Posted in Finding
The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has “Electronic Swatchbook 2.0” online. What is it? High-quality scans of fabric swatches dating 1837-1923 from various industry swatch books in their collection.
This is a great resource for historical costuming and quilting. I’m totally geeking out, thinking about what repro fabrics I’ve seen that look simliar and what techniques I can decipher.
Powerhouse Museum, I think I love you.
Posted in Crafting
Yesterday, I turned 26. I don’t recall ever thinking about myself at 26 when I was younger—I don’t tend to imagine myself at such-and-such age in the future. But, I am pretty confident that my teenage self wouldn’t have imagined me quite like this.
I live in New York, and didn’t return to the Midwest after graduating college.
Carl and I have been together for five years come August. We own a house. And a dog. And things like bedroom furniture.
I’ve determined that my mom can no longer blame me for her grey hairs, because I found one the other day and I don’t have kids to blame.
I quilt. I’m addicted to quilting and making other things with fabric. July marks two full years that I’ve been quilting, although I’ve been sewing for probably 20 or more, now.
Posted in Finding
The Foundling Museum in the UK has launched an online, flash-based version of their Threads of Feeling exhibit.
The exhibit is a collection of textile scraps left in the Foundling Hospital’s 18th century records about the abandoned children in their care.
In the cases of more than 4,000 babies left between 1741 and 1760, a small object or token, usually a piece of fabric, was kept as an identifying record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital’s nurses. Attached to registration forms and bound up into ledgers, these pieces of fabric form the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th Century. Read more about the exhibit
If you’re in, or visiting, London, the show is open until March 6, 2011.
I read about this exhibit before it opened, but thanks to Kendra Van Cleave of Démodé and the Two Nerdy History Girls for sharing the link to the online exhibit this past week.
Posted in Finding
Colonial Williamsburg brings to mind gorgeous fashion and extensively researched clothing construction already, but they’ve outdone themselves with Historic Threads: Three Centuries of Clothing, a new online exhibit.
From CW:
Three centuries of historic threads help illuminate the lives of the men and women who once wore the clothing in this exhibition. From attending formal balls to getting dressed for bed, the antique clothing in the collections of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg tells the story of daily life. Clothing that once hung in wardrobes and lay piled in trunks is on display here for the eyes of a new century.
They haven’t yet launched the full exhibit; only formal clothing and accessories are currently available, but even that is quite interesting. The online exhibit is part of Fashion Accessories from Head to Toe: 1600 to 1840, which runs in Colonial Williamsburg January 28, 2011–December 31, 2012.
Posted in Finding
From June 19–September 18, 2011, Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns is coming to the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY.
It just closed at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which owns most of the pieces in the show.
If you can’t wait for June—or don’t live near Utica—a book of the same title is available. The book is authored by Cynthia Amneus, the associate curator of costume and textiles at the Cincinnati Art Museum; Sara Long Butler, Professor of Costume Studies at Miami University in Ohio; and Katherine Jellison, Associate Professor of History at Ohio University. It’s on my wishlist, but I haven’t yet looked through a printed copy.
If you happen to know if it’s opening at another museum in between Cincinnati and MWPAI, let us know in the comments.