Way Course in Fashionable Clothes-Making

A fascinating piece of vintage advice to the dressmaker, from Vintage Sewing.Info:

1926—The New-Way Course in Fashionable Clothes-Making
Lesson 56—Seasons and Sidelines

The good seasons—and the bad
Suggestions for the Christmas season Other sideline suggestions Maternity clothes Underwear and lingerie Children's clothes

The Good Seasons—and the Bad
In dressmaking, more than in any other business, a great deal is dependent upon the seasons. Spring and fall are excellent seasons; there is a good volume of business during the summer and winter. But in-between these seasons there are dull periods when the business slacks—and when the shop owner loses money unless she is clever.

Being clever means simply availing the dull seasons for other purposes than dressmaking. There are many profitable side-lines ideal for the dull season, that make up for the loss in business. We will take this up later in the lesson, studying each "side line" individually.

A great many dressmakers find that the quickest way to success is through specialization. One dressmaker we have in mind, for instance, specializes in dresses for girls who are graduating from school. She has an excellent reputation for making pretty dresses of this kind—but you can readily see her business is limited to the seasons when girls graduate. She has solved the problem by making trousseaux and mourning clothes between seasons, and has built up quite a profitable volume of business with this side-line.

While we are on the subject of specialization, it will not be amiss to mention that is as an ideal way to build up a reputation for the shop. If you can make evening gowns better than anything else, specialize in that. If you like to make tailored clothes, make that your specialty. Whatever you can do best, specialize in—and let your friends, acquaintances and customers know that you are specializing in it. Then make all other phases of the business "side lines" which simply pad out your earnings and keep your business progressing.

One of the greatest assets in business is knowing what people want. Some people know this instinctively, but the majority of people have to learn from actual experience and study the things their customers like. When you know what people want, give it to them, and you will find that your business is taking care of itself. It is only when you try to sell people something they don't want, that your business begins to suffer.

There is a knack to "sizing" people up. Some dressmakers can judge, as soon as a customer enters the shop, whether she wants something original, distinctive and different, or whether she prefers something plain and conventional. She can tell the customers who like the extreme, and customers who like the simple. By "sizing" up the customer in this way, she is able to show her only what she knows will please and satisfy her, rather than something through the complete stock haphazardly in the hope of striking something that will please the customer's fancy.

Suggestions for the Christmas Season
Just as she can make her dull seasons profitable by incorporating "side lines" into her business, the clever dressmaker can make the Christmas holidays doubly profitable by utilizing little odds and ends of novelties that are so appropriate for gifts. There are countless pretty, dainty things that can be made quickly and easily by the woman who is deft with her needle and original in her methods.

There are, for instance, dainty affairs for milady's boudoir—crisp, pretty little things that can be made without much trouble at all—that are, in fact, quite enjoyable to make, and that can be sold at a substantial profit. Flower-trimmed garters are always in demand. Packed neatly in a holly box, they make an excellent gift. The garters should be decorative, daintily trimmed with tiny buds and flowers, all hand made. They may sell from 50¢ to $1.50, depending upon the materials and the amount of time devoted to the sewing. Very elaborate garters may sell for as high as $2.50.

One dressmaker, who enjoys her work and revels in her petty little shop, specializes in boudoir caps for the holiday season. Each year, before Christmas, she has a display of original, attractive boudoir caps in her window. Some are of tulle with ribbon roses; some of net and lace; some cleverly made of ribbon and wire. All are extremely dainty and presentable, and when packed in attractive little boxes make most delightful gifts. Boudoir caps range in price from 75¢ to $5.00.

Some dressmakers like to make dainty bows for lingerie, others like to make boudoir slippers of satin ribbon, trimmed with shirrings and bows. Many find interest—and incidentally, fine profit—in making bags. Attractive bits of material can be transformed into exquisite handbags that can be sold for high prices at Christmas time. For instance, an opera bag with an embroidered motif and bead fringe can be made easily from left-overs, yet will bring as much as $5.00 or $7.00 at Christmas time. A dainty little bag for a powder puff can be made in a half-hour from a bit of left-over satin or taffeta, and can be sold for 50¢ or 75¢. And there are nay number of velvet bags, overnight bags, embroidery bags, workbags, fancy bags that can be made and sold profitably at the Christmas season.

It makes no difference whether you have a shop or just a room in your home—you can utilize your space, time, and your ends of material to great advantage. Many dressmakers who start small increase their business by selling novelties such as these not only at Christmas, but all year round.

