Spring has sprung down here in New Zealand – or at least the freesias and tulips in my garden think so! So here are some fashions for Spring 1909 from an antique album in our Costume library at Toi Whakaari:
If you could have one of these Pritemps 1909 ensembles in your wardrobe, which would you choose?
Or, if you could have one as a Scroop Pattern, which would it be?
A few of you asked questions about the interior finishes of 18th century stays in response to the last Cassandra Stays Sew-Along post. Let’s take a wee break from making to look at some extant stays, and their interiors.
This will lead us nicely into the next-after-one step: the optional bellypiece and reinforcing!
Stays, 18th C. (c. 1750-60) sold by antique.fashions
Stays, 18th C. (c. 1750-60) sold by antique.fashions
Stays, 18th C. (c. 1750-60) sold by antique.fashions.com
You can see here how large and rough the interior stitches are, how little the seams have frayed over the last 200+ years, and how frequently stays include extra layers of interlining for support.
This pair includes a shield-shaped bellypiece, just like the Cassandra:
Inside a pair of stays (1740 – 60)
Stays, 1740-1760, America, Two tone tan linen, cane boning (probably). Band of thin cotton down front. Edges & flaps lined w kid leather. Lined w heavy tan homespun linen, sold on Ebay, c.2004
You can see that many of these stays have additional reinforcing on the waist. This could easily be added to the Cassandra Stays using the instructions for the bellypiece.
English or Continental European or American stays 1780-1790
Some stays have even more elaborate engineering. This pair has a curved front busk, and curved horizontal bones or canes going across the bust, under the arms, and around the waist:
The additional horizontal bones are all held in place by interlining layers like the bellypiece:
Here’s another pair with shaped reinforcing around the waist, and a bust rail very similar to the one in the Cassandra pattern:
And lets finish up with a look at what the stays look like once a lining is installed, featuring a pair with front and back lacing:
Stays, probably 1770s, Germany
You can see more stay interiors in Redthreaded’s post about her visit to the DAR museum, and on Lara Corset’s pinterest page of her antique corsets.
Hope that gives you some inspiration, and reassurance, about the interiors of your own Cassandra Stays!
In the town of Valašské Meziříčí in the Zlín Region of Czechia there is a gem I almost missed seeing, but which turned out to be a highlight of the trip: the Moravská gobelínová manufaktura (MGM). MGM is Czechia’s oldest tapestry workshop, and one of the few working tapestry makers left in Europe.
Its set in a fairly unassuming building a few blocks off the main square. The guidelines gave the opening hours for a tour, and when we arrived a small sign told us to ring a bell and wait.
So far, not very exciting…
But ah, when the door opened and we were taken in! Magic!
Rooms of huge looms waiting to be warped:
Piles of designs, and samples of yarn in every shade imaginable.
A huge loom, with an in-progress rug on which a enormous monochromatic bloom was taking shape:
The rug-maker talked us through what she was doing, explaining the design and the process in Czech, with Hana translating the most interesting and important bits for me.
One particularly interesting bit, at least for me? All their rugs and tapestries are made with NZ merino wool!
Every wall in the workshop was covered with tapestries and rugs, or designs for tapestries and rugs: both new ones, and antiques the workshop had repaired.
Do you know what these are? They are tenterhooks! For stretching the finished woven item, so it is even and smooth. It’s where the phrase ‘to be on tenterhooks’ comes from: because the fabric on it is stretched taut and under pressure.
And once the rug was fully stretched, it would be trimmed to be perfectly smooth and even with this exciting and alarming device:
In the next big, airy open room smaller tapestries were being hand knotted.
The skill and concentration to follow those designs and manage all those colours!
You can see there are three different schematics for keeping track of the pattern. There’s a black and white outline that sits behind the warp threads, an overall large picture hanging over the top of the loom, and a broken-down guide that shows the primary colours that will be used in each section:
And the colours! I would dearly have loved to take some of these delicious shades home! (what I would do with them I don’t know!)
The colours are all custom dyed. They use chemical aniline dyes for lightfastness.
The loveliest thing about the visit is that it wasn’t a formal ‘tour’ that you usually get in businesses that let you in to see their manufacturing. Instead it felt like visiting a friend’s sewing room. We got to wander around, look at things, and the tapestry makers just chatted with us and showed us what they were doing.
Once we’d enjoyed all the in-progress tapestries we got to explore the rest of the building to see all the other looms and equipment – both pieces still in use, and pieces they keep for historical reference.
We finished up in the pub, which was closed that day, but which we were told we could visit to see the tapestries on the walls.
As it turned out, the pub owners were in, tidying up, and they chatted with Hana and offered to make us drinks.
I will never say no to limonáda (in Czechia this is soda water poured over frozen crushed fruit pulp) on a hot Czech day, especially when one of the flavours available is maracuja (passionfruit – I was so proud that I knew that name for passionfruit and could recognise it on menus)!
And ESPECIALLY not when it served in a pub/cafe that just casually has a 17th century tapestry over the bar!
What a treat to end a treat of a tour. I’m SO glad we stayed that extra day in Valmez to do this!
