Barossa Goldfields Historical Society Open Day 2013

Yesterday was one of my favourite events of the year, the Barossa Goldfields Historical Society Open Day. Located only 15 minutes from Gawler is Adelaide's own goldfields. Each year at Bowden's Cottage the society holds an open day with demonstrations of steam powered engines, a hand tool wood working display (on previous years also blacksmith displays), damper making, a museum, nature and gold mine bush walks, two person log sawing and gold mining.

This year the invitation was opened up to include the Victoriana Society as well as the Noarlunga Volunteer Rifles/Adelaide Regiment. Nic and Danee were our volunteer riflemen presenting a drill and musket firing display. Unfortunately, our NCO Bob was unable to attend this year due to illness. We all wish him a speedy recovery. Representing the Victoriana Society, Mandi, Jessie and Lynne attended for the first time. Hopefully next year the word will spread and the event will continue to grow. This year they estimated over 200 guests attended the open day, an amazing achievement.

 Jessie enjoying the free damper and tea available to all guests. They make a delicious native berry jam.

 Nic and Danee on parade

 Danee demonstrating the standing firing drill.

 Mandi and Me using a two person saw.

 Nic demonstrating the kneeling firing drill.

 For lunch we went on the nature walk and found a shady spot to have lunch. As we ate, guests walked past to provide entertaining conversations. One of my favourites was a couple that asked what we were reenacting? I responded with 'lunch' and Nic added '150 years ago'. At the completion of lunch we taught Mandi how to play whist.

1830s Dress and Bonnet

About two years ago I started work on my late 1830's dress. I am not overly fond of this time period (being 6 foot tall I do not like to emphasis my height with big puffy shoulders) so I decided to make a dress that is late 1830's by modifying it from the larger earlier sleeve by pleating the top into tacked bands. Anyways, as my heart was not fully into making this dress it took a long time to get around to finally making it. I was mainly prompted to finish it for two events: the anniversary of the birthday of Charles Sturt and for the START children's event for the Turner Exhibition at the Adelaide Art Gallery.

Surprisingly, I had lost about 1" since I made my toile so it fitted with only slight alterations. So I was very happy :-).

These dresses are very easy to construct and fit for people that have prior experience in mid Victorian sewing. The sleeves, however, are a challenge.

 A close up of the bodice. Normally I have Nic to take photos, but he was interstate at the time on a survey.

The bodice is a one piece front with a single dart on each side. The back has hooks and eyes for closure down the CB. It also has SB seems. All of the seems are piped in silk. I chose this for a contrast colour as the fabric is a little too pale for my liking and I was worried about being washed out. I also thought it would help to highlight the features.

 The sleeves that create a lot of drama. These took more time than the rest of the dress put together. I had to pull them apart 3 times to get them to fit. They were made it two pieces. the bottom section and cuff are piped in the silk and lined in plain cotton. The top half of the sleeve is a giant gigot that would normally be a large puffy sleeve. To make the pleats with the fabric required to keep the puff I sectioned the sleeve off and tacked the pleats in place. I then had to make the pleats double in order to ensure it did not pull too much to the front or back (this happened the first time I constructed it, the puff sat to the front and was flat in the back). I then pressed it and hand sewed it in to the armhole. The pressing was important to ensure that the pleats stayed flat as while working on the cross in some sections it was pulling while working down the pleat.  Once it was sewn into the armhole I then hand tacked the sleeve pleats down into the arm bands. The arm bands were just 1 cm wide strips of fabric with silk piping on the sides. Once the gigot sections were in, I then attached the bottom cuffs and whipped the edges to finish them off.

As you can see from this photo of the inside, as long as it looks good on the outside the inside doesn't really matter when you are trying to fit that much fabric into such a small circumference.

 Before I began work on this dress Jessie had given me a matching purple cameo style belt buckle that was the inspiration for my silk colour choice. As I was running late for completing this, the belt was mostly made by Jessie. She is a wonderful help when overwhelmed. 

 The completed dress outside of the Adelaide Art Gallery. I hate how flat the skirt is. I really need more petticoats.

