If I Had My Own Blue Box:

A few years ago we looked at how some original women wore their bonnets perched on the backs of their heads as well as how we can also do so. If you missed it, the post was called Got Perch?

This was only one of several ways women wore their bonnets. Today, I would like to look further at how mid-century women wore their bonnets. Let us start with more examples of the bonnet being worn behind the mid-point of the head.

You will notice some variation in how far back the bonnet is worn. The two women on the lower left appear to have their bonnet furthest back among the group. These two also happen to have their bonnets angled more than the others. From the views/positions we have, the third woman from the left on the bottom row appears to have a nearly vertical position to the brim and tip. We can not say for certain with the other women; though I suspect the top left may also be nearly vertical. We can also see that most of these women have their flowers reaching further forward than the brim edge of the bonnet. The position of these flowers may help hold the bonnet in place. In the lower right, the flowers can be seen cupping the top of her head. Take a particularly close look at the woman on the lower left. There is a piece photographing white sitting below the flowers/decoration. This may or may not be a stay.

This next group of women are wearing their bonnets at or just forward of their mid-point.

We see greater variety in the angle of which these bonnets are worn, seeing them worn nearly vertical, angled slightly forward and angled slightly backward. The bottom right and bottom left images show the further forward reach of the spoon bonnet while displaying noticeable difference in the depth, angle and shaping of the crown and tip. In the top left and top right images, we can see how the frill aids in holding the bonnet on.  Again, the flowers are aiding in securing the bonnet to the head. In the bottom row, third from the left, you can see the woman’s flowers reaching down over the hair line. (The lower right image could be considered as wearing her bonnet quite forward.)

In this next group, we see the bonnet worn quite forward of the mid-point.

Many will notice these women each look more mature. I do not know if this is a coincidence or if there is truly a connection between age and mode yet. I will look further into this. While these bonnets are worn further forward and a couple are rounder, the fashionable spoon shape is present. The bonnet with the daisies, second on the bottom row, demonstrates well how the flowers can hug the top of the head. In several cases, the flowers sit forward enough to reach to or even beyond the hair line. If there is a connection between age and this mode of wearing, there could be further speculation that this positioning of flowers could conceal a thinning part.

The following group was collected as I was looking at untied or partially tied bonnets. These are late 1840s through early 1850s examples. Each either has the ribbons simply looped over each other without a bow or completely untied. Many, if not most, of the women above would have worn their bonnets in this style ten to twenty years previous.

This adorable hat block was waiting for me at my mailbox when I got home. I wasn’t expecting it until Saturday. This was a pleasant surprise. Pocket friendly price and uber-fast ship. Double win. 
This block has a beautiful taper to the crown. The wood is very pretty too. Here Clara holds it in place so you can see the pretty wood and nice taper. 

This isn’t an antique block, but it will help me make a few different historic styles. 

There are Civil War era styles:

And, 1870-80s styles:

If I try to go a couple rows beyond the block, I may be able to pull off this earlier style:

I am planning to bring this block along with my Julie block, with straight sides, for when I interpret straw sewing. They will make a nice comparison. This crown has yet to be named. I have a couple in mind. But, I want to wait until I take the first straw off it. 
I am trying to replace as many of my hand carved foam blocks/forms as possible. Foam becomes misshapen from over use. Wood is much better for me. This is a slow process of finding the right historic shapes at an affordable price. 

For a little Mid-Winter amusement, may I recommend A Dictionary of Reduplicated Words of the English Language.

 

And for the more serious…. The Domestic Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Manual.

I’ve spent most of this month wrapped up in snuggly warm blankets and plucking away at my laptop. I’ve been editing and re-editing To Net or Not to Net: Revisited. As I started the first round of editing the re-write, I decided I just wasn’t going to be happy without the illustrations from fashion columns. To appease myself about image rights, I tracked down original Godey’s Lady’s Book for 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864. And bought them.  I sorta oopsed on 1865 because I was distracted editing photos. I am now discovering just how long media mail can take.

