Old letters: Bit writes to her Mother

I have been sewing my fingers off for a week trying frantically to get my new Renaissance costume ready for closing weekend of Sherwood Forest. Which is this weekend. My friend Melissa and I are going to dress up together and head out there with her boys tomorrow. My dress still needs trim on the skirt, trim on the chemise cuffs, elastic in the chemise cuffs, and grommets in the bodice. I have to get it all done tonight.

So in order to get my mind off of the costume for a bit, I've decided it's time for a new Old Letters post. In this one, Bit writes to her Mother. Where Bit is writing from and where Mother lives, I don't know. The envelope didn't come with the letter. But I can guess that Bit is writing from Virginia, since she's sending her mother a card of Mount Vernon. And there's no date on the postcard, but Bit mentions rain from Camille, and my friend Google tells me that Hurricane Camille happened in August of 1969. BRILLIANT. THAT'S WHAT I AM. BRILLIANT.

[FROM: Bit, somewhere in Virginia; TO: Mother, location unknown / August 1969]

Dear Mother:

Thanks so very much for the $15 for the trivets and spoons. Needless to say, I haven't gotten around to purchasing them, but will when things settle down a little bit. 

I surely did enjoy having you visit, and hated to see you go, but I guess you had to. The weather has been very pleasant except for 2 weeks of Camille rain. It's bright and in the upper eighties. 

Mrs. Stratton will work on the Henry line if you'll send a copy of Grandma's [?] letter. She keeps asking for some dope. 

 I guess everybody is back in school now which is a relief. I guess I told you we're going to a convention (Shrine) in Baltimore Sept 11, 12, & 13. That will be about the time of our anniversary, so it should be fun!

David will go to Governor's Island for 3 months to Storekeeper's school, and then to OCS in Feb. if everything goes according to his plan. 

Roy is doing fine. This is his good time of year business wise, so his spirits are good. Has anybody been given their moving papers yet? I hope you can get what you need to get re-established. Isn't Sonny helping you find another place? Looks as if you should be able to find something in University Hills. I still think you should try to build a duplex. Call Hawks [?] Campbell when you get ready. Thanks again.

Love, Bit

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Aww, how sweet of her mom to give her money for spoons and trivets. When I first read this letter, I got the impression of a young wife trying to make a nice home for herself and her family. Not a newly wed, but in her first few years of marriage. Yet, in transcribing it here, I started to wonder if David and Roy are her sons, or if one is her husband and the other her son. Either way, it sounds like she has grown kids, so I suppose she's been married for a while.

Okay, let's talk about that $15 for trivets and spoons. I checked the inflation calculator and $15 from 1969 would be around $95 today! Wow. That's a lot of trivets and spoons. How many could a girl possibly need??

Mrs. Stratton asking for dope all the time, hahahaha. Sign of the times for 1969, I suppose.

I wonder what the Henry line is. I wonder what happened that Bit's mother needs to find a new place to live and get re-established. I wonder if University Hills is the University Hills in Austin. 

Well, those are my really bland observations on a pretty bland letter. After the drama of Freddie and Mattie Cagle, everything else seems to pale a bit in comparison. Let's hope the next old letter will be more exciting.

Sensory overload in the fabric store

So I found this antique postcard the other day and I had to buy it because it pretty much describes me in every fabric store ever, online or on the street.

If fabric stores these days were full-service, I have no doubt I'd be this woman. My approach to fabric stores is this:

1. Head over to Joann's. Enter the store full of anticipation.

2. Look at every bolt of fabric at least twice.

3. Choose one or two bolts of fabric and spend 30 minutes studying each one, trying to imagine how it will look all made up.

4. Pick one.

5. Look at every bolt of fabric again, just to make sure I didn't overlook something.

6. Start thinking maybe the one I chose isn't really the best one for the project.

7. Look at every bolt of fabric again.

8. Find one that would be PERFECT OMG THIS WOULD LOOK SOOOO GOOD.

9. Check the price and get mad because it's $16.99 a yard and too expensive even with a 40% off coupon. I want a new pirate costume, but not for $75!

