All posts tagged: cotton

Cotton in Hawaii

Published by The Dreamstress

As a child growing up in Hawaii I remember occasionally finding a cotton bush in someone’s yard, and being fascinated by them.  I would pick the cotton and use it to stuff little dolls pillows.  So I was aware of cotton in Hawaii, but it was definitely a novelty. On my latest trip back I noticed cotton bushes everywhere: in yards and semi-wild along the road.  Once again, I was fascinated.  Had someone started a trend for cotton as a landscape plant?  Had one bush seeded successfully across the island?  Had the wet summer provided the perfect conditions to start a cotton boom? I meant to stop and take pictures and investigate a bush so that I could tell you about it the whole trip, but there was always too much to do, and I was too busy.  Then, on the way to the airport to fly home we stopped at a neighbors house, and there was a cotton bush.  So here are my extremely rushed, 11th hour, cotton images. The bush itself isn’t that …

18th century muslin/calico dresses: historically plausible?

Published by The Dreamstress

I think about historical plausibility a lot.  Historical costumers worry about accuracy, but I think that ‘accurate’ often gets confused with ‘common’.  Just because most seamstresses did something one way, doesn’t necessarily mean that one or two might not have done it completely differently. Lots of things happen today that aren’t mainstream.  Even with the plethora of information on the internet today, people sew, and create, and live in ways that aren’t documented.  It is reasonable to assume that historically, there were also seamstresses who created in unusual ways, and used unusual materials. The costumer who asked me about 18th century masquerade outfits also asked about ideas for making her dress on a limited budget. I’ve been turning the question over in my mind, and last night (well, 4am in the morning) I had an epiphany.  Why not use muslin/calico? Raw, unpatterned cotton calico (which American’s call muslin) existed in late 18th century Europe.  In fact, huge amounts of it were imported, because many countries had passed laws making it illegal to import patterned calico …