The Dreamstress

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Megrims

Maybe it’s the oncoming winter, maybe it’s withdrawal after how awesome last weekend was, maybe it’s the phase of the moon, or some weird pollen in the air, but this weekend I’m feeling really low and grumpy.

I’m grumpy about how behind I am with sewing, and grumpy that I still haven’t managed to show you The Project (I keep scheduling photoshoots, and every time I have one all ready to go, something comes up and I have to postpone). I’m grumpy that the house is messy, and that I have to cook dinner, and with how I parked the car, and that I made a stupid grammatical error in an email and hit ‘send’ before I noticed it. I’m grumpy that there is nothing good on TV, and that it’s cold, and that the heater makes it too hot, and that I’ve probably made a number of grammatical errors in this paragraph, because I’m grumpy…

Well, they are all dumb, silly things to be grumpy about. I know I’ve accomplished a lot, and that my sewing is going to be beautiful, and that life is good, and yet my brain still decides to jump on something really, really inconsequential, and freak the heck out about it. Right now it’s having a meltdown because someone made a brusque comment on a pinterest pin. My logical brain says “Really? NOT an issue! It’s a pin! You don’t know them, delete it, move on, get over it.”, but my emotional brain is hyperventilating.

You know those times when your whole world feels like it’s collapsing, even though everything is actually just fine? This is one of those times

It will pass, I know it will. And it’s something that happens to most of us. But right now it really sucks when half my brain is trying to tell me I suck!

The only thing I can really do is keep pushing forward, doing the things I know would normally make me happy, and trusting that my mind will figure out the tangle eventually. So tonight I’m going to try to finish my white sewing project, and get a good start on my black sewing project, and maybe do a little tidying, and have a cuddle with Fiss and Mr D.

Mr D will help with tea, and Fiss will help by sitting on my lap and looking up at me in adoration, and will un-help by lying all over my patterns and sewing projects just while I try to work on them, because that’s how she makes things better!

Even at their naughtiest, cat’s are rather good megrim solvers…

The HSF ’14: Challenge #14: Paisley & Plaid

Published by The Dreamstress

The 14th Challenge in the Historical Sew Fortnightly 2014, due Friday the 1st of August is Paisley & Plaid.

This challenge is all about pattern, and all about contrasts and similarities. Paisley and plaid are quite interesting as patterns, because both patterns are instantly recognizable: the only patterns that are more easily named and identified are spots and stripes. Both patterns come in thousands of interpretations and variants. One is quite recent, and the other is a very ancient. Both are strongly associated with specific cultures, though our cultural associations for each pattern are, in many ways entirely inaccurate.

Plaid (or tartan or check, depending on where you are from in the world and how you define it) is one of the most ancient textile patterns. In fact, it is the most ancient known textile pattern. The oldest textile fragments that definitively have a pattern are woven in a checked plaid pattern. When most people hear plaid they think of Scotland, but in fact almost every culture in the world that has woven fabric has used the plaid/check design. There are pre-Columbian plaid fragments from South America, and checked cloth from Bronze age tombs in China. Bog mummies in Northern Europe were interred in plaid garments, and Egyptian tomb walls depict foreigners in boldly plaid tunics. Variations of plaids and checks have been used around the world in every century.

Paisley, on the other hand, is quite a recent pattern, at least in Western design. While swirls are a common motif, the boteh (as the paisley motif is properly known) wasn’t introduced to the West until the 18th century. Paisley is often thought of as an Indian motif (and the name paisley comes from a town in Scotland where what were essentially ‘knock-off’ boteh patterned products were made) but it probably originates in Iran. The motif as we know it today, however, was actually hugely influenced by Western aesthetics and demands for more exotic prints in the 19th century. In order to please Western consumers, it became longer, more twisted and sinuous.

I personally love both paisley and plaid, for their aesthetic, for their interesting histories, and perhaps just a little out of sheer contrariness, because they both have a reputation for being a bit bad taste (there is even a book called ‘Paisley Goes with Nothing’)!

Here are a few of my favourite paisley and plaid inspiration pieces (and there are hundreds more on my Plaid and Paisley pinterest boards!)

Could there possibly be anything better than 18th century plaid shoes?

