More from the Attic Trunk

Just a few more items from Granm's attic trunk.

Child's dress

 

 

Some underpinnings

(Now I know why they always say to have clean ones, it's for all those costumers documenting them a century from now!)

Black Wool Coat



Various objects

This fan is unfortunately crumbling

 

 It's a child size Elizabethan flat cap! The rest of the child's Elizabethan costume is on the Picasa webalbum. There were also pants and skirt to go with the top pictured there.

The Great Mound of Fabric

I know some of you have heard of rumors about this great mound of fabric we purchased last summer. Well, here is a small portion of it. It's essentially taken over our back room.  I'm looking for inspiration in what to make with it all! 


This is our sofa bed couch, the bed part is pulled out to help house all the fabric.

And here are just a few of the other bits we got, this is still not the complete overview of the purchase! I almost hate to think of trying to find any particular fabric anymore in that room... What with all the other fabric I had stashed away for the last years... aiiie...

 

And Miyu enjoying what's left of the aftermath of the cleanup (obviously helping with us making tabards for the Griffons at this point! Yes, that is tabard fabric she is lying on, which is on top of a fur blanket)

A selection of items from my Great Grandma's attic trunk

So many years have passed since I inherited this trunk from my great-aunt. When I showed my grandmother some of the items from the trunk, she recognized some of them and said "oh that was from when I was a child" or "that was my mother's". My grandmother was born right around the turn of the century around 1905 or 6,  I can't remember which. She was 100 yrs old when she finally passed away. My grandmother also used to have several items in her attic as well. She would occassionally have me try them on when I was a child. The collection also included some dresses that were made to be worn with hoops, and not only the bustle dresses found in this trunk.

Anyways, most of these items are well worn with age and use. Some of the fabrics are so fragile that they feel  like they will break with touching them. We actually managed to get some of the stronger pieces cleaned since all of them smell , well, like old clothes stored in a cedar trunk in an attic for a century. There were a variety of items to be found, from parasols and feather fans, to pieces of cloth ready to be made into new outfits, as well as men's and women's clothes from the era. Even a few pieces for children could be seen in there. Construction was a mix of hand and what looked like machine sewing. I'll only show a few pieces here, for the rest, you can take a look at my Picasa web album here:  Grandmas Attic Trunk photo album

(let me know if the link doesn't work, I may duplicate the album on Facebook as well for those who prefer to view it there. )
The majority are made with silks. linens and wool as far as I can tell. Some chiffon and tulle can also be seen.

Brown and black linen dress:

Yes, I had issues with curious cats.

Detail of the skirt

Here you can see the top that went with the skirt.  It is made with a false front that poofs out a bit (the white china silk)

Back of the bodice

 Detail of the sleeve

Inside the false front, this is where the actual closure is. The poofy bits on top are actually pockets!

Here is the inside, it has steel boning and is has contrasting binding of a silk like fabric as well as interfacing material. There are 2 hooks on the back for attachment to the skirt.

 A view of the boning

 Not quite sure what to make of this, but inside the collar are 2 very small "bones". I'm not sure what they are made of exactly but they are quite hard. I assume this is to support the collar. There are several other pieces in this wardrobe that have the same detail.

 There was also a short bustle skirt to be found. It's quite possible it went with this attire, as I couldn't see anything else in the trunk it belonged with. It is made of black silk lined with a fine brown linen.

Red Dress

This is the only dress on which I found a label. Perhaps this may help ambitious people in dating these items.

 Here is the rest of the dress. Unfortunately the pictures don't show the fine tucks on the bodice and skirt very well. The fabric on the bodice is ripping along the grainlines, so I don't like to handle this one very much.

Lilac and Grey Wool and Velvet dress

This one had quite beautiful embroidery. It was found inside a muslin bag inside the trunk. I assume this is because the outfit was still in pieces, as if it had not yet been finished. The main dress is of a lilac fine wool, and the detailing is done with grey velvet.

I'll have to take better pictures of this sometime.

 

Details on the skirt are fine tucks in a randomly wavey pattern. The curly piece of fabric has grey velvet sandwiched in between the lilac wool.

 Next rounds of pictures will be of the screaming purple and white flowers dress and of the finely detailed white china silk dress. Hopefully I'll get to taking some of the feather fans as well, as one of them is quite unusual and beautiful.

Alright, here is the screaming purple dress.  It hurts my eyes to see the entire thing together! Yes, it really is bright purple silk and the pattern is woven in, not a print

  

 And one of the feather fans. This one is ostrich feather and mother of pearl. I'm still hunting down the other fan. I put it in a separate box since it was falling apart. From memory, it is green with peacock eyes, and a tortoiseshell handle.