Other Side-Line Suggestions
If you love to make pretty, dainty things for children, if you enjoy handling fine laces and embroideries, you should by all means choose the making of baby things for your Christmas trade. In fact, you can make this a regular side-line and incorporate it as a special department of your regular business.

It's fun making tiny baby shoes, dainty little caps, exquisite little baby dresses, fancy boudoir ornaments for baby's safety pins, etc. Why, there's no end to the degree in which you can allow your fancy to wander! The more original you are, the prettier your creations will be. And no matter how low your prices are, you will always make a substantial profit, for the materials you use are left-overs.

Among other things, you can make hand-painted coat hangers for the infant's little dresses, rattles with handsome ribbon bows, little trinket boxes, safety pin holders, holders for bonnets, bibs, etc. These charming little novelties are very simple to copy, and always have an instant appeal to customers. Your workers can be kept busy during the dull seasons making them, and you can have a good supply ready by Christmas time to meet the demands.

It is also interesting and profitable to make, from larger pieces of material, decorative handkerchief bags for the dressing table, sewing bags, aprons, hat-pin holders, decorative dolls for the boudoir, etc. Some dressmakers even make distinctive handkerchiefs for the holiday season, and some like to make miniature hat-boxes for vanity flowers. A lamb's wool slipper sole, decorated solely with a cluster bow or satin ribbon, costs only about 30¢ but can be sold for 74¢ or $1.00.

And so we could go on endlessly, giving you suggestions for sidelines that you will not only enjoy but that will add to your profits and bring you many new customers. You must be alert, progressive, constantly watchful for new ideas and new money-making schemes. As soon as you stop progressing, your business deteriorates. It cannot stand still. It goes either forward or backward. Is your shop going to go forward? It's entirely up to you, you know.

Maternity Clothes
One of the most profitable side-lines for dressmakers is maternity clothes. There is a constant demand for cloths that are smart, modish, attractive—and comfortable—and prospective mothers are glad to pay whatever you ask providing you give them the kind of dresses in which they will feel comfortable and inconspicuous.

However, not everyone can make attractive maternity clothes. A lesson in the Course deals thoroughly with this subject, and if you study it carefully you will be able to make the kind of clothes your customers will appreciate. But do not make the mistake of trying to sell maternity clothes that are not correct, for in this way you will make one sale and lose your customer. The problem is to keep the customer and to do this you must give real service.

Making clothes for mourning is also profitable but not quite so much so as maternity clothes. Mourning clothes should be dignified, sombre, but with smart lines and made in good taste. Trousseaux are interesting to make, and extremely profitable. Some dressmakers specialize in outfitting the bride-to-be, but we do not advise this unless you are particularly deft and clever in the art of making bridal finery. If you are, make it the specialty department of your shop.

Underwear and Lingerie
If your shop is large enough to warrant it, and if you want to have a big, all-year-round business, it is profitable to incorporate an underwear and lingerie department. You may make the garments yourself, purchase them ready-made, or have your workers make them during the dull seasons. The first plan is the best, as you will be able to make underwear that is different, individual—and you will be able to charge higher prices for them.

At Christmas, Easter and other holiday seasons a good line of underwear and lingerie proves valuable in keeping the business going smoothly, instead of having the income decrease as it would ordinarily in the dull season. It is wise to have neat boxes for the underthings, with your name printed on them. Step-ins, chemises, vests, camisoles and bloomers are excellent sellers, especially when they are cleverly made with edgings and insertions of lace, fine tuckings and plaitings, dainty bows and hemstitching. Many of your regular dress customers will be glad to purchase dainty underthings of you, if you sell them reasonably enough. And you really should be able to sell them reasonably, as they cost you only what the materials alone cost—and if you purchase wisely the materials should cost you very little.

Children's Clothes
A particularly profitable branch of specialization is children's clothes. Not only is it profitable but it is extremely enjoyable, especially if one enjoys making dainty little rompers, play suits, dresses and petticoats for the youngsters.

A fine knowledge of machine sewing, a knack for making the unexpected and the original, help considerably in making the kind of kiddie's clothes that women will be glad to buy and pay good prices for. Women always like to dress their children attractively and differently and they will be glad to pay your prices if you can give them what they want.

Children's clothes can be made to order, or can be made in quantity to sell as ready-made clothes are sold. But in either case, the dressmaker should be sure the sizes are absolutely correct—that the four-year old size will fit a four-year old girl—for in children's clothes size is very important.

An attractive dressmaking shop, correctly run, is as interesting and enjoyable as it is profitable. Take pride in your shop, keep it attractive and up to date, and you will find pleasure in it. If at any time you meet some unexpected problem that is not solved for you in the pages of this book, if you feel the need of expert help or advice, do not hesitate to write to your teachers at the School of Modern Dress. They will always be glad to help you.

