At Her Leisure

I ended up doing a lot of cross-stitching this year, which made great inroads on my cross-stitch kit stash. Of course, that was at the expense of sewing, but I’m still pleased with what I finished this year.

My favorite thing of the year is my 1897 Harper’s Bazar ivory wool dress.


( The rest is behind the cut )

These are the current UFO's.
17th century knit garters: The first garter is 60% finished. This is a background or traveling project. They’re not going quickly, but they progress a little every week. I do expect to finish the pair by the end of 2018.


Early/mid-18th century stays: These are really close to finished. I need to bind half the tabs on one side and put in the lining on that side. I ran out of binding and need to get some more.


“Southern Belles” cross-stitch: This is barely started. I started it to have a hand-sewing project to work on at any given moment, but then I started my new stays right afterward, which gave me a hand-sewing project. I expect this one to be a very long term project, like may not finish in 2018 long term.

Last weekend the state park at Washington on the Brazos had a celebration of Texas' declaration of independence in 1836. My whole family went with the girls in costume. E's dress is based on a museum piece that I think is late 1830's, and M's is a bit more generically "Victorian." I made a new dress for myself out of a brown printed poplin.



This was the first time I've gone to an event that was set at a very particular point in time, though I'm sure that's familiar territory for the reenactors around here. Most of my events are more "Regency" or "1910's" or the like. So I did a fair bit of looking at extant dresses, trying to find things I liked that are specifically mid-1830's. And since this was a homesteading sort of area at the time, being slightly out of date seemed reasonable...no, it's not that far from New Orleans and not that far from the port of Houston, but it's very rural so 1834-1835 seemed like a good target.

Here's what I came up with.




It's cut from six yards of yard-wide goods, which was a bit of a trick and wouldn't have been possible if I weren't on the short side of average. I still got plenty of size in the sleeves, but I did have to cut them down a bit from the Janet Arnold pattern I started with. I ran out of time to make sleeve supports for the event, but I'll have them for the battle of San Jacinto next month. All the bodice and waist seams are piped, and the skirt is cartridge-pleated to the waistband. The bodice is lined with muslin, and there's a 6" muslin hem facing. It hooks up the center front.

It was a drizzly, on-again-off-again rainy day so there wasn't as much going on as I'm told there usually is, but the children had a good time, and we wandered around from about 10:30 to 3:00 before we headed home and made the children take their shoes off before they got in the car.



My massive shawl is big for the 1860's so it looks a little ridiculous in the 1830's, but I was glad for the large expanse of wool in the cool dampness of the day.



And of course, here are our lovely friends the Grahams who invited us to join them and brought the children cupcakes in honor of Texas' birthday. They also provided all the pictures.



Now to finish the sleeve supports, trim the bonnet, and make a chemisette for the battle of San Jacinto in April. I should make a cap with a more 1830's shape than the 18th century one I wore this time, but I think the neck handkercheif I usually wear with 18th century things worked quite well tucked into the bodice in lieu of a proper chemisette.

I hope the weather is a bit nicer for San Jacinto because we've had a couple of damp events lately.

I just wanted to post a status update on my current project list.

18th century cap:
Nope. No progress whatsoever. No progress expected any time soon.

18th century stockings:
Moderate progress. I've done forty-odd rows of the foot. I'm really only working on it while reading right now so it's not expected to go very quickly.

1897 Harper's Bazar dress:
Still on hold. This is waiting until the 1830's dress and bonnet are done.

18th century pinball:
Basically on hold until it's warm enough that I don't want to work on a heavy wool sweater. The cardigan has knitting priority right now.

Aran cardigan:
The back is finished, and I'm about a third of the way through the first front. I just joined in the back of the pocket, which was interesting.

Brown poplin mid-1830's dress:
I cut out a bodice mock-up but haven't gotten around to fitting it yet, but the skirt panels are torn, seamed, faced, and hemmed. As soon as I hem the placket, it will be ready for the waist treatment.

1858 sortie cap:
I started another little knitting project, a sortie cap. It was nice blind knitting, and I did the knitting while reading this week. Wednesday night I raveled out all the stitches, and last night I blocked it. Now I need to do all the making up - it's got more finishing than a lot of knitted items.

Regency shoes:
Last week I dyed some Regency shoes I bought over the summer, and now I want to do a little decorating with ribbons. I want them for a Houston Area Regency Society tea next weekend so they should be done some time this week.

There are rather more projects on hold than I really like to see, but I guess it's not so bad. I'm not quite sure what I'll work on tonight...