Cloth Girl Doll

 Nellie and Harriet have a new friend: 

Meet Dolly!

This sweet doll is made from Liz Clark's 13" Cloth Girl Doll pattern, and with her permission will be available for purchase in the Fort Nisqually auction.

Dolly and her underthings.

Miss Dolly has a full set of historic undergarments: cotton chemise, drawers, tucked petticoat, and plain petticoat, and stout linen stays with shoulder straps.

Close-up of the hand-bound eyelets on Dolly's stays.

She has a blue print dress made with short-sleeves and a low-body appropriate to her youth, as well as a long-sleeved yoked dress in a bold red and black paisley material. An orange print pinafore and chintz half-apron will help her keep neat and tidy through her adventures. With a green print sunbonnet, blue and gold plaid shawl, warm red winter hood, and grey basque coat, Dolly is ready to play in all weathers.

Short-sleeved blue print dress with open neckline,
pinafore, sunbonnet, and wool shawl.

Yoked dress with long sleeves, plain petticoat, half apron,
grey wool coat, and red wool hood with purple silk bow.

All of Dolly's clothing are made from natural fibers--mostly cotton, with linen stays, soft wool outerwear, and silk ribbon on her hood. She herself is made of cotton, with a painted face and wool stuffing. Her clothes fasten with metal hooks and thread eyes, and the printed materials come from my reproduction fabric stash. 

Dolly in her pinafore, bonnet, and shawl.

Nelly modelling the apron, coat and hood.

Dolly's tucked petticoat ended up so stiff, that I gave her a slightly shorter plain petticoat to wear under her blue dress. The bishop sleeves on her yoked dress (red and black paisley) are a little too full for her basque, but it fits neatly over her short-sleeved blue dress, allowing both dresses to be worn in cold weather.

The tucked petticoat is made of pimatex,
and has enough body to stand on its own.

HFF 4.22: Fear Factor

 

The Challenge: Fear Factor. Time to challenge yourself with intimidating ingredient or technique. 

The Recipe: Roast Pork Shoulder from Bridal Chef: Suggestions and Practical Recipes for the new Housekeeper

    ROAST PORK SHOULDER If too large, have butcher cut in half or trim off lower shank and cut off pieces of upper shoulder use same for boiling with kraut or vegetables. Use the fleshy part for roasting Wash and clean thoroughly sprinkle with salt put in pan with I cup of water and roast very slowly for 3 or 3 1/2 hours. As water boils away 1/2 cup more may be added, but after that enough fat will drip baste with this and brown the meat. To make gravy add 1 tablespoon flour to 1/2 cup of the fat, let it brown then add 1 cup of water. 

    Sweet potatoes or parsnips may be roasted with the meat by putting in the pan 1 hour before meat is done; apples also may be roasted in same pan. 

    Apple sauce or baked or roasted apples should be served with roast pork .

[Cooking meat-based dishes is still not in my comfort zone.]

The Date/Year and Region: 1911, St. Louis

How Did You Make It:  Per the instructions, I rinsed and salted the pork shoulder (8.5lb, bone-in) and placed it in the oven to roast at 325F, with 1 cup of water in the bottom of the pan. [In the general meat section, a "moderate oven" is recommended for large cuts of meat; this tallied with the packaging, which recommended cooking this cut at 325F for 3-3.5 hours, until 165F internal temperature was reached.] 

I added a half cup of water 30 minutes in, and again when I added 4 parsnips at the 2.5 hour mark. There was fat coming off the roast by then, but parts of the pan were bare and I didn't want to scorch anything. 

I ended up making a gravy using 1/2 cup of the drippings, 1 Tbp flour, and 1 cup of water.  

Time to Complete: Three and a half hours. 

Total Cost: $7 meat plus $6 worth of parsnips. Yay for sales. I really need to get a community garden plot next year so I can grow my own heirloom vegetables.

How Successful Was It?: Ok. I was concerned that it would be a bit bland, with no flavoring beside a little salt, but the meat and parsnips were both perfectly adequate. The meat was still rather fatty when cooked, which set off my 'texture is inconsistent' problem, so I probably will avoid this cut in the future. That being said, this is a simple and straightforward recipe, so I'll keep it in my back pocket in case I need to roast a pork shoulder in the future (though I understand better why modern recipes all involve slow cooking the thing into fine pieces). And, honestly, if I'm not using it for a historical event, I'd probably look into a recipe with more interesting flavors.