This past Saturday, I had every intention of sleeping in in the morning and finding some way to enjoy the 50+ degree weather after a week of testing. I awoke to find hubby checking out the local auctions. Of course, I looked. This one photo of a photo album, opened to show 1860s CDVs inside, caught my eye. It was 9:38. The auction started at 9:30, 30 minutes away. We quickly dressed and headed to the auction. We were there just in time for some thing Dan was watching and to see the $15,000+ comic books sell; then to wait and wait and wait for 3 hours before my box of albums came up. Btw, this three hours was just enough for my previous day’s migraine to start knocking. When I won the box of three albums, two 1860-75 and one 1916-18, for far, far less than a single single album should have gone for, I was quite certain I would find most of the pages empty. I did not open them in the hall. I did not open them in the car. I did not open them before lunch, a much needed lunch. I finally opened them to find nearly every window was full in both albums. The larger album was in incredible shape, while the smaller received some abuse to the spine during the auction. I was actually a bit overwhelmed by what was in the album. These appear to be fairly local with a few outliers. A couple clippings accompany the photos. And, to my delight, several women are wearing hair net.

The month has been fairly light on sewing for me. I have been working here and there on my rug project. I had been keeping it a secret, intending it for last  year’s Agricultural Fair. But, it has now leaked over into year three. I have the very top and very bottom done, with a band across the center to do. I know, I am sure that is quite the reverse of most rug makers out there. It will all work out though.

A need for organization prompted this month’s blog sewing project. This will hopefully keep the sewing box a little more manageable. I do love these rolled cases for keeping various things. I can’t tell you how often the one in my desk draw at work has been brought out as the keeper of needful things. I should do a write up on that version, for just that use.

I’ve made a few bandeau headdresses. I enjoy this light sewing. Light in that it is easy on the hands and easy on the mess. Velvet ribbon takes up far less space and ‘stuff’ than straw plait.
Speaking of straw plait, I do keep saying to myself that I need to get started on sewing straw for the season. I know I should. Financially, I really should. But, I am just not there yet. I made one small doll hat from a short bit of rosy plait that came my way. It did not please me the way it usually does in the midst of winter. Don’t despair. Eventually, the straw will come out to play. Eventually.

I almost forgot one thing. When it really, really cold earlier this month, I finally did something I’ve been joking about for a while. I made up one of my hood patterns with fleece. Yup. Let me tell you how soft and warm this thing is.

I know some of you want a GB update. I met with my GI doctor, well one of them. She’s rather awesome: patient, calm, and explains things well. I am getting there. I know I’ve been pretty open about just about everything with this, but now I’m going to be a bit more reserved on a couple things. I need to wrap my head around them. I will share one fun bit. She said I have nerve damage that is likely permanent around the incision just below my breast bone. This is the one I opened inside trying to pack up after the CW event in July. I’ve decided since these weird electrical spasms are likely permanent, it needs a name. Norbert. After all, it is like a tiny dragon inside.

One last thing to share. This morning a blog post came up on my feed that is obscure and delightful at the same time. I must say, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined cat bustles were a thing, actually a thing. Okay, maybe in my dreams.

I made a few bandeau headdresses this weekend. I am going to need some more quality velvet ribbon if I am going to make many more. I do have a coral color and a pumpkin color. I don’t know how desired those colors would be. 

I may make some of the kind that have the fluffy loops on the divided this week. I need to find the right name. 

I just love it when I stumble across additional examples of pieces. This purple and  yellow hexagon pin cushion is constructed just like the velvet on from my “Hexagons” post.

I like how coarse the stitches are. The beads are much larger.

While we do not have an event quite so fine as The Duchess of Kent’s Grand Dinner and Concert to attend, we do have a lovely assortment of dinners, socials and balls to attend throughout the year as reenactors and interpreters.

These events often call for a special dress. They can also call for a special headdress.

