Meet the completed pet en l'air. This has been a week of traumas, obsessive sewing and happy painting.

As usual the simple task list hid hours of work.

Task one – sleeves. Made up sleeve-1 as per pattern – did not fit to the robings as shown on the Arnold drawing and stuck straight out like a penguin.. They would do for fitted sleeves but needed greater length between the bottom of the arm hole and the head plus more width at the head because of the lengthening of the front bodice. There was  sleeve-2, and sleeve-3. I wasn't sure about the fullness at the top of the arm but many portraits show a looseness there, so it will stay. The arm is set back and angles backward rather than hanging straight ( better than the first Pingu attempts). I have been assured that this is right but it still looks strange to me –truly need a real Gwendoline to see how this works.

After sleeve trauma came flounce-gate. Having been out and bought contrast fabric for lining the flounce and then made them and attached them, I decided the bulk of fabric in the fine gathers at the cuff looked clumsy and awkward. Hmm. Then salvation through the post – Fashion History arrived showing details of the Kyoto Institute collection – lots of raw pinked edges! Did get a little carried away, well a lot carried away. It took several days of looking and pondering before giving in (time for the perforated finger ends to heal- sewing the flounces on had been a pig of a job) Off came the flounces, unpicked and pinked and reattached with the lining now dropped slightly and facing outward.



  Much happier with the results and a quick lace ruffle put in to complete the look. In the mean time furbelow fever struck – Not on the original design at all but having seen so many examples it seemed silly not to try. Bye bye to Wednesday. These are 2cm wide strips with 1cm box pleats meeting nearly edge to edge down the length of the strip. Huge lengths had to be pinked, measured and sewn and then attached but it was strangely compelling. I had intended to add just two strips either side of the centre front on the stomacher…... not down the entire front but...

and then just had to try doing curling flourishes at the hem. I still think of these as moustachios.

It has changed the nature of the garment – it was quite plain and clean with a clarity about the construction, but now is fluffy and fussy.  I still quite like it, but that was Thursday gone as well!

Final finishing – the hem and redoing the sleeve flounces and that was Saturday. DONE.
 

Fragonard - the Love Letter. Met Museum

nattier 1750

This has been a great adventure – painful at times but rewarding. The research has gobbled up hours – trawling for 18thC painters has introduced many new names to explore and reintroduce old favourite pieces. I was expecting rigid, theatrical, formalised portraits with grandiose dresses, silks, flying ribbons and romantic notions of settings and did find lots of them. Considering the highly mannered style of the Rococo some of the portraits are definitely modern in their boldness and direct use of colour and composition. I still have trouble dating  some paintings - the dates of the sitter are given but not that of the artwork, a real menace especially when artists used their own collection of garments over many years to pose their models in. Jacquet !

Liotard 1754

I've also been reading “Queen of Fashion – what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution” by Caroline Weber. Very different attitudes to the significance of dress. The rigid stratification of society up held by distinctions in dress code, I had known about this but not the extreme importance it seems to be given in the breakdown of the ancien regime. Were the experiments in new dress modes responsible for, or merely a symptom of new ideas? Was it the new that caused the conflict or the determined adherence to the old?

And of course I've been illustrating – an interior, seated pose to reflect the pet's informal nature.

Lacking anyone daft enough to pose for me I have had to borrow bits of myself to help – so no elegant young romantic writing love letters – just me with a drawing board or table. I love artistic license – bye to the wrinkly bits – a very cheap face lift! Promise she does look happier in close ups. It is a love doing the fabric. Does any else want paintings of cloth? Some court portraitists hired specialists to paint in the clothes - does an opening still exist do you think?

18th Century jacket - pet en l'air.

And this week's challenge – a pet en l'air (pet en l'eir?). I think the direct translation is somewhat rude but to me it is a sack back jacket from the 1700s, a kind of short version of an open robe, or robe a la Francaise.  Think Watteau, think Thos. Gainsborough. This was an informal garment, worn at home, so when finding portraits I've looked for full gowns showing the volume of fabric at the back and the fitting at the front.

Watteau studies - just how much fabric! Shall we play guess the weight?

Gainsborough - Viscountess Tracey



Gainsborough, Miss Theodosia Magill

 The one I am making is based on one from the Snowshill Manor collection dated 1745-55,  described and drawn by both Janet Arnold and Nancy Bradbury. It is made in silk with a linen lining and probably worn with a kerchief to fill in the neckline.


Drawing from Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion. The painting above is the one cited by Bradbury - Upton House NT.

  Again it is made to fit Gwendoline, the little model, so every inch on the pattern becomes a centimetre- there will have to be other tweaks and adjustments but the Arnold diagrams will provide the basic shapes.

 I am using a printed cotton - quite fine in texture, too much of a coward for silk or satin at this stage of the learning curve.

 There are several extant examples documented and similar jackets seem to have many different names - on some the front closes, others the stomacher is pinned in as a temporary closure, the back pleats can be sewn in or sewn in part rather than hanging from the neck line. This caraco is from the Met. and although the detail may be different it does give an idea of the garment and the size of padding needed to get Gwen up to speed! I do get everso confused by all these names - I think I understand what a caraco is, a casaquin, a pierrot , and then..... Never mind - the embroidery is exquisite and that row of buttons!