How Accurate Is It?: Good. I didn't change anything on purpose (forgot the applesauce I meant to serve with it), and this is one of those really simple recipes where there's not a lot of technique/ingredients to tweak.

Roast Pork Shoulder with Parsnips

Not the prettiest plating.

Rolled Sewing Kits

Made from the instructions in Fanciful Utility, which continues to provide fun and beautiful uses for all the odd ends from my larger projects. These two kits are bound for Fort Nisqually--one for interpretation, the other available through the Foundation's fundraising auction. [Details forthcoming; see Anna Worden Bauersmith's Etsy store to buy your own patterns.] 

The kit on the left has a three wool needle pages, a central 3.5" x 1.5" box (~1.75" tall) for holding thimbles, pincushions, and other tools, and a 3.5" x 2.5" pocket for thinner items like scissors, wax, and thread winders. I've equipped it with 12 pins, 6 needles, 1 disk of wax, an emery strawberry, and a round pincushion. The latter two are made up from designs in the American Girl's Book; Or, Occupations for Play Hours (1854/1831), though I took the liberty of using cotton instead of silk on the exterior. My own silk pincushion works fine after years of use, but started looking worn much more quickly than the cotton print ones I made before and since.

The pink box has a built-in pincushion, shaped scissor pocket, and a multi-purpose 2" x 2.5" box with a lid. The pocket can hold scissors up to 4" in length, while the box has room for a modern thread spool or two, or a variety of other tools--in the picture above, it has an emery strawberry, wax disk, two spools of silk, three thread winders, and thimble. This box is also starting out equipped 12 pins, 6 needles, 1 disk of wax, and an emery strawberry.

Sewing supplies are all ready to go.

All of the box fabrics are reproduction cotton prints, the ties are satin ribbons (the orange cotton, the green silk). The needle pages are wool, as is the stuffing of the pincushions. The strawberries have cotton covers with hand-embroidered spots, wool tops, and emery sand centers. Except for two internal seams, the boxes are entirely hand-stitched, clocking in at 4:15 each.

Book Review: The Pocket

 

The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux is a well-sourced yet highly readable survey of the 240+ year history of detached pockets.

This book is lavishly illustrated with color photographs of original pockets, supplemented by contemporary depictions of pockets in use, primarily paintings and engravings, to a total of 161 images. The book's 214 pages are divided thematically into seven chapters (plus introduction and conclusion), investigating not only the construction and use of pockets, but also the social, economic, and sentimental implications of pockets throughout the period. There are a further 40 pages of notes and indexes, including a list by decade of all the court cases at the Old Bailey in which pockets are mentioned; original pockets included in the work are also listed by museum for easier research. The examples and sources are largely British. 

There are no diagrams or instructions for replicating period pockets, but the many photographs offer ready inspiration for material, style and decoration; a fair number of close-ups are included, highlighting old repairs and interesting construction details.

I found this book very interesting. The thematic arrangement and lively writing style made for an enjoyable read. The non-chronological narrative makes feel less like a reference book, though the extensive endnotes and works cited offer a good start for further research. Judicious use of sticky-notes might also be in order for someone interested in a particular subset of the book's timespan. It seems like the late 18th into the early 19th century has the most material featured, but considering the paucity of early sources in general and the waning popularity of the garment on the other end of the period, I think the authors make a good attempt at including the whole timespan c.1660-1900.

Stars: 5

Accuracy: High

Strongest Impression: Informative and highly enjoyable. It's already added nuance to my understanding of pockets during my main time period (1855-1865)

HFF 4.21: Let Them Eat Cake

The Challenge: Let Them Eat Cake! Make a cake. Or cakes.

The Recipe: Bermuda Witches from Cassell's Dictionary of Cooking. I had trouble deciding whether these should be for the name challenge, the cake challenge, or the "fear" challenge. They're quite versatile.

