Working on – For Sale | If I Had My Own Blue Box:

2nd Day of the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the Second Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Bodkin to go in your sewing box

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

3. Share a photo of yourself with something you previously purchase, such as a bonnet, a sewing case, a winter hood or a book. Share your photo in a comment below, on Facebook, or Twitter. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

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on November 26, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (4)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

Announcing the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

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on November 25, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (21)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

Where do I find Fanciful Utility?

This is a question I love to hear and I love to answer.

You can find and purchase my book, Fanciful Utility: Victorian Sewing Cases and Needle-books, at The Sewing Academy.

Fanciful Utility makes an excellent gift for reenactors, museum friends, seamstresses, quilters, and anyone crafty with a needle and thread.

Fanciful Utility is packed full of projects, complete with directions and templates, for rolled sewing cases, sewing boxes and needle-books.

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on November 13, 2014 at 4:02 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Fanciful Utility

Loving Checks!

aka New Drawn Bonnets!!!

If you read the post a few weeks ago on Drawn Bonnets, you may have noticed a black and white check and a blue and white check. There was just something about these bonnets that screamed “make me!”

The black and white is a taffeta silk with approx 1/6″ checks. The silk is drawn on cane over a light weight wired buckram. The slightly flared brim is prettily flounced. The fashion ties are a high quality double faced satin and the functional/utility ties are a silk taffeta. It is lined in cotton voile. The frill is a silk organza. The interior decoration pulls directly from the inspirational original that was done in ribbon and lace. This one has handmade ribbon petals and delicate white violets set on a wire and tacked into the bonnet. I really was quite giddy when I finished the exterior of this bonnet. I was so please with how it came out.

Since my silk merchant had a blue check in a shade that nearly matched an original blue check, I just had to make that one as well. This check is a tissue taffeta with a tiny check. It is also drawn on cane over a buckram bonnet, with one drawn section over a wire. The interior is cotton voile lawn with an organza frill. On the inside are blue paper flowers. On the outside is a garland of small velvet blue blossoms. The utility ties are an ivory silk taffeta and the fashion ties are a German moire.

I had just enough of the black check taffeta left. It really wanted to be a soft crown.

This is a straw plait brim with the black and white silk taffeta soft crown. The interior is lined and has an organza frill. The fashion ribbon is a black German moire while the utility/functional ties are a narrow black silk taffeta. I was so very tempted last night to trim this out in peacock feathers and black velvet berries. I wasn’t sure that people would like that, so I held off.

Here is a sampling of checked drawn bonnets:

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on June 30, 2014 at 12:22 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Anna's Millinery

Post-War Transitional in White

I’ve been having so much fun sharing the millinery pieces from this spring with you, I decided to share this little bonnet. This really has been a forgotten about bonnet. It made it as far as some so-so photos for Etsy, then got tucked away to the back of the display table.

In the middle of the 1860s we see a transition from the fashionable spoon and cottage bonnet shapes to the hat and smaller bonnet shapes. There were a speckling of styles that show the transition from one millinery era to the next. My bonnet pulls mostly from this first example. The crown drastically shrinks, flattening out, while the cheektabs try various positions framing the sides of the face rather than coming down to the jaw line.

As you can see, the decorations and ribbon tend to encircle the crown and fall down along the remains of the cheektab.

I used the last of my hemp plait for this bonnet over the winter. The box pleating encircling the crown is a silk ribbon slightly narrower than the silk ribbon used for the ties. Just under the brim is a frill of fine net.

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on June 5, 2014 at 6:00 am Comments (1)
Tags: Anna's Millinery

Did You Know?

Did you know the techniques in Fanciful Utility: Victorian Sewing Cases and Needle-books can also be used for a variety of other 19th century projects?

They can!

The stitches and assemble techniques can be used for making many of the items found in Godey’s Lady’s Book, Peterson’s Magazine, Workwomen’s Guide, and A Girl’s Own Book just to name a few.

This leather, cotton and silk market wallet was made using the pasteboard and binding techniques outlined in the book.

You can make travel cases such as this one using the skill you learn from FanU.

I enjoy making both 19th and 21st century Christmas decorations. You can make some of those seen here. Also, the templates for the shaped in FanU can also make great ornaments.

I used the same techniques when I made the soles for these quilted silk slippers.

Other items found in period publication you can make using the same skills and techniques can include:

Watch pockets
Pen wipes
Children’s toys
Small books
Work baskets
Pasteboard doll furniture
Card cases
and so many more……

If you don’t already have your copy of Fanciful Utility: Victorian Sewing Cases and Needle-books, purchase your copy directly from ESC Publishing.

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on October 18, 2013 at 6:15 am Leave a Comment

Doll Millinery

For quite some time now, I have wanted to do a line of millinery for dolls. I finally have a set of patterns for hoods and bonnets drafted for a couple different size dolls including collectable china dolls, like my Mae, fashion dolls and 18″ character dolls.
As the weather has already turned cool (or cold) here, I started with some snuggly warm quilted hoods. Both of these are black silk entirely sewn and quilted by hand.

This is Jo in her 1850-1865 silk hood. (She needs clothes made for her and a chair to sit In.) Her hood ties below her chin with a black silk ribbon. The inside is silk with the edges whipped for finish.

Here is Jo with the same style hood done in a dark blueish grey silk quilted in black.

Here is the larger hood in the same style that will nicely fit a doll with a 9″ circ head as most 18″ character dolls have. This hood is also black silk with a period cotton lining. The interior seam are turned under for durability. The future wearer, or her dresser, will need to pick the perfect ribbon and best placement.

I’ll have a section of doll millinery up on Etsy soon.

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on September 21, 2013 at 2:30 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Anna's Millinery, Dolls

A Modern Needle-book

Tonight we have a little modern sewing tangent – A coworker has been making little coffins for her Death and Dying health class this week. When I saw those little coffins, they scream “needle-book”.

Here is version 1 of my take on a Halloween Coffin Needle-book:

This fun case is made using the techniques in Fanciful Utility.The exterior is a silk I had stashed away with a bit of padding for the front. Inside, the pair of white wool needle pages are placed like a pillow at the top of the coffin, while a black wool pocket is at the bottom for a small pair of scissors. It closes with a silk ribbon. All the embroidery is cotton. I do have another sewing case version in mind as well. This would be a multi-sided case with a pillow-pincushion inside. I’ll add that to my project list.

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on September 18, 2013 at 8:01 pm Comments (2)

Bonnets of Summer… As summer winds down

Hello everyone! As the summer seems to have turned cool all too soon, school and fall are right around the corner. I am far from ready for that. I’ve have quite a bit of fun this summer making bonnets. I just love working with straw. I find the texture and the smell so very relaxing. I appreciate all my customers, returning and new.

Right now, I have an assortment of straw bonnet forms and finished drawn bonnets available. You can use my summer sale code (SUMMER10DOLLARS) for these bonnets. (This sale will end sometime around school starting.) Here are some photos I hope will tempt you…..

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Working on - For Sale

on August 14, 2013 at 8:51 pm Comments (1)

Today’s Bonnet

Here is the latest in my summer series of straw bonnets. This natural straw bonnet will work for a late 50s through early 60s impression as it has a moderately high and gently shaped brim. It will best suit an average size head. The brim is wired while the cheektabs and neckline are not.