An American Duchess Brain Hat

Or as I like to call it - a jellyfish explosion in a boudoir factory.

 

One needs lots of hats. You can't fight it - it's just a fact of life. This one's supposed to be a  bergere with loops and puffs of silk gauze all over the crown, a la the "Brain Hat" from the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking. (page 153)

I began by covering a straw hat blank with silk taffeta:

I traced the shape of the hat brim onto purple silk taffeta, leaving about an inch of seam allowance at the edges.  I cut roughly out a hole for the crown, then stitched the silk down at the outer edge of the brim, smoothing and folding the seam allowance over to the underside of the hat. After that, I sewed the silk to the inner edge of the brim, tight against the crown of the hat. 

 
Next, I covered the crown with a square of purple silk taffeta, smoothed and pinned my way around and over the edge of the crown.

 

I stitched the silk down tightly against the base of the crown and cut away the excess.  Because the hat will be covered in billows of silk gauze, you don't need to make a clean finish here. You won't see it.

Next, I covered the underside of the hat. I've described how I line the underside of a hat brim in a previous post here. The procedure is the same - except that in this case when you bind the brim you can either use the silk you used for the top side of the hat, or you can choose a ribbon to match or contrast with your color scheme.

 

The thing about lining hats is - it hurts.

Once the hat was lined, I had to trim it. I use the words "had to," because I ran into technical difficulties almost immediately. 

I'd  planned to make my 'brain' out of a rather elegant gold-striped silk gauze, but the gauze fabric was lousy.  

 I'd purchased the fabric from a highly-regarded retailer who had previously sold me wonderful fabrics, but this particular gauze arrived as a loose, irregular weave, woven from a stiff, coarse thread and the raw edges of this fabric didn't fray - they splintered, shattering open when I cut the stuff, or lifted the stuff, or touched it, or, cross my heart,even looked at it sideways from underneath my eyelashes.  Commercial fray-check products didn't help at all -the threads of the weave were so far apart that it was like dabbing glue onto the end of a broom, and it was just about as useful. 

For the ruffle along the edge of the brim, a conventional hem was clearly right out of the question - when you put a needle through the horrible stuff, the thread dragged out channels and drove puckers into the cloth. 
Eventually I worked out I could press - carefully - a half-inch fold without losing more than 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch to the shattering problem, and I could hold it - carefully - in place with a running stitch.  If you didn't look too close.

For the brain I reckoned I'd have less trouble - puddling on a pile of the stuff would hide the fraying edges beneath the puddle, and despite the looseness of the weave, the gauze was so crisp that it would - surely - stand up in lovely folds and puffs!
And it did.  Unfortunately, there was one more little problem: the weave of that damn gauze was so loose that my pinhead were sliding right through - even my biggest clover quilting pins were passing through like hot steel through a blob of butter, and pretty soon I  had a high balloon of gauze with pins stuck to a straw shell underneath it, and  naturally,  working a pin back out wasn't half as effortless as watching it slight right in!

At this point I felt committed beyond point of return (please don’t argue here about the economy of sunk costs.  By now I wasn't a rational actor in any way, form or shape - so I pinned and I stitched (and don't ask how the stuff handled the stitching either, thank you) and I pinned, and I pinned and I stitched, and I stitched, and wherever the stitching really wouldn't hold I stuck a pink bow, 

 

- and then because I didn't even want to look at that horrible gauze anymore I abandoned the ruffle and bound the hat in a gold satin ribbon, and when I sat up to take a breath, it looked GOOD.

And you'd think that would be the end of it, wouldn't you?

I went away and did something else for a day or two, and felt pretty good about the whole thing, really I did, but then I came back to the hat to stitch a pair of ribbon ties to the underside, and I found that that bloody BLOODY gauze had slipped its stitching in several places and was popping up where it shouldn't be popping, so I had to sit down again and stitch it down again, and when I sat up again, the stupid bloody brain was held down all right, but there was absolutely almost no froof left in it whatsoever.  All my big billows and puffs had been deflated into something that looked a something like a collapsed pudding and something like a big gauze cowpat.

 

At this point there was absolutely no enthusiasm left in ME whatsoever either.
 

Even worse, my puffy pink bows stood out like a bouquet of sore pink thumbs.  I bound the brim edge with pink ribbon layered over the gold, to tie it all together, but now that hat looked like a freaking melted Neapolitan ice-cream.

It was NOT a good moment.