First, the cake:

Savoy Cake--Weigh seven large fresh eggs, and take their weight in dried flour, and a little more than half their weight in sifted sugar. Break the eggs, and separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the former in a bowl, and add the sugar to them very gradually, together with a little grated lemon-rind, a spoonful of orange-flower or rose-water, or any other suitable flavouring. Add the flour a little at a time, and continue to beat the mixture for twenty minutes. Butter a mould, sprinkle powdered sugar upon the butter, and shake off all that will not adhere. Tie a strip of buttered paper round the top of the mould to keep the preparation from rolling down the sides whilst it is being baked. Pour in the cake, and three-parts fill the mould with it. When done, let it stand a few minutes then shake it well to loosen it and turn it out carefully. This cake is very good cut into slices and made into jam sandwiches. Time to bake an hour and a quarter or a little more.

And then the witches:

Bermuda Witches--Spread strawberry, raspberry, apple jelly, or preserve of any kind without stones, over slices of Savoy or rice cake, which must be cut exceedingly thin and even. Spread unsparingly over the preserve finely grated cocoa nut; cover over with a similar slice of cake, and after pressing all together cut them into any form desired. The square form is generally thought most suitable, and each slice of cake may be divided into the size desired before the preserve is put on, but they will always require some trimming. Send them to table arranged prettily on a napkin, and garnished with myrtle sprigs.

Since these are literally Victorian Sandwiches with coconut, I'm assuming the "witch" comes from "-wich"; and Wikipedia tells me that Bermuda is the furthest north coconuts grow in the wild.

The Date/Year and Region: 1883, London

How Did You Make It:  I made a half-scale, using three eggs, with 6 oz of all-purpose flour and a generous 3 ounces of granulated sugar. Per the instructions, I separated the eggs and beat the yolks with sugar, adding in half a lemon peel (minced fine), 1/2 Tablespoon orange-flower water, and the flour. I beat all the egg whites to stiff peaks, then folded them into the batter.

I baked the cake in a loaf-pan (buttered and sugared), for ~35 minutes at 350F.

Once cool, I cut the cake into slices, trimmed the tops, spread cherry preserves over half the slices, sprinkled with coconut, and set the plain slices of cake on top. I did not trim the sandwiches further, because every time I try something like that, it makes a mess.

Time to Complete: About an hour and a quarter on the cake; 10 minutes on the sandwiches, excluding cooling time.

Total Cost: $5 covered the lemon, eggs, and fancy jam (on sale), with flour, sugar and orange-flower water in the pantry.

How Successful Was It?: Tasty. The coconut isn't just nice, it materially improves the whole 'Victoria Sandwich' experience. This is definitely a 'whole greater than sum of parts' situation, in that the cake by itself is sort of...weird. I ate the odd piece plain, and it just had an odd crumb. Not rubbery, but that is the word that comes to mind (also 'a touch dense', and 'not unlike a sponge'). Once the preserves and coconut were on it, though, it was quite nice. I don't think I'd use this savoy cake for anything else, except maybe a trifle or similar where it's absorbing things. The orange-flower water and lemon peel flavor were perfectly balanced to eachother and the cake (not too faint or strong). The coconut and cherry worked really nicely together and with the citrus; I really want to try it with raspberry as well.

I will definitely keep this variant in the rotation, since it's tasty, straight-forward, and looks nice.

How Accurate Is It?: I'm fairly sure (checked a few other savoy cake recipes, period and modern), that this recipe omitted a step: to beat the egg whites into stiff peaks and fold them in to the batter. Otherwise the cake has nothing to make it rise. So I did that. Per some modern hints, I made sure to beat the yokes and sugar until the mixture started looking white and almost fluffy. By time the flour was in, it was almost a crumbly dough, so I felt pretty good about the egg whites, as they took it back to being a batter.

Acknowledging that change, I'm feeling pretty good about these. I used store-bought preserves and garnished with lemon balm instead of myrtle, but the cake being scaled to the egg weight makes me feel pretty good about the sugar and flour amounts versus the egg size, and the taste of the cake vindicates the "spoonful = Tablespoon" hypothesis I was working on for the orange-flower water. I did use sweetened shredded coconut, so these might be a bit sweeter than originally intended.  

Bermuda Witches!

HFF 4.20: What's in a Name?

A week late, because 2020 runs on its own time...

The Challenge: What's In a Name? Pick a food with a fun name--person, place, thing, or just something fun to say.

The Recipe: A Very Fine Whip from Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book and Young Housekeeper's Assistant

A VERY FINE WHIP A pound of sugar, half a pint of wine, the juice of four lemons; mix all together, add a quart of rich cream, whip it to a strong froth, and serve in glasses. 

