An 18th Century Picnic; Second Thoughts on My Gown

Last weekend our costume guild held an 18^th Century Picnic in Balboa Park, San Diego. We’d been having nice weather so it was perfect for an outdoor event, although November can be bipolar sometimes. Heather was the organizer of the event and she chose a spot in the middle of the International Cottages, a group of small houses each representing a different country. As busy as it was elsewhere in the park, very few people walked through here. Also the cottages are only open on Sunday so that was to our benefit. We were able to have some quiet and eat our lunches without being distracted too much by the public. As much as I enjoy interacting with them, and taking photos, I don’t like having to stop eating each time they come through so I don't have food in my mouth.

We set up tables, chairs, and blankets scattered under the trees and enjoyed our potluck lunch where we all brought something to share and pass around. Heather even made up some recipes from a Martha Washington cookbook and brought mini meat pies and small Queen’s Cakes that tasted like little spice cakes with sugar sprinkled on top.    

We had lots of pretty gowns; a couple pretty floral robe ‘anglaises’, some very fancy gowns, and a couple Regencys. And we had our pirates. You can’t have an 18^th C event without pirates.

I wore my 1770s linen red floral caraco and red skirt that I’d made back in 2009. It was my first attempt at historical colonial dress and I used Period Impressions pattern, which I think was very easy. Except later I discovered the waist was too short on me, and I’m even short-waisted. Each time I sat down or raised my arm it would ride up, exposing my stays above my skirt waistline. I’d forgotten about that until I put it on for this event and tried to accommodate for that by using safety pins to pin my skirt up higher on my stays. It worked in a pinch but I can see in my photos here that it’s just way too high. The last two caracos I made using J.P. Ryan’s patterns are a much better fit. I really like this red floral fabric and I think I saw some more last time I was in the Garment District so I can make a new one.

I always forget to look in a mirror when I get out of my car at an event and have to put on my hat there because it never seems to sit in the right place. I thought I was putting it on to keep the sun out of my eyes, and used my two hat pins but I spent the day looking like a woman of mystery, and had to tilt my head back when I was talking to someone. And no, it never occurred to me to unpin it and readjust.    

And this is always a fun photo, getting caught using your cell phone.  

We did our group photos and apparently attracted a lot of tourists at this point because they suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started jumping into our photos to take some of their own. I always wonder what the Japanese tourists, who we really enjoy, tell their friends when they get back home about us.

1873 Cotton Mourning Gown for Dia de los Muertos

November 5, 2013

Here’s the gown I made to wear at Dia de los Muertos in Old Town San Diego this past weekend. Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday to celebrate and remember our dead. It’s a very colorful and happy celebration, and Southern California has embraced it.

Since I’ve made this pattern, Truly Victorian #410 Polonaise, four times now, it went together very fast other than having major problems again getting my sleeves to fit and getting them into the armhole properly. With some help, we discovered when I’m being measured for my sleeves the common measurement around my arm for the armhole doesn’t work because I’m bigger around my mid-upper arm. When I’ve enlarged the sleeve overall, it also made it too big on the rest of my arm, and I had those silly puffs at the top of the sleeve cap. After many refittings and cutting away of excess fabric, we finally got it to fit me and fit into the armhole. At some point I need to make a pattern to use for all future sleeves.

This is the top half of the gown, the polonaise, and a lightened up photo to show the embroidered pattern on the fabric. At this point my closure is a little crooked.

Trimming this dress was a lot of fun. There’s lots of ways to do that, and I like being able to make self-fabric trims. My cotton embroidered fabric gave me some great trim once I cut it in strips to have the embroidered section near the edge where I could gather it.

I put the ruffles around the neckline and after adding an extra cuff to the bottom of my sleeves to lengthen them, I added the ruffle to that too.

That wasn’t enough for me so I bought some 5/8 inch black velvet ribbon to also go around the neckline and cuffs. And I kept going by putting two more black velvet covered buttons on each cuff.

 

Other than coming up with some way to trim the skirt, the only other thing I could come up with was a big bow on the back of the peplum. After seeing the dress on me, I think the skirt is too plain and I plan on adding a deep ruffle to the bottom of it. The skirt is pretty lightweight too and even though I tried to make a black petticoat with a ruffle for it, I didn’t get that ruffle done so there wasn’t much fullness to it.

