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The Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum – the German Mining Museum

I was originally planning to blog about my European trip in chronological order, but realised if I do that you may never get to see some posts, and the blog will go quiet for weird stretches while I struggle with writers block over specific posts.

So, instead you’ll get “here’s a post about whatever inspires me to write today.” Enjoy!

And today I’m going to share my visit to the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, or, in English, the German Mining Museum.

Which will lead to the post with the THE MOST BONKERS FABULOUS TABLE CENTREPIECE I’VE EVER SEEN.

It deserves the all caps. And a post all to itself. Trust me.

One of the places I visited in Europe was the Essen/Dusseldorf region in Germany. I didn’t know much about the region, and was so busy in the run up to the trip that I didn’t do much research on what I ought to see. Instead I just let my hosts show me what they thought was interesting in the region.

And that is definitely the best way to travel, because it means I got taken to amazing things I would never have chosen on my own…like the German Mining Museum!

(that’s me, showing that I went all the way up that thing and stood on the viewing platform)

Mining scenes above the entrance doors

The entire Ruhr region is built on mining – literally. My host Ripeka told me that sinkholes open up every few weeks due to all the excavations. And mines and industry* built the region’s fortunes.

Coal mining is also very important in New Zealand history. I’ve blogged about the coal industry on the West Coast of the South Island, and about hikes on old coal tracks.

So what does a whole museum devoted to coal mining have in it?

A huge lump of coal, which I instinctively tried to rub, because The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has a huge pounamu stone that you’re meant to touch as you begin your journey through the museum. Luckily Ripeka (who used to work with me at Te Papa) knew exactly what I would think, anticipated my action and said ‘it’s not the pounamu! Don’t touch this one!’.

And an exhibition on historical depictions of miners. So interesting!

Who knew that there were mid-18th c table centrepieces depicting miners? Imagine sitting at a formal dinner in the 1760s talking about this piece:

(this is not THE CENTREPIECE. Just a nice one.)

And drawings and figures of all the different levels of mining officials from the 1720s:

How cool to see the different kinds of specific working clothes from the early 18th century? The practical details, like knee pads, and padded helmets!

There were also paintings of events related to mining…

(what a fantastic source for clothing details! Both fashionable clothes, and folk clothes, and shades between)

And moments from miner’s lives. I really love this painting, because it reminds me of 70s era Robin White:

In addition to images and objects, the museum has something a little more hands on: a reproduction of a working coal mine in the basement. We managed to get into the last tour of the day to see it.

It felt very real, but just safe enough that my claustrophobia didn’t kick in.

There’s actual mining equipment down there. Like this tunnel borer, which , if I remember correctly, costs 17 million euros….

And drills amazing holes and is definitely something that is going to end up in some sc-fi or fantasy film.

Actually, the whole mine was a fascinating exercise in set building. It felt so REAL.

The tour included a simulation of the descent down, down, down into the pit. It was…alarmingly realistic. But just fake enough that I didn’t freak out.

One of the last things on the tour was a modern mining machine, which mines coal without having to create a tunnel. It just carves it off the coal face, moves forward, and then lets the rubble fall behind it. It was amazing. And makes the 17 million euro machine look like a stocking stuffer…

If you want to get slightly seasick but get a very good idea of what the mine tour felt like, the museum has a great video of it. (watch it on youtube if the previous link doesn’t work)

The mine tour finished up by going up, up, up in the lift, to the large platform on the mining tower:

From it you could see out, out, out over the region, over the train tracks, to all the churches and houses.

That’s a Bismarck Tower out there in the distance. We walked to it after the museum.

The mining tour was in German, so Ripeka translated for me. She was so quiet and discreet the tour guide didn’t even realise we were doing it. There were two other English speakers on the tour, but their German was a lot better than mine, so they could mostly follow it.** He occasionally stopped and said things for them in English, and teased them slightly. Unnoticed, I got off!

It was only once we were up on the viewing platform that the guide heard us talking. He asked where I was from and we said “New Zealand.”

His instant response?

“New Zealand! Te Papa!”

What are the chances of saying that to two people who met working for Te Papa!?

* more about that in future blog posts…

* * This is, admittedly, not hard. I know ‘fledermause‘, ‘nein, danke‘, and leker. 🤣

1790s Tiny Piney dress thedreamstress.com

The 1790s Tiny Piney Dress

Published by The Dreamstress

When you’re a historical costumer going to Europe, obviously you have to take at least one costume for dressing up in front of castles in!

