Ench By Sew-030: Hats Off to Downtown Abbey!

This show is created, produced and brought to you by Laurel Shimer.

Hats I made recently in Wayne Wichern's Hat Blocking Class

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About the Show

The Enchanted by Sewing Podcast is, an extension of my regular sewing blog - Me Encanta Coser,  (http://www.meencantacoser.blogspot.com) which,  roughly translated means, Enchanted By Sewing

My blog is written in English. The name celebrates the historical and modern use of the beautiful Spanish Language in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where I live.

This Month's Show - Hats Off to Downton Abbey!

In this month's Enchanted by Sewing show, I talk about the role of Downton Abbey played in inspiring  the hats I've been making. I also share what I've learned about how to make hats. 

Track 1) Pensamientos Primeros – Making Hats -  Inspired by Downton Abbey, and enabled by local milliner Wayne Wichern

Track 2) Technicos A summary of the Techniques I learned something about while making Hats with Wayne Wichern

Track 3) Pensamientos Finales – Pretty as a Picture Hat - Grandmother Lily’s Wedding  - The story of my Grandmother's wedding hat reminds me that it wasn't only wealthy women who enjoyed wearing beautiful hats. Women of every economic bracket have always enjoyed the magic of the perfect hat.

Downton Abbey Themes- Books and Videos
            


Show Track 1) Pensamientos Primeros – Making Hats -  Inspired by Downton Abbey - Enabled by local milliner, Wayne Wichern ( http://www.waynewichernmillinery.com) 

Why do I love to watch Downton Abbey over and over ?
1) The Romantic setting
2) The fantastic British trained actors
3) The Fashions - my favorite part of Downton Abbey.
The best part of the those fashions? -  Hats! 

So far I see I've linked to over 200
caps, hats and other millinery fashions
on Hats and Other Millinary in Pinterest

I've saved links for many of my favorite hats on my Pinterest board "Hats and Other Millinary". These pictures were great to take to Wayne's class, to give him an idea of what I wanted to  create.

Hey - Am I was the only sewist here who’s excited to find that the newest Cinderella, Lily James, is Downton Abbey’s Rose, and step sister Drusilla is Mrs. Paddmore’s side kick

dear little Daisy? According to the UK’s “Telegraph”, Daisy, aka Sohie McShera, does love the chance to reverse her Upstairs/Downstairs role with Lily, just as much as I’d imagined.

Planning, sewing, and talking about hats lead me to reflect on history associated with women in times past.

Going Beyond Downton Abbey - Flappers Author Judith Mackrell explores life beyond costume dramas, when it comes to celebrity idols of the Flapper era -  British aristocrats Lady Diana Manners and Nancy Cunard, Russian artist Tamara de Lempicka, and three Americans; African American dancer /actress Josephine Baker, Femme fatal, Literati – and Wife of F.Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Southern Belle turned actress, Tullulah Bankhead. These ladies climbed the ladder from lower or traditionally established life styles, to serve as new role models for women from Daisy to Lady Edith. When it came to these ladies' fears, challenges and dreams, Mackrell gets down to the nitty gritty. She lets everything hang out from the seamy side to the highlights of their lives. 

This Black Straw Cloche is one of three hats I made in Wayne's class 

Show Track 2) Technicos A summary of the techniques I learned something about while making Hats with Wayne Wichern

 

The Gibson Girl Personified the In-Look
for up-to-date professional women like
Grandmother Lily

Show Track 3) Pensamientos Finales – Pretty as a Picture Hat - Grandmother Lily’s Wedding  

In Grandmother Lily's time, picture hats were made popular by the "Gibson Girls" drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. These ladies personified the New Woman feminist movement with which my grandmother and great aunts identified.

Duchess Georgina's
marriage problems, should have
 been
a hint to her descendent
Princess Diana

Ladies have been wearing Picture Hats for several hundreds of years. Early versions were inspired by the Gainsborough Hats worn by Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, ancestress of Princess Diana.

A Sewist's Field Trip: Lacis ( Berkley CA)

Hoop skirts in a variety of styles
can be bought at Lacis.

Both a museum and a store, Lacis in Berkley is a mecca for local and not so local San Francisco Bay Area sewists. I went there recently to buy spiral steel bones for my bustier project. I'll be going back as soon as time permits to enjoy the other trappings of this lovely establishment. They include antique and modern lace, delicious old yellowed batiste Edwardian garments, and all kinds of specialty needlework tidbits, both for sale and on display.

This is the place you'd go if you want to create a beautiful wedding

gown, especially one with an antique or retro vibe. Or maybe you want to make your own lace, take up tatting, start a hand embroidery project, sew a bustier or corset, engage in millinery, or take up smocking. A lot of costumers shop here. While figuring out what sizes of bones I needed for my bustier, I had a long conversation with a long time costumer with lots of corset-making expertise.  He told me that the way my teacher suggested we sew our bustiers is all wrong. After all that's not the way he does it. I listened politely, because you never know what you'll learn. Mostly what I learned is there are a lot of ideas about working with bones and that there are more than one type of bone you may try. You do what works for you and you start somewhere.

Maybe you've got an exciting new textile arts project coming up, or maybe you just want to take in all the deliciousness that is Lacis. Next time you're in the area it's worth the trip. (it's across the street from the Ashby BART station). 

And, hey let me know if you want to meet up there!* 

A field trip to Lacis is the kind of thing that keeps me...

Enchanted by Sewing

*Email me at EnchantedBySewing AT gmail DOT com 

Halloween - What Would Marie Antoinette Wear? (Costume)

Am I the only sewist who's ever been tempted by the thought,
 that  she could pull together an historic ensemble, like this, in no time flat?
Golly with modern sewing methods,
and inexpensive luxury-look fabrics, what's to stop us?
Yeah, right!

Am I the only sewist out there who suddenly starts dreaming about the perfect Halloween costume less than a week before the big celebration? 

Wouldn't I just look ravishing, while passing out chocolates and other sweeties, in the fashions I associate with Marie Antoinette's times?

And really, how hard could it be to whip a gown like this up in no time flat?

Hummmm. Yes, it will be the witches hat, and orange tee shirt from the craft store for me again this year. Maybe 2014 will be the year I start getting serious in early September.....

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Resources*

I highly recommend the lovely, and informative, book, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It's a lovely read about what Marie Antoinette actually did wear to masquerades (like our modern day Halloween), grand balls, or just toddling around Le Petit Trianon with the dear little daughter, she nicknamed Mousseline, a fun allusion to the fashions that Marie herself made popular at the time. 

Since I like to keep my iPad happy, I bought the Kindle version of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.

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* Thanks Sponsors! *

* Thanks so much, to readers who sponsor the work of this blog and the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast, by purchasing books, ebooks and other products through links in this blog.

Ench By Sew-006 Conversation with a Pirate Queen

Hot Dog, the latest "Enchanted By Sewing Podcast" is available in the pod-o-sphere! 

You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link. Or, download this podcast free from iTunes, to play on your favorite mobile device/mp3 player (like an iPhone or an Android), by clicking on this link to iTunes.

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This conversation is about more than sewing, it's about a Californian who admits to having fun with her two teenage sons, drawn together by their shared joy in living history. How many boys this age have so much fun hanging out with their mom in social situations? I think Laura's found a secret that others might add to their parent-skills database!

What first drew me to Laura is that, in addition to costume sewing, she has a flair for  integrating elements of costume sewing into her daily wardrobe. Though she she sews for well-known living history events, such as the Renaisance Faire and Civil War Reenactment Days, it was our chat  about her experiences creating unique garments for  local San Francisco Bay Area personal theater - the Nor Cal Pirate Expo,  that had us both laughing, and me reaching for the edit button when it came time to clean up this interview to keep this podcast rated 'clean'!

Laura's enthusiasm and creativity in costume creation and sewing, is the kind of passion that keeps me enchanted by sewing!

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Please post other links and other pertinent information that you would like me to include in these show notes.

Vintage Threads: Lauren Bacall's Striped Blouse

So simple and so chic
OK, it helps when you look like Lauren Bacall, but...
What women isn't flattered by a classic striped blouse?

I wonder how many times I've watched the movie To Have and Have Not since I first saw it back in university days..... The story's still got it - the people seem as real to me as my neighbors. Despite Bacall's beauty and elegant wardrobe she's just another gal with a problem. Hemingway's tale isn't about celebrities, it's about regular folks with problems and this great film kept true to that message.

The checked suit Bacall wore when we first met her in this classic film, provides obvious inspiration for vintage sewing enthusiasts. Who doesn't admire that bias cut skirt swaying so alluringly against the roll of the starlet's hips, and the wonderful shaping and buttons on the jacket? We all want an outfit like that! But would it do much good for the job we'd imagine ourselves doing in a muggy hotel basement in wartime Martinique?