Since I was wearing this to the los Muertos Candlelight Procession and would have flowers on my head I didn’t need a hat for it. I would be draping a veil over my head with the floral headpiece on top. My jewelry was a black and brass necklace along with a pair of black “gutta percha” earrings I bought at the SF Dickens Faire last year. My face makeup was done by Cindy's daughter, Amy, and I think she did a bang-up job. We did discover that my skin is extremely dry and it was sucking up all the white face paint and she couldn’t get a solid white look on me. Apparently my expensive moisturizer is not worth the money I spend on it. She recommended Jergens brand so I bought the shea butter deep conditioning moisturizer version yesterday.

When I arrived in Old Town, I stopped by the Whaley House to visit with my friend Robin there and then walked back to the Cosmopolitan Hotel (one of the original buildings in the park) to sit on the steps and wait for other guild members to arrive. I was about 1 1/2 hrs early so I enjoyed having my photo taken with the public who came to celebrate with us. At one point a couple furry fellows showed up and joined me for awhile, and they got more attention than me. But I got lot of compliments on my makeup and my gown.

As more of our group showed up for the procession, the “paparazzi” began gathering around us taking photos. We started a line-up on one wall and every couple minutes another guild member would show up and we got bigger.

Our favorite place for large group photos is on the steps of the Cosmopolitan.

At one point so many people were wanting to have their photos taken with us that Gina’s husband, Larry, started announcing everyone to step up on the stairs to have them taken. We did this for about a half hour until it was time to head over to the Procession starting point.

A little confusion ensued as we weren’t really sure where we were to gather this time. Apparently it wasn’t the same point as last year, and we knew the path was different so we wandered over to the other side of the park where we saw the crowds we were expecting to see. We couldn’t even get through them. We finally managed to get closer to the front and then heard “San Diego Costume Guild to the front!!” People started parting so we could get through and we managed to get up with the banner carriers.

The hard part of doing this is walking slow enough to not make it a mad dash to the end. Occasionally we came to a halt and with Melinda’s help we slowed the pace down. Its only a ten minute walk to the cemetery that was our final destination but we wanted to draw it out longer. Having hundreds of people on the sidewalks and many on the street in front of us taking photos made it very enjoyable and makes all the work and sore feet worth it.

This year the cemetery was decorated even better with many orange marigolds, the traditional flower, and candles around each grave. It’s a very small cemetery so it takes over an hour for everyone to come in, look around, and funnel out the back where we stand as guides for them.

Here you can see how limp my skirt is, and how much nicer it would look with a flounce like Cindy has on hers, along with a decent petticoat. *I just love the color technique Jerry did on this photo*

I'm looking for photos that were taken of the beautiful cemetery but so far only have this one by Debbie. 

My thanks to Gina, Kathy, & Georgina for the use of their photos, and for the many that Jerry Abuan took of us. For more of his photos, see his website here: http://jerryabuan.zenfolio.com/p934876401

Not My Usual Costuming

November 3, 2013

Each year when Halloween arrives I enjoy decorating our front porch with spiders and bats and big spider webs in hopes of scaring the kids. Occasionally I dress up myself. I’ve recycled a black robe and hood I made about 20 years ago for my hubby to wear as the Grim Reaper into a length I can wear since he’s quite a bit bigger than me. Instead of the usual skeleton mask that went with it, I found a half mask with a long beak of the Plague Doctor, or Dottore De La Peste,  from the 1600s. During the Black or Bubonic Plague of that time, it was believed that the germs were transferred by air and odors, so the doctors would wear clothing to completely cover themselves, and a mask with a long beak was filled with herbs that they breathed through. They believed this would protect them from the disease but sadly it was bites from infected rats and fleas that actually spread it.

I found a really cool looking mask at our local Halloween store that sets up during the holiday, and then a soft vinyl hat at Michael’s to finish it off. I even got to wear this to our Costume Guild meeting a couple nights earlier when many of us dressed up for it.

At the Halloween store I also bought a long sheet of vinyl covering that looked like stone walls and covered my front door with some of it.  And I finally found the big ole hairy spider I’d been looking for that was just the right touch to my decorations. My side window had more spiders hanging inside along with static-cling bats on the glass. Since I was gone most of the day on Halloween I decided not to put up my giant spider web.

I recorded the soundtrack from the movie of The Shining that was played on an organ and it sounded really creepy. So I set up on the front porch, put my ipod speakers on the ground behind me, and held my black bucket of candy in wait for my first victims.              

As people began passing by on the sidewalks I heard a few say I’m not going up there. I even heard that from some teenage boys. Some weren’t sure if I was real or a mannequin. Little kids would turn around and go back to their parents so I started waving and smiling at them to show I wasn’t really that scary. One little girl thought I was a hummingbird. Another boy said I was a bird man. I tried to explain what I was but there wasn’t much interest there except with the adults. Many of the kids were very intimidated by the big spider on my door, and said I had a great looking door.  An hour and a half later I was out of the 400 pieces of candy, and had to close up shop. Until next year. 

