The Upon Discussion, Utimately Late Victorian Accessory Set: Capelet, Hat and Purse

This rather idiosyncratic ensemble was intended as a prototype for some eighteenth century accessories - a proof of concept exercise, if you like. What came out of it wasn't  particularly successful with regard to period or, arguably, aesthetics, but as proof of concept for pattern and construction, it worked exactly as ordered.
I suppose that's damning with faint praise, but it's all I've got!

Material Details:

The fabric was a remnant of stiff salmon-colored upholstery silk.   The trim is a rococo trim from Spotlight (a bit coarse, but the colors were right) with a green variegated 7mm silk ribbon twisted around it.  Beads and feathers were from my stash.

Hat:
The hat was based on the delicious and altogether edible millinery confections from the film Marie Antoinette - like this one:

My Version:

For the hat base I used a buckram wreath form left over from a wired ribbon workshop I took 15 years ago.  (Never throw ANYTHING out.  It all comes around in the end!) The wreath form is not a perfect circle and the center hole is off center and the buckram is not very strong - even reinforced with millinery wire around the brim.  I didn't mull the hat after I wired it, so you can see the outline of the bias binding I used to wrap the edge if you look at the underside ….

            I do like the trimming.   The cockade is made of more of the silk ribbon, a few feathers and a bunch of gold-tipped stamens from my stash. (Click on the image to see larger.)

            I tea-dyed the marabou feathers  - that was fun!  I'd never tea-dyed before and had read that vinegar and salt both work to fix the dye - I decided to add both to the water - for redundancy - and my pretty ecru-colored feathers turned a spectacular neon yellow orange.

I rinsed the color out and re-dyed them, using only salt this time, and it worked beautifully.

            Unfortunately, it's a leetle too small on the doll head for the eighteenth century, but it works CHARMINGLY as a non-period-specific  accent worn on the front of the head at a fetching angle. (blurry photo warning):

Mantelet:
The mantelet was drafted from the instructions at La Couturiere Parisienne.  It was supposed to look sort of like this (a la the small girl in blue):

It came out sort of like this:

Um.  The PATTERN worked lovely.  The muslin draped very nicely, as well.  If I'd been in my right mind I might have used a fabric for the final version that draped instead of using stiff upholstery silk, and I might not have used two layers of it (what on EARTH was I thinking?), as well as adding a nice stiff taffeta lining.

            And I might have used a lace that was scale appropriate and less Edwardian.  And if I had done THAT, I might not have gotten desperate and started doing COMPLETELY misguided rococo-ish figures of eight on the back of the mantelet to distract from the trim -

            As it was, I spent a whole evening twisting and couching that ruddy trim and at the end of it all I sat back and looked at it and said - "Um…"

            Mr Tabubil had HIS face pre-set into an expression of proud approval, but he took one look and cracked.  

        "Tabubilgirl" he said gravely "what you have here is a American Girl scale Christmas Tree Skirt."

Yeah.  That figure of eight is coming right off.  I plan to redo this mantelet in blue wool - lined with white silk satin, and it will drape BEAUTIFULLY.  And I won't trim it at all.

 

Purse:

I AM unambiguously proud of the purse - I used a scrap of the leftover silk and trimmed it with green embroidery floss - couching it with small seed beads, and twisting it into cord (6 strand cord for the profile and 4 strand cord for the handle.)

            It's not rococo - it's not true anything except what felt right at the time but - embroidery floss couched with beads!  Who needs an excuse for that?!

            This set languished in the closet until mum visited a few months ago.  Despairing lightly, I brought it out to show her.  She had a good look at it and pointed out that it wasn't that bad an ensemble - I had just confused myself by thinking it was mid-eighteenth century.  If I pushed the date forward one hundred years or so - I would work just fine!

            So here are my 1870s-ish accessories.  If my AG doll was a vaguely tarty sort who worked in a saloon in Denver where Doc Holiday came in nights to play the piano and she flirted her bustle at him and sat on his lap and kissed him around a shot glass full of raw moonshine whiskey.