If I Had My Own Blue Box:

FanU Cotton Swap – Sewing Cases

In July, we did the very first of our Fanciful Utility fabric swaps, the Cotton Swap. We had two groups of 8 people each, who swapped 9″ squares of mid-nineteenth century appropriate cotton fabrics. These are the fabrics we swapped:

Plus these:

Some of the participants went right to work making their sewing cases. (I am remiss to say my pieces are still neatly stacked as I’ve been so focused on millinery.)

These pretty blue needle-books were made by Deborah in a sewing group that focused on making needle-books. I love the blues together.

This pocket filled sewing case is very worthy of being called a work pocket. This is made by Eileen.

Nicely done ladies. I look forward to adding more photos as more participants finish their projects.

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Favorite Topics - Sewing Cases

on August 25, 2013 at 7:48 pm Leave a Comment

FanU Silk Swap – Sign-up Day

Today is the day to sign-up for the FanU Silk Swap!

To Sign-up, simply comment below with your email and mailing address. (I’ll erase those before approving your comment, so the whole world doesn’t have that info.) You can also email me or send me a message on Facebook.

What is a Swap?

This is a chance for to exchange fabric with a small group of people. Each group will have 8 people exchanging pieces of fabric. All you need is a half yard of fabric and envelops along with your copy of Fanciful Utility.

To Participate:

1: Sign Up Day! On sign-up day, groups will be assigned on a first-in basis; the first eight will be the first swap group, second eight in the second group, etc.

Cotton Sign-Up Day: July 15 Silk Sign-Up Day: August 19 Crazy Sign-Up Day: September 30

2: Mail-Out Day: Place a 9×9″ piece of fabric suited to the mid-19th century in envelopes for each of the 7 other people in your swap group, stamp them (be sure to double check at the post office, but the small 9×9″ pieces should mail in a regular envelope with a normal stamp), and send them off no later than the Mail-Out Day. Cotton Mail-Out Day: July 23 Silk Mail-Out Day: August 26 Crazy Mail-Out Day: October 8th

3: Get Fanciful! Use your Fanciful Utility templates and techniques to make a project from the book, or copy your own from 19th century sources. We’ll all look forward to seeing your projects! You don’t have to sew right away, but don’t keep us waiting forever to see all the fun things!

(If you need a copy of Fanciful Utility, you can purchase them from the publisher at www.thesewingacademy.com

Fabric Guidelines:

For the cotton and silk categories, your fabric should be mid-nineteenth century appropriate. (If there is a want for an earlier or later group, we can do that.) Prints and motifs should reflect those available in the 1840s, 50s and 60s. Cotton should be 100% cotton. Silk should be 100% silk.
To keep the swap and sewing possibilities interesting, please avoid solids as best we can.
Fabrics that do not work well for sewing cases should not be swapped. These include sheers, gauzes, heavy, thick, easy-to-fray, slippery and stretch fabrics.
For the “crazy swap” category, think crazy quilt in a sewing case. This could include satins, velvets, textured fabrics. Quality synthetic fabrics are invited.

Q&A

Yes, you can participate in 1, 2 or 3 of the swaps.

Yes, if we end up with multiple groups, you can participate in more than one group to swap more fabric. If you participate in 2 groups, you should swap 2 fabrics.

Yes, you can swap large and small scale prints.

Yes, you can swap now and sew later.

Yes, we would love to see what you’ve made with the swapped fabric.

Yes, you can use your own fabric in your swapped project.

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Favorite Topics - Sewing Cases

on August 19, 2013 at 6:00 am Comments (10)

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)

Maps of the Human Heart

This is a fun post about some Must See illustrations. Someone posted the Map of a Woman’s Heart on FB. Thank you to Beth and Micaila for pointing out more of the story. I would Love a poster of the woman’s and man’s hearts side-by-side. I think they are such quirky fun while being an interesting insight.

streetsofsalem

Heart-shaped maps are one thing, but maps of the human heart are quite another, and I’ve got both on this Valentine’s Day. The charting of emotional territory, as opposed to physical space, has resulted in the production of several interesting maps from the seventeenth century to the near-present. Below are the companion Map of the Open Country of a Woman’s Heart and Map of the Fortified Country of a Man’s Heart, ostensibly and anonymously drawn “by a lady” and published by the Kellogg Brothers of Hartford, Connecticut in the 1830s. These heart maps, along with lots of other examples of the Kellogg’s impressive lithography, can be viewed at the online gallery of the Connecticut Historical Society and Museum.

I’ve brightened and cropped both maps so that you can better see the different regions that make up these human hearts. It’s very interesting that the woman’s heart is an “open”…

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I Forgot to Categorize This.

on August 14, 2013 at 8:19 pm Leave a Comment

Millinery for 1864 and 1865

I’ve been creating some millinery visuals for those looking ahead to 1864 and 1865…. (click on each to enlarge)

I have a couple more in mind to do…..

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Favorite Topics - Millinery/Bonnets/Ribbons

on August 7, 2013 at 12:30 pm Comments (2)

An Array of Cottons from the First FanU Fabric Swap

Over the last week and a half getting the mail has been much more fun than usual. Instead of offering bills and junk mail, the mailbox offered handwritten envelops filled with fabic from the first of the Fanciful Utility Fabric Swaps, the Cotton Swap.