This bonnet I purchased 3 years ago, second hand. It was made for the original 1980's anniversary celebration of our state. The poor bonnet had seen better days. It had a huge tear in the front and was decorated in fluro pink ribbons. The ribbons were the easy part to fix, but I was able to repair the tear as well. I wired the brim and tacked down some shape-well to reinforce the tear. To cover these repairs I had to wire the brim and line the inside to hide the damage. The outside was barely noticeable but I still put a decorative ribbon up over the tear.

 The only visible section of the tear. 

 I am not overly into floral decorations, so I tried to keep it simple with ribbons only. As Jessie offered to tack most of the ribbons down I did give in and let her put a single flower on it.

Anyways these make up two of the challenges for the historical sewing fortnightly.

The Challenge 9# Flora and Fauna - 1836-38 Cotton Dress

Fabric: 100% Printed Cotton

Notions: Cotton string for piping, silk for piping, metal hooks, Vintage Buckle, silk thread
Pattern: None - toiled to my body and the sleeves drafted from Brian Reader's ' Making Costumes of the Eighteen-Thirties'
Year:  1836-38
How historically accurate is it? About 80%, the fabric is natural and printed, there is some machine sewing, construction is similar to dresses in Kay Invererity's original dress collections. (before beginning sewing in 2011, she held a workshop to explore her original garments to gain an understanding of the construction)
Hours to complete: minus the two years sitting on the roll in my wardrobe.... 8 days x 8 hours.... plus extra.... sooo way too many when I should have been working on my ethics proposal.
First worn: 28th April
Total cost: I think the cotton was about $72 and the silk was about $28 and the thread about $5... This is just guess work as I did purchase all of this 2 years ago.

The Challenge 10# Literature - 1830s Straw Bonnet (Inspired by Mrs.Octavia Pole from Cranford)

Fabric: Straw Bonnet form

Notions: Brown Polyester Ribbon, Millinery Wire, Shape-well, Ivory Polyester Satin, Yellow Thread
Pattern: None - I did get inspiration from fashion plates
Year:  1830s
How historically accurate is it? About 50%, the shape of the bonnet is accurate, but I was unable to get around to purchasing non synthetic fabric or ribbon due to time constraints  as as this is not one of my favourite time periods I will probably not change it later.
Hours to complete: about 6 hours
First worn: 28th April by Jessie for Sturt's Birthday and a week later by me at the Art Gallery
Total cost: about $20 for ribbon and fabric

Photo Inspiration

Ps. I am very behind in my posting. This should have been written in March. My honours thesis has been taking a lot of my time and energy at the moment so while I am still sewing, its taking longer and blogging has been sort of put on hold.

Before I met my husband he had purchased 2 CDVs. These were his first inspirations for his non military fashion inspiration.

 "Rose" (taken in England, dated 1865) and an unidentified Gentleman (taken in Adelaide, no date)

The photo of the gentleman has been the inspiration for a brown woolen waistcoat that he made before he met me and grey corduroy trousers that we made together when we first met. As you can imagine there has been a long gap between starting this project and now. For his birthday present this year Nic requested I attempt to make him a sack coat to finish his outfit. As you can imagine my self esteem is still suffering from working on the 1830s coat that still needs sleeves and I have never seen an original sack coat to base my copy on. Therefore I did the best I could to make a copy based on the few photo examples of originals I could find. It is also amazing how detailed CDVs really are. The photo technology captures amazing details that can be viewed through a monocular, something that modern photos can not accomplish.

The completed sack coat.

As I did not have much time to complete it I did not take many photos of the construction. I am also not sure about how "correct" the sewing techniques I used were for this type of coat. I did take photos of the pockets as on checking the photo in detail it had 3 slit pockets (which I hated making, but Nic loves for putting stuff in). The front was lined after this photo was taken.

I know that this was not for the Historical Sewing Challenge, but I still like this information layout.