The Date/Year and Region: 1849, Boston 

How Did You Make It:  Twice on a quarter scale (I wanted to experiment with wines, and so divided the half batch into halves).

The first batch, I mixed together 4 oz granulated sugar (~1/2 cup), the juice of 1 (large) lemon, 1/2 cup wine, and 1 cup of whipping cream. After 20 minutes of beating on high, it had barely thickened. The liquid also tasted very strongly of lemon (more so than wine or cream), so I suspected that I'd used too large of a lemon.

The second batch was made identical to the first, except that only 1/2 lemon was used. It solidified in less than 3 minutes. I then spooned it into cups to serve.

I assumed a sweet white wine, as the receipt didn't say. To experiment, I used the sweetest and least sweet white wines I had on hand: the first batch a used a gewürztraminer and in the second a moscato.

Time to Complete: About 10 minutes when it worked.

Total Cost: For this (total) half-batch, about $7. Cream and lemons can get pricey depending on season, and the wine's highly variable.

How Successful Was It?: With the right amount of lemon, it came together very nicely. It's not too sweet but it's sweet enough and very rich. The lemon came through, the wine itself no so much; in fairness, the moscato I used has a really light flavor, so it's possible a different wine would come through more (the gewürztraminer didn't either, but it was buried under way too much lemon). 

The successful quarter-batch made 4 very generous servings, I think it would go best spread among 6-8 servings. It's great for a few bites, but I definitely wanted water and something salty before I was half-way through. I tried added some cherry preserves (a serving suggestion) and found they went nice with the whip, but weren't enough on their own to balance it out.

I expect I'll make these again, and most likely with the preserves as suggested, but only in a setting in which I have six or more guests and am serving a variety of foods. Period dinner parties, Candlelight Tour, the collation of historic dishes that happens at my Twelfth Night parties...

How Accurate Is It?: Lemon size concerns aside, I'd rate this fair to moderate in its execution. I used the electric mixer, and was guessing on the wine varietals, but I think I followed the receipt's specifications as far as they were given. I'd normally use heavy whipping cream for any receipt of this sort, but used regular whipping cream, as the store had very limited options.

Two great whips, one sad not-whip, and a glass of wine.

Wool Hand Balls, 1860

Wool or leather hand ball from The Girl's Own Toy-Maker (1860).

I meant to make these for Fort Steilacoom Christmas last year (not to mention playing "The Elements" at Nisqually). I'm finishing them now in honor of Candlelight Tours, which should have been this weekend, and always have a group of talented volunteers reenacting "children at play" in the nursery.

These should work fairly well for "The Elements".

The construction was quite simple and went quickly:

1. Cut out ~6 eye-shaped pieces of fabric.
2. Stich right-sides together, leaving a small gap in the last seam.
3. Stuff with bran (I used bits of wool roving and scrap yarn for some).
4. Stitch the gap closed from the right side.

The instructions don't actually say how many pieces to use per ball: the illustration shows 14-16 narrow sections, while the pattern given makes a roughly spherical ball in six pieces. I cut pieces about 4" tall and just over 1.5" wide (including seam allowances of ~1/4"), which gave a finished ball 2.5" across.

The resulting balls are a little squat, and I think they might be improved by cutting each wedge slightly narrower and using 8 of them instead of 6. The bran filled ball has a slight weight to it; it's easy to toss, but packs a slight punch if you try to throw it really hard. The wool-stuffed balls are very light, and even my hardest attempt to pitch them doesn't produce much of an effect.

Kitchen Garden, October 1819

This month, we're preparing to overwinter a variety of vegetables:

Plant out the cauliflower plants where they to be sheltered; two under each glass, for fear should fail; sow another crop of peas and beans in a sheltered situation, to stand the winter. Transplant lettuces under a reed hedge or wall; also cabbage plants and coleworts, where they are to remain. The cauliflowers, which now begin to shew their heads, must have a leaf broken in upon them to keep off the sun and rain. 

-Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)

Original: Late 1850s Dinner Dress

In honor of Candlelight Tours, an evening dress of the later 1850s:

Dinner Dress, 1855-1859, in The Met.

I picked this dress both for the fabulous fabric and the cut. I find long-sleeved gowns with open necklines very elegant.