But…luggage allowances…

So, what’s the historical period with the combination of prettiest clothes and least heavy layers?

1790s!

Back in 2020, at the end of New Zealand’s first lockdown, I found an amazing ramie-cotton blend fabric with an adorable pineapple print on it:

The print is not accurate of course. However, it is perfectly in keeping with the late 18th and early 19th century obsession with pineapples, and it’s so tiny that from even a slight distance away it looks like a plaid or geometric print.

The fabric is also not accurate, but is a feel and type of fabric that seamstresses of the era would have recognised. Ramie like this (made from Boehmeria nivea from Asia) was unlikely to have been used in the 18th century, but European nettle cloth (from Urtica dioica) was widely used in Europe until the late 19th century. It can be difficult to tell nettle cloth apart from linen once woven, so some items identified as linen in museum collections are likely to be nettle cloth.

Very helpfully for travelling, the fabric is extremely lightweight, not prone to creasing, and not so see through that it needs lots of layers. Most importantly, the fabric makes me happy!

For the pattern I settled on a mash up of this dress:

Dress of tambour embroidered cotton, ca. 1795, featured in the Dress for Excess' Exhibition at Brighton's Royal Pavilion, Sussex, Britain - 05 Jan 2011

Dress of tambour embroidered cotton, ca. 1795, featured in the Dress for Excess’ Exhibition at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, Sussex, Britain – opened 05 Jan 2011

And this fashion plate (yes, that’s a pineapple on the turban!):

Journal des Luxus und der Moden, September 1797

I also heavily referenced the famous ca. 1797 wedding dress from the National Museum in Denmark (often called the Tidens Toj dress), and looked at 1790s dresses in Patterns of Fashion and The Cut of Women’s Clothes for more guidance on the cut of the sleeves and bodice, and accurate skirt widths.

With help from my wonderful sewing friends (and, of course, Felicity), I developed a pattern, fitted a bodice toile, and began sewing.

First the lining goes together:

Then the outer fabric gets applied:

And then sleeves get sewn:

And inserted in to the under-armscythe:

And pleated over the strap:

And then I sewed a channel for the front skirt drawstring:

And made lots and lots of tiny pleats in the back of the skirt:

And then basted them all in place. It’s ALWAYS worth the time to baste things in place, because it means you get the final sewing right, and when you don’t get it right, you can unpick and re-adjust without things moving about.

Did I mention unpicking?

Yeah…

I whipped the skirt on to the bodice while flying from Wellington to Sydney:

From Sydney to Dubai I finished interior skirt seams and hemmed:

And then I got to Sweden and tried on the dress with Elisa’s (@isiswardrobe) help, and realised the way the waistline dipped down under the arms and then raised back up again wasn’t right:

The white areas are places where I had to piece in scraps of fabric. There is SO MUCH piecing under the arms of this dress. I don’t have a scrap of fabric bigger than 2cm x3cm left!

So I unpicked, adjusted the bodice end line, and re-set the skirt. Three times…

But at least I had the most gorgeous sewing spot in the world to do it in!

Seriously!!!

And finally, finally, it was done!

I got to wear it at Kina Slott at Drottningholm in Sweden:

And at two different locations in Czechia:

And I’ll be blogging about all those places in due course!

There’s a few things I’d change about the dress if I made it again (as there is with almost everything I make except Scroop Patterns, which I test so obsessively), but it’s fun to wear and was easy to carry around Europe.

Rate the Dress: 1920’s velvet

Published by The Dreamstress

This week’s Rate the Dress is a little delayed because I was busy with all the exciting stuff for the Persis Corset launch, and then the even more exciting stuff where I trotted around Europe for a month.

Last Rate the Dress: a 1906-9 formal day dress in warp printed silk

You were mostly very enthusiastic about last week’s Edwardian day dress, although a few of you thought it was far too curtain-y, and not everyone was on board with the silhouette.

The Total: 8.7 out of 10

Those who didn’t like it found it quite mediocre, but enough of you loved it to keep the rating at a very impressive 8.7!

This week: a 1920’s evening dress in dark teal silk velvet

This week’s Rate the Dress pick is inspired by the Baltic Sea. I’m fascinated by how different the colour of the Baltic is to the Pacific and Abel Tasman seas that I’m used to: so green to their azure. The teal velvet is admittedly brighter than I have seen the Baltic be, but its greenish hue is in the right family.