Quilted Petticoat Workshop

Have you ever thought about making a quilted petticoat?  You should!  It’s one of the most ubiquitous women’s garment in the 18^th century.  They survive in large numbers – it would seem as if almost every historical society in New England owns one. Mentioned repeatedly in diaries, inventories, runaway ads and merchant advertisements, they come in callimanco, tammy, stuff, and silk just to name a few.

Boston 1767

Well, here’s you chance.  Come join us on Saturday (January 19) in Concord, MA and learn how to make a quilted petticoat.  We’ll be working together to assemble a petticoat and begin to quilt it.  Everyone will get to work on each step, from laying out the layers, to basting them, to applying the pattern to practicing their quilting technique.

Each participant will also assemble a mini-quilt of their own that they will be able to take home as a reference.  At the end of the class, we’ll pull a name out of the hat, and that participant will have the opportunity to buy the quilt we constructed during the class. 

We only have a few spots left, so if you are interested email us at hive workshops@gmail.com

What a great project for a cold, snowy winter!!!

Cost of workshop: $60

To register: hiveworkshops@gmail.com

Hive Workshops Fall 2012 - Winter 2013

We're pleased to announce the workshops for the upcoming Hive season

Bed Gown

Sunday, December 2, 2012

You will be constructing a lined bed gown patterned from an original in the collection of the Manchester City Galleries in England.  The cost of the workshop includes a kit that contains pre-cut fashion fabric, lining, and thread. You will have a choice of fabrics. 

Fee: $125 - $150 Depending on fabric selection (includes all materials) 

Instructors: Hallie Larkin & Steph Smith

To register: hiveworkshops@gmail.com

Location: Golden Ball Tavern, Weston MA

English Gown

Saturday, January 5 & Saturday, January 12, 2013

You will be constructing a hand sewn stomacher front / en fourreau back gown based on a period example and constructed in a period manner. This gown is correct style for women reenacting a period of 1760–1780. By the end of the weekend, your gown should be substantially completed.

Fee: $150 (includes bodice and sleeve lining)

Instructors: Hallie Larkin & Steph Smith

To register: hiveworkshops@gmail.com

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

 Quilted Petticoat

Saturday, January 19, 2013

We’ll take you through the steps of making a quilted petticoat as we build one together. You’ll also practice all the elements on a miniature quilt of your own that you will have for future reference.  We will also look at an original and discuss materials options and sources.  

Fee: $60

Instructors: Hallie Larkin & Steph Smith

To register: hiveworkshops@gmail.com

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

  

Making Drawers

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Make a pair of drawers – a garment worn under breeches. Mentioned in tailors' account books, advertisements and runaway ads, drawers were frequently worn by New England men and were made in linen, dimity, cotton, wool, and leather.  Reproduce a linen pair  - you’ll thank yourself at the next cold and damp reenactment! 

Fee: $50  (Materials not included)

Instructor: Henry Cooke

To register contact: hcooke4@verizon.net

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park 

Original Garments: A Closer Look

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Take an up close and personal look at a collection of original garments and accessories. We’ll show you construction details, let you take a closer look at materials used to construct these garments, and learn some dress maker/tailor’s tricks.  See some amazing artifacts from coats, breeches, embroidered waistcoats, to a variety of gowns and accessories, including some brand new acquisitions!

$40/person for men’s clothing

$40/person for women’s clothing

Women’s Clothing 10 am – 12:00 pm

Men’s Clothing 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

To register: hive workshops@gmail.com

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

Making a Bandbox

Saturday, January 19, 2012

 You will learn how to make a period bandbox. The one you will be making is perfect for use as a sewing kit.  You’ll learn about period pieces and their use, while making your own during this one-day workshop. Fee includes all materials.

Fee: $40 

To register: hiveworkshops@gmail.com

Instructor: Emily Murphy

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

   

Cloaks: Men’s & Women’s

January 5, 2013

Period account books, diaries, and advertisements include many references to cloaks, plus there are numerous examples surviving in New England collections.  You will be making either a man’s or woman’s cloak, each is based on an original.  Not hard to make, if you have the space and a little sewing talent, this is a terrific project for the novice sewer!

Instructor: Henry Cooke

Fee: $50 (Materials not included)

To register contact: hcooke4@verizon.net

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

Leather Breeches

Saturday & Sunday, February 23 & 24, 2013

Leather breeches were perhaps the most universal garment in the 18th century male wardrobe; from Royal Governors to slaves in the fields, these durable and comfortable breeches were the blue jeans of their time. Join Jay Howlett and Jan Tilley from Williamsburg, VA for an intensive and very hands-on exploration of the arts and mysteries of the breeches maker. Participants will receive all materials and notions to cut and fit a pair of buckskin breeches.