Zips

Since I began sewing at age 12 I have hated zips. I hate wearing them, I hate sewing them, I hate repairing them. I have gone to great lengths to avoid them, using buttons, snaps, hooks and loops. Anything. However, in some garments, such as my daughter's prom dresses, they are unavoidable (because she hates snaps, etc). So these two years running I have wrestled with the infernal things in couture fabrics, most displeased. The whole garment looks fab until you sew in that blasted zip, and then the back or side is all wavy, hard, wonky. So I curse the 1920s for once, and the advent of the zip (at least theirs were metal and not stupid plastic.)


And now I discover, some thrity-odd years on, that I could have hand-sewn them to a much better effect when they were unavoidable. In fact, in couture wedding gowns (the costing in the tens of thousands varieties) they are de rigeur.

Jolly good.

All this came about because I was thinking today of putting on the last trimming on my daughter's latest killer prom dress. I left it off becasue I did not want to run it into the zip. Why should this be so hard (Whinge whinge). After all Sandy Irvine, who climbed Everest with Mallory, sewed zips into his pockets himself, by hand, in 1923 (or, rather, his grilfriend probably did.)

so here it is ladies, the how-to of handsewn zips, courtesy of Taunton Press:
A hand-picked, or hand-sewn, zipper is sturdy and easy to master. It doesn't distort or pucker, is great for heavily embellished or delicate fabrics, and -- best of all -- calls attention to your handiwork.

1. Stabilize the zipper area with a strip of silk organza, chiffon crepe de chine or non-stretch, fusible interfacing. This prevents distorting and rippling over time. Gently tack in place along the foldline.

2. Pin the closed zipper in place from the garment's right side. Starting at the zipper's upper right-hand side, center the folded edge of the fabric over the zipper pull and teeth. Lower the tape at the top to accommodate the pull; it will look right if you keep the stitches at an even distance from the fabric's folded edge.

3. Sew with a doubled thread. Starting at the top of the tape, stitch the zipper (unzipped) with a prickstitch on the fabric's right side. A prickstitch is a variation on the backstitch where you backtrack only slightly. The goal is to just barely see a bead of thread at each stitch. Stitches spaced 3/8 inch apart and from the zipper's opening work well.


4. Make a stitch just below the open seam of the zipper and tie a knot; stitching across the zipper's base is unnecessary and only invites puckers. Next, stitch the zipper's other side. Start at the bottom left of the zipper and sew to the top. It's common to find a slight mismatch of the two zipper tape sides at the top edges, but it's easy to mask with the waistband or facing. If the mismatch is more than slight (if the fabric is distorted), take out your stitches and restitch.

Overheard in the Blogsphere

'A Cork accent is one of the most horrific sounds that can be inflicted upon the human ear. It's right up there with Welsh.'

-er, right. This made me laugh because it was written by a Galwegian, and I have family in both places (Cork and Galway) and I also speak Welsh, but I know that yer man means the Welsh accent in English.

It reminds me of a true story that happened to my husband, who when in Wales as a young man was talking to an ould fella, asking directions if memory serves, and couldn't understand a blind word he was saying, and asked him to speak English, not Welsh, to which yer man replied (listen, sing-song)
'I'm not speaking Welsh!'

All my wee anes are awa to Ireland this summer for a holiday, so I have been loading them up on such sallies. My eldest, Lord Flasheart, was last there on a pubcrawl with cousins and friends a couple of years back. My youngest (daht(h)urh) is well aware that she is of legal drinking age there. Musha!

Spinster

I came home this evening to my rabbit, Asphodel, having a long extra tail of loose fur. On the phone to my eldest son just then, I shrieked and rang off, terrified that this was some effect of the possibly uncaught mouse. In the event, his backside was only shedding and he had been grooming himself (although he was not happy with my help at that task.)

I removed more just now, and was reminded on how when I was in Ireland doing fieldwork for my thesis, I collected stray wool off of fences and bog-cotton wherever it occured, and hand-spun it (sans spindle or wheel) in the evenings after the same child above was asleep, talking in the lounge with my hosts at various places.

I learnt spinning on a drop-spindle, that most ancient of implements, but fibres can literally be spun by hand, and in my sewing box is yet a fair (tapestry) size skein of wool from those long ago days. It just seemed natural among the sea birds and clochans of the West of Ireland, when I was a young woman.

