Independence Festival

Well, I'm back from Oriskany (have been for a few days actually), but while I get my photos in order from that event and before I write a post about the weirdest weekend ever, I'll share some of my pictures from the event I went to before that! These are from the Exeter Independence Festival, back at the end of July.

While we were setting up on Friday evening, our commander quipped at the Royal Irish Artillery that they had parked a cannon in his space. They promptly surrounded his truck with more guns. 

We had music on Saturday, and our musician attracted a wandering fiddler (right)!

I worked on sewing my new stays while listening to music.

The King's Rangers and the 10th Regiment of Foot made an impressive sight. 

Colonel O'Shaughnessey commanded the Americans that they hand over the town to the King. 

Our commander watches as the 10th prepares to fire the King's salute!

The women of the King's Rangers learned to fire muskets.

The Royal Irish also let me fire their cannon!

New Stays

Well, I wanted to post pictures from my last event - the Exeter Independence Festival; but I'm currently in a hotel room with slow internet and it won't let me upload my non-instagram photos. So in the meantime, have pictures of the new stays I just completed, which I will be wearing at Oriskany this weekend!

 Really weird angle that makes them look shorter than they are. 

I left a large adjustment gap in the back so when these stretch I can just tighten them. And look at that waist-cinching action!!!

Earring research

I've been researching portraits of 18th century American women to find some idea of what sort of earrings were worn, other than the silver-gemstone-and-paste beauties we all know about.

Women were not wearing these things all the time. 

(Victoria and Albert Museum example)

What I've found, first of all, is that women in portraits wear earrings far less often than I would have thought. Really they're bare-eared more often than not. I don't know if this is an indication that other forms of jewelry were preferred (necklaces are fairly ubiquitous); or if artists did not always paint earrings because of the tendency to make study sketches of the subject's face, and then paint based on the sketch - although I know they would often use engravings of fashion as clothing references, maybe not all artists considered earrings as important?

However, women obviously did wear earrings and it wasn't rare to find them - and we have had a great lot of the rhinestone numbers passed down through the generations to prove it. The simpler ones are hard to come by, and must not have lasted as long because the descendents of women who wore them didn't find them as fascinating as the jewel or paste beauties, but clearly they did exist.  Here follow some paintings that I have found to prove it. I've tried to stay in the 1760s-1770s range, to guess what women might have owned at the time the revolution broke out, although I'd REALLY like to find some from the early 1780s, too, so I can cover the end of the Revolution. However, I've also noticed that earrings are easier to find in earlier paintings, so maybe earrings were rendered superfluous by some of the bigger, poofier hedgehog wigs of the 1780s? :) 

Here we have Eleanor Wyer Foster by Joseph Badger, 1755. These drop earrings appear to consist of a small pink gemstone at the top, and a pink pearl at the bottom.

 

Mrs. Jarethmael Bowers by John Singleton Copley, 1763.  These earrings consist of a small top bead, maybe a pearl or a gemstone, and a larger dark teardrop, which I would guess to be onyx or garnet or another dark stone. It's hard to be certain what either bead is, but zooming in shows the top one only represented as a white dot, while the teardrop is reflective as shown by the white contrast point on the otherwise dark bead.

Mrs. Nathaniel Rogers by John Singleton Copley, 1765. Pearl drops consist of a small pearl stud and a large teardrop pearl. I keep noticing that although these earrings are lever-back, they often have a gem or pearl stud right on the earlobe. I need to find a way to attach things right to the earwires to get this to work..

Mrs Benjamin West by Matthew Pratt, 1765. More pearl drops - these have more hope of being reproduced by me, because a close look at the painting shows that these earrings do not have earlobe studs, they have earwires that look a lot like the ones I will be using, and the pearls are attached on a wire that hangs down. In this case, two pearls in different sizes.

Catherine Hendrickson by Daniel Hendrickson, 1770. Difficult to tell because of the style of painting, but these look like the ever-present pearl drops. (As a side note I find the sleeve overlays on her gown interesting.... anyone have any idea what those are? Or is it just odd trim work?)
 

