Getting Better: A Short, Encouraging Rant.

by George P A Healy, MET collection

When it comes to replicating mid-19th century items for living history use, the closer we can get to the original, the better.

But sometimes, we hit a wall. We’re doing… okay. But the stuff we’re making isn’t quite cutting it. We might look like a reenactor, versus one of The Original Cast (and yes, I’m still regretting introducing The Original Cast as a term about a decade back, but I still find it highly useful, so I’m still using it.)

How do we break through, get over, or just tear down that wall?

Surprising no one, I have some thoughts.

Look at Stuff

… and by Stuff, I mean Original Stuff. Thousands of items are being shared in on-line archives daily. Do some digging in local historical archives, regional museums, private collections, on-line collections, antique guides, and other real resources, and really look at them. Are you seeing what you once thought you saw? Or has your eye been slowly refined by casual looking, and now you’re seeing more? Take notes.

Don’t Look at Stuff

… other repro stuff, I mean. There are some amazing replicators out there. I’m pleased to be friends with a whole stack of them. But if you’re copying somone’s modern repro project, you’re going to end up with a copy of a copy, and the more times it’s been copied, the more risk you run of getting make-believe, versus history. So be inspired, perhaps, but don’t copy. Look carefully to see where the replication and the original are twins, and where a repro items perhaps fails. Take notes.

Retrench

Take a bit and reexamine what you have and what you do. Are the elements of your impression truly harmonizing, or do you have an atypical stinker wrecking things up? Have you been skating by doing so-so, half-done semi-historic techniques? Now’s a great time to learn or refine something.

Perhaps you need to get really comfortable with making and applying fine piping: just do it! Perhaps you need to learn to really find your waist: just do it! If it means you end up taking apart and refining existing projects, awesome! (Caveat: so long as the fabric is a really spot-on one for your era. Don’t waste time on poor fabric choices.)

Sometimes, we get poor results just because we’re skating on some basics, like pressing a project as we sew, or paying attention to period grain placement when we cut, or skipping making a test bodice, or testing trim scales. Slow down a speck. Take the steps. Pay attention. Be tidy as you work. Press things. Make the muslin. Press the muslin, too. All the small habits really do add up to a more successful finished project.

Get Comfortable

… with a bit of historically-accurate tedium. You can spend your time fussing over the miserable slog of sewing on hooks, or hemming by hand, or hand-gathering, or any of the hundred mundane tasks of replication… or you can find your little zen pocket of the universe, and settle in to make the most of the time.

Simply choosing to add a pleasant aspect to a mundane task–like listening to period music, or “watching” a costume drama while you work, or taking your work to the sunniest spot in front of the window, with a fragrant cup of tea by your side–along with a determined attitude and a reasonable pace of work, can have a profound effect on the quality of your finished items, and a decrease in blasphemy, profanity, vulgarity, and general rage with which you may have previously approached your least-favorite tasks.

Sometimes, the mere swapping-about of the work process can help! For me, I make and prep my skirts first, directly after cutting everything. Seams done, hem in, balanced and gathered, gauged, or pleated, ready to go—it’s a psychologically easy start for me. Then I prefer to focus on doing up my sleeves–since I can baste those into my muslin to test them, because YES, I MADE THE MUSLIN. Once the sleeves are truly sewn and finished, they get neatly folded on top of the tidily-folded skirts, and I start my bodice. Projects where I’ve started the bodice first? OH LANGUISHMENT. OH WOE. OH TEDIUM.

If your sewing process has been a drag on your work, consider switching it up and finding a new comfortable work order!

Get Uncomfortable

Learn to use your thimble. Seriously.

But beyond that, get out of your project comfort zone! If you do mostly sewing, try another period handwork–knit something very badly. Paint a few horrific watercolors. Embroider something terrible. Build a rickety shelf with handtools. Make lumpy cream gravy. Learn a period ballad and caterwaul in the car.

Stepping outside of your normal project range to experience other aspects of mid-century life can refresh the soul, and bring new depth and context to every avenue of living history!

Read Stuff

Read any primary sources, and good secondary resources, that you can get your eyeballs on. Whether it’s a period novel, science treatise, travel story, missions report, newspaper, or business directory, you’ll gain context. Read What The Original Cast Read.

Don’t Read Stuff

… but don’t get too caught up in the politics of modern hobby chat on-line, or you risk getting bogged down in all that mire, or getting used to seeing fairly mediocre work praised instead of examined, or any of a number of distraction and misinformation risks we are all prone to. On-line lists and such have their place! I adore them! Just be wary of the echo chambers, and think sensibly about the information you find. Evaluate, critique, search, and make up your own mind: is what you’re hearing and reading consistent with The Original Cast stuff you’ve also been reading?

Set Ambitious Goals

If you’re used to doing modern double-layer collars, set a goal to make a fine-hemmed single-layer batiste collar, and maybe edge it with really good lace. Choose one technique to focus on with your next project, and take some notes on the learning process. Learn to use teensy double-points to knit something. Look at budget-friendly ways to set aside money for the Really Good Bonnet, or the Really Historic Glasses. Set a goal that pushes you, and work in small increments to get there.

Celebrate Small

Take the time to notice and be pleased with your progress. What may not seem celebratory to others might be a very big small deal to you!  It is very encouraging to pull out something, on which you’ve done your best, and notice afresh how much care you put into improving your pressing skills or buttonholes or tidy button stitching that isn’t knobby with drool-covered knots… your upgrades matter. Celebrate them! (And if you come across something you can now improve, go ahead and do that! It’s Quite Reasonable to snip off all your buttons and re-stitch them with the better techniques you know now, or pull off a mangled patch and re-do a mend in a more period manner!)

What will you improve this year?