Historical Fortnightly: #10: Literature

The Challenge: Literature - I decided to be a lemming and do the Great Gatsby like everyone else
Fabric: Silk!
Pattern: My own!

A few weeks ago, this dress came up on ebay and I HAD to have it. I LOVE it. It's now in my collection and it truly is stunning in person.

The extant dress is very interesting in terms of shapes. I took a lot of detailed measurements and examined the seamlines. The front of the skirt is a normal circle skirt front. It measures 42" from end to end. The back of the skirt has a "pedal" hem. There are four pedals, each are 16" from high amp to high amp, 6" vertical, and have 9" of null space between them at the widest point.

I didn't bother with the silk tulle much because it is mostly gone. There were probably 8 triangles hanging down at one point but not anymore.

The front of the skirt is lightly gathered.

The cummerbund waist is 9 1/4" long on the angled sides, 7" down the center where the flowers are. Across the top of the cummerbund waist is 16", the middle is 17", and the lower edge is 18 1/4".

The back of the cummerbund waist is straight across at the top but curved at the bottom edges; the front of the cummerbund waist is "bow tied" shape.

The top on the extant looks to be a straight tank top style top. The front of the top is straight across the bottom edge, which helps to give the bodice area shaping. It's only 9" from the underarm to the top of the cummerbund waist.

I'm still working on the tank top top for my dress because I haven't perfected it yet, but I think the issue I'm having with it isn't "pattern" as much as I need to move the gathers to the edges and not the center bottom of the top.
Year: Probably about 1927.
Notions:Thread. I do have some flowers for the center of the dress but I got mad at the flowers (I had put them on slightly off center) and they are sitting in the bad craft pile for now.
How historically accurate is it? Very. Dupioni silk was popular in the 1920's and they had sewing machines!
Hours to complete: Roughly five?
First worn: May 18th. It was too cold to wear by itself so I had a long white sweater over it. Still, it looked cute and the skirt is completely awesome on this dress.
Total cost: Mom bought the silk as a birthday present so none!

I know the pictures aren't the best but this really is a fun dress. I think I might tweek it a bit more and wear it to opening reception at Dress U.

Food!

I've been playing with my food again. :-)

Lemon Pepper and Chives Chicken

I had fun with this one and I'm still experimenting with the recipe. It tasted fine but I accidentally burnt some of the chives so...I need to rework my timing next time.

1 tablespoon Olive Oil
2 tablespoons white cooking wine
3 fresh chives - chopped
1 tablespoon of lemon pepper
1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 boneless chicken breasts

I fried up the chicken in the olive oil. All the measurements are relative since I just poured the olive oil in the pan for cooking. Once one side was cooked, I should have only added the cooking wine, lemon pepper, and lemon juice but I also added the chives. Do not do this. I lightly coated the chicken in lemon pepper. Once the other side is almost done, I should have added the chives. The chives are from my garden and some of them have onion pearls. I crushed those using a garlic press and put the pressed pearls on the chicken. Once it was full cooked and I put some salt on it (probably something else I should have added to the list), it tasted wonderful. I didn't take pictures because it was slightly ugly with the burnt chives but, eh, whatever. It was very yummy.

Another thing I've made is my version of study food:



Deviled Eggs! It's just boiled egg yolks, a small amount of the real dijon mustard, a large amount of mayo, and chives. I then mashed it together, sprinkled paprika on the eggs after filling them with the mix, and put green olives on top. Awesome and tasty study food!

Checkered Wool Regency Dress

I'm the one down in front with the purple ribbon in my pink and black hair. The dress is an Apron Front Regency styled dress. It's handsewn with cotton thread. The lining is cotton and the dress itself is 100% checked blue wool. I bought the wool at the fabric.com sale and it is stunning stuff. It moves wonderfully and plays nicely.



Side view of the dress. I did long sleeves since this was originally meant to be a fall dress. However, it works wonderfully for Spring as well!


Ignore the odd wrinkles at the shoulders - that's from wearing the improper chemise and not having the apron front tight enough in the front. Simple issues that I'll fix next wearing. :-) The back of the dress is very full. I probably could have added even more fabric but I was going for an every day somewhat rustic look.

I'll post more pictures when I can finally transfer them from my camera to my computer in a couple of weeks. Thank you to Gloria for taking such wonderful pictures!