Fabric: Brown Melton Wool, 100% Cotton Ticking, 100% Cotton for lining, modern horsehair

Pattern: Drafted using patterns from the Victorian Tailor, the Complete Guide to Cutting (1853) and Mens Garments 1830-1900
Year: ca. 1860s
Notions: brown cotton thread, custom metal shanked covered buttons
How historically accurate is it? mehh, maybe 80%... I question my construction understanding without originals to study.
Hours to complete: about a week
First worn: 16th March, for our Victorian Afternoon Tea Party - and he has been wearing it daily since
Total cost: About $70

A Regency Warming Plate

It is common for me to come across late Victorian warming plates and dishes made of silver or silver plate, but I had never seen an earthenware version before. We were shopping in one of our regular antique shops and decided to purchase a mid Victorian European kitchen cupboard. This was not an impulse purchase, as we had actually been looking for one to fit beside our fireplace for a while.

As you can see it fits beautifully in beside the fireplace. These are wonderful as they are used to secure all the plate and silver of value. It has a locked draw on the top and bottom and shelves in the center section.

Anyways in purchasing this cupboard we also spotted an interesting stoneware warming plate. It had just come into the store that morning and was unlabelled. To add to this, Nic is amazing at bargaining and we ended up getting them both for less than their original total price, meaning that plate ended up being free.

On the way home I decided to play archaeologist and Google'd the maker and design. It was made by Rogers & Son in Stafforshire ca. 1820. I believe that this design was only produced from 1815-1825 and was made to celebrate the tour of an Indian Elephant called Chunee at the Covent Garden Theater, in England in 1810. One of the reasons that they may have stopped producing this design around 1825 could be because of the nature of his death.

Exert from Wikipedia
Chunee became dangerously violent towards the end of his life, attributed to an "annual paroxysm" (perhaps his musth) aggravated by a rotten tusk which gave him a bad toothache. On 26 February 1826, while on his usual Sunday walk along the Strand, Chunee ran amok, killing one of his keepers. He became increasingly enraged and difficult to handle over the following days, and it was decided that he was too dangerous to keep. The following Wednesday, 1 March, his keeper tried to feed him poison, but Chunee refused to eat it. Soldiers were summoned from Somerset House to shoot Chunee with their muskets. Kneeling down to the command of his trusted keeper, Chunee was hit by 152 musket balls, but refused to die. Chunee was finished off by a keeper with a harpoon or sword. The floor of his cage was deeply covered with his blood, and it was said that the sound of the elephant in agony was more alarming than the reports of the soldier's guns

More information about this story can be found at this blog.

The plate itself has a beautiful transfer design which is also on the raised base. This place is about 2inchs high and has a reservoir under the plate for warm water. The stoneware warms up quite quickly and can keep food warm for about 20 minutes. Normal hot water from the tap is very effective. It does not require the water to be boiling.

On the underside there is a large and small tube. From what I can work out based on trial and common sense you can pour the water into the larger spout and the shifted air is released from the smaller.

Anyways, we are both very happy in this plate and it's interesting provenance. It is wonderful to have such an amazing piece of everyday functional houseware.

Hand Embroidered Fire Screen

When living in a small cottage it can be hard to protect the complexion from a large open fire. It would easy to just leave the room or move away, but one still wants to keep warm, just not on the face. It could just be my own personal issue, but after an evening of sitting by the fire I find that my face is reddened, my skin feels more taunt and dryer. The solution is a wonderful birthday gift from my husband. While he was on a recent archaeological dig in Launceston, Tasmania, he stumbled across this beautiful hand embroidered personal fire screen in an antique shop. He believes that it dates back to the early to mid Victorian period.

 The fire screen where it is stored (high above where my kittens can not get at it) next to the portrait of the amazing General Garibaldi. The front of the screen is made of blue silk velvet with silk embroidery and silk fringing.

 The screen itself sits on a brass cross that is highly decorated with a section at the bottom made of ivory. The back of the screen is a plain silk taffeta.

The base is very heavy and beautifully decorated.

 When it is placed on a side table in front of the fire place it only shields the heat that radiates upwards, thereby protecting your head from the heat of the flames.

Finally a close up of the embroidery. The screen has been decorated using cross stitch to create a floral design (unfortunately it does not photograph very well). The crosses are actually quite large in size and are definitely hand sewn by someone with developing skills as the stitches are not quite even in all places.