 

– Even with 2 sources to glean information from I had no idea how this garment worked. Unpicking happened often. And again Gwen's shape has caused some major headaches- she has a wide flat torso, little hips and a long smooth waist, nothing like the kind of corseted shape shown in the contemporary paintings. I have tried to be as faithful as I can to the original – give and take a bit (quite a big bit in places).  The pattern had to be extended  to fit around

her and the upper front elongated.  The fabric is in two halves – joined at the centre back , with a major amount of pleating on the hip and back and the front bodice extends over the shoulder to meet the back.. What did become obvious as I tried to put this together is the importance of the lining in creating the base for the top fabric to hang from. There is a lot of fabric there - Gwen is 16cm across the shoulders - one half of the top fabric is over 50cm.  Janet Arnold described the parts being made up as one as far as the centre back, so that is what I did, but the lining back has to fit snugly to give shape to the bodice front and shoulder as well as to support the pleats. So undo the flat lining and fit the back bodice together – re-attach top fabric so there was something to hang the pleats onto. Working without a centre front was also difficult - trying the garment on Gwen seemed to give a different fit each time, and with the top and lining together of course they behaved differently again. To stabilise it the false front was made up and fitted as shown. Chickened out of doing the tab fronts from the original jacket and treated it as a solid piece with hooks and eyes to fasten at centre front just to make fitting easier. Considering how the parts were made and all that had to be done was to sew it together neatly the length of time taken seems huge- 2 hours! The side seams were extended an inch to fit Gwen more snugly but then there should be hoops or at least a large bum pad to hold the skirts out from the body which will alter the shape completely - can't win!

Next steps – sleeves, ruffles, hem, decoration.

The arm holes seem to have migrated backward  but I left a lot of spare fabric when cutting out so should not be too difficult to re- establish. I am looking forward to the sleeve - it is such a different shape. The pleats at the head should give a little leeway but....

A the real reason for putting myself through this torture ? Want to make the ruffles, I want to flounce. Already thinking through and planning...... are they lined - self or linen? or hemmed ? Do-able at this scale? Hours of fun to moan about next post.

 

 I've put in some of the useful sources/blogs etc. To be honest there is a lot of very good stuff out there- these are only a tiny tip of the proverbial iceberg.

 http://brocadegoddess.wordpress.com/pet-en-lair/   does a much better job of making than I have!

 http://www.marquise.de/en/index.html
http://americanduchess.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/costume-analytics-1770-80-chintz-caraco.html

and of course - Janet Arnold -Patterns of Fashion 1 p28-30, Nancy Bradbury - Costume in Detail p19 National Trust - Snowshill collection.
BBC paintings, Met Museum, and Museum of London.

Fisherwomen project – just about done

The purpose of the task was to try out working from existing garments, find out what information was needed, what was important, and how this could be translated into a Gwendoline costume.

Stephen's loan of the costume from the “Women's Voices” project was inspired.

Task 1 examine and record garments, drawing, measuring, noting details and guessing at construction methods. Learnt under duress  the need to be very methodical and precise.

Task 2 – look for contemporary images, artefacts, sources – comparing to and looking for contextual background. This was far more time consuming than expected. - internet is great but it still takes time – finding images on google wasn't enough – paintings had to be credited and checked against the photographic records. Both have drawbacks , the “naturalistic” poses, the romantic visions, the selective subjects, but both gave a lot of information about how such garments were worn, by whom and idea of when. It did feel a bit like cheating knowing that the costume was based on Sutcliffe's photographs and having some knowledge of the Staithes group of painters. But I have found new, interesting artists and learnt a lot more about the fishing industry and the communities dependant on it. At times the lack of detailed information on the web is frustrating- pinterest images which have lost their origins, undated paintings, uncredited photographs. A lot is available in blog posts but it is hard to judge the quality of information and whether it is sourced fact or opinion. Part of this task was creating my own images-illustrations really- trying to imagine how the garments I had could have been worn. I am a visual being, so seeing made the necessary connection between what I was touching and the research I was compiling and reading.

Task 3 – Reconstructing the garments.

This was supposed to be the fun bit. Referenced Janet Arnold's books and other records to compare with other contemporary garments and to check my own observations with her far more informed and experienced notes! I redid the measurements and took a whole lot more to create pattern pieces and fitted them to Gwendoline. Oh dear -Gwen is only human-ish so quite a bit of adjustment was required. Marking the seams on her and fitting to them saved my sanity a few times. Following the original as closely as possible Gwen's version was put together, darts, boning casing, flat lining and then seams. The reduction in scale has caused the usual additional problems- and yes, I did end up using some thin but fairly rigid plastic packaging for the boning – and no, still haven't put the roller blind up. Fastenings are becoming a real headache – reducing the scale of buttonholes was unexpectedly problematic– the length shrinks to match the button but the width can not reduce beyond a certain point or it just doesn't hold the fabric edge. This is obvious now, but had to be learnt the hard way. I ended up working them by hand to cover the chewed edges and they look far too clumsy( take glasses off and stand back – they look fine!). I guess doing small scale detail on a fabric that frays at full scale was always a poor idea. The other bright idea – inserting plastic boning of unknown parentage – wonderful until I had to press the jacket! The next not really seen problem was the centre front opening – I was concerned about the buttons being too big visually but the real issue was the amount of allowance needed for the holes. The overlap is giant scale against the rest – it would cover the first dart on the opposite front if I let it. So no resolution yet – still questioning whether to try it, to find a new source for mini buttons, or to cheat and surface mount the row of buttons and have hooks and eyes underneath.

Oh well.

Do you like the background? a bit Wuthering  - an old painting of N Yorks Moors but it seemed appropriate for a Whitby based project. And of course I like the back best.

The project is just about done – some tidying round required. Sorting the button issue is the most obvious thing but I would like to redo and improve some of the paintings – I have to decide exactly what I want from them – they suffer from a lack of clarity of purpose and expectation. When all is complete I will condense all of the Fisherwomen posts into a summary page and attach. It has been an interesting and enlightening process – the amount and level of detailed notes needed was an eye opener – working downstairs and having the costume upstairs became my fitness regime. There is a huge difference between information used for looking and recording and what is needed for making!

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!)