My absolute favorite - Mrs. Richard Skinner by John Singleton Copley, 1772. I can't get over the simplicity of her jewelry in contrast to the frills of her gown and her wig! Her earrings are just gemstone studs - they look like garnet. To reproduce these I would probably have to find some modern post studs, cut the backings off and fix them to a lever-back earwire....although I have yet to find any lever-backs in the right shape, so I could instead use ear clips, which look correct and wrap around beneath the ear correctly, they just aren't meant to go through the piercing hole.
 

Mary Bryan Morel and Her Children by Henry Benbridge, 1773 - we return to the ear-stud pearl drop. 

Archibald Bulloch and Family by Henry Benbridge, 1775 - Mrs. Archibald Bulloch sports the same earring as Mary Bryan Morel. Theoretically Benbridge used the same earring reference. 

Charity Platt Bush by Matthew Pratt (1785) sports another simple stud earring - it looks like red coral this time.

There may be more paintings posted in the future.... but these examples took longer to find than you'd think! Have to get through all the paintings of women wearing no earrings and women wearing paste...

Making 18th-century jewelry - part 2!

I have acquired a lot of materials for making my reenacting jewelry! I thought I'd share some pictures of the beads I'll be working with. Mostly my design ideas are from Sharon Burnston at the moment, but I'll do some painting research before I begin.

 

Two pairs of earrings to be taken apart - for the red coral stones and the little paste (rhinestone) flowers.

Also lever-back earwires, silver spacer beads, citrine drops and silver cone findings.

 One of my mom's necklaces from the 80s, to be taken apart and the quartz beads re-strung for another ribbon necklace (I have loads of extra beads, because this necklace was shortened at one point and I kept the extras). 

Pile of pearls (some are glass imitations, I think), spacers, glass faceted crystals, spacers, glass beads and stone beads.

Making 18th-century Jewelry

Greetings all! First off I'm still giddy about Hubbardton, so I've still been searching for photographs of the event... and in my searching I came across this:

A professional photo of my blue gown in action at the event! And my favorite hat. It's taken quite a while to get a photograph where I'm actually wearing it! :)

Also, in that photograph you can see that I am wearing earrings. It's been a recent endeavor of mine to find jewelry that is 18th-century appropriate. It's also a topic of interest to a lot of women I've been talking to, so I thought I'd post some things I've found about jewelry that reenactors can wear, give some examples of where to find it or how to make it, and hopefully get some feedback :)

There are several options for reproduction jewelry online, including Amey's Adornments and Historic Delights. My favorite site, though, is Sharon Burnston's shop, The Village Green Clothier. The link will take you to the earring page, which I've been oggling. Really reasonable prices, too. However, it's come to my attention that I own a HUGE amount of jewelry that I don't wear (seriously, this stuff just gravitates towards me and I don't know where it comes from anymore ;) ), and wanted to see if I already had anything that worked or could be modified.

 First, here is my staple piece of reenacting jewelry. The ribbon-tying pearl necklace is a basic 18th-century style that pops up everywhere and is found in paintings everywhere. Sharon Burnston has some great information and reproductions here, and some similar necklaces with coral beads and other stones.
Since my sister and I both make beaded jewelry, the materials for this necklace were not hard to come by in our bead stash :) These are light pink freshwater pearls, strung and attached to two metal ring findings (sturdy ones, NOT jump rings!), and attached to black ribbon ties.

Here are a pair of my earrings on the left, as compared with a pair of Sharon Burnston's reproductions on the right. The reproductions come in all sorts of colors, the gems being peridot, citrine, amethyst, etc. Mine are just rhinestones, but in 18th-century terms I can describe them as paste imitations of blue topaz. Seriously, these are by the costume jewelry company 2028, and I got them for cheap money at the mall a while ago. The stud-back design of my earrings isn't correct though, and I'm not sure that the shape of the dangling crystal is either. So what I will do is cut the backing off, take the earrings apart, and hang the little flowers from a different earwire. 

18th century earrings had lever-style earwires, and the wires entered through the back of the ear, oddly enough. The example is an original 18th-century pair from The Three Graces.  Luckily, lever-back earwires are still sold, you just have to turn them around to make them 18th-century appropriate.

