Fisher women 3

extending the saga.

So far-

sketchbook reference page. Pinterest page. Research page, painting page.

jacket put together – poorly back – remedied, unpicked and handsewn.

Skirtless – made! Just requires hem.

Poor copy of Sutcliffe painting – given up on.

2x paintings of costume – done. Not too bad.

2x portraits with costume . Ummm.....

The jacket is quite sweet – still some problems to sort – boning! I began with the plastic boning but it was too wide. Cut it in half and it becomes angry and then aggressive. Instead of a jacket with some boning it was some boning with a jacket. I've tried various substitutes but it is not quite right. There is some semi rigid plastic packaging to try but opening the packaging will mean putting up the roller blind that's in it so I'm hoping for another idea to arrive. Once boning issue is sorted then it can be hemmed. Fastenings are the usual headache. The original had 12 self covered buttons down the front. Getting small buttons is a pain. The small ones tend to be very thick in proportion to their size so still need larger buttonholes and I promised never to go near the small cover buttons ever again for sanity's sake. The centre front will end up all buttonhole. A solution would be to cheat – blind buttons with hooks and eyes inside. Not happy about this but..... I have some 10mm fake mother of pearl 4 hole ones that might do.

I do like the jacket and skirt together, the jacket just comes down over the skirt waistband at the sides with the front and back points fitting snugly over the pleating. The fullness of the skirt is giving Gwendoline a softer, curvier  shape. She does look shoulder heavy from the front but the back is flattering.

Some evil thought drifted by and I ended up mixing a self portrait with found images. Trying to paint while wearing a scratchy wool shawl was not fun. Another problem was that when concentrating I frown and pull faces – this comes across in both paintings. Smile dear!

 

Things to be done -  Try last ditch boning solution or discard idea.

Fastenings on centre front and cuffs.

Finish hem on jacket and skirt.

Try self portrait without looking somewhere between rejected spaniel and mad axe murderess.

 

 

Distractions -  Bought a copy of Nancy Bradbury's book and have spent hours matching drawings to photos of extant garments from the National Trust,(another pintrest board) and then comparing notes and images with Janet Arnold's  patterns.

Hedge cutting, mad pruning.

Losing glasses, finding glasses, losing glasses, finding glasses, losing glasses, finding glasses, losing

 

 

fisherwomen project 2 - attack of the paintbrush.
Having said that this week was to be sewing - it ended up being painting, drawing, research and painting. Very simple questions have stalled progress and of course I got distracted by all and sundry.

Task one - put in more depth and shape into the skirt on the first painting. Done. Still think it looks 1940s in style but it does have an airy, summery, breezy quality. It was worth sitting shivering in the garden watching how the skirt moved in a wind! Also tried with the original illustration - bit better but still oops. Might cut the right hand figure completely.


Task two - making. Progress is made although not as much as I had hoped. the darts were sewn in bodice and lining, boning channels made, fronts attached  and then shoulder and back seams. The lining was then basted to the inside of the bodice to act as a flat lining.  Side seams were  done, collar and cuffs attached and sleeves put in. This worked incredibly well until I tried to fiddle, to narrow the centre back panel. Some unpicking is needed and more fiddling to correct the correction! Another adjustment is in my expectation. I have a tendency to make things like a second skin and quibble about any looseness. Not the way to go in reality,  yes a 'good' fit but there has to be ease as well. Quite a lot of ease is needed  for outer garments or nothing could be worn underneath and any movement would tear the seams.  This was a working garment worn over chemise, stays and petticoats so some ease has to be allowed. I still tend to put it on Gwendoline and tug it tighter.


Task three- The second illustration.  I wanted it to be more gritty, less generalised, and to show cap and shawl. What began to bug was were the cap and shawl worn at the same time in Yorkshire, and how to use the shawl. There does seem to be regional variations in garments and customs, the folded apron seems to be a Scottish trend and the cap more of a Yorkshire thing. The costume had two caps included so a guest appearance seemed necessary, but no apron. In the found images some have caps, some have shawls as headwear but many have bare heads, I've been trying to work out if it was seasonal wear, Sunday best, or whether there was a decline in their use across the period I've been looking at. A lack of specific location and date for many of the paintings was a problem with that one!


