The quilting demo was a success! Everything went smoothly, the public liked us, and we had fun (which is kind of the most important part, to me). Here's a play by play, and pictures!
Before we left for the event I gathered all the clothing so I could figure out if we had enough underwear and that sort of thing. Some skirts got tucked up and I spent kind of a long time color-coordinating the aprons and the dresses so it wouldn't look too matchy-matchy
Before we left for the event I gathered all the clothing so I could figure out if we had enough underwear and that sort of thing. Some skirts got tucked up and I spent kind of a long time color-coordinating the aprons and the dresses so it wouldn't look too matchy-matchy
the clothes alone take up as much space as three people
I prepared the quilt itself by laying out the backing, the batting and the top, basting them together with like 6 inch stitches, and rolling them onto two poles. For batting I used what I had at hand, which was loose polyester fiberfill. I sort of pulled it apart and convinced it to lie in an inch-thick layer throughout the quilt (and I guess I didn't actually take pictures of the process). I figured, on the one hand loose batting is historically more accurate, and then on the other hand the top and backing are both polyester (because that's the fabric I had lying around) so it won't hurt anything to put polyester on the inside too.
The quilting pattern that I decided on was a simple square type design: stitch-in-the-ditch on both the horizontal and vertical seams and then bisect those squares horizontally and vertically.
The whole roll situation on the quilt was my make-do solution to not having a real quilting frame. I stitched the short ends of the quilt (with huuuuge stitches, of course) to the poles and rolled them both inward, so that the poles themselves stuck out on the ends and could be balanced on something. Then we'd roll the quilt out just a little bit and quilt from the middle towards the ends (so if things were going to shift it would be as even as possible). I have this thought that such systems were used "back in the day" and that the poles would be balanced on sawhorses. Of course, really legit quilting bees used a full sized frame that could have the whole quilt out at once, but that was out of the question given space concerns, and the fact that there would be only 3 quilters instead of 10+.
The quilting pattern that I decided on was a simple square type design: stitch-in-the-ditch on both the horizontal and vertical seams and then bisect those squares horizontally and vertically.
The whole roll situation on the quilt was my make-do solution to not having a real quilting frame. I stitched the short ends of the quilt (with huuuuge stitches, of course) to the poles and rolled them both inward, so that the poles themselves stuck out on the ends and could be balanced on something. Then we'd roll the quilt out just a little bit and quilt from the middle towards the ends (so if things were going to shift it would be as even as possible). I have this thought that such systems were used "back in the day" and that the poles would be balanced on sawhorses. Of course, really legit quilting bees used a full sized frame that could have the whole quilt out at once, but that was out of the question given space concerns, and the fact that there would be only 3 quilters instead of 10+.
The final setup, with Em and Kay hard at work.
I didn't have any sawhorses (at least, not any historical looking ones) so we set up the quilt poles between two ladder-back chairs. The chairs are not really historical but not horrendous eyesores either. On one side of this arrangement we put a bench, and I had planned to sit us all three on the bench, but it turned out to be a better arrangement if I sat around the other side on a stool.
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Look at us, we look so good! I only made one brand-new dress for this event, which is the maroon one I'm wearing. The others just needed a bit of new underwear and some hem tucks. I loooove putting my clothes on other people with different body types. Like, clearly we're different shapes, and we fill the clothes differently, but we all look super good and period!
I did some hair research for this reenactment, because obviously my friends have short hair and I didn't want to do it wrong. Turns out, if one has got short hair in the 1860s, it should be center parted and tucked behind the ears. Super simple! And besides the usual "cut my hair to sell" and "cut my hair because I'm an invalid", apparently there was a bit of a fad for young but eligible ladies to wear short hair. I couldn't exactly confirm that fact - it was explained by youthful exuberance, or perhaps it was southern ladies sympathizing with the soldiers, or it was those crazy transcendentalists with their nutty ideas about relative equality of the sexes.
I did some hair research for this reenactment, because obviously my friends have short hair and I didn't want to do it wrong. Turns out, if one has got short hair in the 1860s, it should be center parted and tucked behind the ears. Super simple! And besides the usual "cut my hair to sell" and "cut my hair because I'm an invalid", apparently there was a bit of a fad for young but eligible ladies to wear short hair. I couldn't exactly confirm that fact - it was explained by youthful exuberance, or perhaps it was southern ladies sympathizing with the soldiers, or it was those crazy transcendentalists with their nutty ideas about relative equality of the sexes.
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As a teaching tool I made a little sort of quilt sampler, which is the loose pinwheel block visible above. Its just one block with batting and backing, quilted and bound. I batted it with a little bit of loose wool that I had around (which is not sufficently processed to qualify as roving, I don't think). I left one corner of the block open to show people the components of the "quilt sandwich". And I quilted the four quarters of the sampler in different designs, sort of just for fun. Its sort of visible in that picture on the left, due to the bright light.
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Although there were a fair few people around because of the "holiday", and because the Old Manse was hosting a concert that afternoon, we still weren't as popular with the passerby as I had anticipated. I think a lot of that was because what we were doing seemed obvious and familiar to people, so they didn't bother to ask questions. Or they sat 10 feet away with their small child and explained to said child in a very hushed voice that we were "princesses" doing some "sewing". I guess visitors think it's rude to interrupt us in our work, but it does result in a lot of people spreading misinformation instead of learning something new.
We did attract the attention of a number of quilters in the crowd, and one woman who had specifically come to see us to ask me a somewhat obscure question about signature quilts (which I could not answer). I didn't feel qualified to answer their questions, because I'm not a Quilter, but rather a seamstress dabbling in other arts.
In the whole afternoon, we only quilted about two rows worth of squares accross the quilt. I think it would have been much quicker to have masses more people working on it, but then we would probably have been even harder to approach.
We didn't have as much chance to talk about period-appropriate politics as I had hoped, because we talked more about our lives, and how quilts even work, and about why are we too frightening to talk to. I have some thoughts about how to remedy that in the future, though.
We did attract the attention of a number of quilters in the crowd, and one woman who had specifically come to see us to ask me a somewhat obscure question about signature quilts (which I could not answer). I didn't feel qualified to answer their questions, because I'm not a Quilter, but rather a seamstress dabbling in other arts.
In the whole afternoon, we only quilted about two rows worth of squares accross the quilt. I think it would have been much quicker to have masses more people working on it, but then we would probably have been even harder to approach.
We didn't have as much chance to talk about period-appropriate politics as I had hoped, because we talked more about our lives, and how quilts even work, and about why are we too frightening to talk to. I have some thoughts about how to remedy that in the future, though.
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