The Mitts of Discontent Part 2: Construction

Several days later, after I had recuperated from the gastro, and unpicked the mitts fabric from my pyjamas, I chastely and sedately finished embroidering the second pair. 

I also sewed that pair to my pyjamas, three times, but that is entirely incidental to this story and has no bearing on my sewing competence. At all.

And then I cut.  Linen is wicked slippery, even when starched, and I hate cutting it. Possibly that is why I chose to make a second pair of mitts, so that I would enjoy cutting at least ONE pair of 'em.

 

The linen napkins were slightly too small for the pattern, so I ended up piecing the corners. 

 

Entropy House has a very good description of pieced mitts - make sure you keep your seam allowances and your grain directions, and everything will be fine!

The pieced pieces were stitched and felled, 

 

then the side seams were stitched and felled, the points were sewn, the thumb pieces were finished - 

 

And the thumbs were attached, following the instructions on the B&T mitts sew-along video. 

 

 

I hemmed the bottoms of the mitts, and then I tried my mitts on.

 

Clever readers will already have noticed what I had managed to completely miss until the mitts were already sewn and on my hands. I had seriously mis-positioned my mitt points. 

 

 

Mitt points are supposed to be balanced over the flat of the back of the knuckles, but mine were wandering off sideways into my palm.  And they were too small. And too pointy.  I hated them.

I re-cut them to try and recenter the point, but it made them even pointier, and I only hated them worse.

 

 Looking back now at the photos of the new points, they were perfectly respectable and okay, but in one of those late-night really clever sewing moments, I cut them off.

 

And I liked the mitts like that - pointless.

They were elegant and clean - but as I was reminded, only really appropriate that way for the mid 1790s onward, which is WHY one doesn't make late night decisions with scissors. However, with a clean slate, I was now able to draft the points I really wanted -  nice happy rounded summer points.  I stitched them and I sewed them on, and I felled the seams, and I had MITTS.

Happy, lightweight summer mitts.

And

 

Rich, saturated Christmas mitts.

 

I felt mildly contented about it!

A Tropical-weight Christmas Ensemble

Late December in summer, in the tropics, in the worlds driest desert, is not really the sort of time or place where one wants to put on stays and stockings and chemises and petticoats. A swimsuit feels more appropriate.

But I pulled out my linen-iest 1750s ensemble, and put on my Christmas mitts and my Christmas hat and went down to the beach!

A placemat is a good budget option for a bergere, but doesn't have any crown. It isn't going to sit on the head like a hat with a crown, and for these earlier decades of the 18th century, where there weren't masses of hair to cushion one's headwear, the difference will be noticeable.

 

But if you're wanting a quick and easy seasonal hat that looks brilliant from 100 paces and still pretty all-right up close, a a placemat is FUN!

Two Christmas Bergere Hats

Can I make a pair of bergere hats out of Christmas placemats and decorations from the dollar store?

I've wanted to try making an 18th Century bergere from a placemat for a while now, and when I saw a selection of silly Christmas mats in the local Jumbo supermarket, it felt like the right time to try.

I bought some Christmas- colored ribbons in a cordoneria downtown, and made a trip to the Best Mart dollar store to see what sort of Christmas froof I could find for decorations, came home and dug out my spool of millinery wire - and I was ready to go.

The placemats are VERY floppy, so I started by sewing two circles of millinery wire onto each placemat - one circle about an inch in from the edge, to give structure to the brim, and another circle about 2.25 inches in radius around the center, to stiffen the "crown" of the hat.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: When sewing millinery wire by machine, you need to be wearing proper eye protection.  Millinery wire is solid metal, sewing machine needles move swiftly and safety goggles are cheap in any hardware store.  Even sewing slowly and deliberately, the needle can snap - and when it does it will happen faster than you think.

 

I set the sewing machine to a zig-zag stitch, of about medium width and about medium stitch length, and I stitched at a slow and deliberate pace - I wanted a zig-zag that would be short and narrow enough to hold the wire securely, but also wide enough that I didn't have to risk the needle hitting the wire on every stitch.
When I came to the end of my circle I kept going and overlapped the wire by about 2 inches to keep the circle circular - and then I cut the wire free with a pair of wire cutters.

I trimmed the hats with my ribbon, using the pleating to hide the wires. 

The red ribbon was pleated in a box pleat, which sprang up in lovely puffs.

The gold ribbon I pleated in wide knife pleats.

I didn't worry about measuring the pleats, I just eyeballed them to keep them relatively even, and let the small variations between the pleats give a happy organic feel to the hat.

 

Once I had the ribbons sewn down, I tacked on dollar store Christmas-y corsages and other wintery floral bits until the hats looked pleasantly tasteless and festive. 

 

Lastly, I cut ribbon ties about 24 inches long and hemmed the ends so that they didn't unravel.  Then I flipped the hats over and sewed on ribbon ties. On these crown-less hats, you need to sew the ties about 2 inches out from the crown line, or you risk looking like a festive pageant pancake.
(See warning photo below)

The red hat is suitable for the 1750s and early 1760s when a single sprig of ornamentation, discreetly placed, was VERY chic

The gold hat is suitable for the 1770s and 1780s, when they wore the entire kitchen sink.

Bold, Brassy, Cool and Classy -  two fabulous Christmas Bergere Hats!