Croquet & Tea at Warner House in Portsmouth NH

I'm currently pulling together my ensemble for the holiday tea, I'm reminiscing about my last Regency-attired adventure, which was a tea and croquet event at the Warner House in Portsmouth, NH. I realized I have not yet posted pictures, so, here we go!



First off, I got it in my head that I wanted to make a sheer or semi-sheer bonnet. I saw one in a still from the movie Bright Star, and I simply adored it! After quite a bit of messing around with different sorts of glues and stiffeners, and a fair amount of patterning as well, I finally got a shape I was happy with. Just before popping in the car to head up to Portsmouth, I had my husband snap some pictures of my untrimmed bonnet. . . Here's one that I liked (except for the fact that the back of the dress is a bit unfinished, as I gained weight since the last time I wore it!)



Once in the car, I set to the task of trimming the bonnet. I had some really fabulous plaid silk ribbon that I'd been hoarding a while, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use it!



I also managed to make a quick reticule in the car. I'd cut the pieces out before I left just in case I could manage it. It's even lined. I just wouldn't be me if I weren't trying to overchieve at the last minute, ha ha ha!



I went with red because I'd recently bought some fabulous new red boots!



One of the main events of the day was the croquet game! I should mention from this point forward, all the pictures are shamelessly stolen from my friend, Sarah, who is in the pink dress. Apparently, I only took a few shots that day, but her husband was creeping us with the camera all day, and I'm really thankful for that!













We have some weird traditions, like this sort of thing. . .



But I promise, we really are good friends! ;)



And of course, there were some posed pictures as well. . .







There were actually quite a few ladies in Regency at this event! They were all so friendly, and very nicely dressed. It was nice to be in such good company!



All in all, this event was fabulous! Everybody was great, and the house is seriously amazing. If you're in the Portsmouth area, you should really check it out! The smalt-walled room is probably one of the most fantastic things I've ever seen in a period house.

I hope they'll have this event again because I would definitely attend!

17c Hat Progress. . .

My shellac finally arrived yesterday, and as I was working from home and knew it would arrive that day, I started my work day quite early so that I could do the first coat at lunch break, the second immediately after work, and then additional coats throughout the evening as needed. But first, it had to come off the block!



Next, I moved the adventure outdoors and gave the hat its first coat of shellac:



I did so many coats! My last one, it was almost totally dark out! I was using a pre-mixed shellac/denatured alcohol that came in a spray bottle, ready to go. I won't go this route again because even with so many generous coats, it still is too floppy, and worse, it caused white blotches which you'll see in some of the pictures below. So, for the next time, I'm going to go with the more traditional brush-on type! And for this hat. . . Well, I'm out of time until I get back from Virginia on Sunday! But post-Fort Fred, I'll try to remove those blotches, and then try out the brush-on mixture on this hat (before I move on to my really nice quality black capeline!)

But, pretending I'm done with stiffening, and having trimmed the edges to be nice and smooth, added a hat band and some temporary trimmings, here is my hat:



And, the best I could do to get a picture of it on since nobody else is here and I'm not good at selfies:



So far. . . I love it! I think I might cut back the brim a bit more, but I'm going to wait until I've finished stiffening to make a final judgement call on that. Also, clearly that's not a period-correct ensemble for this hat! Another post-Fort-Fred-trip project. ;)

In other news, I had so much fun with making this that I forsee the possibility of becoming a bit of a felt hat making addict! I'm already coming up with ideas of all kinds of hats for various eras. . . Although, the trick will be coming up with appropriate hat blocks!

Adventures in hat blocks & blocking. . .

I was recently asked if I had ever tried blocking felt hats, and my answer was no, that I'd only worked with shaping straw hats. So, I decided to block a felt hat! I placed an order with a millinery supply shop for a lovely quality black wool felt capeline (and some shellac) but just had a funny feeling it was going to take a while to get to me. As I was very anxious to get going on this project, I bought a couple of cheap hat blanks on eBay. This turned out to be a good decision because I'm still waiting for the millinery supply hat, but the eBay hats arrived on Saturday!

So, I had hat blanks, but the one critical thing that I was missing was a hat block. I searched everywhere I could think of online, but all I could find were the usual oval/head-shaped blocks. What I was after was a round block, with a sort of tapered cylinder shape. I simply could not find what I had in mind, but one can not very well shape a hat without something to shape it on! So I thought perhaps if I had a fabric with no give and a firm weave, I could make it of fabric and stuff it somehow. As it turns out, I have this ridiculous plaid fabric that I've been hanging on to even though I thought it really had no purpose since it was almost like plastic, it was that stiff and non-stretchy! Even on the bias, this fabric pretty much doesn't budge! So, yesterday, I patterned it and sewed it up. . .



I left the seams on the bottom outside intentionally so that it would be a bit easier to sew the opening once the form was stuffed! And, that brings me to the next problem: What to stuff it with? I thought perhaps sawdust, since that is what I use for making the bodies for my reproduction French fashion dolls, but I didn't have enough on hand to fill it. So, I decided to try sand, since it's really cheap and can be bought at any Home Depot or Lowe's. Here is the finished item (and my highly sophisticated sand scoop!) ;)



I felt like I might have over-stuffed it a bit, so I ended up removing a bit of it. Woody was very helpful with this. . . Or, maybe he thought this was some funky new form of a litter box!



I think this option could theoretically have worked, but even though the fabric did not stretch, and the sand was VERY tightly packed (I used a mallet and pounded it into the most compact pile of sand I could manage), the entire thing still seemed to shift a bit from side to side if given a decent nudge. After all, this is sand we are talking about! I think it would have been a giant headache to be worried about checking that it was still upright and level the whole time I was also trying to shape the hat! So it's a good thing I have such an awesome husband who was willing to try to turn a log from the wood pile into a wood hat block!



We don't have a lathe, so Glenn was limited to chisels and his sander. I think it actually turned out quite well! (It actually tapers a bit more in "real life" than it appears to in the picture. Not sure why it would not photograph the way I was seeing it!) I felt like I could totally use this for my felt hat making experimentation.



Funny story: We had this long conversation on Saturday morning about how it would be so great to know someone who did woodworking, or who at least had a lathe, but alas, we didn't have the proper connection. Meanwhile, little did we know, Glenn's brother was not even thirty minutes away, messing around with his newly-purchased lathe! Found that out this morning at Easter brunch. Things I wish I knew yesterday!!! Ha ha ha!

This morning, I got up early so I would have time to block my hat before heading out to Easter brunch at the in-laws' house. Here is the "before" shot of the capeline:



I got it really damp and pliable using a combination of my steamer and a plant mister, molded it over Glenn's block, and used push pins to hold the brim out the way I wanted it. I was aiming for something along the lines of some extant 17th century hats in the Victoria & Albert Museum, (T.22-1938 and T.23&A-1938). I think it turned out pretty well! Mine might not taper quite as much as my inspirations, but after all, this was about challenging myself to shape a felt hat, not create a hat block, right? So I'm calling this a success! ;)



So now, I'm letting it dry, and also waiting for my shellac to arrive in the mail. Then I'll give it a couple of coats of that, then trim it, and it will be ready to wear!