 Homer, Tynemouth 1891
 Still in search of a contemporary style - the obvious group The Staithes group but I have been looking at a variety of art from Portsoy in Banff, Scotland, Cullercoats, to Newlynn and even New England.  The most influential artists being Walter Langley, George Murray and Winslow Homer. Most of the images I worked from are on my fisherwoman pinterest board.  The styles are varied, impressionistic, highly coloured, to realism and delicate watercolour, so it was a case of pick and chose and experiment. Comparing the artists' impressions to the Sutcliffe photographs there were more similarities than differences - the poses are similar, the photography tends to be still and calm while the artists go for more dramatic weather and situations.
 Getting the details right was a pain, working out how to show the shawl folds and bulk, and then of course it had to be a plaid example! Lacking a mannequin with a head, it was back out into the garden to work with the costume set up on a body with an upside down  vase taped on place for the head. The neighbourhood cat fled. Haven't seen it since.

The setting of the photos is so specific so I have set it near the creek mouth in Staithes, very distinctive and with plenty of contrast, texture and scale to make it a challenge but didn't quite feel upto beaching a fleet of cobles (but have placed a few figures in the background, Having listened to the "Women's Voices" having an empty space seemed wrong, the women never stopped working in one way or another whether the boats were in or out)

I'm not happy with the result - the setting works well, the pose too wooden  rather than the worker-for-the-soviet-revolution stance of some of Winslow Homer's. The face works well in close up but not from a distance. The freedom of the background has become too tight on the figure, having tried out the various approaches to painting the face shawl I then go and mismatch them. Pah! Far too Catherine Cookson. Will try the main figure again and grump down the sunny background.. It's the angle of the head, or is it?



Distractions - 1- making for the library event in November.(giving up trying to follow written patterns for the time being)
                       2- making little hats etc for the Innocent Smoothie Big Knit fundraiser for Age UK. Followed a pattern and got it wrong - back to improvising.
                       3 - trying out a new stitch from a vintage shawl pattern from Whitby. Hmm.
                       4- Barbara's picture -
                       5. trying acupuncture.





refs - "Women's Voices" - www.fishinarts.co.uk
          www.ganseys.com
BBC and Wikipaintings
www.sutcliffe-gallery.co.uk
 www.tbrj.co.uk
Memories of the Yorkshire Fishing Industry - Ron Freethy.

Plans for next week - sort out little jacket, sort 2nd picture figure,  find neighbour's cat, try more challenges, send little hats, present things for sale, more acupuncture. How did I find time for a job?and I'm still pacing myself not to do too much at once! Might try to squeeze in some housework? Umm.....

Fisher women of Yorkshire - a less gothic version of Whitby.

 

Stephen Friend has loaned  a costume to me, made for the "Women's Voices" project by York St John University. It was based on Frank Sutcliffe's photographs of the 'fisher folk' on the east coast around the 1890s. It is a jacket and skirt, worn over a bright red petticoat, with heavy boots and large shawl. It is  a practical outfit of drab striped fabric, rather like a soft cotton ticking. The jacket style is conservative, fitted with two darts each side and boned. It has centre front opening with 12 self covered buttons, high neck with a small simple folded stand collar and tapers to a v at the front and centre back hems. The shoulder seams are set a little back from the top of the shoulder and the back has curving seams from the armhole to the hem.  The sleeves are long, gathered onto  unstiffened, buttoned cuffs. The bodice is lined, except the sleeves, the boning inside  the lining under the lower buttons and darts, and mounted on top of the under arm seam and lower centre back line. These have a narrow cotton casing. The skirt is quite full, gathered onto a waistband with a flat centre front section. It is made in three parts, with a centre back seam, open at the top and closed with a mother of pearl button on the waistband, and a side seam under the bust dart.  There are several images showing woman wearing similar skirts, some with rows of pleating or deep frills around the hem, most with large aprons, often large shawls, and in various states of repair. The skirts seem to be relatively short, well clear of the ground showing the stout leather boots, a far cry from the delicate Regency styles I've been making recently (can't image these ladies being held up as aspirational fashionistas in a ladies' periodical). From the look of some in the photographs clothes were worn until worn out, remade and worn again.(take a look at the photo of Polly/Fanny (ref 24-29 in the Sutcliffe gallery) and see the repaired and tattered state of her under layers)