10. Decide to look online for something cheaper.

11. Head over to the trims section and spend an hour looking at all the different kinds of lace.

12. Find something that would be PERFECT and then cringe at the price tag. This costume is going to be expensive.

13. Go home and look online for hours. Pick some great stuff and let it sit in my online shopping cart for three days while I think about it.

14. Decide to purchase it, only to find out the sale ended while I was being indecisive.

15. Decide to just get the cheaper of the two fabrics I liked at Joann's, because I got a 50% off coupon from them for signing up for text alerts. It's as good a deal as I'm going to get.

16. Go back to Joann's. Enter the store, full of anticipation.

17. Find out that all the fabric I liked is now on sale for 30% off, so I can't use my coupon. Refuse to purchase ANYTHING because I'd be paying $2.00 per yard than I would have if I could have used my coupon.

18. Leave store in a fit of rage.

19. Come crawling back two days later and grudgingly buy fabric I wanted even though I think it was a shitty move for Joann's to issue a 50% coupon during a week when they were going to have almost everything in the whole damn store on sale.

20. Make new pirate costume for the Renaissance fest and feel totally fabulous and infinitely talented when it's all done and I look amazing.

21. Start planning next project, and go through this whole thing again.

It's exhausting just thinking about it.

Going back to the postcard, the postmark on the back dates it to 1915. It's almost 100 years old. Here's a picture of the back:

Danville, June 11, 1915, 4:00 pm

TO: Miss Maggie Houghton, Cabot, VT

"Hello M I may be over Sat. night our Sunday anyway we plain to come over tonight but Rofe could not go everything is fine. I.S."

June 11, 1915 was a Friday. So the sender expected Maggie to get this postcard the next day. That's really efficient postal service! Especially when you look at the address. How on earth could anything be delivered with an address like that? Was the world really that small back in 1915 in Cabot, VT?

Well I guess it must have been. According to a Wikipedia entry, the population of Cabot Village, VT in 2010 was just 233 souls. But there's another Wiki entry for Cabot Town, which includes Cabot Village, that says the population was 1,433 in 2010. Confusing. But, according to the census records of 1910, the population really hasn't changed very much in 100 years.

Either way, it's a small town. And my goodness, is it rural and ever so beautiful. Look at the Google images. It's just lovely.

1911 Edwardian corset is almost done

I really can't believe that I'm almost finished with the 1911 Edwardian/Titanic corset I started two years ago for the Bridges in the Body corset sew along. It wasn't hard to make, but for some reason I just worked on it in fits and starts. Now one half of the corset is completely done except for the lace trim. The other half just needs grommets, and then I can finish the top and bottom edges with bias tape and lace.

I finished inserting the bones and sewing the bias tape to the top and bottom edge of the finished half last night and while at lunch today I pulled out my stash of antique and vintage lace to try and decide which one to use to trim the top edge.

Here are the options:

Lace 1

This tatted lace is too delicate to use on anything that has to be washed. Plus, it's a monster to iron.

Lace 2

Pretty! But I think a little too wide, and too busy of a pattern. It fights with the corset.

Lace 3

This is three yards in one continuous piece. I think it was meant to trim a petticoat.

Lace 4

I love the way this looks. And these pieces are already the perfect length for trimming this corset. The only problem is that the color is slightly too "off" for blending into the corset. I'm not sure if I can get them whiter or not.

I've seen lace very similar to this as cuff and collar trim on many Edwardian and late Victorian gowns.

Lace 5

This is very similar to Lace 4, except narrower. I think it's too narrow for the top of the corset. But I love the off-white against the brown of the corset.

Lace 6

Crochet trim. I don't think this is antique, whereas I think that Lace 1, 2, 3, and 4 truly are Edwardian. That's just my gut feeling. But it definitely is very very vintage at least. It was in horrible shape when I bought it.

