NYNCS Meeting
January 20th, 2011
The New York Nineteenth Century Society, of which I am a founding member, will hold its first meeting of 2011 on Monday, January 31, at 7 p.m. in B Bar & Grill on East Fourth Street, between Lafayette and Bowery.
We’ll accept new membership applications and discuss proposals for 2011 public events. There will also be an update on the group’s formalization (we are beginning the long process of obtaining non-profit status).
All are welcome, so if you are in the New York area, do stop by!
Oh Drat
January 16th, 2011
Having received the steel boning and twill tape that I ordered from Lacis, I set about putting the rest of my new stays together. But all is not well. Let me not alarm you — nothing is lost, it will all come right in the end; but for the moment, I am exceedingly frustrated.
1stly, the half-inch steel boning that I ordered seems far too flexible to make a good busk. Luckily I ordered 4 steels, so I can double it should my suspicions prove correct. I really think I will have to commission a metal worker to make a busk for my next pair of stays.
2ndly, as I prepared to hem in the bone casing for the wee little bones at the top front, I realized that my stomach gores are too short nearly by half. This would explain their ill-fit as well I guess. But it also means I need to tear out the stitching, extend the slits, and cut new gores to go into the spaces. Oh me, oh my.
3rdly, I am having trouble telling exactly where the boning is meant to go. I know there are two long bones flanking the rows “french holes” up each side of the back. There is also a pair of short bones going diagonally across the top half of the back. There seem to be another set of the same in the middle of the front. I think there are also meant to be bones between each set of bust gores, extending down to just shy of the stomach gore. But I find no evidence of side bones under the arms on the illustration or in the directions. The Workwoman’s Guide, written nearly 15-20 years earlier, but describing nearly the same form, does mention bones at the side…
And lastly, I realize that I will need to cut and sew a tiny buttonhole at the bottom of each bone place in order to insert or remove the bones once the stays have been bound. Did I mention that I hate buttonholes?
On a more cheerful note, I discovered the exact same pattern and directions from which I’ve been working (found by your faithful correspondent in Godey’s, 1857) in a copy of Peterson’s, 1855! So they are indeed earlier than the cage crinoline. And Godey’s should be ashamed for stealing so unabashedly.
Ebay Acquisitions
January 3rd, 2011
I returned to work today, after a long, lovely week of Christmas vacation. So if my posts are a bit less frequent in the coming weeks, or perhaps a little less florid, just put it down to the return of my usual schedule.
I had a particularly enjoyable evening, pow-wowing with the ever-fascinating Zoh and the founder of Tsirkus Fotografika. We looked at some amazing and beautiful photographs, and discussed all sorts of collaborative possibilities. Sorry you missed the fun? You can have some vicarious thrills by “liking” Tsirkus Fotografika on Facebook.
Shamelessly changing the subject, I will ramble on to tell you that my generous mate is always encouraging me to buy things from Ebay, and this week, I complied.
Yes, it’s another Enoch Wood plate, part of the same pattern as the one I found in the thrift store last week. Again, I managed to pay a mere 99 cents for this little darling (plus $5 for shipping since it was an Ebay find). It’s really quite small — much more “wee” than I was expecting. For comparison, here it is on top of my first, saucer-size plate:
After learning that one of my friends already collects English Scenery red transferware, I have decided to focus my own newly-awakened collecting impulse more generally on the work of Enoch Wood, so as not to offer her direct competition. I should hate to lose an antiquing companion for fear that we’d come to blows over a red floral plate! So these two starter pieces will one day be joined by any manner of Enoch Wood, the older the better of course.
Also from the mecca of online auctions, more dip pens for my growing arsenal.
These three are plain wooden pen holders, made of polished mahogany.
And I splurged on an elegant fluted cherry wood pen holder with a metal tip.
Which of course means I will soon be needing lots more nibs — I’m still in the early stages, sticking to Speedball 512’s from my local Dick Blick. There are many vintage nibs available on Ebay, but I don’t know enough about them yet to choose intelligently. I picked up another pack tonight, along with another bottle of Bombay India Ink for my desk at work.
I’ve hinted that an appropriate remembrance on Valentine’s Day this year will come in the form of a blotter, with some spare papers. I also plan to make myself a stash of pen wipers. Mid-19th century magazines abound with patterns for such items in every possible design and device. Did I mention ink wells? And there is the most charming wooden writing box for sale…
A Gentle Reminder
December 30th, 2010
I had hoped this evening to exhibit a finished pair of drawers, but despite nearly constant stitching, they are still far from completed. So instead, we (being in the editorial sense) offer the following quotations; to own the truth, they are more for our benefit than yours.
From The common things of every-day life, by Anne Bowman, London, 1857:
“We would not, however, recommend that needlework should engross too much time, especially that valuable portion which should be set apart for improving studies, domestic duties, healthy exercise, or innocent amusement. Needlework is one of the beneficial occupations of life in its due place; but it must not become the sole occupation…
“Neither does it become the lady of ample fortune, who can afford to employ the industrious dressmaker, to make her own dresses at home, anymore than the young of the middle classes to neglect useful household duties that they may bend incessantly over needlework.”
And from the introduction to one of my guilty pleasure novels, The unprotected; or Facts in dressmaking life, by Mary Guignard, London, 1857:
“The writer remembers also another instance which occurred, not in London but in the large provincial town where he then resided. A young girl had been kept at her needle in the workroom of her employers, day after day, and night after night, without intermission till she sunk down and could work no longer. They sent to her mother, who lived in the same town, and she was led home supported by two of her brothers, who had hastened to her. When she reached the well-known parlour at home, she sunk down upon the floor in a state of such entire exhaustion, that they feared to move her even to her own chamber, lest she should die under the exertion. A bed was brought down and placed under her, when a sleep from which she did not awaken till the evening of the next day, happily relieved and renewed the faculties of her exhausted frame…
“And for what is all this terrible waste of life and this wreck of health? Is it absolutely necessary that a certain number of the young women of our country should be thus sacrificed, in order that another class of their own sex may be elegantly and fashionably dressed?”
We would like to thank a certain gentleman, who shall remain nameless in his beneficence, for inspiring this change of heart.
What a Find!
December 29th, 2010
After lunch this afternoon, my dashing darling took me for an amble up 23rd Street, stopping in at some of the classiest thrift stores I’ve ever seen. In one of the more modest establishments, my eye was drawn to a shelf of assorted china and glassware, perhaps seeking reassurance after the painted tea set that caught my fancy at City Opera Thrift turned out to bear a price tag of $650.
Like most women with a yen for history, I have a soft-spot for transferware. There were a few stacks of modern collectible blue and white transferware plates on the shelf, but the only one that was even vaguely interesting was priced at $12.99 — a testament to the continued popularity of this style. (It was the height of fashion in the 18th century, but declined to the status of “everyday” by the middle of the 19th, before achieving the status of collectible around the time of the American bi-centennial.)
Then I noticed a few small red and white transferware plates off to the side. The first two were pretty ordinary, with a roundness to their form that belied anything earlier than 1970. They were simply marked Japan on the reverse. But hiding at the bottom of the stack, I was delighted to find this:
