Ready for a Petti
October 12th, 2011
My guipure petticoat trim is complete! It measures just a bit longer than 150 inches — perfect to apply to one of my three breadth (of 45 inch muslin) petticoats.
I know this one will have a sufficient hem (for a change). But the question is, how many tucks will it sport? What will be their pattern? No embroidery. At least that’s what I’m thinking right now…
Final Stretch
October 10th, 2011
Actually, I’m now even closer to finishing my latest petticoat edging than when I took this picture…thanks to an evening at home watching movies with my favorite fellow.
I’m working on the final row. It’s going fairly fast — I’m nearly halfway done after just a few hours of work. Good thing too, as I’m getting a little tired of crochet — at least this pattern. And my wrists ache, my fingers are stiff, and there is a nasty bruise on my right palm where the end of the hook rests. Genius is pain.
Next I’ll need a petticoat to sew this to. I think I have just enough muslin left. Tucks seem like the way to go again, since I still have yet to find any evidence of a mid-19th century petticoat sporting both crochet and embroidery.
It’s Getting to Be Guipure
September 25th, 2011
I got stranded somewhere this week for a few hours, and just happened to have my crochet bag with me. So I made better progress than expected on row 5. Now I’m on to row 6 — of 8 — and it’s really starting to look like a cohesive pattern. The last two rows are much less involved too, so it’s fair to say I am nearing the finish line on this latest edging. Of course that means I need to start thinking about the petticoat it will eventually adorn…
Row 5 Begun
September 21st, 2011
My latest petticoat trim continues to progress in an orderly fashion. This one isn’t nearly so quick to work up as the last, and by rights it should be taking even longer — I just realized that the pattern asks for size 16 thread, not size 10 like the first (crochet thread gets thinner as the numbers go higher).
Tonight, while watching reruns of Bonanza on DVD — come on, who doesn’t love Little Joe? — I finished the last four motifs and started on the first of three or four more rows that will join it all together.
If you will recall, this is the pattern from Peterson’s, 1855, that’s meant to imitate guipure — a type of embroidered thread and cut fabric lace also popular at the time, and somewhat interchangeable with crochet. I’m not sure how I feel about it, after reading the following in Miss Lambert’s 1848 treatise, My Crochet Sampler:
“The following six collars, though simple and unpretending, are in better taste and style than most productions of a similar kind, in crochet: they show themselves to be what they really are — a clever and ingenious method of producing an elegant and useful article of dress, without attempting to imitate, (which indeed would be but waste of time), lace, guipure, or any other manufacture. This description of work, if well executed, may rest on its own merits.”
Of course I plan to make all of the “following six collars” in the very near future. Though I think I will need to order some finer cotton and dig out my REALLY tiny hooks (or tambours as they were properly called in English, before the french term crochet, meaning hook, took over in the 1840s — I’ve also seen them referred to as crochet needles). I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the development of crochet in the first half of the 19th century, including other works by needlework greats Miss Lambert, Cornelia Mee, and Eléonore Riego de la Branchardière, to name a few. I’ve also found at least four new petticoat trims in crochet from the 1840s and 50s, including one worked the short way!
For now, back to my faux guipure.
Crochet Edging
January 17th, 2011
Here’s another edging, recommended for petticoats, from Peterson’s, 1855.
The pattern was remarkably well written and easy to follow, especially with the clear and accurate illustration. I still haven’t figured out how to gauge sizes on 19th-century cotton, but I’ve found some patterns for very fine tatted lace that call for no. 20 or 30 boar’s-head cotton, and directions for a coverlet calling for no. 10. So I am going to presume that, like today, the higher size numbers indicate finer thread. This pattern bears that out as well, asking no. 10 for a petticoat trim, but 16 or 20 for a child’s drawers.
I used what I had on hand to make up a sample — modern no. 16 cotton and a 1.3 mm hook. I don’t think I’d want to trim a petticoat with anything thicker than a modern no. 16; this is a pretty edging, but a bit on the stiff side already. It does seem strong, which was a frequently stated prerequisite for any undergarment trimming (they boiled their laundry, then it was wrung out, and finally put it through a mangle).
Best of all, even though it is worked over the full required length for the first four rows, it does work up relatively quickly. I wouldn’t mind making 100 or so inches of this to trim a petticoat. Someday.