This is an advanced level workshop requiring good hand sewing skills. Participation is limited to 8 to allow the individual attention requisite for proper cutting and fitting. Those sewing for someone other than themselves will need to have the wearer attend for parts of the workshop. Deadline for registration: January 15^th.

Fee: $400 (includes materials)Instructors: Jay Howlett & Jan Tilley

To register contact: rushonboys@yahoo.com 

Location: Minute Man National Historical Park

The English Bedgown

The English bedgown is the perfect article of 18th century clothing for the beginning reenactor and an essential component in the wardrobe of the more experienced.  The bedgown can be simple and humble, made out of practical linsey woolsey or quilted of white silk for the elite.  Worn for lying in, warmth, work or running away this loosely fitting garment has limited survivability for study.  One can speculate that they do not survive because they were well worn and not beautiful (always a killer), and often constructed of fabrics with an aftermarket value such as linen.

First some questions. What is a bedgown? How is the English bedgown different from the French version and why do we care?  What are the fabrics we should use?  How should a bedgown be worn?

Not to open the can of worms of semantics and the controversy of the short gown vs bedgown, one can safely say the bedgown is an upper body garment that is not tight to the torso. (How is that for a conservative statement!)  It has sleeves, and is front opening.  It can be long, so one can then assume it can be short.

"a long callicoe bedgown"
Pennsylvania Gazette, October 30, 1766

"a short Stuff bedgown, of a purple cast"
Pennsylvania Gazette, January 22, 1745

The four English bedgowns that I have examined in person vary in length from garment to garment, so we should make few definite judgments based on this small sample but there were differences. The range of length of those particular garments varied from 27 1/2 inches to 34 inches.   A swing of 7 inches.  Is that enough to differentiate between a long and a short version of a bedgown?  I don't know, but my guesstimation is no.  The length difference would need to be very visible in order to merit a notation in an advertisement.

The bedgown that is the inspiration for many reproductions today is based on the diagramed version in M. Garsault's, L' art du tailleur.  The French version is boxy when laid out, with a center back pleat and side pleats.   The top of the body and sleeves are in the shape of a T.

You can see the fullness over the hips (Fig 12) and the pleat at center back (Fig 8).   This diagram has been the blueprint for most 18th century bedgowns in the re-enacting community because Kathleen Kannik has meticulously interpreted M. Garsault's diagram and published a pattern.

Kannik's Korner

A good pattern (the collar is tricky), it makes up into a nice bedgown. But keep in mind it is French.  In New England shouldn't our bedgowns follow the English style?  So what does the English version look like?

Next post!

November is a Good Month for Stays!

We're offering two staymaking workshops during the month of November!

Staymaking Workshop

We will be making stays in the 18th century manner. We strongly encourage participants to sew the entire pair of stays by hand in order to produce stays that fit well, are easy to remodel in case of weight loss or gain, and can easily be repaired in the case of any broken boning. However, if you are unable to do so, you can sew the channels by machine, with the rest done by hand. As people have discovered in our other workshops, when constructing items in the 18th century way, hand sewing is easier and produces better results than machine sewing. Besides, you can do it anywhere and it's very relaxing!

All materials for your stays will be supplied for the workshop, including linen canvas, thread (please advise if you are planning on sewing your channels by hand or machine), boning, leather binding and stay cord.

All skill levels are welcome; stay making is not difficult, but it is time consuming. Some knowledge of hand sewing is helpful but not necessary.

Fee: $175

Instructors: Hallie Larkin & Steph Smith

To register contact: stephzsmith@gmail.com

November 10 & 11, 2012 -- 9:30-4pm  Location: Fort 4 in Charlestown, NH

November 17 & 18, 2012 -- 9:30-4pm Location: Natick, MA

Preserving the Harvest: Quinces

We were graced with a picture perfect Indian Summer day for our annual Preserving the Harvest program at Minute Man National Historical Park.  Great weather, a steady stream of very interested visitors, along with the contributions of our tireless participants, made for a successful event.  Oh yes, and there was that amazing array of culinary delights that made up the groaning board for nooning!

What makes this particular program so much fun, is that it's a learning experience for us, as well as the public. Participants are tasked with selecting a period method of food preservation, giving it a try, then sharing what they learned at this event.

For those of you who could not join us, our wonderful participants have kindly offered to relate their experience with food preservation techniques with The Buzz at the Hive. To kick off our series on Preserving the Harvest, we'll look at quinces, brought to you by guest blogger, Ruth Hodges.