Dia de los Muertos – Celebrating the Dead

October 26, 2013

Coming up next Saturday on November 2 is the annual Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Candlelight Procession in Old Town San Diego. This will be its 4^th year and I was pleased to be able to lead the procession for the first year and the following years I was joined by more and more members of our SD Costume Guild. And each year the crowds of people joining in have filled the streets and making this a highly successful event.

This year we’re being asked to up the ante and return to the roots of the Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos by coming in full La Calaveras Catrina faces, or Elegant Lady/Skeleton.  So everyone in the lead procession are going to be painting their faces.

These are some photos I took of some of the Calaveras Catrinas in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in 2011, and just looking at them again makes me happy. They’re so colorful!

Last month I started a new 1870s mourning dress in black embroidered eyelet cotton to have a more comfortable & cooler dress to wear during our hot weather, and it’s almost done. I made it from the Truly Victorian polonaise pattern since it goes together very quickly, and is the right time period for Old Town. Now that they've requested going back to the basics of los Muertos, that leaves the costuming wide opening for what people want to wear; mourning or similar to those worn by the Catrinas. I’ve been making some pleated trim for along the neckline and sleeve cuffs out of a band of the eyelet fabric, and finishing that with black velvet ribbon. The embroidery design is not this shiny but I had to use my flash for it to show up against the black. I paid $3 yard for this at Robert’s in the Garment District, so this dress is going to be in the “very cheap to make" category. I bought velvet covered buttons at Trim2000+ there also to go on the bodice and the sleeve cuffs.

To wear with it, I bought a flowered headpiece from the Johnson House in Old Town and since the flowers were only on one side of the head band, I added more to the other side to even it out. Michael's has all their Fall flowers for 70% off right now but they had no Spring colors like the ones already on it so I had to blend the Fall ones in. Because of the different flowers, the front and back look totally different. I plan on having a black veil on the back but haven’t decided how to do my hair yet, and if I’ll be wearing a hat too. I don’t like a flat look to my head. 

During the Procession where we walk from the Old Town center square to the El Campo de Santos Cemetery, we are carrying either battery operated candle lamps, or the tall cylinder religious candles.

The candle lamps just showed up in Michael’s stores for 2 for $5.99. So the countdown is on to finish my dress this week!

Spreading the Word about Costume College

October 23, 2013
Hi all, I just got back from Washington state and enjoying the cool weather there. It was a family trip but while I was there I was asked if I could take part in a panel presentation on the Costume College convention in Los Angeles for the Seattle-based costume guild SITU (Someplace in Time, Unlimited). It was to be presented by SITU in the auditorium at the Everett Library and was open to all costumers interested, and to the public. We would have a panel of 6 members who all had previous experience with CoCo that we could answer any questions, or share our experiences with the audience. I was the guest speaker.
I included a free day on our trip so I could travel over to Everett by ferry and car, and I was in costume the whole time. I chose to wear my 1890s Seaside dress since it didn't need a bustle and would be easier to pack and travel in. I did have to carry my straw boater in a bag on the plane because it was too fragile to pack. *Photos taken during the presentation are by Lady Victoria of SITU*

I still didn't get the blouse made I wanted for this so I needed a backup. At first I tried ordering one online but the one I wanted was out of stock, so I ordered my second choice but it was a thicker cotton and was really tight on the lower arms of my outside jacket. So I ended up wearing a 1905 blouse I'd made from a Truly Victorian pattern and took out the waistband and gathering of the pigeon bust so it could tuck in smoothly under my skirt. It was still a bit tight but do-able. I still plan on making a blouse for this dress but since the cold weather is starting to roll in, it won't be a priority for awhile. 

As I said, I wore this on the Washington ferries to go over the Juan de Fuca Straights and Puget Sound starting from the NW corner of WA. We drove up to Port Townsend, ferried our car over to Whidbey Island, and drove from Coupeville to the bottom of the island to Clinton where hubby dropped me off to walk onto the ferry to Mukilteo. He spent the day with friends on the island. It was foggy and cold, about 39d, but I wore my long black "modern" coat over my dress and I was very comfortable. But you could still see my skirts and boater hat, and I got a lot of curious and appreciative glances. I'm normally kind of shy walking around by myself in costume but being in a "seaside" dress I felt like I fit in with the location on the water. 