This was a monster to iron, which is why it's a good candidate for a corset. Those little scallops at the bottom shrivel up in the wash.

Lace 7

More crochet trim. It's not as wide as it looks--there are remnants of fabric attached to it from where it must have been cut off of a dress.

Maybe the pattern is too bold to complement the corset. It kind of takes over.

Lace 8

Very similar to Lace 7. Pretty, but it doesn't do much for me here.

As I look at these pictures, I find myself leaning towards Lace 1 and Lace 4.

Lace 1 looks almost perfect. It's much more striking in person than in the pics. And really, I can't think of a better use for it than as corset trim.

I am in love with Lace 4 though. I'll have to stare at it for a while tonight to decide if the color will work well enough for the corset.

New Renaissance fest costume in the works

How do the days pass so quickly? It seems like just yesterday I decided to make a new pirate costume for the Renaissance fest, but it must have been more like 3 weeks ago. I've been thinking about it and planning and thinking about it and stressing and thinking about it and suddenly I realized this weekend that I only had about two weeks left to make the following:

Corset
Chemise
Bodice
Skirt
Underskirt

To this end, I ordered a bunch of lovely 100% cotton jacquard fabrics from FabricMart.com for just $3.50 a yard! I will post about these later. But in a stunningly practical move, I am not using any of them in my costume. I feel really stressed out whenever I spend more than $50 at a time, but they had a 20% off coupon for first-time shoppers so I got 25 yards of fabric for just $78.00 and that includes the shipping. And I mean, the price was unbeatable.

I made am making my corset from a vintage tablecloth that my lovely friend Kristine gave me. It's pale yellow and is printed with dogwoods, so it already has two of my favorite things going for it. It's a tight weave, so I can use it in a single-layer corset.

I think it's darling. I am using Simplicity 2890, which I picked up at Joann's for $1.00. The corset was designed by fashion historian Kay Gnagey and I have actually worn one of her corsets a few times and loved it. It's my ideal corset. Originally this was going to be a practice piece but I decided to just make it all the way because a) I am too lazy to fit a corset properly to my figure, b) my figure is pretty much made for Victorian/Civil War era corsets, being an hourglass shape, proportionate boobs to hips, and short-waisted, and c) I don't have time to make another one before the Ren fest.

This was my first time inserting gussets into anything, and it could have been a rage-fest but I found this wonderful tutorial before I ever started, and that made everything a breeze. That being said, I forgot to do a 5/8" seam allowance, doing a 3/8" instead, so the bust is too big. I don't really care right now.

I'm still trying to decide if I'll use 1/4" zip ties for the boning or order steel boning. Steel boning isn't really that much more expensive than zip ties. It's the corset busk that's kind of expensive--and that damn shipping--so I might as well just get proper boning. I need to make a decision soon.

I almost ordered all that stuff this weekend but then froze with indecision because, in my usual can't-do-anything-in-moderation fashion, I thought as long as I'm ordering boning for one corset, why not order boning for FOUR CORSETS??? The shipping will be the same, and I want to make this corset again, and I have another Simplicity corset pattern I want to try, and since that other one looks easy maybe I should just make TWO of it also!?!?!?!

Moving on, I am using a 1970s dress pattern for the chemise/blouse. I get a lot of my patterns at my favorite thrift store, and they come 2-3 in a package. So for every one that I buy, I get two extras that are usually not something I'm interested in. I've been listing those extra patterns on my Etsy store, but there are a handful that I have put in the "No Redeeming Qualities" category destined for my trashcan. This was one of them. But juuuuuust as I was about to throw it out, View A suddenly struck me as an AWESOME lady pirate blouse.

Look at it.

LOOK AT IT.

I am going to use a sheer linen swag that my friend Melissa found for me at the Goodwill outlet last year. I should probably save it for something more important than a pirate chemise, but I'm trying to save money where I can. What's the point of having a fabric stash if you don't use it?

