Happy Spring

I just love my weekends, hubby is home and there is a world of things out there to do, especially in the spring time when the weather gets warmer.  But sometimes the week in between the weekends is especially busy and fruitful, and this past week was one of those.  Monday morning was busy with getting laundry done and things put away from the Conference we'd attended over the weekend, but I took time from all that and went to meet some of the lovely ladies that I attended conference with (see my last blog post) at an exhibition of Titanic Era clothing put on in cooperation with the Shippensburg University Fashion Archives Museum, and the Hanover (PA) area Historic Society at the Warehime-Myers Mansion.  It was a private showing of the exhibition and showcased the fashions of the era (1912) as well as the wonderful home and some other colectible items pertaining to White Star Line and the Titanic that were on display. Please feel free to google either the SUFAM work or the Hanover Historical society for more information.  The exhibition is open through the end of April if you want to view it, check the Werehime-Myers website for hours that they're open.

After the exhibition, I left the Mansion and headed to one of my favorite antique malls in Hanover where I purchased a few small display cases to house my antique comb collection.  I also found a couple of broken combs for 99cents that went into the collection because they are examples of types that I didn't already have.  The one at the left is most likely tortoise, and I didn't have any metal combs in my collection, though I think this one is relatively recent. 

Since I hadn't really looked at my combs in a while and had bought the cases to house them, I took each one out, looked it over, catalogued each in a database that I built, and put them into a case.  Unfortunatly I found a couple that had the celluloid virus that will end up turning them to dust eventually.  I'm very sad about that as I very much like both of the combs that are infected, and the larger one is one of my favorites.

This one has the virus starting to eat away the comb on the left side (your right).  I'm really upset about this because when I put it away after purchasing it I didn't notice that it was having any problems at all.  I had to take the two infected combs out of my collection and make sure they are stored separately so their virus won't spread to the others.  I found this reference on a bulletin board about hair combs, written by "Heidi W" and though I don't know Heidi, I want to say thank you for the information on what the "virus" is: 

One thing to know about any celluloid combs:"they do have a tendency to get what is termed the "disease" sometimes referred to as the "virus." When purchasing a newly acquired celluloid comb, it's important to quarantine the comb for maybe as long as a month, I would suggest. This is for collectors in particular of celluloid combs: real celluloid was made with camphor which outgasses. The outgassing is how other celluloid combs can become infected. Today's plastics do not contain camphor and it's generally believed that these later plastics wouldn't be so infected. Same is true for real organic combs derived of horn, bone, shell, and so on (they can get other things sometimes).

What to look for - how to tell, you ask?


Typically a circular like area will be a high yellow color, in stark contrast to the rest of the color of celluloid (which is typically a brownish color although celluloids were dyed differing colors, and I have yet to see one with the "disease" that is a colored or dyed comb, such as red, for example. It may well exist: I just haven't seen it yet and can't be sure how that would appear.) The other accompanying detail to this high hue of yellow is that inside it appears as though there's a crackling effect, but isolated to that yellow zone. It appears splintery.
In time, some combs completely break down and even disintegrate in that spot; often, though, they just break. Combs that have this can be dipped to stall the progress. Sometimes it never progresses, but one never knows the future. Sometimes a comb with this is still worth keeping yet separated from a collection (unless it's all over your house as mine is becoming) because the design of the top piece can be unique. (Sometimes it can be worth it to buy 'damaged' goods.)
We have people who are watching their diseased combs to check on progress, just to see how it all works since little is understood and little is written on the subject.
But this disease can spread (the name disease or virus is derived from the concept that it can spread from celluloid to celluloid although not to humans or animals). This is important to know if you have two or more."

So, after putting all my combs away, I moved on to the next project, studying for my Physical Science final which was coming up on Saturday.  (It's now 2 days post final...it took me about 7 hours to do the final exam, and I got an 88.6% on it...I needed only a low "C" to get an "A" In the class so I'm happy, but I digress.)  I also flew to Denver and back for work, and cut out and sew up a sun dress for myself this week.  Oh, and I also had to completely rearrange my office/sewing room to move my study table to the other side of the room and put up my cutting table so that I could actually cut out some patterns.  The cat children were particularly happy about that as they've missed having their cat bed on the cutting table in the sun streaming in from the window.  It was quite a week.


Belle and Rose enjoying the sun in their bed


We have a wedding, or more accurately, a renewal of vows of our son and daughter-in-law to go to in Hawaii in April so I thought it would be nice to have a sun dress for the occasion, especially since little that I own fits anymore.  The fabric is actually a civil war era reproduction but I didn't think it was light enough to be festive for a wedding so I decided to go stash-diving again.  I found some linen that I liked, so I cut out and started to sew another sun dress using the same pattern that will be lighter colored and hopefully more festive for the wedding.  Over the weekend I found a light lace short sleeve sweater to wear with both dresses if it's a little chilly in air conditioning so as soon as I get the other sun dress finished I'll post the picture of that as well.  Along with sewing and studying, I also finished another Noro hat for the pile to go to the kids and grandkids. I have just a few more to finish up and then I'll be able to get started on some other knitting projects that I've been wanting to work on.  These hats are so easy because I nearly don't even have to look at what I'm knitting, and I'm really proud of myself for getting them done without putting them aside and never getting back to them.  Being an ADHD knitter and sewer means that I have tons of unfinished projects everywhere all over the house.  I have another one on the needles that is just about ready to start the decreases at the top of the hat.  But of course, I do have to work this week.

