The Hoover Trunk, Part 5 : Accessories

 I *think* I have sifted all the accessories out of the bin and photographed them...maybe...

Anyway, first up, SCARVES:

I am pretty sure all of these are silk.  And they all have abraision damage/ tiny holes and/or stains.  But...what era?  The teens?  The twenties?  The fifties?  Who knows?

The first one is black w/ gold threads around the border

Then we have this red, blue and gold scarf that I love.  Such rich color!

Cream, rust, orange jacquard...the sides are reverse images.  Not sure which one is supposed to be the 'right' side

It's pretty grungy...I wonder if a cleaning would damage it or refresh it.

There were actually two of these long skinny ties; I just didn't photograph the second one.  They are woven to that width; not a tube and not hemmed.  I'm guessing an ascot type of tie?  Wrapped around the neck a couple of times and then knotted?  They're both about 4 feet long...I took this pic and then packed it up before I figured out I should make use of  tape measure, lol.

Next up, we have this interesting little printed leather bag:

I didn't realize it was leather until I actually picked it up.  

It has a little snapped case at the top...for coins, I suppose, but it could also be for a housekey.  The bag is lined, but the case is not and you can see that it's actually leather.

I don't know if the metal snap/ grommets would be useful in dating it.  I think it's adorable.

Finally, I have a couple of things that I think are more modern...I am pretty sure these gloves are from the 1960's or early 70's based on the print on the bag...and the fact that they came in a plastic bag at all:

They are nylon knit and I held my breath when I put it on...but I have small hands and it worked.  And I cracked up that shiny nylon knit was marketed as 'leather look'

The last thing I'm going to include on this batch is a sunbonnet...but I suspect that this sunbonnet was made for the Bicentennial in 1976.  I took a picture showing the black braided elastic that cinches the back but it didn't focus well; I tried to take it too close up.  But this fabric doesn't have that vintagey feel to it the obviously older cotton fabrics have...and a truly older one would not use elastic at the back neck. But even if it was made for the bicentennial, it would be about 46 years old, so that's something, lol.

There is another sunbonnet in the bin but it matches a shirtwaist and I do think it's old...at least, contemporary with most of the rest of the garments in the trunk.  I haven't photographed them yet so that'll be a later post.

And I thought the Hoover Trunk would be good for two posts, lol.  I obviously did not know what I was getting myself into.

The Hoover Trunk, Part 4: A child's dress?

 Just to think about something other than Christmas costumes for a few moments, I thought I would post another treasure from the Hoover Trunk.  I have a backlog of photos that I took a month or more ago and I'm forgetting things, lol.

This is what appears to be a child's dress that looks to have been in the process of being deconstructed when it was put into the trunk and no one came back to it.  It's a purplish-brown, and I'm going to guess that it's silk.

For reference, the table has a 56" circumference. I believe the dress was originally one piece, but the bodice has been separated from the skirt and trim has been removed from the skirt so I think it was going to be remade into something else but, like so many of my projects, it got stalled and apparently never completed.

You can see the raw edge of the waist line seam; I believe it had a gathered pigeon-front as the front is longer and wider than the front lining.

The side bodice and underarm look to me to have been pieced.  It could have been deliberate, but it doesn't really line up so I think this was making do with bits of fabric.  I wonder if it actual was  once a woman's dress, made over for a child.  It's very interesting; just after I photographed this  I came across Nicole Rudolph's video on shattered silk, and I suspect that's what I have here.  There are other pieces in the trunk that are more suspect, but as this has broken down in a few places  (Like the split visible above)  I am wondering if this was the case.

It closed with hooks and eyes; quite tedious for a young girl I'm sure!

It is completely underlined in cotton

The stand up collar is actually a separate piece, completely finished off and hand tacked to the neckline.

The other sleeve also is splitting; it could be just a lack of wearing ease.  Comparing the two picuters, the seams are not the same on either side, which also makes me believe the bodice was pieced from repurposed fabric.

The skirt is fully lined, with a placket entrance and a faced hem.

The lined waistband is opened at the top, presumably where the bodice was removed.

There is a band along the bottom that has seams that do not line up with the seams in the main body of the skirt.

The hem facing band.

You can clearly see the parallel stitching lines where some trim was removed; I'm guessing it likely matched the trim on the bodice.

It was a pretty somber dress for a little girl.  I wonder what it was supposed to have become in its next iteration?

Sewing for the 2021 Christmas Production

 Somehow, this year I've inherited the position of Costume Mistress...which  means I'm doing more administrating (making spreadsheets and lists and delegating) than actual sewing.  Not sure I'm entirely comfortable in this position...ok, I lied, I am definitely NOT comfortable in this position...I'd much rather just be handed patterns and fabric and asked to make twelve lame' shirts, lol but, well, it is what it is.  It is good for us to be drug out of the comfort zone from time to time, right? Right?

Anyway, I have squeaked in a little sewing for the production.  Part of the problem is that the sewing room is migrating from the dump nook at the end of the laundry room to a now unoccupied upstairs bedroom, and that is taking much more time and energy than I thought it would, but we had a piece that needed mending so I thought I would do it myself rather than stick someone else with it, since it was all hand sewing anyway.