Historical Fortnightly #9: Flora and Fauna

The Challenge: Flora and Fauna
Fabric: Poly taffeta I think
Pattern:  Flora!
Year:  mid 18th Century
Notions:Just the fabric and the thread
How historically accurate is it? The cut and the pattern of the fabric are both accurate but I machine sewed the entire thing and it is 100% dead dino
Hours to complete:one!
First worn:Fort Fred, April 27th
Total cost: Maybe $10? I don't remember. I bought the fabric at Jomars a couple of years ago.

Here is my inspiration image (aka, the extant garment I based my jacket off of):


I did the cuffs differently simply because the fabric I had refused to behave.

DIY Toothpaste

So...due to food allergies, I can only get very certain types of toothpaste. A lot of toothpastes have corn in them (as a sweetener!) and, although a very small amount of corn won't hurt me, it's better not to tempt fate like that.

Well, my brand of toothpaste, Tom's of Maine, was out at the store. D'oh! And I was completely out at home. However, I remembered reading that in the 19th and early 20th C, people brushed their teeth with Baking soda. So I went home, and found this recipe. I added both vanilla and mint extract and it still tastes horrible (I added too much salt) but oh my goodness! My mouth feels CLEAN once I finish brushing with the baking soda paste. And my teeth are whiter. I'll play with the recipe and see if I can make it taste awesome but, so far, it actually does work.

Lovely Early 17th Century Minature Recently on Ebay

From the seller:

A pair of early 17th century miniature portraits of a noble couple. Oil on tin, size 9,7 cm x 6,5 cm / 9,5 x 6,5 cm (3 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)

From Me:

This didn't fit on my other blog but I thought it was important given how old the paintings are.

There is a lot of interesting tidbits with these paintings. Miniatures were the wallet sized pictures before the age of photography. There are a lot and all you need to do is a quick search to see ton. Painting on metal wasn't uncommon either - despite how weird it might look to us.

A few other late 16th/early 17th paintings that are oil on metal:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O137343/the-virgin-mary-reliquary-unknown/

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Aachen_Hans_von-Joking_Couple

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Allori_Alessandro-Portrait_of_a_Woman

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Albani_Francesco-Holy_Family_with_Angels

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Elsheimer_Adam-Judith_Beheading_Holofernes

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82306/portrait-of-an-unknown-girl-portrait-miniature-unknown/

Based upon his ruff and her shawl/fall, my guess is late 1620's/early 1630's. The ruff he is wearing would be out of style but make sense with his suit of armor (think military uniform), whereas his bride would be wearing the latest fashion.

Altogether, a very lovely example from the Baroque time period.

Various things

My starter for my bread died a horrible death earlier in the month. It was disgusting and horrible so I won't share the details. I have to make a new one but I'm going to try to use up all the fast acting yeast I have in the fridge first.

I won't be doing anything for the By the Sea Historical fortnightly. I had too many other things on my plate at the time. However, I should have something for the Flora and Fauna.

As many of you know, the lack of accuracy in movies bothers me greatly. Due to the not so gradual decline in education and the pursuit of education, most Americans take what they see as reality and are unable to distinguish between "Hollywood" and "Reality". I deal with it every single day at work. Almost everyday I heard something along the lines of "But in the movie, they said!" and I have to explain, over and over why that is wrong. And it's not just the historical movies. It's almost every single movie ever made.

For instance, one of the most troubling scenes in Mrs. Doubtfire to me is where Pierce Brosnan's character is seen chocking on a piece of shrimp. According to the movie, he is allergic to shrimp. Yet, somehow, Robin Williams' character simply goes over, does the Heimlich maneuver and everything is a-okay. Ummm. No.

What would have happened in real life is that Pierce Brosnan's character would have had to have been transported to the ER for anaphylactic shock and may have even died. At the least, a small pat on the back, so to speak, would not have instantly cured the situation. If anything, Robin Williams' character should have been charged with attempted murder!

There are a lot of reasons why I refuse to go to the movies anymore (sit in a chair that I have no idea when it was cleaned last, with a super sticky floor, surrounded by 100 strangers who have varying degrees of hygiene and etiquette, just to watch a movie that will be out on netflix in two months anyway? People pay $15 for this?) however, this is one of the reasons. Since the 1990's the movie industry has gotten far worse at even attempting any accuracy in filming. TV shows have long since become a laughing stock even when they are supposed to be serious (24 was hilarious!). Unfortunately for those of us that actually would like a story told that is, ya know, believable? There are very few options.