 

The bandeau style headdresses wrap around the head with velvet or ribbon or lace. Be they symmetrical or asymmetrical, a focal point often lands center back. . “The most favorite cap of the season is formed of a round crown, set into a narrow band, which just encircles the head. This band is trimmed in various ways…” (Peterson’s, 1862)

Personally, I just love velvet. The softness. The texture. The way it moves. It is a beautiful material to work with and wear. I am looking forward to making several new headdresses this season. Currently, there are a few in my Etsy shop.

This first example, from 1862 Godey’s, show a simple band  with two millinette pads/ovals to which flowers are stitched. “This coiffure is very simple, and generally becoming. The rosettes are formed of pieces of bias silk about an inch and a half in width; the edges are cut out in point, and the silk box plaited and formed into a rosette, then sewed on to stiff net; the band can be formed into a rosette, then sewed on to stiff net; the band can be of velvet of silk, and a bow of ribbon to match the silk is often placed on one side of the band. One of more colors can be used; rose sublime and black make a good contrast.” This particular headdress is just calling to be made with the aide of one of my pinking machines.

.

This “Coiffure Zelia”  head-dress loops heavy ribbon  or velvet around the wired base, a “circular frame.” The heavy ribbon allows for fuller body. This season, I am looking forward to seeing pearls paired with velvet. I may even add turquoise as one description calls for.

“The Coiffure Zelia may be made of velvet or heavy ribbon tastefully  looped upon a circular frame, and these loops are confined by pearl or gilt pendants. Black lace is quilled on the one side and terminates in a bow with floating ends behind. The centre is a pearl or gilt ornament to correspond with the pendants.”

 

This Nerissa head-dress uses pink and black ribbon on a “band of millinette cut to fit the head, and which is stiffened with cap wire.” The description calls for box pleats. While the illustration fails at showing these, I think box pleats would be just lovely, as would directional pleats or tufts of alternating black and pink.

“The Nerissa Head-dress, and engraving of which we give above, is composed of black and pink ribbon. This head-dress is made of a band of milinette cut to fit the head, and which is stiffened with cap wire.

The upper row of ribbon is black and the under row pink, and both colors put on in full box-plaits. the Strings at the back are of black and the bows of pink ribbon. The knot of hair is to pass between the upper and lower bow, and must, consequentally, be dressed quite low on the neck. Head-dresses of this description will be exceedingly fashionable this summer; their comparative cheapness yes beauty recommending them as especially suitable.”

The Esmeralda Head-dress or the Coiffure Esmeralda appear in Peterson’s Magazine, V41-42, 1862 (right) and Frank Leslie’s Magazine, v 10, 1862(left). In both instances, the focal point is atop the head in front, rather than in back, though there is a knot or half bow in that location. The Peterson’s version specifically mentions being “on a foundation of millinette stiffened with a cap wire,” while both illustrations show the form in the illustration.

I have yet to decide if I will make any of the coronet style head dresses. There substantial structural base appeals to me. At the same time, I would want them to fit just right, while everyone’s head is different. Here are two beautiful coronets from Godey’s, July of 1862:

Of course, this similarly shaped coronet appeals due to my current work on To Neto or Not to Net: Revisited.

 

Looking for a head-dress for that upcoming occasion? Please take a moment to visit my Etsy shop to see those I have to offer.

 

Me, on a very day wearing a black and red velvet bandeau.

Surfing books on Ebay, I stumbled across this blue Victorian velvet autograph book and instantly thought “that could be a great FanU project!”, just bigger. But, should it be a FanU project? Is an autograph book appropriate for mid-nineteenth century interpretation? Did they exist in the 1850s? Where they used? How were they used? Did women use them?

I went looking.

The first article I came across was this. It suggested that yes, indeed autograph books were used in the mid-nineteeth century. They seem to be personal and social at the same time. This passage also suggest they were for men. What about women?

Autograph Books.

There is no good thing on earth that is not abused. Humility becomes, in the hands of Uriah Heep, an instrument for the satisfaction of his own aviaries. Friendship is but too often affected, for the purpose of obtaining, at your hands, valuable favors. Even religion is sometimes used by the knave as a cloak for his selfishness. But the good things of this earth are far more frequently abused, through want of thought, that from intended malice. By one who thus unintentionally errs, especially if his error be practical in its effects, a few practical suggestions will not be taken unkindlly.