I walked away again for another day or two.  And then I was done.  I stuck that stupid wonky ruffle onto the edge of the hat so that it looked more like a deliberate sort of mess and less like a flat pudding on a purple plate -

 

And then I got dressed up and took photographs to tell it that I hadn't been beaten. I had WON. And whenever it slips another stitch or shreds at me I can pull out those photographs, wave them at it, and it will KNOW that I did.

Amen.

Fabric Shopping in the 1790s

My original plan for 2022 was to make a little 1790s capsule wardrobe - one pattern and three gowns that would take me through any sort of event.

Let’s see how THAT worked out.

 

For Gown #1 , I had a gorgeous greenish blue peacock taffeta from Burnley and Trowbridge. Unfortunately, when laid it out for cutting, i found that i was 1.5 yards of taffeta short of a gown, no matter how i pieced.  

 

Which was dispiriting - BUT - a capsule wardrobe can always use an open robe, yes?

 

In which case - moving on to Gown #2, I had a length of striped white Burnley and Trowbridge muslin for the basic white frock, but when i laid it out, I was, again,  that exact same more-than-a-yard short.

 

Clearly, when i did my original fabric calculations, i was an idiot.  

 

Fortunately, the fabric is still in stock at B&T, so i ordered more, and while it was coming, moved on to Gown #3 -

 

Fabric #3 was a soft blue and white striped silk-cotton that I’d picked up at The Fabric Store in Brisbane. Yardage would NOT be a problem - I had MASSES of the stuff. Almost enough for two gowns, if I fancied it that way.

 

Rather triumphantly I laid it out - and six hours later, I stood up again without having made a single cut.  I’d forgotten just how wicked slithery silk-cotton can be.  In all of those six hours, i hadn’t even managed to mark a straight line. Even with the stripes to guide me - I’d measured and marked and pinned and weighed it down with books, pots, furniture and even a solid metal bar I’d found in the garage, and I still had not managed to mark a simple straight reference line across the width.

The solution was straightforward but arduous - I needed to go buy a few bottles of spray starch and turn that slithery stuff into cardboard. And when i say arduous - based on my prior experience with silk cotton and spray starch and given the yardage I needed, I was looking at a couple of afternoons with a steamer and a starch bottle - 

 

And after all the time i’d spent building a pattern block, I wanted to sew now!!

("And anyway", said Mr Tabubil, and i could hear his eyes rolling.  "If you’re going for multiples, maybe you want to start with a wearable mockup anyway? Hmm?")

 

So. Knee-deep in beautiful fabric I couldn’t use, I went shopping.

 

I happened to be in Reno, Nevada, at the time, which was exciting - because THE place in Reno for fabric is Mill End Fabrics. Mill End is an interesting shop. They acquire the bulk of their stock from stores that are going belly-up or going online-only, which means that the stock is a) irregular and b) there’s never EVER another bolt in the back.  What you see is what you get, and what you usually get isn’t enough for what you need it for.

 

Mill End had a lot of cotton fabric in the right sort of weight, but almost all of it was end-of-bolt-"Is 2 yards enough for you, sweetie?" situations.

 

After a lot of digging, I did find something - a bolt with 6 yards of cotton voile in the most enchanting shade of emerald green, and it was only $3.50/meter, which is a very reasonable price, and I bought the lot.

 

I really should have wondered a bit more at the price. After I got it home, I saw that the selvage had been slashed into with scissors - about half an inch deep, all the way along, like this:

 

Okay, I thought. I could cut the panels a bit narrower. I’d have to fell the seams between skirt panels, but that will work, no worries -

 

So i popped it in a hot wash and a high spin cycle, and then I started to iron it dry.

 

And look what I found:

 

A bleached-out line, RIGHT down the middle of the whole piece. More or less.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

The line wanders.

 

Right down all six bloody yards of it.

 

I am sewing, see?

Beaded chiffon and purple velveteen!

Yesterday I sat down and beaded  the edges of the orange chiffon scarf that I had hemmed while I was up in Brisbane.

And I bought the yummy elephant pattern for the new baby.

And I have fabrics, too!  B.W from my Wednesday sewing group cleaned out her stash last week and brought me a lovely stack of velveteens and small scale corduroys. I rather like these two for elephants.

Last night I put them through a hot wash, but I cleverly put the whole stack in together.  When I took them out of the machine, I found that a kleenex had slipped into the washing machine, and that between the tissue shreds the green velveteens were purple with purple fuzz and the purple velveteens were green with green fuzz...
            Oddly, the orange and black corduroy came through completely unmarked. 
            The velveteens are going back in the wash this morning.  Individually.  We'll see what happens after that.

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.