At Day at Spring Mountain Ranch

At Spring Mountain Ranch
Photo by Lisa Coffey

This morning I put on my 1860's layers and headed out to Spring Mountain Ranch, which is here in Vegas, and right next to Red Rock Canyon. Today is Nevada Day (Nevada was admitted to the Union October 31st, 1864 - "Battle Born") and this weekend is the Civil War reenactment put on by the Southern Nevada Living History Association.

A view from Spring Mountain Ranch

Today was kind of a prelude to the weekend, which was awesome for me because I have never been to a reenactment before. Kind of an introduction for me. Today, lots of school kids and homeschoolers came out and there were presentations with cavalry horses, cannons, artillery and we civilians. It was such a blast. I especially love all the little girls who have endless questions about our outfits. I totally relate!

Stables across the pasture - ahem -  I mean, battlefield.
There was a cow mooing away!

I chose to wear my yellow cotton 1860's dress. Under it I had all the bits: stockings, knit garters, boots (Robert Land), original pantalettes and chemise, corset, three petticoats, a 108" hoop (Originals by Kay) and organdy undersleeves (remade from these originals). I also wore a pocket, which I reached through a convenient slit in my skirt (perfect for iphone!). One thing I was missing was a corset cover, which I just didn't get around to making yet. Next on my list!

To accessorize, I wore an antique brooch, belt buckle pin and watch chain. I found a nice little pocket watch for it on Amazon. The baste in collar is a beautiful white work piece I found for only $5 at an antique store! What luck!! The belt is brown silk over buckram lined with cotton. There are great directions for making a belt in Elizabeth Stewart Clark's Dressmaker's Guide. I also switched out my modern wedding rings for a plain "gold" one I found on Amazon. It looked great for being so cheap! I had taupe leather gloves, too, but they're in my pocket for the picture. 

Accessories! Undersleeves, hankie, belt, buckle pin, brooch, ring,
watch and chain, straw hat and hat pin.

All the jewelry is antique except for the watch. I think it
 is more common to wear the buckle vertically, though I
have seen a few CDV's with it worn horizontally.

Antique store steal! A whitework collar, basted in.

Robert Land side-lacing boots.

The batiste handkerchief I made has a wavy hem, much like the ones mentioned in Juanita Leisch's book, Who Wore What?: Women's Wear, 1861 - 1865. Apparently a fancy shaped hem gave ladies the opportunity to show off their fabulous narrow hemming skills.

I chose to wear a sun hat (it's bright here!), which I bought from Abraham's Lady. I took off the black cloth ribbon that came with it and replaced it with a brown silk satin one from MJ Trimming.

Shady face! The hat works just as
good as sun glasses!

And a sneaky modern cheater tip...

I always wear Shellac for my manicure. It's a gel that goes on like a nail polish, but it cures under a light. It lasts for like two weeks, which is great, but it's very time consuming to remove, just to dress up.  So I discovered this great polish: Essie's "Matte About You." It's a matte nail polish, so I put a coat over the gel and the shine is gone. At a casual glance, it looks like you have natural, costume friendly nails. Then just a quick wipe of non-acetone takes it off and I'm back to the 21st century!

Essie's "Matte About You" nail polish

The Beginnings of Empress Josephine's Slippers

The inspiration:

I absolutely love these pairs of slippers, worn by the Empress Josephine. The beaded pair are her coronation slippers. Following description from Bourhis, Katell le et al. The Age of Napoleon: Costume from Revolution to Empire, 1789-1815. NY: Abrams, 1989. 46.

"Empress Josephine's white taffeta coronation slippers, embroidered with gold--strips, threads, sequins, and cannetillés--in a bee-and-star motif."

Coronation slippers. 1804. Musee des Arts de la Mode. 

Empress Josephine's white silk slippers.
Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Malmaison France.
Photo by Gerard Blot. 

Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and
Coronation of the Empress Josephine.
Jacque-Louis David.

I have never made a pair of shoes before, but from what I know about shoe making I pulled together some materials I had and gave it a go. So far only one slipper is finished (minus any decoration of course). The second slipper is all sewn up except for the sole. Below are some pictures of the construction and how I made them.

Materials:

Top fabric: white twill weave silk

Lining: canvas and white linen. I didn't want my toes showing through so I added the canvas for interfacing. I don't think this is really necessary to use again if I made another pair. Too bulky.

Sole: Chamois leather. Pre-washed. It's all I had on hand. Not bad for the sole.

Sole lining: 2 layers of buckram, one canvas and then another layer of leather on top. I chose not to make a shank, since I was modeling this kind of after a ballet slipper. 

Thread: White 50/3 linen and #100 white silk thread. Both waxed.

How to make a shoe pattern (from shoes you have):  I modeled the pattern after a pair of ballet slippers and a pair of Chanel flats that have a similar shape to them as Josephine's. I layered pattern paper over the shoes and traced with a pen. I cut out the pieces, pinned them together and tried on the sample. It was a bit big in the back so I adjusted the pieces and recut. Then retraced onto new paper so I had a nice clean pattern.

Too big. Needs adjusting.

Insole.

Outsole(?)

The shoe pattern.

I didn't take any pictures of putting the shoe together. But it was very straight forward, if lengthy. Basically I started with the top. I layered the linen and canvas (linen will be against your foot - canvas as interfacing), folded under the selvages, butted together and stitched with waxed linen thread. I also stitched along the center front piece, down the middle, to keep the linen lining from falling into the shoe. 