I'm going set the elastic slightly higher on the sleeve and then trim the cuff which white lace bordered with gold lace at the top, like so:

For the bodice and skirt, I'm going to use this Simplicity 3809, View A. I originally had grand plans to make an underskirt out of some of the white cotton jacquard I got from FabricMart, and make a bustled overskirt from the Janet Arnold book, which would have meant rescaling the pattern and being amazingly talented. But for the sake of simplicity (hahahaha), and lack of time, I'm just going to have to settle for a Big Four pattern. But it will still be cute!!

I am pissed off at Joann's for having their linen fabrics 30% off for the past two weeks at least, which means I can't use any of the 50% off coupons I've had. Assholes. I really don't want to spend $45 on fabric if I can avoid it. So after much stress and fuming, I've decided to dye my dark brown linen skirt from my previous Ren fest outfit black. And to make the bodice from a jacquard tablecloth I've had squirreled away and dye that black to match.

I spent 8 hours online yesterday picking out gold Venice lace trims for this outfit, only to realize that if I trimmed it like I wanted to, I'd end up spending some $50-$60 on lace. I can't afford that right now. So after all that, I just got 10 yards of one type of lace and I guess I'll be spending about $27 which includes the shipping, which is nice and cheap as far as that kind of thing goes.

Now I just need to stop thinking about stuff and actually do something about it.

Look who's finally got a dress form

I finally broke down and bought a dress form. After months of deliberation, I decided the best one for me would be one of those wire ones that you can mold to the shape of your body. I tried one of the plastic ones they sell at Joann's but it didn't really work out for me. I am very short-waisted, and I'd have had to pay a lot of money for one that has an adjustable back waist length.

So I decided to spend that money on this Dritz My Double adjustable wire dress form from oh, maybe the 1940s or 1950s. I hope that was a good decision. They don't make these anymore.

Behold, the dress form in all it's squinched up glory.

It's got saggy boobs and a crooked back. 

It appears to be a little bit distorted. Nothing made that clearer than when I slipped a dress onto it to photograph for my etsy store. It looks like the dress form has scoliosis.

Stand up straight!

I haven't fitted it to myself yet. I need to find someone to help me do it.* The instruction booklet refers to a fictional lady named Aunt Jane in order to explain how to stretch and pinch and tweak the dress form into her exact double. Later on in the booklet, I think they actually start to refer to the form as Aunt Jane.

*On a side note, my ex came over to help me set it up, and he saw a couple of bras on my dresser and said, "Are those your bras??" I was like, "Uh... Yes?" And then he said, "They look HUGE." Thanks a lot, ex. Thanks a lot. I'm already self-conscious about the size of my boobs and now I feel like I've got big ole mama-looking "features."

Anyway.

There is something I really can't STAND in the sewing community, and that is the naming of dress forms, and even worse, calling one's dress form "her." I can't stand it. I CAN'T STAND IT!! It's on the same level of irritating as people who call their husband "hubby" or who use the phrase "easy-peasy."

IT IS SO ANNOYING TO ME!

That said, it IS kind of fun calling my dress form Aunt Jane, and it helped to keep me from having a fit of rage as I tried to pull that dress over it's head while it wobbled back and forth because it didn't come with the stabilizing rods. "Come ON, Aunt Jane! I NEED YOU TO COOPERATE."

I really like Thread-Headed Snippet's approach to naming dress forms/mannequins. Her "Assless Boobs on a Stick" is pretty famous in the sewing/costuming world, and for good reason. Her entire post on the donated mannequins for her Jehossee exhibit made me laugh till tears came out of my eyes. And I didn't realize this until I was just looking back at that post, but she summed up exactly what I was feeling about calling your dressform by a name to help deal with the frustration of dressing it:

I was met in the Archives by a motley crew of donated* dressforms upon which I was expected to perpetrate my grandeur and awesomeness. As I wrestled with them in turn, I came to understand their quirks and gave them names to ease the process and offer a more focused outlet for my invective. The names were easy to remember because they were generally rooted in the unique psychosis/ deformity of each of the Cranky Ladies. (See what I did there?) They were respectively, "Charcoal Charlie," "Jangles," "Crunky Brewster," "Kevin" and "Assless Boobs On A Stick."