In preparing for Preserving the Harvest, I had a wonderful time poring through several old cookbooks before settling on making quince marmalade from The Art of Cookery Made Plainand Easy by Hannah Glasse, first printed in 1747.  There were a number of things that pulled me toward this recipe even though I had never before made any kind of jelly or jam.  First, I loved the idea that the quince was a common fruit in New England in the 18^th century, and now it has nearly disappeared (having been badly afflicted by a blight here in North America).  And being a word nerd, I discovered that the word marmalade, now almost solely identified with the orange variety, comes from the Portuguese word for quince.  So the original marmalades were made from quinces and not oranges!  Finally, I read that quinces ripen in October and November so the timing was perfect for Preserving the Harvest.

I found quinces at a specialty food store in Cambridge, two varieties actually.  One variety looked like a green apple and was from California.  The other was from a small farm in Vermont and was yellow and more pear-like in shape.  And even though the quince is in the same family as the apple and pear, the appearance is pretty much where the similarity ends.  They are very hard and dry, more like dealing with a winter squash when it came to paring, quartering and coring them!  I used both varieties in my marmalade.  

The 18^th century recipes are written in a narrative style rather than the list of ingredients and chronological steps we find in modern recipes.  Some of them were a bit difficult to decipher so I ended up going back and forth between recipes and cookbooks to make sure I understood what was meant.  I referred often to Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Book of Sweetmeats because I had an annotated version which I found very helpful in this regard. 

There were recipes for both white marmalade and red marmalade.  For white marmalade, you boil the quinces just until they’re soft enough to mash.  The longer you cook the quince, the deeper and rosier its color becomes.  I made the red variety and it was glorious when it cooked down to a wonderful amber red, thick consistency.  It was delicious!

To make Red Marmalade.

   Take full ripe quinces, pare and cut them in quarters, and core them;  put them in a sauce-pan, cover with the parings, fill the sauce-pan nearly full of spring-water, cover it close and stew them gently till they are quite soft, and a deep pink colour;  then pick out the quinces from the parings, and beat them to a pulp in a mortar;  take their weight in loaf-sugar, put in as much of the water they were boiled in as will dissolve it, and boil and skim it well;  put in your quinces and boil them gently three quarters of an hour;  keep stirring them all the time, or it will stick to the pan and burn;  put it into flat pots, and when cold tie it down close. 

I also made macaroons (mackroons) for our nooning.  This recipe came from Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Book of Sweetmeats, a cookbook that had been handwritten in the 17^th century and which came into Martha’s hands in 1749.  The language in these recipes is clearly earlier than in Mrs. Glasse’s cookbook written a century later.  Still, many of the recipes were similar.  I chose to make the mackroons because I love to bake and the recipe was straightforward and simple.  Of course, I “cheated” by buying almonds that were already blanched and I ground them quickly in an electric coffee grinder rather than using a stone mortar and pestle specified in the recipe.  While I couldn’t find the ground muske, I did find rose water in that Cambridge specialty food shop.  The preservation of flowers was common in the 17^th century and rose water turns up in many of the recipes for cakes and other desserts.  I learned that rose water is very condensed and a little goes a long way, and according to the editor’s notes, over time it was replaced by vanilla extract for baking in Britain and America.  The two flavors are very different but serve the same purpose in baking.  The recipe called for “a spoonful or 2 of rose water” so I used a tablespoon.  I think next time, I’d reduce that amount to a teaspoon. 

~~Ruth Hodges

 page184             TO MAKE MACKROONSTake a pound & halfe of almonds, blanch & beat them very small in a stone morter with rosewater.  put to them a pound of sugar, & ye whites of 4 eggs, & beat ym together. & put in 2 grayns of muske ground with a spoonful or 2 of rose water.  beat ym together till yr oven is as hot as for manchet, then put them on wafers & set them in  on A plate.  after a while, take them out.  yr oven is cool, set againe & dry ym.               
                 

                          

                 

MARTHA WASHINGTON’S

BOOKE OF COOKERY

AND

BOOKE OF SWEETMEATS:

being a Family Manuscript, curiously copied by an unknown Hand sometime in the seventeenth century, which was in her Keeping from 1749.

Ruth's notes:

I purchased blanched slivered almonds which I then ground in a coffee grinder.

I mixed the ground almonds with the sugar.  Separately, I beat the egg whites in the electric mixer for 30 seconds or so.   

I added one tablespoon of rose water which may have been a little too much. Try one teaspoon next time.

Then I added the almond/sugar mixture to the eggs in the electric mixer.

I put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to bake them.  I made them as “drop cookies”, about walnut-sized.

I convection baked them for 10 minutes at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes.  I then turned down the oven to 170 degrees F for five minutes or so.  I then turned off the oven and left them in for another five minutes or so. 

Then I took them out, removed the cookies from the cookie sheets and put them on a cooling rack.

Makes about 60 cookies.

YUM!!

 Preserving the Harvest, Minute Man National Historical Park

20 October 2012