Joan H., from SITU, picked me up at the Mukilteo landing, and drove me up to her house to show me her sewing studio. I about fell on the floor when I saw it. My sewing room is a small bedroom that is starting to close in on me. Her's was a large downstairs portion of the house in an L-shape that goes way back. She had rows of clothing racks, maybe 8 of them, filled with her collection of costumes. This photo is the lower part of the "L". Across from them are shelves and tables. 

Then I started noticing how she stores things because even with a lot of space, it can still get out of hand. She had two ways of displaying her gloves---hanging on a line across the upper wall and from a tie rack hanging from the ceiling. 

Her collection of purses took up quite a bit of this wall. 

Her method for storing all her fabrics was what really impressed me. She had two large "bookcases" with divided shelves where each contained a rattan basket purchased from Ikea. Her fabrics were separated by color in each basket. 

From here we drove off to the Everett Library, where Joan and a couple other ladies set up the tables and chairs. The panelists table was up on the stage. They also had a tea set up for the attendees. 

Joan and I, and one member in the audience were the only ones in costume. Joan wore her new Aesthetic Reform gown that she made using purchases from the CoCo Marketplace and the Garment District during the tour. 

We all brought copies of previous CoCo student handbooks to share with everyone, and items purchased or made during it. Joan asked us individually about our experiences with the classes, the scheduling, the events, travel arrangements, food, and of course the costumes. We each discussed our favorite and least favorite classes too. I also strongly suggested they volunteer for at least two hours to get the feel of the event and get to know people easier.  And Joan was encouraging anyone to think about possibly being a teacher someday. The whole idea was to demystify the experience and encourage new attendees. It can be rather intimidating and I remember very well my first time attending in 2003. If you've been to Costume College, you may recognize some of these ladies on the panel.

I really enjoyed being part of this panel and sharing my own experiences and knowledge. I think I saw a few fires lit under a couple ladies for next year. 

Off the Costume Path

I promised a link to my other blog on our recent trip to France and England. It does have some photos of costumes in museums but not many. So if you're not interested in armchair traveling, I won't be offended if you're not interested in it. http://franceandenglandinaday.blogspot.com/ To read it chronologically you'll have to click on each individual day in the right column because its not showing it manually. Not sure what's up with that yet.

I will however have some costuming to report after this weekend as I'll be on a panel with the Seattle costume guild, SITU, this Saturday while they give a presentation on Los Angeles Costume College convention to their members and other interested parties. And of course we're going to dress in costume. 

Celebrating an 1883 Schoolhouse's 130th Birthday

A couple weeks ago I was invited to come dressed in 1880s attire for the grand opening of the 1883 Schoolhouse in Encinitas, CA. They hoped to have a group of us for their event and to be photographed by the newspaper.

I originally thought to wear something really fabulous, like my 1885 Best Black gown, but when the weather decided it was going to be VERY hot, I knew that wasn't possible. It's an upholstery fabric, and even though its not heavy, it is dense and can be very warm itself. My next choice was my late 1870s Black & White Polka Dot that I've added an overskirt and wear a slight bustle with, so I fit into the early '80s. Its cotton and much cooler, and I always get nice compliments on it.

The day did start out getting warm, even though the schoolhouse is situated right next to the beach. The only thing that blocks the view of the beach is a row of houses. The building had at one time been moved elsewhere and later scheduled for demolition but a group of preservationists got together and saved it. Its history made it the oldest building in Encinitas and worth saving. It also was moved back near its original location near the beach.

It's exactly what you'd expect a little one room schoolhouse to look like; white on the outside, and a single room inside with wooden floors. There was a collection up front of old children's school desks and various items you'd find to teach children with. It was all nicely set up.

I arrived a little early and got to wander around to look at everything while it was being set up for the “birthday party”. They had a nice display of old newspaper articles on the area and the schoolhouse as it was being refurbished. Once the event began, I was still the only one there and had my photo taken lots of times. The rest of our group showed up later and just in time for the newspaper photographer when he arrived. 

Our job was mainly to walk around and look pretty, adding a backdrop to the schoolhouse. I think we did a good job of that, and the docents at the school were very happy with us, as were all the attendees of the event.

I've been waiting for some photos to be sent to me of the front of the school, and others that were taken of me but so far have only received the two here that were taken by Jody R. 

This link to The Coast News article online shows our photo (which I placed at the top of this blog entry) on the front page with our names, plus a history of the house.

 https://thecoastnews.com/2013/10/residents-party-like-its-1883-for-historic-schoolhouses-130th-birthday/