It's this blouse that I first spotted on Bacall in a scene with Hoagy Carmichael, that really takes me time traveling back to that hotel, and make me itch to recreate her vintage garment. Like the jeans and Oxford shirt that Humphrey Bogart wears in the movie, this chic, striped blouse is a classic any lady would still be glad to create and own. Wouldn't it look great on any woman?

Full-On View of Lauren Bacall in the Striped Outfit
It could be a blouse and skirt
Or a shirtwaist dress
But when I time travel back to Martinique, I'm
making my version up as a shirt tucked into jeans

Later on in the movie we see the full-on view of this beautifully striped garment. With a light belt wrapped around Lauren's waist it's hard to tell whether or not it's really a blouse worn tucked into a matching skirt, or a shirtwaist dress. Does it matter? In my mind I'm hanging out in the cellar of a Martinique hotel with the Resistance fighters, too. And of course I'm wearing an up to date version of  Bacall's outfit. Her skirt is history when it comes to roughing it, but this little striped beauty tucked into my favorite jeans is what I've got in mind for my role in the modern retake on this story. Classically as well as practically dressed, as I always like to be, I'm definitely gonna be ready to really help out  when the police come calling. 

Costume: The Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Hearts
Ready to Trip the Light Fantastic

Techniques: The Queen of Hearts already owned the ruched/shirred black bustier and tutu skirt. For the inset I cut a long rectangle of white costume satin and ran a gathering stick up both sides and two, closely spaced down the middle. Then I spent a lot of time trying to get the white satin ruching/shirring to mirror the black satin. Finally I had to just go for it. The red hearts are two sided. I pinned the white sating rectangle to mirror the sweat heart neckline of the bustier, then loosely hand stitched the white section on. After which, I hand stitched the hearts down. I expect to remove the entire inset in the future with a seam ripper, so I didn't go for a permanent meet up between the insert and original bodice.

Technique for the future: 

Those hearts didn't come out with crisp edges, eh? Well frankly in this case I kind of like the soft floaty,  imperfect, homemade look. These days, too many costumes roll off the assembly line for my taste. However, if I wanted to achieve a crispy look on this soft stuff another time, I think I would interface a similarly rounded and pointed edge form to one of the sides, then sew them up (all except for one straight shot on the right or left leg, then turn the joined sections right side out and stitch it up. In this case I didn't have to stitch the open edge up, because I was sewing the entire heart down to the white satin, so I just caught up the open edge then.

It's a Pressing Matter: Get Behind Me Goo!

It's not the Queen of Hearts
fault that I foreswore the
press cloth in my attempts to
make quick work of her
togs

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first sewist to trot out the old phrase It's a pressing matter, when it comes to ironing  So I surely do apologize if another sewing blogger or podcaster has used it as a major theme. The good stuff tends to stick in my craw, and I often think I've invited it myself. It really used to irk me is when somebody else used my good ones, (particularly at work!) and got all the credit. But it happens all the time. I've learned to accept it, and realize I probably do it myself.

I've been a little more focused on pressing because of my Fashion Sewing 110 class at Cañada College.  Rhonda and Kathleen made rather a point of remembering to use the press cloth to avoid sticky situations. That pretty much saved my iron a few weeks back when I mistakenly used 2-sided fusible instead of interfacing (I was in a bit of hurry and it looked the same to me). One of the sticky sides ended up on my press cloth and not the sole plate of my iron.

However I wasn't so lucky yesterday. In a hurry to get 3 just-turned-right-side-out red satin hearts for my daughter's Halloween "Queen of Hearts" bodice well shaped, I thought the iron, minus press cloth,  would help give them more definition. Well, it did. It also gave the iron a nice coat of sticky residue. Apparently the slickery coating on that cheap costume satin comes off mighty easily - in this case onto the sole plate of my iron.

Luckily, I remembered that Kathleen had mentioned she cleans the iron sole plates in class with that fine product "Goo Be Gone". I'm not the only person who doesn't always use the press cloth, it turns out. Luckily I own a bottle of Goo Be Gone Spray Gel. And, interesting to me - is it to anyone else? - I bought it at Menlo Hardware, a store that Kathleen (and her parents before her) owned herself for a long time.

My iron is shiny clean now. And the Queen of Hearts is ready to trip the light fantastic in a few weeks time.