At Her Leisure

I finished this hat back in the spring. As usual, I didn't feel like doing hair so that I could get good hat pictures so I put it off until I wore it at Costume College. Then I forgot that I hadn't posted it so I still didn't post pictures. Now you can finally have pictures not only of the hat but of the full ensemble.



As a bonus, here's a picture of me with the finished hat and my mother-in-law with the mockup. Obviously brim shaping works a lot better when the brim is wired.



It's the Timely Tresses Sophia with the straight crown and brim 4. Brim 4 definitely feels like an afterthought. It's not mentioned anywhere in the instructions, and the headsize opening is elliptical while the tip is circular so the crown is a little funky. I didn't notice in the mockup and couldn't bring myself to tear it all back apart after I had assembled the buckram frame so I left it alone. With bows and flowers up against it, you don't notice, but it really should have an oval tip.

I doubled the buckram in the brim because that is a big brim, and it needed the extra stiffness. It's mulled with muslin and covered with ivory silk taffeta. The ribbons are moire rayon ribbons in a couple of widths of ivory and one width of green. The flowers are velvet forget-me-nots.

I varied a little from the fashion plate in trimming it because I was informed that the bow up near the top of the crown on the side looked stupid. I didn't disagree and decided to do something a little different. I also didn't have a nice wide piece of lace to drape over the edge of the brim so I was going to have to make a variance there anyway. I'm pleased with how it came out, and it sits well on the head. I did not need a hatpin or to tie the ribbons under my chin instead of at the waist like the fashion plate showed. Hats that stay put are the best. (I was not out in a stiff breeze. I'm sure it would need a little help in that situation.)

I'm generally quite pleased with the whole outfit. The flounces on the skirt gave it really good body, even for a wool with a lot of drape. The pelerine came out at just the right level of sheerness. The bonnet sits well. I look forward to wearing this one again.

I'd love to give credit to the photographer, but I don't remember who took these pictures. marianme? theladyrebecca? koshka_the_cat? mala_14? It could be any of them! Or even someone else I haven't thought of.

Things got turned upside down a bit at my house so I ended up reorganizing projects. I started the 1826 hat this week. I've got the buckram form together and am ready to start mulling it. I'm going to mull with muslin to keep it light since it's so big.



The buckram that came in the kit was okay for the crown, but with that huge brim, I needed to cut a double thickness. It's the Timely Tresses Sophia with brim 4 and the straight stovepipe crown. The tip is a circle, but the headsize opening is an oval so it gives an appearance of being a flared crown when you look at it from the front and a tapered crown when you look at it from the side. I very definitely think that brim 4 was an afterthought. It's not even mentioned in the directions, and the hatbox that comes with the kit doesn't fit it by a couple of inches.

I'm debating whether I should take off the tip and recut it so that it truly is a straight-sided crown.

This year was disrupted by an unexpected job change and relocation back to the area that I grew up in. Up until June I was working on needlework as usual, and I started a cross-stitched picture in July, but it didn’t move very quickly as we got the house ready to sell, moved to DFW, and started dealing with all the issues that you’re bound to find moving into a new house. I didn’t end up making my new favorite thing this year, but I enjoyed most of what I made.

It was still a sparse year for events. There was an outing in Phoenix, a whirlwind trip to San Jose, and Costume College. I had intended to go to two DFWCG events, but I had a houseguest for the Georgian picnic and the Christmas event was canceled due to rain. Here’s hoping next year I can start attending their events.

( This year’s projects behind the cut )

One of my goals for this year was to work from my stash. I was very successful. I bought the buckram and flannel for my 17th century petticoat, the marine vinyl for my husband’s welder cover, the “Cardinal Joy” cross-stitch kit, and the fabrics for my son’s Hallowe’en costume. My mother-in-law bought the fabrics for her blouse. Everything else came from the stash. Since I didn’t do a lot of sewing, my fabric stash didn’t decrease very much, but at least I didn’t add anything to it. I did decrease my yarn stash a little more significantly, though I’m trying not to even have a yarn stash. It’s mostly leftovers from projects where I had too much and some things that I bought in 2021 with specific projects in mind and just got a little too optimistic about what I could finish in a year.

This is just a general progress update because I have a few things I've been working on the last couple of weeks.

After spending last weekend making a dress, I don't think it's going to end up getting hemmed this weekend. My husband is still playing in the garage so there's no way I'll get the hem marked and pressed and stitched in the next hour. Marking isn't outside the realm of possibility, depending upon when he comes in.

Last night I finished an 1840's bonnet I had started a few weeks ago. It was just down to the trimming, which is the unpleasant part of millinery. Why can't the thing have been plain hats with just a band of ribbon around the crown or something? Bonnet trimming always drives home to me how non-artistic I am. Yes, I am an engineer by training and by inclination. I am not an artist.