So I may call mine Aunt Jane, from time to time. I may even talk to it and curse it for being difficult or thank it for cooperating. But I will NEVER call it "her." :D

Old letters: Estella to Mr. Freddie Cagle

This is the last in the series of letters I have involving meanie Freddie Cagle. This one takes place in 1969, 20 years later than when we first met him. Let's see what Estella has to say to Mr. Freddie.


[FROM: Estella, 958 - 105 Avenue, Oakland, CA TO: Mr. Freddie Cagle, Rosebud, Texas / October 16, 1969]

Dear Freddie, 

Whell how are things going for my boy? Man you ought to be out here in Oakland now. Man this set out here is too, too, mean.

Freddie, whitey doesn't have a chance with these Negroes out here. Man everywhere you look is Black Power and signs with United Blacks, and Black's where it's at, and they've got a mean gain out here called the Black Panther's and they all wear black leather jackets and ride mean ass motorcycles, and they don't allow whitey to walk the streets after dark.

And Freddie the Natural out here is out out out of sight. My husband has a natural that is long as mine and I'm getting a natural as soon as my permanent wears off. Freddie everything black out here from 8 to 80 wears the natural and some of them is to mean. My husband got some groovy ass cousins too, and I'm learing from them.

Man you got to dig these skip parties these guys out here don't mind it. They get too school and say man I'm having a skip party at my pad all day and man every body skips school and goes over to the duds house and stay until 3:15 and go on home. These cats are something else. Freddie hurry up and come on out here and dig this set. It's really out of sight.

Whell, Freddie old buddy I could go on the rest of the night writing you but when a married woman's got a husband that is dying for her to hurry to bed you know how that is so excuse me while I turn out my light and no peeping. (smile)

Estella

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How freaking cool is that! To have a letter from someone living in Oakland at the height of the Black Power movement and commenting on race relations and hair and gangs! Estella sounds like she's just moved there. Freddie was stationed in San Francisco in 1951, so maybe her husband is in the military. I wonder if she's from Rosebud and that's how she and Freddie know each other. I wonder how old she is too.

I googled her address, 958 105th Avenue, and she lived in a CUUUUTE little yellow house. I love it. I wonder what the property values are now and if she or any of her relatives still live there.

My lighthouse dress: McCall's 5094

I am so excited about my newest sundress! It's the second one I've made from McCall's 5094, but I haven't taken pics of the first version. I had to do a lot of reverse engineering on the first one, and I will have to do some on this current one, but I'm not sure if I have enough leeway. The first one I made from a size 14, and I think the bodice pieces stretched a lot and I didn't sew the shoulder straps on correctly.

Regardless, I'm very proud of my craftsmanship on this dress. Ignoring the fact that the pattern on the midriff is upside down, and I sewed the midriff lining onto the dress inside out. But I've learned how to press seams, clip curves, and trim seam allowances, and it makes a hell of a difference!

Even though I'm proud of the craftsmanship, I need to fix the pattern mainly because the shoulder straps are placed too far out on the shoulders to hide bra straps, and they slip down my shoulders.

See?

And they need to be moved closer to the center back.

I had to stand weird because Lulu was hogging the foreground.

Here's a closer look at the strap placement.

This is what happens when you try to take pics with a doggie by your side:

Photo bomb!

Ah well. I am proud of my craftsmanship on this dress. It's not perfect, but I feel like I'm close to getting good enough to sell my homemade dresses on Etsy. It's a marathon, not a sprint.