The silk layer I sewed with silk thread. For the silk layer I backstitched the seam, then felled the selvage on the inside. See the pictures below. To join the aforementioned layers, I stacked the silk over the linen/canvas - insides out - and did a simple running stitch with the linen thread along the top edge, then flipped and pressed with the iron. Snip the curves to help flip the shoe neatly.

For the sole, I turned the top layers inside out again and pinned them to the sole layers (chamois and linen). It takes a bit of easing. I used an awl to poke holes in the chamois and backstitched the top and bottom of the shoe together. Flip it again! Push pull and ease the shoe into it's proper shape. I made the toe pointy, so I used the awl, with its plastic cover on, to push the shoe right side out.

For the small layers, that finish off the inside of the shoe, I layered the canvas and buckram and stitched through them to hold them together. Then I glued the layers together, I glued the chamois on top and I glued the whole piece to the inside of the shoe.

Next time, I think I will leave out the canvas interfacing on the uppers, and I will add a heavier leather for a shank. Other than that, I think they went well.

My fingers are between the canvas and linen. 

View of the linen seam - right side.

View of the canvas seam - right side.  

The silk is on the left. You can see the felled seam.

Snip the curve at the front (top of the toe) to
facilitate flipping the pieces right side out.

The flipped shoe, pinned open, before being pressed.

On the right is the pressed, finished top. On the left,
the larger pieces are chamois for the sole and linen. The smaller
pieces are chamois, canvas and two layers of buckram.

You can see the chamois/canvas/buckram layer.

Side view.

I'm still deciding which shoe to make - either keep the shoes white and just add little bows, or bead and bedazzle like the coronation slippers... Ooo options!

A pocketbook, leather shoes and a little more on buckles.

So a little about each piece:

The pocketbook is finally finished. It is bound with navy wool tape from William Booth Draper. As I understand it, this method of binding the edges of an item with tape is called "ferreting." Please do correct me if I'm wrong. I learned this from "The Glossary of 18th Century Costume Terminology." They don't specifically list pocketbooks as something this term applies to, but I'm inferring...

The inside of the pocketbook is constructed very simply, with no little gussets at the edge of the pockets inside. This is a personal preference. I have never actually seen this method of construction on an extant wallet, just to note. Also, a lot of original wallets have a piece of the wool tape, connected to each corner, creating a bit of a triangle, which I think is supposed to keep the flap edges down. I didn't do this simply because I never really liked how it looked.

The papers are reproduction 18th century
American money from Williamsburg.

Below are some originals. You can see the triangular tape I mentioned and some other methods of constructing the inside pockets.

Man's wallet. Live Auctioneers.

Man's wallet. Live Auctioneers.

MFA, American, New England 1750 - 1800

The shoes are leather Devonshires from American Duchess. The design in based on this pair of original shoes. I do not know where they are housed. If anyone does, please do share.

The original shoes are made of cloth. I can't tell what type of fabric, however. The design seems to be painted on and the edges are bound. Perhaps they are bound in silk because it looks shiny and smooth. 

For mine, I chose to use leather shoes to try something different. I went totally non-traditional and decorated them with permanent markers. It worked fantastic! I find, you can get a much smoother and more precise fine line with markers than with a paint brush. It was cheating a little, but who's counting... I would have loved to be able to bind the edges, but I couldn't figure out a good way to do this, since the shoes are already constructed, and I wasn't going to go opening up seams!

I did not seal the design in any way. No more scotchguard for me! I don't think it works on leather though... I think there is sealant you can use for when you stain leather, but I don't have any. Also, I was a little timid to mess with them further after the scotch guard fiasco on the last pair. These shoes can probably go outside and be just fine. I will have to see and report back. 

The buckles are from Fugawee. A note about attaching buckles to the latchets: a lot of reproduction buckles do not have very sharp prongs. To help this, mark the spots and use an awl to make the holes. Please don't ever use a leather punch. It will leave too large holes in leather and you will never be able to adjust the size again without the previous holes showing, and if the shoes are fabric, there is a good chance the cloth will start to fray.

In my last post, about the black silk shoes, there was a lot of attention paid to the antique buckles I shared. I wanted to show them in closer detail, since there was quite a bit of interest regarding how they poke through the latchets. I mentioned they have very sharp prongs, making them incredibly easy to attach without ruining your shoes. Please excuse that they are a bit tarnished. See below:

I think the lower prong may be broken off a little.

How to (and how not to) dye silk shoes and paint them.

First, the finished project. These shoes are closely based on the above 18th century shoes. The big difference is that the original has the design integrated in the fabric (either embroidered or woven), and mine are painted. The shoe is the "Georgiana" from American Duchess. The buckle is an actual 18th century antique. When I put the buckles on at the end, I was like jumping around! Over 200 years ago, a lady was putting them on her shoes, too! Ah, how cool...

Ok, so the dyeing. What an odyssey. Read, please, before you go off and dye anything. There was a lot I learned not to do. This goes for the scotch guard-ing and the painting, too.

I started with the shoes, some black Rit dye, a brush, gloves, cardboard and a cup. I used cardboard instead of newspaper or tarp etc. I mixed the dye as instructed on the Rit bottle. I used the hot water method. You will NEED gloves!!! No matter how neat you are, why risk it?