I spent a fair bit of time over the last two weeks reading and knitting. I've started the third ball of yarn in my 1934 Benedictine tunic and am nearly halfway through the decreases to the waist. It's really plain knitting - I'm past the raglan sleeves, and the patterned section doesn't come until the hip - so it's perfect for knitting while reading. I will have to buy some US2 (2.75mm) DPN's for the sleeves. I have 6/0-1 and 3 but no 2.

The border on my 1890-ish veil is finished, but I haven't gotten any further than that. I worked on the bonnet and then the dress and then got to reading, which does not work in tandem with lace patterns, and there she sat. I did chart the main pattern since I had read that there were two mistakes in the pattern - I had found one in the border but never found a second one - but that's as far as it went. It's been a weird two weeks with no TV on around me, which meant that I could just read and work on the Benedictine. That is bound to change soon.

I started a pair of embroidered 18th century pockets at the sewing circle a couple of weeks ago since embroidering the pansies during sewing circle sessions worked out really well last fall. I traced one pocket and worked on it one weekend and then didn't go to the sewing circle for the next two weeks. I'm using a Romantic Recollections pattern (https://romanticrecollections.com/product/mid-18th-century-pocket-hand/), but I'm doing it with backstitch and multiple colors of thread.

The next project is a 1920's dress with an embroidered yoke and waistband that I'm hoping to wear in April. I've got a pattern and printed it out. I've got the embroidery pattern, though I'll have to suit it to the curved yoke. The next step will be tracing the embroidery pattern. This will be turquoise embroidery on navy voile unless I decide some other color looks better with the navy.

I made the Wearing History 1908 Automobiling or Travel Hat the week after Easter. Then I kept meaning to do my hair and take pictures because this hat needs the support of hair beneath the brim. After seven weeks, I have determined that, while I might make a hat with no place to wear it, I am not going to make hair rats with no upcoming event that requires them. You're stuck with a picture of the hat lying flat on a table.



It is made of linen with a crinoline layer in the brim. There's a petersham band in the headsize opening. The crinoline gives the brim more body, but it still flops if it isn't supported. I bought some sizing to stiffen the brim if the hairstyle isn't enough to support it, but I'm waiting to see whether the sizing is needed before I do it.

It was a really quick and easy project, and the pattern went together perfectly.

2020 was an odd year, no doubt. I was lucky that I was able to go to the George Washington Ball in Williamsburg the week before everything spiraled into chaos. With nothing else going on, I got a lot more time for needlework than usual this year, and by summer I realized I was churning stuff out way too fast. I started working on things that take a lot more time to get a finished product like cross-stitching and knitting.

I made two things this year that I really love – an 18th century domino and a Victorian shawl. I'm happy with a lot of my other stuff, but those are just some of the coolest things I’ve ever made.

( This year's projects behind the cut )

It’s funny how milestones in projects can coincide. I finished a bonnet and joined in new balls of yarn on two different knitting projects yesterday. I wonder if I’ll hit another milestone today - the beginning of shaping on the back piece of the bathing suit.

Then tomorrow back to Halloween costumes.

I finished this hat a few weeks ago, but it took me ages to get around to taking pictures.



It's a buckram and wire frame based on a Simplicity pattern (S2581, the one with the dusters), but I made the crown smaller than the pattern called for to better match pictures in a book of La Mode Illustree fashion plates I have. The brim is a bit wider than those prints, but I'm very fair and figured it was not unreasonable that someone with my coloring would favor slightly wider brims to shade her face in the period.

The cover is a navy silk faille so dark as to almost be black. The ribbon is a 4" wide rayon taffeta that I got a Costume College last year or maybe the year before. I had just the right amount of it for the puffs around the crown. The paper flowers came from Hobby Lobby.

The crown is rather small, and it is meant to sit on top of the head rather than around the head. It definitely needs full hair to look right. Without a padded out hairstyle, it looks a bit ridiculous.

I've got pictures of it on me now, but they will wait until I post about the dress I'm wearing with the hat!

I decided I needed a late 1850's bonnet to go with my late 1850's dress. Somehow wearing my early 1860's bonnet didn't appeal to me, and I can't explain that because I really am not crazy about millinery.

I used the Lavinia Ruth pattern from Timely Tresses with the 1850's brim.





It's covered in the same green silk that I used for my new Regency bonnet this spring and that I used for my 1916 and 1870 gowns. I'm starting to run out - I think I have 1.5-2 yards left. I wonder what the rest of it will be come. The net cap is about 160" of cotton net gathered down pretty tightly, and the trim is rayon satin ribbon that I got at Costume College. I might replace the ribbon for the ties because it's a very heavy satin and doesn't tie that well. We'll see how it goes when I wear it to a tea in a couple of weeks, and then I can decide.

I missed posting last week, but I finished my Regency bonnet on Sunday. It's made from the Timely Tresses Lucia kit with the deepest brim and the puffed crown. I wanted something that would shade my face more than my other Regency bonnets. And once again, I ended up in the 1805-1810 range. I guess that really is my favorite part of the Regency. I was trying to find a bonnet that was more like 1795-1800, but I really wasn't seeing anything that shaded the face.