There was a fur-collared camel cashmere coat that just showed up from who knows where in the costume storage at the old church building; it was clearly vintage and when we did the edition of this show two years ago, two years after moving all the costume paraphernalia,  I looked for it for one of the 1930's characters but couldn't find it anywhere.  This year, the same character shows up in the re-write and I happened to open the right box and found the coat all smunched up.  And  missing all but one of the buttons. And ripped badly at the top of one of the welt pockets  But it fits the lady playing the character and she loved it.  So I brought it home, poked around online, trying to find some 1 3/8" vintage-looking buttons.  Found them at Jo-Ann's, to my shock, and I could order them for pickup at the store across town.

So I picked up the buttons...and a few other things, since a whompin' thunderstorm hit moments after I walked into the store and I had some time to poke around, and did the mending a couple of weeks ago.  Hit it with the steamer tonight to make it presentable to return to the costume shop.

I thought I took a photo of the original state, but, alas, there was no photo on my phone of the pre-mended coat.

I do, however, have some pictures of the damaged pocket...

I tucked the welts back to the wrong side and it didn't look horrid; but, to my surprise, there was no interfacing at all supporting the pocket so I suppose it just caught on something and ripped.

And the inside and outside of the mending job; I was able to whack a triangle off of the welt pocket facing to use to reinforce the rip.  Fortunately, it won't show much from onstage...I hope, lol.

I took a pic of the labels in the coat: just to see what I could find out.

 I googled it.  Turns out Carol Brent was a house label for Montgomery Ward's back in the day.

Never, ever would I have guessed that this coat came from 'Monkey Wards'.  By the time I was shopping MW's in the early 80's it was lower on the fashion ranks than Sears.  But the coat was fairly well made, despite the lack of pocket support,.  There's a surprising amount of hand sewing; the fur collar is hand tacked on so it could be easily removed for cleaning, and the fabric is luscious, slight moth damage and all.  And it is most certainly from the early 60's.  But we're trying to pass it off as 1930's so...don't tell anyone, lol.

My steamer is pretty pitiful,  The coat still looks kind of rumpled; that's as much as I could get before it vapor locked up and quit steaming.  But...it's a LOT better than it was when I started, all the same.  It may not look too bad on an actual body.  I hope.

The Hoover Trunk - Part 3: Aprons

 There were six aprons in the box from the old trunk; the first two appeared to be made from the same basic pattern.  The fabric and lace are different but they are created the same way:

  

Theres' a center panel, with extensions seamed on (click on the picture to make it bigger; I've folded it in half, then folded back one edge so you can see the seam allowances and the side panels).  The edges of the center panel on both aprons are selvedges; this fabric was 24 1/2" wide.  

 

I'm wondering if it could be left over from the infant gowns, which were also made from very narrow fabric but I never compared them and I'm not digging through the already wrapped and packed boxes to see.  It could be.  In any case...very, very narrow fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There's a wider sash gathered into the waistband for prettier bows.:
 

 

One of the aprons has a stamp on it.  "P A FLINT" is the text; Ida Hoover became Ida Flint when she married but I'm not sure who P A Flint might have been...daughter?  Mother in Law?  I'll have to ask Cousin Pat if she knows...
ETA:  The consensus seems to be that it's a blurred stamp and should be 'D.A. Flint'..as David A. Flint was Ida's husband.  In retrospect, if there was a stamp made to identify household goods, it makes sense that it would have his name...it was, after all, around the turn of the 20th century and women had very little in way of legal rights.  He did  apparently have such a stamp that he used on his tools.  There was a suggestion that perhaps the apron was made from one of his recycled shirts, but since the front panel is selvedge-to-selvedge and the stamp placement makes sense on the apron, I kind of doubt that.  I think Ida just used the stamp to quickly mark the apron as hers...for whatever reason.

The next apron is TINY.  

 

It appears that it was worn by buttoning it, but the entire waistband from button to button hole is only 23 1/2 inches.  Feasible, for a tight corset I suppose...or a very tiny person. Or perhaps even a child.

 

This apron has no pockets, but it does have slightly larger side panels; the center panel is still only 24" wide fabric.

The next apron is cut on the crossgrain; it's very sheer; I'm guessing voile? 

The pattern across the bottom is woven in; even the 'hem' is woven in.

 The bottom edge is actually a selvedge.

It's missing one of the ties; which is sad.  But it is pretty badly stained from storage.

These aprons are all pretty sheer, which makes me wonder if they were for show rather than for actual 'protect my dress' use. 

The other two are bib-style aprons.  Apron number one ties in the back, but I have no idea how the bib stayed up.

The only clue is this slight rust stain on the strap; I'm guessing there was a pin (possibly even a straight pin) there as I know aprons were pinned up years ago.

A row of machine stitching for the twice-turned hem, and another row of machine stitching to attach the rick rack.

The last apron in the bunch is one that I've called 'the show-off apron' due to the incredible number of tiny, individually made loops which literally outline every detail:

I can't imagine the hours that went into the construction of this.  And...there is again no visible means of closing it up, so I'm assuming it was pinned on as well.

We have a bit of revers on the bib, all outlined with the loops.  The 'lapels' are attached with a running hand stitch, and the bib is connected to the skirt with hand sewn tacks...pretty much the only notable hand stitching (other than the button holes on the Very Small apron) in the lot.

All those loops!!!  I can't imagine taking that much time on an apron.  I've never seen anything quite like it.  But, I guess if you can't surf the 'net in the evenings...why not make an over the top apron?