Everything that is abused must have its uses. This is implied in the very expression. Let us then examine first the uses of autograph books; and these will appear more clearly for a comparison with the photographic album. Here we have the expression of the heart as portrayed in the countenance. And is it not portrayed there? Do not the features in their varied expression or in their habitual cast, tell of the temporary emotions or of the deep-seated principles of the soul? Hence one component part of the value whic we set upon the likeness of a friend. A second component of its value to us, consists in the pleasant associations connected with it; and our valuation or it varies in proportion to the number or the character of these associations. Again, in it has been presented to us by the friend himself, it has to us a value as a token, a visible sign, of his friendship, an assurance that he cares for us.

In each of these particulars the autographic album has a value only secondary to that of the photographic. The handwriting expresses, perhaps not so well as the eye, yet does express clearly the character of the man. Did you ever notice the habitual hand-writing of your friends, and did it not in almost every case comport with his known character? An energetic man will make his strokes bold and clear; a dandified man will attempt a style of chirography that is full of flourishes, a man that is careless in everything else, will be careless also in his penmanship. True, there are exceptions to this rule; so also is a man’s physiognomy sometime wonderfully deceptive. But both of them, as a general rule, bear witness to a man’s character.

Neither does the autograph fail in its office of bringing before the memory by association, kind recollections of the past. The circumstances of our acquaintance, of the relations which we have borne to each other, of the many kindnesses performed by one or the other, cluster around the autograph as freely as they do around the portrait of a friend. And the value of the autograph is still further enhanced by the fact that it is almost always the gift (non the less valuable because not costly) of the friend himself, bearing on the very face of it as an assurance of respect or of regard.

Thus much for the simple signature. But how much is its value increased when we add to that, expressions of good will, and direct assurances of regard. For we know that these words of friendship are not the hollow, oily professions of those who are actuated only by the desire and expectation of valuable services, whose friendship will turn into indifference or hatred when their selfish ends are accomplished. Have you not felt, my reader, the power of the schoolboy attachments when in college you have met with a former companion? Did you not at once, however slight your previous acquaintance may have been, rejoice even in the midst of college-mates to see a face whose familiarity dated several years back? How much more will college friendships be valued hereafter when in the midst of selfish strangers we look over the autographic momentos of our class-mates. Add yet to this the gentle reminders of scenes of pleasure in which we have mingled, and we shall have a partial idea of the value which in after life we shall place on these manuscript volumes. [continued] (Nassau Literary Review, 1862)

Next, this student lament about autographs. It, too, talks of autograph books owned by men, signed by men. What about women?

Autographs.

I have an excessive hatred of a certain kind of stuff written in Autograph books. It puts a modest mad like myself quite to the blush. To have a classmate tell you in so many wordst that you are a “man of talent,” a “a fine fellow,” and “that there is no one of all the class whose friendship is so much to be desired” – all this, I say, is exceedingly embarrassment to a man of innate modesty. [continued] (The Yale Literary Magazine, 1852.)

At last, The Works of Charles Lamb… in which we see verses written for women’s autograph books. 9 verses titled “In The Album of….” or “to….”. If these were actually written for women, in their autograph books, then we have women owning autograph books in the 1850s.

What is that you say? Why don’t I just look at autograph books to see who owned and wrote in them?
 Looking…. 

While the weather out side was frightful this weekend, I stayed warm and cozy inside with my laptop writing away on To Net or Not to Net: Revisited.

Here is a shot of the cover as I worked on it:

What will you find inside?

Here is the working Contents

1. Research—Then and Now
2. In a Word (Definitions)
3. How Was a Hair Net Worn?
4. How Were Hair Nets Constructed?
5. How Were Hair Nets Trimmed?
6. Who Wore a Hair Net?
7. When & Where Were Hair Nets Worn?
8. Bibliography
9. Appendix
      Directions for Making Hair Nets
      Fashion Descriptions
      CDVs in Full