When I took up spinning on a wheel it came as the most natural thing in the world. A old folk-memory arose, perhaps due to the brown Hebridean wool I was using. It knitted up beautifully, waterfast in the grease. This homely activity, then and now, brought the old hard traditional life of the Blasket Islands to mind. They were inhabited until the 1950s by an Irish speaking population, at the veriest edge of modernity, but it was a precarious life, in no way romantic, except to one like your humble servant.

Beannachta De'

Hussif

'Hussif' - OED definition: case for needles, thread etc. standard issue to British servicemen until sometime around the 1950s, after which time economies resulted in them having to provide their own. Roughly sewn from a rectangle of fabric, with one pocket, a needle-rest, and calico tape ties, it was nevertheless obviously ideal for its purpose and very long-lived.

When I was in Switzerland, I was hugely impressed by the cleanliness of everything. From farmhouses to therapists houses, they were spotless. No one had servants, and everyone had jobs and pets.

All jokes of late about cleaning like a Dutch housewife made me ponder the habits which full time work has caused me to drop. When I was growing up, dishes were washed immediately after dinner, the floor was swept and bins emptied, before anyone played cards, read a book or did needlework or a jigsaw puzzle. When I was a young mother of three small children under five, I followed the Hints from Heloise (cribbed from Karen Pryor's Nursing Your Baby) about keeping things tidy with little ones: When everyone has gone to work, school or down for a nap, take a paper bag and clear up all the rubbish take; take all items that go into one room into that room; put the breakfast dishes into soak. Take a wad of toilet paper and douse it in alcohol, wiping down the bathroon fixtures. Wash the dishes. sweep the floor.

Sanity. Tidiness - it being necessary to sanity to me, given that my ancestral home was always orderly and spotless, even my mother's sewing room.

So I timed all this, just now: washing up the dishes, tidying, dusting sweeping: for four rooms, it took half and hour. That's less than eight minutes per room. Adjust for your own number of rooms or mounds of dishes accordingly. An Irish friend of mine (wife of Nobel prizewinner) used to add a damp mop of the kitchen to this - another five minutes.

You too can be a Dutch Housewife in less than an hour a day, even while working full time. I'm not saying the place will stay this way (and don't even enter the teenagers' rooms!) but at least you have a lovely house for a few minutes.

Strewth

Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm'd,
rushes strew'd, cobwebs swept, the serving-men in
their new fustian, their white stockings, and
every officer his wedding-garment on?
Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair
without, the carpets laid, and everything in order?
- The Taming of the Shrew.

The mouse crisis apparently over after a mere eight days, I must give credence to the non-toxic methods used to obtain such a miracle. In the first instance, it was only one poor blighter, who came in at the electrical box hole in the kitchen floor (I live in a 1920s house), which greatly cuts down on the headache.

Secondly, Franciscan though I am, I draw the line of humaneness at vermin that cause plague. Suffice it to say that Lady Boyd here has experience enough in other times and places with plague. So I resorted to glue traps, peanut butter, aspirin, running the cleaning cycle on the oven, and, lastly, peppermint oil. Neither hide nor hair nor any other part of mousedom has been seen since. Deo Gratias. Somehow I think that Margaret Boyd, the sister of King James IV of Scotland, would be proud.

Peppermint was in former times a strewing herb - that is, thrown upon the rushes - along with others (rosemary, thyme, wormwood, and rue among which) to discourage vermin of all sorts. These herbs are antiseptic and known vermifuges. Happen you haven't rushes or rush matting or your family object to living in 17th Century splendour, you can use the essential oil of these herbs, dropped upon a candle or other contrivance, to have the same effect.

NB: Rushes can also be made into Brigid's crosses upon the proper season.

God ye go'den

Blodeuedd

Happy May Day to all!
Blodeuedd (meaning 'flower face') is a Persephone type maiden in the Mabinogi. I thought of her today because the prayer for today said, in part 'May the blessing of the Flower Bride...be with me.'

In this merry month of May - Sumer is a cumin in - there is much new activity, working through the much too long winter, germinating in spring, passing along to this bright day. A reorientation of my life to its rootedness: domesticity, crafts, herbs. Look for news of all these here.

A laundry list of works in progress: working on a bespoke kilt for my eldest son, my daughter's prom dress, frillies for self, the victory garden project, Dutch housecleaning, and ridding house of mice by natural means.

My dear friend Salena has suggested writing a book on the above, ala Mrs. Beeton. I am delighted with the idea. It begins here. Send in your recipies and household hints (preferably old)!

Unite and unite, and let us all unite
For summer is a-comin' today
And whither we are going we all will unite
In the merry morning of May

-Padstow, Traditional Cornish