So back to the final, since I got it finished on Saturday, we had Sunday to go and explore and enjoy the beautiful weather.  We went antiquing and went through three or four large antique mall type stores (various vendors have stalls inside).  We even found a couple of places in New Oxford, PA that we didn't know existed, because they were behind the main street through town.  We love looking at the old things even if we don't buy a thing, it's just one of the things that we love to share together.  Sure, there are a few things that we collect such as "Kitchen Cats" from the 1950's, hair combs as I mentioned above, a certain china pattern that is hard to find and is called "Hawaiian Flowers" which is self explanatory,

and I especially love looking at all of the period and vintage sewing accessories.  I didn't think we were going to find anything new when I happened to see this sitting in a very poorly lit and very full display case in one of the antique stores, this comb.  I have a similarly colored one that is more angularly shaped, but this one was really affordable (everything I collect tends to be really cheap!) so it got to come home with me.  Not bad for all the hours we spent looking around and enjoying each other's company.  I figure that the entertainment value was definitely worth the price of the comb.  And now I have a nice new item for my collection.  And we stopped and got my dear husband some clothes for work...and then had dinner at one of our favorite places.  All in all it was a wonderful day after a busy but productive week.

3 day Corset Class

I spent the last weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) in Gettysburg at the Fire hall taking a Corset Class from Carolann Schmitt of the Genteel Arts Academy. We spent the weekend learning about the history of these garments, and discussing the Civil War period and what the people at that time would have worn. Turns out that you would have worn some kind of binding as a woman from your birth (for your navel) to a Corded stay to a Corset for every day of your life. It was just accepted and actually they were made to fit so they were very comfortable. Instruction was given as well as written help for making one of our own to a precisely cut fitting shell. This is a scene from our class of 14 women when we were working on one of the various steps in the construction.
We have a tradition in these classes that whomever makes a stupid mistake becomes the "queen of stupid mistakes" and gets to wear the tiara until it passes to the next person. Believe me, I've worn it many times and I happened to find this one somewhere in my travels so I bought it to class where it lived on the center table until someone got to wear it. I took my turn, having cut a hole in one of my panels that I then had to take out and replace. This is Kay modeling the tiara. We all have such fun talking and socializing and enjoying each other's company while we're learning and creating.
And here is my very own corset after I finished doing a little bit of hand sewing on it last night. The corset's I've been buying in Gettysburg have 14 steel bones, this one has 22. The corsets I bought for myself have never fit comfortably since I have scoliosis and one of my hips is quite a bit higher than the other...this one is made to my body shape and it is as comfortable as it can be. Custom made garments such as this go for around $500. and though the class and the materials were quite a bit less than that, it was still an expensive class...but it was worth every penny and then some to have a corset that fits comfortably. I am going to sign up for the class next year so that I can have a second one for multi-day reenactment events.

By the way, there will be some very nice, but off the rack, corsets for sale shortly on Ebay now that I have my very own custom one. :)

Work output this past week

Ive been working this past week or so on finishing up some dresses I'd cut out a month ago. This light colored one is a camp dress for hot summer events because the fabric is light in weight and color and the sleeves are not lined so will be cooler. I decided to attach the collar and do white cuffs as there is no other trim on the dress. I like the way this one drapes and I knife pleated the skirt directionally.
Then I got started working on the other one I'd cut out at the same time...this one is a heavier fabric, this one was the fabric that I didn't have enough of and scoured all the walmarts in 3 counties to find more which I did. I made it using the same pattern but I did put some fabric ruching with a line of grosgrain ribbon on the sleeves. I am going to make a white collar for this one that will be detachable, I need to get heavier fabric for the collar as I don't like the weight of the bleached muslin I already have. This one was double and triple box pleated and I used grey-black rubber look buttons for the front. This ended up as more of a dressy dress than a camp dress due to the pattern on the fabric, so I'll probably use a black ribbon belt to dress it up as well as the collar.
This is come fabric that I had in my stash. I suspect that it's from Wal-Mart too as I don't want to use any of my "good stuff" until I take my fitted bodice class this weekend at Genteel Academy. Then I'll use my quilting fabric to make some dressy day dresses. I actually managed to get rid of almost all the dresses I wore last season and I'm trying to be more accurate with this season's creations both in period-correctness of the fabric and the construction techniques. This fabric will be a camp dress, though I did cut out some bias strips to use for flat trim on the skirt and I drafted a pattern for a jockey on the sleeves. I don't think I'm going to trim the bodice, but we'll see how much fabric I have left after making the piping for the jockeys, I've already cut the strips for the rest of the piping. It's all an adventure and my sewing room is my laboratory!