 

I'm using this as a practice exercise for working from an extant garment. A page of notes, diagrams and images was first, looking for seams, pattern shapes and construction details. These should have been done to scale but ... but at least I did pay attention to proportion and placement, spent longest on colour matching! I saw this as a 'getting to know you' phase. The seam lines and darts were transferred onto long suffering Gwendoline and then pattern pieces made to fit. Trying to find a suitable fabric was not a happy morning, could have made it in plenty of Halloween spiders or Christmas holly sprigs but a simple stripe? Ticking seems to be endangered species, so much is quilting or crafting cotton and I object to insanely cavorting teddy bears in waistcoats. I did find one that was suitable-ish, but it was a delightful lightweight wool herringbone at £36 per yard – oops.

I have used a compromise fabric from the stash – a blue cotton pinstripe, a roll end of shirting, not beautiful, a lighter weight and not as dense, but at least I'll be happy re-cutting pieces if/when I go wrong.

The pieces are cut and ready to assemble, and there it stopped – streaming head cold has claimed another victim. I tried to continue making but having put the dart seam allowance to the outside three times in a row- quite a feat in itself – I am giving up until the head clears and the eyeballs fit their sockets again.

I hate colds.

I really hate colds.

I have tried to paint from Sutcliffe's photographs inbetween sneezes but with little success. I like the concentration on the seated figure but the standing figure is one that I guess was used as inspiration for the costume, so I've altered some details to match the made skirt. A lot of the images show the women knitting, she is meant to be holding a skein of wool for the other to wind or work. Unfortunately in my version she seems to be having an out of body experience!  I haven't found a late Victorian portrait genre that I find inspirationally different from the earlier styles. That is this afternoon's job, BBCpaintings and Wikipaintings be warned, as long as I can stay awake.

Hopefully by next week the self pity will have passed, the cold will be vanquished. Doing 1890s clothing means that machine sewing is the way to go, so this garment should be quicker than the previous ones apart from the fact that I'm trying to match inside and out. The jacket should be in the process of finishing and the skirt blocked out ready to work by the time I post again.

Many happy sneezes of the day.....

Gwendoline's  muslin. - she definitely needs underclothes before any public appearances.

And here it is ! No wonder these dresses caused a sensation!

Just added Gwen's imagined portrait, based loosely on  Thomas Lawrence's of Sarah Goodwin Moulton ( Pinkey) of 1795. Decided to keep her brunette or else the painting would have had hardly any colour but the dress does show up well. The dress would date a little later so there is a bit of  an argument between pose and fashion,  I did try to calm the sky and take some of the theatricality out of it . What I would like to do is match the degree of modelling on the face to the clothing. More practice required again!

Even though I can not cut tight under the bust because of Gwendoline's fixed shape, this dress does wonders for her. The fashion for separated, high breasts (rather than the modern squish together and hoick) suits the low centre, plenty on show but without the desperate attention seeking. The line of the bodice emphasises the shape. The neck is as wide as I could make it without it falling off the shoulder and as low at the back as at the front. It sits as high on the bust as it can, some of the fashion plates make this seem generous, the bodice should be reduced to a narrow band with sleeves. The skirt is a round, gathered at the centre back with a little gathering along the front, it falls better with this extra ease, but is an aberration from the straight column of the early classical styles. The decoration at the hem is useful to help to balance the gown, it did look  very top heavy in the initial stages. The sleeves are a nod to Medieval and Tudor styles which was popular at the time,  with a puff on the shoulder, a narrow secondary puff around the upper arm and then the lower sleeve is long and tapers to the wrist.  They were  a menace to make – they went together well, the experiment was well worth it, but it took for ever. The muslin has no strength and just pulls apart on the curve so  had to be anchored onto the inner sleeve before being assembled and fitted. The muslin outer was in 2 parts , head and cuff, not three. The second gather was stitched to the lining. What I hadn't considered was how to press the sleeve - so the crinkle look I'm declaring deliberate! The portrait will have to be redone to match. Blonde this time?

I think this is one of the more successful outcomes. It has the right feel and shape compared to the extant muslin shown last post. There are still areas to resolve – dealing with the internal seams, fastenings, the sequence of construction. The amount of sewing in what is a simple enough shape is amazing. Mounting the muslin onto the lining meant sewing before tacking before sewing. Then doing French seams  means sewing everything twice as

well.  The final insult was having matched off white muslin to the slightly cream lining and off white embroidery, when I washed the marker pen out the muslin has dried toothpaste white!! Still like it though.

 

 

Really, really want to get down to Gloucester to see that wedding dress and check these things out first hand.

 

The draping technique was good, it became a practical puzzle, all the shortcomings were my own. Although I need more knowledge about techniques and finishes before  I  feel confident about getting from the drape to the finished garment I don't think that is going to stop me trying. Some of the fashion plates are looking at me, challenging, teasing......

 As for why this is indecent - take a look at the last photo. The are rumours that some dampened their petticoats to make them even more revealing (Gwen wouldn't of course, yes she would, shameless!)

Gwen's indecent muslin part 1

It is ages since the last post! So lots to catch up on.

Experiments were done, the Marie sleeve shown on the Gloucester wedding dress was rather fiddly but effective, why the sleeve top is done in two sections I can't see, having two raw edges gathered onto a narrow band did get a bit much, but perhaps the scale just made things worse! I wanted something easy to calculate so just measured off the pattern in centimetres and drew out inches, perhaps more pain at this stage would mean less pain later. The sleeve head is huge against the bodice, there is no stiffener in mine but still stands out quite rigidly, but the real thing can't have been easy to wear, but then contemporary wedding dresses tend to be exaggerations, so was this the same?

I sent a speculative email to Gloucester museum service and had such an open, enthusiastic response – I can go down to work from the original garment! Just short of 400 mile round trip to see a dress, why am I so excited by the thought! Hope to arrange to visit by the end of the month!

The main reason for the delay in posting was another good idea. I don't really like Gwendoline's party frock so have begun another, an ambitious project – a low cut crossover bodice of muslin mounted onto a lining with a round skirt. I wanted something a little more sexy and fitted like the Lawrence portrait shows to see if this will show of Gwen's shape better. Of course it couldn't be done simply so I wanted the lining to hold the form and the top layer to be gathered on the front to give a more romantic wispy effect. The bulk of the bodice is done and the skirt is tacked in place, gathered at the back with some gathering at the front under the bust darts.

This does help the skirt to hang well in the round but looks boxy at the waist line so it will be untacked and eased around the front.   It will definitely need an underskirt, even this quite coarse muslin is indecent. This didn't take long to do, so confession time. I had a go at some embroidery on the hem – giving a bit of visual weight, following ideas from the 1805 muslin dress and stealing elements from the designs published in the period journals. My design is a simple Greek lyre shape, full motif at the front and halves repeated along the hem and onto the back seam. This took for ever, please note – embroidery on flimsy muslin is a pain of the highest order, lines along the grain are simple but curves and satin stitch! It will look fine but the tension changes as soon as the fabric is realigned in a hoop or just handled. Out came the modern threads and I have redone it all in fine silk. It does look better than I thought now the skirt is on but this was nearly sob into the cornflakes status. How they did this on delicate muslin and so densely as on the dress to the right I dread to think.

The sleeves I want to be extravagant – probably based on the Marie experiment rather than the tight ones with high sleeve caps as above. They should be dramatic, to frame the bodice.  In the painting I've gone for puffy, almost bouffant sleeves but need to work from life to get it right, so I guess I'm committed.