 Here are some Sharon Burnston lever earrings with pearl drops. I plan on making a pair like this with extra pearls I have left over from my necklace! Unless those are too small, in which case I'll go out and buy bigger ones. Since I'll be needing to buy earwires for my flower earrings, and they only come in multiples, I may as well make several pairs :)

Here are some more examples of jewelry I own that could almost pass in the 18th century world, as long as no one is inspecting at the extremely-close-up level: 

 I wore the hoop earrings last weekend at the Exeter Independence Festival, although the closure is wrong. Pearls are a great 18th-century gem, and hoop earrings did exist, so these passed quite well.

The red drop earrings were the ones I wore at Hubbardton. They look almost correct, in that the red beads are coral, which was very popular in the 18th century. The silver spacer bead is also great. Again, I'm not sure about the shape of the swarovski crystal, and the shepherd's-hook earwires are wrong.

So, how to re-do earrings the 18th century way! I'll probably re-do my coral earrings in the style of this Sharon Burnston pair:

 I'll use lever earwires, use the coral bead as the top jewel, and add a silver cone finding and a briolette crystal for the bottom. 

Or I could do this. The red is so striking!

As for the hoop earrings... here is a pair of late 18th-century hoops from The Three Graces, demonstrating the closure used. It's not quite the same as the closure on my hoops, but I feel like the difference is fairly unobtrusive, so I may continue to wear them. However, after making pearl drop earrings to match my necklace, I may not need the hoops anymore!

I'm looking forward to my new jewelry - hopefully I'll have something new for Oriskany :)

Also, I really want this Sharon Burnston necklace based on the 1770 painting of "Mrs Gavin Lawson" by John Hesselius, on the odd chance I ever have anywhere to wear something that fancy. I can't afford it, though... maybe I can convince my sister who is more skilled with these things help me figure out how to make something similar :)

Hubbardton!

Well, almost a week after, and it's time for the Hubbardton post! This is difficult for me, because all I want to say is how AMAZING this event was. I'm still fairly speechless.

I can't believe I missed out on this event last year - I didn't go because I was afraid that the King's Rangers would end up with more distaff than musket-men if I was there.. but I'm never making that mistake again!

Hubbardton is admittedly a bit out-of-the-way from just about everything, but that's all the better. It's a really fascinating place in that the reenactment takes place on the original battlefield, the site of the only Revolutionary War battle fought in what is now Vermont. Thinking about that is overwhelming - I woke up early on Saturday morning and walked the field before almost everyone else was awake, and it was as if I could feel the presence of the original armies and hear the fifes and drums. And that's heaven to a history geek like me!

The battles were spectacular - I haven't seen so many bayonet charges since Needham over a year ago, and I've never seen anything like that pulled off by the 10th on Sunday afternoon.  I definitely said "oh God save the King" out loud when I saw it, much to the amusement of some other 10th fans standing next to me. On the plus side, a 16-year-old girl whose brother was out on the field was very happy to learn that it's still okay to be a geek when you're in college. (I wish someone had told me that when I was 16! :) )

The King's Rangers didn't have as many men as usual, but we made up for it with entertainment during the day. We put on a "court martial" for the spectators, with one of our men being tried for "desertion", and being "drummed out of camp." The audience loved it - that and the later reading of the Articles of War by the commander of the 10th, and the taking of oaths.

There were all sorts of surprises in the weekend for me, too - I ran into one of my friends from high school, who I hadn't seen since graduation, and who is now with the 62nd regiment. It was a great time catching up - it's funny how you can run into people in the most unexpected places. Also, it's kind of a well-known fact that one of my favorite things about reenacting is the music. This event was great in that respect - the Rangers' resident fiddler had several musician friends at Hubbardton, and so sometimes we had multiple fiddlers playing at once. We also attracted some tin whistlers and fifers, and kept quite busy in the evenings! The best part, though, was Saturday night, when I teamed up with my friend from the 62nd and another friend from the American side, infiltrated the American camp, and climbed the hill to where we stayed singing and having a merry old time until 3 in the morning. There's really nothing quite like the feeling of being with a crowd who knows the words to "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Spanish Ladies," "The Parting Glass," "Northwest Passage" and countless others - I can't even explain it, but it really does add to the feeling of belonging to a community. Reveille was at 6 on Sunday, due to the early-morning wargame, which meant that I was incredibly tired, but it was so worth it!!

