Whirling Hollyhocks - A Textile Necklace

 

I remember making hollyhock "ballerinas" as a child and I decided that hollyhocks would be focals for this particular piece.

 

But how to do that exactly?

With mid-19th century fine dressmaking techniques, of course.

I started with the three dimensional center of the hollyhocks, using a technique more commonly used for creating fancy needle woven buttons (I plan a post regarding the buttons soon). I stuffed a circle of silk taffeta with wool roving and then used silk thread to add the needle woven embellishment. The addition of a silk taffeta rosette with self fabric fringe (two more Victorian techniques) formed a textile hollyhock. The teal version just has an oversized center and a minimal ruffle petal.

The base of the necklace is a corded ruffle, with the layers offset and, again, self fringed. The base also forms a loop, near center front, half of the closure, the other half being a slightly larger hollyhock center.

Available for purchase in my Etsy shop - Backward Glances.

Natural Dyes - A Workshop

The earliest written description of the use of dyestuffs dates to 2600 BC and until the mid-19th century when William Henry Perkin invented the first synthetic dye, all dyes were derived from plants or animals.

I recently attended a workshop presented by Shanna Robinson, a professor at North Central Michigan College,  on natural dyeing. We left the two hour class with a silk scarf, naturally dyed.

Most natural dyes need a mordant to fix the color to the fiber and increase lightfastness. Mordant literally means "to bite". The mordant is the chemical link that fixes the dye to a substrate by combining with the dye pigment to form an insoluble compound. Our scarf was saturated with three different mordants - ferrous acetate, titanium oxalate and a chalk solution. Each mordant produces a variant of the single dye color and even more variants were the mordants overlap.

Due to time constraints (each mordant must dry completely before applying the next), Shanna had applied two of the mordants and we added the last.

We prepared the dyes while the final mordant dried. Two dye bathes were prepped, one using coreopsis which will give yellows, oranges and browns, depending on mordants and the pH of the dye bath.

And a second with weld, which gives yellows.
 

The plant materials were weighed, added to water and allowed to simmer.

The plant materials were strained out.

And the scarves went in!

A good rinse at home, to remove excess dye:

Here's my coreopsis dyed scarf - it's pretty obvious that mordants have a huge influence on the final color!

The workshop was intended to be a brief overview of natural dyeing, not an intensive, "now you're an expert" experience and that goal was well fulfilled. I learned enough to be intrigued about the potential for using the techniques in my own fiber work - it's always great to add new possibilities!

Hidden Details: A Mid-19th Century Quilted Silk Petticoat

Quilted petticoats of the 19th century were a revival of an 18th century fashion. Many styles of 18th century dresses feature a split front skirt, which was worn over a petticoat of matching or contrasting fabric - the petticoat was intended to be seen.

Before the introduction of the cage crinoline in 1856, women typically wore multiple layers of petticoats. The petticoat layers (sometimes as many as 6!) not only shaped the skirt into a fashionable bell-shape, but also provided warmth. During the mid-19th century, petticoats of wool, silk or cotton might be quilted in designs ranging from a simple grid to elaborate scrolls and floral patterns.

A quilted petticoat could serve a number of purposes besides warmth - it could reduce the number of total petticoats, due to the bulk provided by the quilting and if worn with the intention of being visible, say with a lifted skirt or an open wrapper, provided a place for a lady to show off her needlework skills and her husband's ability to provide her with the leisure to produce such fancywork.

I was fortunate enough to purchase a beautiful silk quilted petticoat at an estate auction and I thought I would share some of it's less obvious details.

Here's the petticoat:

And here's a detail shot of the fancy silk outer fabric:

Turning the petticoat inside out shows the quilting much more clearly. The quilting is done by hand, with a dense diamond pattern from approximately from the knee level down and in diagonal strips up to the waist.

The inner fabric is a dense brown cotton with a very thin layer of wool wadding.

The waist band is cotton with a single button closure; the petticoat has been simply gathered into the waist band.

An interesting technique was used to create additional fullness at the back of the petticoat, without adding additional bulk at the waist - by removing four gores from the quilted fabric, then sewing the resulting raw edges together and finishing with an overcast stitch.

The photo below shows that three different colors of thread were used: one for the quilting, one for closing the seam and yet another for the overcast stitching.

The petticoat also shows evidence of a period repair: here's the patch on the inside:

And here's a couple shots showing the exterior repair, note the careful matching of the fabric for the patch:

The hem treatment consists of the quilted layers being turned to the inside and the application wool braid tape.

Clothing was frequently "remade" in the 19th century, after all, fabric was relatively expensive and labor was cheap! 

Godey's Lady's book gave the following advice in February 1862:

"Another good use to which to put an old dress is, by altering the body and sleeves, to adapt it for a petticoat.  It is well, however, not to be in a hurry to do this.  Two mothers had each a good black satin dress; in the course of time they became, as unfortunately all dresses will, too shabby or too old-fashioned for their wearers' use.  One mother picked hers to pieces, washed and ironed it, and made from it two handsome-looking mantles for her daughters.  The other adapted hers for a petticoat, and spent five-and-twenty shillings in the purchase of new mantles for her two daughters. The mantles made of the old material were far the best-looking, and most serviceable. Now, five shillings would have bought a petticoat; and thus the saving of twenty shillings might have been made for the pocket of the husband."

This petticoat shows signs that it may very well have been remade; the inner fabric shows distinct fold marks and fading.

Hidden in the fullness at the back of the petticoat is a panel of fabric that has been pieced of over a dozen small pieces of silk, with minimal matching of the pattern.

In fact, there is one area, approximately 8" x 2", that consists of six individual scraps all pieced together!

Examining this original garment has been a great learning experience - it appears so simple and straightforward on the surface, but it really has a number of hidden details that have enriched my knowledge of period clothing.

Having said that, I don't space to either display or store it properly. So I am reluctantly offering for purchase here. I hope it finds a new home where it will be treasured.