 

  I've just thought that the sleeves should go on before the skirt! Aaaaagh! Am I really doing this for fun?

And just for more fun I've found some generous and trusting people who will let me work from their photos of costumes being worn! But I want to complete this dress and images for next week's update
 and start my drawing classes, and crochet hearts, stars and snowflakes and..... and....
How was there ever time to work?

 

Gwendoline's party frock.

I'd been given some pretty offcuts a while ago so decided it was party frock time. The fabric was quite stiff, frayed happily, and has trailing flowers embroidery which can be awkward in the seams. But that is the up side. The embroidery is not really period at all but did remind me of an example from Worthing using fine embroidered Indian muslin.

Worthing. 1810-20s.

The fabric is in long narrow strips and doesn't have the drape and hang of the muslin, so I went looking for styles from 1815 onward rather than the more pure NeoClassical look of the early 1800s.

 

 I hoped to make a  high waisted dress with a panel of pleated gathers on the bodice front, fastening at the back, with a gored skirt. The neck was to be embellished and the sleeves short and open to reveal an undersleeve in contrast material. The hem would be decorated and possibly stuffed to give the 1820s rounded shape to the skirt. Both of the plates below show  the wider flared skirt, the fitted bodice and lot of decorative detail. The necklines are wide rather than very low, both accent the waist with a ribband.  extant dress is from the Met collection, the padded hem is clear and holds the skirt out from the feet. Perhaps the mockery of the satirists had had its effect - take a look at the 3 Graces in a high wind by Gilray!

Problems – fabric. It has a nice sheen but resents being folded tightly, the bodice front is rigid! Top sewing on the neck did help but it tends to do its own thing given half a chance. The same problem with the sleeves, rolling the edges to create neat mini hems was not happening so I ended up facing them and they stood out rigidly like bat wings instead of falling gracefully . Research to the rescue! 1820s seemed to delight in layers and contrasts of textures and concepts. The tight bodice with the massive exaggeration of the sleeve, the simple dress with great embellishments at neck, arm and hem. The purity of the Neo Classical hadn't lasted long. In the Janet Arnold are several examples of pleating, gathering, slashing or opening to reveal an under layer, Renaissance influenced, and of mixing fabric surfaces, tucks, cording, using lace.   The 1827 Snowshill and Gloucester examples have so many ideas!

 I had already started on crocheting a heavy lace edging for the neck, close to the dress colour but the satin sleeve lining and waistband are toothpaste white. I made a butterfly in the crochet lace to hold the sleeve together over the lining to defeat the bat wing look but was doubtful about  white and cream together, but it does seem to work,

 This left decisions about the hem. Made the decision to try out the Gloucester Museum wedding dress decoration in scrap fabric and to a larger scale. Thank goodness I did! This just eats up fabric. The top piece is on the cross and uses double the width, I don't have any where near enough fabric to do this for the dress! The top and bottom are bound in satin on the original, I just used some left over cotton bias binding- again far more than it looks, all those vandykes are a trial. And the time!

 Looking at the pattern it appears simple but this doesn't work, to get those rounded gathers they have to roll under and then emerge flat to link to the next repeat. I have got close to the original but am not yet happy- do think it looks a bit like a curtain pelmet.  While I would like to try this for real, but not with this embroidered fabric.  It is just not flexible enough for anything like these so the compromise queen swung into action again, I tried the stuffed rouleau hem to see how this does affect the shape and hang, added some extra texture with a larger version of the neck embellishment. The compromise does not look out of place but is a bit plain, perhaps another crocheted row or two would do. The hem maybe over stuffed, the wadding makes the hem stand out stiffly and always wants to make circle. As the skirts got wider it must have been like a bumper car convention. The technique  is simple enough but is unforgiving, the hem has to be absolutely level and hang symmetrically before starting.

 Review-  too safe. Enjoyed the experimenting but as soon as it becomes a garment it goes tame. This began as the same pattern as Gwen's poplin dress, it seems to be a decent base so I could afford to be more adventurous.  Perhaps time spent doing experiments rather than garments could be wise. Extend the range and then try to apply it?
 Next challenge- a printed day dress. The fabric is soft but dark, so pleats, tucks, flounces, contrasts. I've been roaming museum sites, blogs and pinterest, so goodness only knows what is going to happen! Perhaps if |I put the Janet Arnold books under the bed I shall awake infused with that knowledge, experience and know how!

Cheat week.



 reminds me of Gromit, Collar as ears?

 

This is the week when the trauma of starting the school term should have happened. So instead of that intense headless chicken activity I have set myself various tasks. Finishing old pieces, working on the full scale spencer, drawing and sketching and museum visits. I have actually done it all!

I even managed to cycle halfway to Selby quite by accident, and more incredible, then cycled back,( fruit pastilles) all in pursuit of that perfect English landscape to paint.

The sewing task-

completing a trial mini spencer begun about 4 months ago. Its purpose was testing out how to adapt a pattern, trying new shapes and techniques.

It began as a military tailcoat but, a bit like the Earl Spencer,  I took off  most of  the tails to leave a short fitted tailored jacket. The original also had front darts, fitted sleeves, rear vents and collar. The bulk of it stayed the same except the length and sleeves. I left a little skirt at the back, rather like several of the riding habit illustrations of the time.

The sleeve pattern was spread wide in the centre and the head extended to allow for a panel of tucks and greater fullness. The tucks were simple to do but they did not hold their shape once the garment was together, so a second sleeve was cut as a stabiliser, twit did not think to cut to the original shape but to the adaptation so there is a lot more fabric caught at the sleeve top than I would wish. The straight tucks still felt awkward so they were stitched into a honeycomb pattern. This was repeated at the cuff which was finished with a contrast binding. The overall effect is pleasing, The inside of the sleeve fits with a straight line while the outside is full, and falls into folds and creases. The idea for this was from a dress in the V&A publication – 19^th Century Fashion in Detail. I had intended to put a tab across the top of the cuff tucks, pulling it tight on the wrist. The front fastening is influenced by the military frogging on a pelisse somewhere on Pinterest!

Conclusion. - Like the sleeve, the tucks work well and the shape is defined. The fastening although neat enough is too close to the centre and has a rather pinched and slightly cross eyed expression. There is stiff interfacing behind the closure - perhaps it needed to be extended further across the front. The basic jacket needed much more adjustment, the shoulder is too long, the whole silhouette droops, and the shaping needed to be greater, it is boxy and has a certain bundled quality,(Paddington Bear-ish) the lining must be out of sorts. As for the back- clumsy. The back vents are a smart idea,  but are uneven and awkward. The button detail is fun but does not make good the shortcomings. I like the concept but need a neater method and approach or more practice.

 

What is quite good, is the knowledge that I would do it better now. The stitching should be better, the seams more precise and the shape!  I like a tailored back but this one has no charm, a back waist seam would have given more definition, the skirt  becomes a peplum and could then be cut separately. It may be worth trying all this out but not with this basic pattern. It is time to return to Gwendoline. The peplum would define her waist and draw attention to the long shapely back.

The illustration of this is based on the plate from Le Journal des Dames,I'm afraid I enjoyed working on him more than her. The difference in style between these and the plates from the English periodicals is quite marked. These have the feel of observed detail, the fall of shadows and the drape of the fabrics have more realism than stylisation and there is more movement and less coy pose in most of the presentation.

The faces still seem to have long noses and tiny mouths! I space the features too much still, they should be more like Victorian doll faces. I've just reduced her head size on my original drawing so imagine her less top heavy, if slightly pouty. One day I'll mange someone who looks happy!

 

 

As for my spencer - Pah.

 Toile 2 was looking good, the front fits but the shoulder seam is way too high and comes forward of the shoulder line at the neck. Hack and slash and curse later and it is beginning to behave. I don't want to disrupt the arm hole assembly but have lengthened the front piece at the shoulder. The hem line had been level so this maybe a false step and a general redraft of the shoulder seam  will be necessary. Toile 3 may be upon us soon.