I want to thank everyone who participated. I hope each of you have had as much fun with this as I have. I loved sending the pieces of fabric and receiving them. It was fun opening each one. There were even some surprise extras.

Here are the fabrics I received (this is both groups of 8 people):

Two more arrivals:

I will add some information on several of these fabrics asap.

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on August 1, 2013 at 6:00 am Comments (2)

Fabric Swatch Swap – An Idea for Group Meetings

As I started receiving my envelops of fabric during our recent FanU Fabric Swap, I couldn’t help but think swapping would be a great way to build or expand a swatch reference. The more I thought about it, I realized a swatch swap in person would be fun for reenacting groups to do at a meeting.

Here is my thought process. (You are welcome to steal this idea.)

Each person attending chooses a fabric s/he has documentation for. This could include the dating, type of print, colors, an example of how/where a similar fabric was worn, etc. The fabric may or may not be an actual reproduction.
Each person brings several (according to the size of the group) 3″ swatches of the fabric. The size of the fabric swatch depends on what the group decides with guidance from the fabric. (Smaller groups of people may wish to have each person bring more than one sample of fabric.)
Each swatch should be accompanied by the documentation. This can be pre-printed on a cards to which the fabric swatch is pinned or a single larger card from which people can copy the information. (determined by the group.)
The members of the group exchange swatches and documentation.
This will start a swatch reference book for each of the members.

*Note – Tech friendly groups could try a digital approach for those swatches not requiring feel. Each member brings a larger sample, say 10″x10″ and a large print card with the documentation. The fabrics are all layed out in a well lighted with their card sitting on the fabric in the lower right corner. Members then use the cameras or phones to take photos of the swatches with cards creating a digital swatch.

Swatch Cards and Books

There are several ways you can approach your swatch book.

A pre-bound book can be used for handwritten notes. This format allows the keeper the freedom to write whatever she wants about a particular fabric. The fabrics can be pinned or handstitched onto the pages. The downside is pages can not be rearranged or sections added to.
Three ring binder as those which are half-size can nicely hold punched swatch cards. Cards can be pre-formatted with fill-in areas about the fabric. These lines work well as prompts to remind the keeper to include particular information. (This can be helpful for those just starting.) Swatches can be pinned or sewn to the cards. Loose cards can be sewn through a sewing machine. Cards can easily be rearranged as catagory needs change.
Card boxes are another way of holding cards. An advantage is the cards can easily be pulled out and looked at in different groups.

Each person will want different information on their swatch cards. Here are the swatch cards I did a few years back. For new swatch cards, I would want to include information on the print (block, roller, etc), colors/dye, finish and dating as well as how a fabric might be used. That could look more like 2013 Swatch Card.

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Resources - Reenacting & LH

on July 29, 2013 at 5:11 pm Comments (1)

Millinery at Mumford

Here is Lily’s green silk caned bonnet trimmed out in pale pink satin and pink & white flowers.

Here is my pearl silk caned bonnet trimmed out in rosey pink and paper roses with a silk bordered veil.

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on July 26, 2013 at 6:00 am Comments (7)
Tags: Anna's Millinery

HSF #16: Eugenie Inspired 1857 Straw Hat

Here is a lovely example of how to do a seaside or recreation appropriate hat. She chose a hat with a fine, narrow plait. The shape she gave the brim allows it to dip down nicely in the front.
A job very well done.

The Quintessential Clothes Pen

I recently participated in an outdoor mid-century dance performance for which the weather was an un-obliging 90-something degrees + humidity. Yup, not kidding. It was HOT! And we were dancing on asphalt. Luckily, we were out on an island in the Boston harbor and had a breeze. But it was HOT!

Anyway, more on that performance soon, because it involved a new cotton print day dress made from one of my recently acquired historic cotton prints! In addition to the dress, I also restyled a straw hat to go with the outfit and keep some of the sun off of my head. The hat has been used with various other clothes (1780s and Regency come to mind), but I had only ever added a simple ribbon to it rather than really styling it. This was the perfect opportunity to really make something of the hat!

I wanted to…

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I Forgot to Categorize This.

on July 25, 2013 at 8:47 am Comments (1)

What’s for Lunch

Today I’ll start with something completely silly. Eggs in a tin. Yep, I told you it was silly. I picked up a bunch of matching tins for Dan to take food to Gettysburg a couple weeks back. To my delight, I found one dozen large eggs fit perfectly in the tin. I’ve never been a ‘cooler at events’ person. But, when I saw what those compressed paper pulp cartons do in melting ice, I knew there had to be a better way. So, this is how the eggs traveled to the event. I took my eggs out and sent the rest of the tin via little sister currier to Dan. I have yet to see how the tin did. I do worry it may have rusted. Next up, pickling or a crock.

I do love crocks.

For this event, we had a crock of cherries. You can see it on the right hand side of the table. We also had a crock for pickles. That is the smaller center one that should next to the eggs. The brown and red pieces are the museum’s pieces that were available for me to use in the Dressmaker’s Shop. The salt glaze pitcher is the one Lily bought for me on Friday. I have been wanting a large pitcher for a good while. I was so surprised when she handed it to me. It holds a half-gallon of water.

In the large center plate is some of Lily’s tasty goodies from her Confections class this past week. (I’ll be putting up another post bragging about her goodies)

In the back, you can see a homespun bag sitting in a crock. That has the bread in it. Need to research the proper bread containers they would have used.

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