I love this screen and have only seen one other like it and it was in no where near as nice a condition as this one is. I am very grateful to my husband Nic for being so considerate of my needs in this lovely gift. If anyone has any further information to add about the dating or history of fire screens please let me know as I have only just started learning about them. And now I should stop procrastinating over my gifts and get back to my studies.

Victorian Brass Skirt Lifter

I have decided to start blogging about the amazing historical items I find, buy or am given. As last week was my birthday I received some amazing gifts. The first that I am going to share is this gorgeous horse shoe design skirt lifter, which was a gift from my very good friend Sandy.

 

 It is a total of 6 inches long (15 cms) and the horeshoe is 2 inches wide (5 cms)

 The disks at the bottom are not fixed, but rather they spin so that if the fabric is pulled it can rotate or drop about half an inch before it releases it (or creates a tear, this should not happen though)

  It works like a clamp with the horseshoe moving downwards to release the pads at the bottom. The horseshoe is then pulled upwards till it reaches a groove and clamps on the fabric.

This type of skirt lifter was mass produced in the 1870s until the 1890s out of pressed brass. They are also an essential item for any fashionable lady seeking to protect the fabric in the train of her dress. These often have black woven ropes attached to the top that are then either clipped into a belt at the waist (for sports and cycling for more adventurous ladies) or looped around the wrist (for more graceful motions such as dancing).

I would love to find a more specific date for this skirt lifter. However, as it was a mass produced item it fails to have any datable markings. If anyone knows anything about this particular type of skirt lifter please feel free to let me know.

Regards,
Danielle

Early 1860s Leghorn Hat and a Day at Government House

I have been very busy of late working hard on my Honours Literature Review at University. The amount of time and effort required for my studies this semester has left very little time for sewing projects. I have continued with both of my sewing groups, however, one is only two hours a week and the other is an afternoon twice a month. Other than those few hours, I have found little time to sew.

I have also been making a few changes to this blog. After a long discussion with my husband we decided that we not longer liked the name of the blog. We felt that it was simplistic and failed to express our interests and passions in living history. Yes, I used the "L" word. While we are not yet at the standard that we would like to be we do feel that we are no longer just 'costumers'. We live in an 1850s cottage, cook at times on fire (not as much as we would like), we experiment with daily living tasks of the Victorian era and we have a tendency to live in our period clothes. Thankfully, we have very understanding neighbours, who have recently also started bring guests to visit us. Apparently our home looks like a museum. I must say it is strange having people take photos of us in our home. I also hope to add more stories of our experiences and our treasures in this blog.

Anyways, back to sewing. Today we had an event at Government House in Adelaide. As members of the Victoriana Society of SA we are invited to be present at their open days twice a year. It is a nice opportunity to meet and greet both locals and interstate guest. We always have a wonderful, if somewhat tiring day. I had decided to wear my wedding dress, as it was feeling neglected and needed a good airing. Considering how fancy it is, there are not many appropriate events in which to wear it. I wanted to change up the look at little so I decided that I would finally decorate a felt leghorn hat that my husband had purchased for me a while ago. I was delighted to find that I had some wonderful trimmings in my stash that went perfectly with the dress.

 Me wearing it at Government House

As for the event, we decided to have a picnic lunch in style. We took a few of our folding chairs and a folding table to sit under a tree and eat sandwiches and a special cherry pie. It was entertaining having visitors taking photos of us while we enjoyed our repast.

Myself, Lady Dylis Mort, Mrs Ann Lawson and Mrs Sandy DiSessa

 Inside the ballroom

The Challenge 7# Accessorise
Fabric: 100% Wool Felt Hat
Pattern: None - I referred to fashion plates for the trimmings
Year: ca. early 1860s
Notions: pink velvet ribbon, pink flowers, pink silk ribbon, white fabric flowers, wax buds, natural/un-dyed ostrich feather and silk thread to attach the trimmings
How historically accurate is it? About 80%, the velvet ribbon is synthetic and the pink flowers had plastic bases unfortunately
Hours to complete: about 2 hours
First worn: I first wore it today as we were volunteering at the Government House open day, as guests of the Governor.
Total cost: None as the hat was a gift from my loving husband and the notions all came from my stash boxes.