Shoes, 1780, American or European, silk, Metropolitan Museum of Art, C.I.39.13.58a, b

This particular ensemble didn’t do very well as a ‘Rate the Dress’, but I personally think it is rather fabulous:

Fashion plate featuring afternoon dress, February 1801, LACMA

And of course, you all know I love Regency kashmiri shawl gowns:

Coiffure Ã la Ninon – Robe de Cachemire, Journal des Dames et des Modes 1809

For something lovely and simple, what about this adorable bag (which is actually incredibly elaborate crochet):

Pouch, 1840—60, European, Eastern, silk, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.2070

I know you’ve seen this before (and I’ve even reproduced it!) but I’m going to include this because I love it SO MUCH and I feel the need to continue showing it for every possible challenge that it would qualify for!

Petticoat, 1855—65, American, cotton, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This 1870s plaid gown just makes me swoon with the deliciousness of it. It’s very high on my to-make list!

Afternoon dress, L’Elegance Parisienne, July 1875

OK, I’ll confess. I like this one just because it is so hilariously, awesomely bad, and because the paisley motif is so unusual in its execution (and thank goodness for that!)

Afternoon dress of printed silk satin, ca 1902, via Whitakers Auctions

On a more subtle note, the 1910s aren’t usually an era we associate with paisley, but this evening dress is rather sublime:

Cream-colored silk dress with paisley print and embroidered tulle bodice insets, 1913-17, Museum Rotterdam

I absolutely adore this ‘teens plaid dress. The way the pattern plays with the fabric grainlines is so cunning.

Dress, 1915-17, Silk taffeta, antiquedress.com

And how chic is this plaid parasol?

Parasol, 1920—39, American or European, cotton, bamboo, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976.37.42

Hoopskirts in the Park

Published by The Dreamstress

Our first photo location for last week’s hoopskirt photoshoot with Theresa was a big park on the edge of the green belt in Wellington – the same park I used for the pet-en-l’aire photoshoot.

I’ve long thought that the park, with it’s long, sloping green lawn interspersed with pohutakawa and eucalyptus trees, had distinct English pastoral possibilities. If Capability Brown had had access to pohutakawa he would have planted in them. They are the perfect representation of 19th century New Zealand’s complicated relationship with identity. For 11 months of the year they are elegant faux English oak trees, and then for one month of the year they break out in flaming red SOUTH PACIFIC WONDERLAND! colours. This is pretty much how New Zealand was for a good century: torn between being more English than the English, immensely proud of not being English and their new national culture, and not sure what to do with the Polynesian culture they were living side by side with.

In any case, the pohutakawa lawn was perfect for a hoopskirt photoshoot – or would be, when the light cooperates, which it didn’t for us. On a good afternoon at three pm the light streams down the meadow, and lights it up in a golden glow. This time, a low overcast stopped the light and it was all rather grey and glaring.

At least the weather cooperated. When Madame O and I did the pet shoot (that sounds dreadful!) Wellington was in the midst of a months-long drought, and everything was sere and brown. This time, thanks to a royalty induced month of downpours (Wellington’s weather gods clearly have Republican (in the British sense) tendencies, as we had brilliant weather until the day the royals arrived, crap weather for their entire visit here, and their visit in Australia (just in case they had any ideas about coming back over the ditch) and have had rather brilliant (for late autumn) weather ever since they finally left) the grass was lush and green and thick. And occasionally muddy in places, much to the detriment of our hems.

The park and the light revealed distinct differences in my and Theresa’s modeling and photography styles. She skipped across the lawn, hoops bouncing with every step, and sauntered towards me, chin up, grinning, while I snapped vivid-coloured, close up glamour shots:

I, on the other hand, wandered around the lawn, face averted, or eyes turned down, pensively wistful, while Theresa captured gloomy, atmospheric, emotional, long-range images.

She called the images of me ‘very BrontÃ« sisters’, and her’s are very ‘Gone with the Wind!’

In poor light, the gloomy, atmospheric shots were more effective, (and my outfit made more sense on the lawn!) but there was one major problem with the location. Here is Theresa photographing me:

And here is the photograph she got:

Yep. The best tree arrangements in the park are right next to the major road going from Wellington airport into the city centre. We were quite exposed to the curious gaze of passing motorists. There was a great deal of tooting.

It was fun in some ways (here is Theresa waving to her audience), but I’m afraid my inner Fanny Price rather shrank from the notice of the public.

And we did attract the notice of the public: one car of dissolute young men took the opportunity presented by speed and anonymity to yell derogatory insults of the specifically aimed at women variety at us (stay classy Wellington). This was balanced by the delight we brought to small children when rush hour kicked in, and they got to plaster their faces against the car windows in and watch us rapt joy while the cars crawled past the park. The former was a sad inditement on society, but the latter more than made up for it!