A Knitted Star Bag

The Lady's Assistant for Executing Useful and Fancy Designs in Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Work (1847) by Jane Gaugain is an incredible book. Not only does it have a pattern for the rather famous pineapple (I've knit one! Blog post eventually!), but it has many clear, easy to understand, followable patterns! Amazing for Victorian knitting. One that I found particularly intriguing was the Knit Bag of Purse Twist and Steel Beads. So, I made it, and even though the pattern was clear, made a chart and wrote the directions out more fully, complete with charts and row by row instructions.



Knitted and crocheted bags with star motifs at their bottoms were popular during the Victorian era. And why not? Not only are these stars attractive, but they’re one of those deceptively simple things to knit. Once you get past the probably most awkward knitting ever—casting on eight stitches over four double pointed needles—it’s incredibly logical and the design progresses quickly. Don’t be intimidated by the 5/0 needles. They’re remarkably quick to adjust to. They’re quite the conversation piece as well—who doesn’t occasionally like impressing others with knitting?



Adjustments to original: Mrs. Gaugain’s original pattern was remarkably clear. The only adjustment I’ve made to it is to add a row of eyelets near the top to thread a drawstring though. She makes no mention of how the bag should be finished. Contemporary bags in museums often have a row of eyelets, so I decided to include them. My bag—like many originals—is lined. I used a tube of silk taffeta, gathered at the bottom and whipstiched into place just below the eyelets.



Here's a link to my Ravelry project page.
And here's a link to the pattern page on Ravelry.

The pattern is below the cut!

I'm also going to include a PDF of the pattern. I can't do it on my almost seven year old computer though, and will post it once I can do it at work :)

And a PDF of the pattern! I downloaded an app for my phone--I'm surprised I didn't think of that first!

My Cotton Print Sacque, or Robe a la Francase

It's about time I got back to the Williamsburg wardrobe postings, isn't it? So here's my cotton print sacque, rather fully tutorialed already! (Yes, tutorialed is a word.) The tutorial is here (part nine of a series), the muff cover is here, and the cloak tutorial is here.



I'm wearing it over a shift, stays, pocket hoops, and two petticoats. My cap is one I started in a class at Costume College taught by Janea Whitacre and Angela Burnley. It's silk organza and silk ribbon. And it's so silly it makes me happy :)



The dress fabric is from William Booth Draper. I was very lucky--I got the last they had in stock (six yards, I think it was?). It was intended for a caraco, but things changed!



It was a windy wet day, and I felt like I belonged in a satirical engraving the way the wind was blowing everything around!



The wind did die down enough for one good shot! My skirt is pulled up through my pocket slits, though it still did get some Authentic Williamsburg Mud on it. You can see that the back panel is plain. Six yards isn't much, even when you're short! It was a perfect dress for the museum, where of course, the textile gallery was closed.

The Screaming Yellow Sacque--A Robe a la Francaise!

Now that the Epic Williamsburg vacation is over (sigh), I have many updates! For now, they are of the 'look at me' variety, but each and every costume has a tutorial of some sort forthcoming. For this dress, it's sleeve ruffles and the blue silk cloak. Enough of that though, on to the dress!



I wore the dress twice. First to the theatre to see The Walking Statue, or The Devil in the Wine Cellar, and then to dinner at the King's Arms.



On the agenda for next time--bigger sleeve flounces. I hit The Wall before the trip and finished a pinball and started a knitted pineapple instead :)



I was very happy that it was cool enough to wear it with accessories! The hotel costuming I usually do just doesn't lend itself to that! The cloak is silk taffeta lined with China silk and interlined with not period but inexpensive and not overly warm the way wool would have been cotton flannel. It's trimmed with marabou leftover from my pink and green court dress. The tutorial for the muff is here and the muff cover is here.



My hair is really quite simple. It thankfully teased, which it often refuses to do. I just set it in sponge rollers, teased most of the middle section, pulled up the back, stuck in a rat made of fake hair, and smoothed the front over it, then had a friend stick things in the back to cover any wonkiness.


I'm glad that after having the fabric for I think about 10 years (I bought it after my first or second Costume College!), I finally made it! I'm also glad that I didn't make it so long ago, as it is a better dress than I would've been capable of then :)

Here's my Live Journal tag about the dress. It includes a few construction pictures. I essentially made this dress in four days. Counting the lining, it was five; however, if you consider that I made the lining for my Virginia cloth anglaise the day I started this and it's essentially the same lining...

Side by Side!

I thought it would be fun to share another of my Brownie photos. As I was having my picture taken with the Brownie, I was also having a digital picture taken. I did the same thing with the tintype taken ages ago. See that here. This one is a little less different, I think :)

Brownie Pictures!

Last year at Costume College, a group of us used my c. 1919-1924 Brownie No. 2E camera at the beach and at the Huntington. I finally developed the pictures! I present some of them here without comment--the rest, including the cats, of course, are in the Flickr set!

The camera is incredibly easy to use. This model uses 120 roll film which is still made. Just load it according to the manual, available here online, rest the camera against your stomach, look in the viewfinder, and move the shutter. It's that easy! There are three apertures, and the manual explains when to use them. The main page also has a list of cameras and the film they take. Very useful if you want to use the camera itself!

18th Century Short Cloak--A Tutorial!

As I was browsing 18th century cloaks online, I came across this great page at The Hive Online. Visit it! It has a lot more information than I do here.


My finished cloak!

Making the cloak is very, very easy. Mine took about an hour and a twenty minutes, and had I been happy with the ties, would've taken an hour and two minutes. Yes, I did time it :)

For information on patterning, do visit the above website. I did a pattern in muslin first, not so much because you need to, but because wool is $20 a yard, and I didn't want to make a mistake. I bought 1 1/4 yards.


Here we have the pattern pieces--one cloak, two collars. The cloak body is essentially a stretched half circle. Please note that I'm the "very short and skinny" person mentioned in the article and I didn't have to piece it. I did though shorten it one inch on each side from my pattern. I wasn't about to piece one inch by about 4 inch pieces. It was much easier to make it slightly less full. I don't think such a small piece would even hang correctly in such a thick fabric. I have seen originals with much smaller pieces pieced, but losing a part of a sleeve is much different than a cloak!


Gather the neckline and pin the collar into place, right side of the cloak to wrong side of the collar (not that it really matters with many wools!), with the collar pointing down. Sew with a backstitch.


Pin the second half of the collar into place, wrong side of the cloak to wrong side of the collar, with the collar pointing up. Sew into place with a whipstitch. (I used backstitch. In typical me fashion, I read the article, read Costume Close-Up, and then did my own thing stitch wise because I forgot what I read and didn't recheck the stitch until I was done.) This will fold over, and the gathered neckline of the cloak will be sandwiched between the two layers of collar.


Sew the ties in (I used black wool twill tape), and you have a cloak! So easy, and it really was nice and warm to wear. Of course, it was about 40 degrees when I wore it, which I normally don't consider warm enough for outer wear, even in the real world, but it was still much warmer with it on than with it off :)

Three Magazines, One Fashion Plate

Years ago, this would be 2001 or 2002, I had a very good mail day in which I received a copy of a fashion plate from La Belle Assemblee and a bound edition of The Lady's Monthly Museum from 1829. Much to my surprise, one of the dresses in one of the fashion plates was identical. I wrote about them on my webpage.

So imagine my surprise when a third copy came up on Pinterest! This one is from 1828, and was published as Costumes allemand et francois.

This dress was also redrawn in Costume in Detail

Here's a link to the pins--I couldn't post them next to each other, so a screenshot and Flickr it was!

Quite exciting, no?