Day 10: Visual Source

            As an interpreter in Colonial Williamsburg, I’m in costume every single day. While I sometimes wear my own 18^th century clothing after sending it through the review board, most of the time I wear clothing from my allotment, made by our Costume Design Center. About a month ago, I paired my brown jacket with my blue petticoat, and one of my friends told me that I looked like a painting she knew!

The Chocolate Girl, by Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1745

            Obviously, I looked it up, and the similarities were striking.

            It only took me a moment to decide to replicate the rest of the outfit (and maybe the petticoat and jacket eventually, but not quite yet). The apron would be easy to make, and the cap, while slightly different than other caps that I’d made before, wouldn’t present too much of a challenge.

            For the apron, I was fortunate that I had a length of linen in my sewing stash, so I whipped up a pinner front apron using the portrait and a few other extant garments as my references. I mostly used the apron from Costume Close-Up, although I altered a few of the measurements to make it fit both my body proportions and the look of the portrait better.

            The cap was a bit different, since I had to do some more guess work and a lot more research, but it did come together. You’ve probably already seen my post from Day 2, but if you haven’t you can go back and check it out.

            The final step was to stage a photo shoot in the only place that made sense – the Charlton Coffeehouse! They serve sipping chocolate made using an 18^th century recipe, and so I posed with one of their trays and some china, and the help of a few of my friends.

Day 6: Book Recommendation

            I have a lot of costuming books, and especially historical costuming books. So, choosing a favorite is pretty difficult. However, Fitting and Properstands out to me, being one of my first costuming books, as well as the first book I drafted a pattern from.

            My parents got it for me as a reward for finishing an extra online class ahead of schedule, as well as buying me my first pair of 18^th century shoes. I’ve sewn a gown, mitts, shortgown, and a calash so far from the patterns in the book, and it couldn’t have been easier to follow!

            In a similar vein to The Cut of Women’s Clothes, the book places traced patterns on a grid, so they’re easy to reproduce exactly as they exist in real life, but they can also be sized up or down to fit each individual. The book also provides the thread count for the materials, instructions for the construction, photos of the original garments, and a written history of both the generic idea of the type of garment as well as the extant piece itself.

            I highly recommend this book, especially for those costumers who are just entering the historical costuming world, or anyone who is learning how to draft patterns. And, even if you don’t make anything from it, it’s still a wonderful book to flip through and learn from!

Day 2: Current Project

            I’m seldom in between projects, as I like to keep my hands busy at work! Right now I am whipping up a cap, in order to perfect a look I’ll feature next week. Caps are one of my weaknesses, both in terms of what accessory I always want more of, as well as one of the things I am the worst at constructing. It’s a well-known joke in my circle of reenactor friends that if I’ve worn a cap I’ve sewn twice, it will never be seen again. I usually decide that I hate whatever cap I just made at the end of the first wearing, and after a second day with it, the cap disappears into the box of old reenacting clothing.

            It’s not that there’s anything wrong with my methods – a lot of my caps are replicas of 18^th century ones – but I just don’t like how my head looks in most caps. The ruffles have to be just right, and the body of the cap has to sit at just the right angle with just the right amount of pleating and gathering, and that seldom happens. So, my biggest challenge this time is making something that I actually want to wear!

            I started by looking at lots of caps, looking at primary sources (paintings, extant garments, and patterns/books), as well as modern reproductions and tutorials. When I thought I knew what I wanted, I cut out trial caps out of some scrap linen/cotton blend. There's nothing terribly exact about my methods here, I just measured my head and made some educated guesses, but here's what worked for me:

• The distance from the base of my skull (where the cap will be at its lowest point) to the top of my forehead minus two inches (ish) for the band was 12 inches. This measurement was done over top of my bun, as that's how I will be wearing my hair in this cap.
• The distance from earlobe to earlobe, as measured across the base of my skull, was 10 inches. I added 6 extra inches, to accommodate pleating.
• The distance from earlobe to earlobe, as measured over the top of my head, where a headband would sit, was 16 inches.

Then:

• Cut one half-oval with a base of 16 inches and a height of 12 inches. This works best if you cut on the fold, so it's a base of 8 and a height of 12, and you automatically end up with a symmetrical curve.
• Cut one strip approximately 2.5 inches wide by 16 inches long.
• Finish the flat edge of the oval, one long edge on the band, and both short edges on the band (a whipstitch, backstitch, or even a nice running stitch will do).
• Add 6 pleats to flat edge of oval, finished measurement should be 10 inches long.
• Pleat curve of oval to fit unfinished edge of band, attach band to curve.

That's a pretty basic cap. I whipped that up start to finish during work on Monday, and after work I went to buy some lace.

Right now, I’m working on adding the silk and the lace over top of the body, and finally I’ll be adding the light blue ribbon that’s seen in the painting. Essentially, the lace gets pleated over the band, with a little bit hanging over the edges (I'm using 100% cotton lace from JoAnn Fabrics because I'm not an expert on 18th century lace and I didn't want to spend too much money on this project). The silk (from Burnley and Trowbridge) is cut to the same dimensions as the body of the cap, with an extra 1/2 inch seam allowance to help everything lie nicely. Check back on Day 10 to see how it all turns out!