I could go on and on, but one final highlight - I shot a musket! At the end of Sunday, when the camps were being taken down, some ladies from the 10th decided to try their hands at shooting, at the instruction of the men. Some women obviously had done this before... but my sergeant decided to take this opportunity to teach me, having heard how much I wanted to learn. I had an amazing time... and I assure you it's quite a sight when a line of women dressed in revolutionary-era gowns are armed with muskets!

I took a lot of photographs this weekend.. I'll post a few, but I've uploaded them all to flickr for anyone who's interested in seeing them! http://www.flickr.com/photos/indifferentcentury/sets/72157630565369738/

 

The battlefield hill at sunrise. *Swoon*

Sleeping camp...

The 10th looking fantastic.

A reenactment of the actual Battle of Hubbardton - Warner's Co. (Green Mountain Boys) against the British.

A visiting musician!

Victory shenanigans. Representatives of the 62nd, 21st, and 21st distaff roll down a hill. (See, reenactors have a lot of fun! :) )

My newly altered gown in action! This is me with my friend from the 62nd... I wish I'd remembered to wear my straw hat in this picture, but I guess I'm not competing with that impressive horsehair plume this way!

Here's that stunning bayonet charge I was talking about. The photograph doesn't do it justice, but... trust me, it was spectacular.

And finally, this is what I did with my time. This picture might actually do justice to the colors I'm working with. As of now I have about 5" done (much more than you see in this picture), and I need a full 12". Slow and steady...

Blue gown update - an excercise in perseverance

I thought I'd post about the newly-altered blue linen gown that I've been talking so much about! This is coming to Hubbardton to me this weekend. 

I've had the gown for over a year, and since its original construction, I've altered it twice. I think I've finally gotten it to a point that I like!

So here is my gown, in its many incarnations: 

PHASE ONE

 Here is the gown in its original form. I screwed up and ended up having to take it in in the front, which caused the originally somewhat-squared neckline to become pulled and scooped.

It also had that wrinkle in the back because it was slightly too big. I have the suspicion that my problem with the whole thing was that I had intended it for 1/2" seams, but accidentally sewed them much smaller.

And worst of all, it had a habit of pulling up in the front after being worn for a bit while working, making me look flat-chested (which I'm definitely NOT), and like I was wearing a bad 19th-century high-necked impersonation of the real thing. 

PHASE TWO 
 

 I undid the seaming around the neckline and changed its shape, making it wider. It ended up being lower and wider, but still somewhat scoop-looking. It looked good when I altered it, but the next time I put it on I realize it still had the problem with pulling up in the front.  I wore the gown like this to an Independence Day parade. (Obviously I had period-accurate headgear on for the parade too - this picture was just taken before I'd put it on :) )

I took in the center back seam a bit, too, and that took care of the crazy wrinkling! 

PHASE THREE

Finally!! This happened today. I ripped out the neckline seaming AGAIN, and took apart the shoulder straps from the front pieces (a seam you can't see in this bad photo, but it's there). The shoulder straps originally had some curve to them, which I completely got rid of and made straight. I also straightened the bottom of the neckline - I did all this by pushing all the extra fabric I didn't want down into the seams; I didn't cut anything, so if the gown ever needs to be altered for another person, the extra fabric is in there. I'd also had some trouble before with the right shoulder strap not laying flat enough, and if I moved in a certain way, you could see under it to my shoulder (eek). So I pulled the strap down a bit behind the front piece before sewing the two back together. Now it lays almost perfectly flat (or, as flat as it will get on a small-framed-but-large-busted woman... skinny girl problems).

In that picture I'm wearing my newly-constructed red linen petticoat, which I mentioned in the last post that I would be making.

I can't wait to show this outfit off at Hubbardton on Saturday!

Happy weekend-after-the-fourth-of-July, and take this post as reassurance that any project, despite all its possible problems, can be fixed with perseverance!!