The Historical Housekeeper

Ada Lovelace Day 2010

2010-03-25T08:12:00.002Z

It's been a while - the demands of a third-trimester, nearly-gestated thesis, and the setting-up of a new blog purely for historical kit-sewing for beginners, and so on...

But today is International Ada Lovelace Day 2010, and women in technology all over the world are blogging on the subject of women in technology.

That leaves me, dear Reader, with a slight problem as although I am fairly sure of my womanly charms, or at least of my womanly nature, I am not so steady on my certainty of technology. Electrical appliances work because the plug has a tiny imp on a bicycle with a dynamo and when you plug it into the wall-socket and press the switch, the imp pedals away like mad, thus generating electricity. This is necessary because I understand generation of electricity by dynamo (and by power-station) but not storage and transmission of energy. The National Grid transubstantiaties to a National Gridlock in my mind.

So how to blog about Women In Technology?

Historical Housekeepers were pretty damn technological. Over centuries they carried more scientific understanding and technological knowledge than most men, imo.

Chemistry and physics - also known as cooking and laundering. They didn't call it chemistry but they knew how leaving an acid and raw meat in conjunction for a bit meant the cheap tough meat was more tender to eat after cooking. They understood how different components in the hard tissues of animals react to heat, and that if you boil cheap meat rapidly you get indiarubber, but if you stew it gently you get tasty. They also knew how to prepare the bits we now throw away, the innards, the extremities - calf's head jelly, neat's foot jelly (neat = calf), sheep's heid broth, trotters and so on. They also understood the behaviour of different substances and different cloths for cleaning fabrics. No added synthesised chemicals, just water of different temperatures, milk, potatoes, the liquid from simmered rhubarb leaves, that kidn of thing. A treatment that worked on linen doesn't necessarily work on wool - oh yes, and you need to know about textiles and temperature and water because otherwise you get dinky little doll's clothes after boiling your woollens in the wash.

Anyone for advanced mathematics? Also known as needlework. Google geeky knitting for some of the amazing stuff ongoing with knitting and mathematics, genomes, Fibonacci and so on... I'm currently pondering a sweater knitted in two fractals which may not be possible but is worth a try. But no patterns for most housekeepers in the past, so they had to work out shaping, increases, decreases, patterning, all done in the round. Two stitches, plain and purl, and four needles and you get a silk stocking for a queen or you get a traditional water-resistant gansey for an East Coast fisherman. Making clothes - no patterns again so you need to understand how the pieces are built onto each other and then be able to see in the abstract and apply in the concrete in order to block the appropriate size and shape.

I could go on. I may well go on. I may come back and go on and on and on.

but I wanted to get something up, this morning, for Ada Lovelace and to show that women and technology have been alongside and intertwined for a very very long time.

I didn't even get onto preserving and pickling (osmosis anyone?), nor horticultural science... there's distilling (wahey!)... and of course some really interesting stuff around nutrition and medicine!

CELEBRATING ADA LOVELACE 2010

Cartridge Pleating

2009-06-15T13:34:00.005+01:00

My old skirt (bottom two pictures) has bad cartridge pleats - not enough turnover to keep up the bulk so the pleats flatten easily; not enough fullness in general so each pleat is a little smaller and a little more widely-spaced than is ideal. Generally it just hangs and doesn't quite sit right, somehow...

My new petticoat (top pictures) has extra advice from Caroline Vincent and other reading - more fabric (4 metres rather than 3 at hem), a bulkier turnover, bigger pleats tighter together...

In these pics both are a bit flattened as I just whipped them out of compressive storage for the pics, and modelled on my mother, rather than me, but you can see the difference - the new petticoat has that 'spring' that you see in contemporary C17th engravings and especially in carvings in churches of common or middle-class women.

Carpet Freshener

2008-09-02T17:46:00.002+01:00

In a big bowl, mix together two parts bicarbonate of soda to one part salt, or pretty much any granular stuff that can be vacuumed up without problems (cornflour, salt, cocaine...). Some recipes use entirely baking soda but that gets expensive, so I 'dilute' it with salt. It needs to be more than half bicarbonate fo soda since that's the stuff that absorbs smells (mix with water and wipe inside of fridge to get rid of odd smells; leave tiny dish of it at back of fridge to prevent weird smells).

Add essential oils - If I use oneof those tubs of bicarb they sell in supermarket bakery aisles and half as much salt, I'll add a total of 15 drops of oils.

Lemon, lime, orange: all those citrus ones are good.
Thyme, rosemary, sage all have a kind of clean smell although a few people find it a bit hospital-y.
Lavender, rose-geranium: both lovely floral ones.
Cedarwood, ginger, rosemary makes a good autumny mix.

Last Christmas I used frankincense and myrrh and loved the combination; less cloying than I expected, very fresh-smelling.

Mix the oils well into the powder to work it right through. If not using immediately, cover the bowl with clingfilm.

Either scatter by hand or put into a spare flour-dredger and shake. Or I suppose an old shake'n'vac dispenser!

Leave at least an hour, ideally overnight (shut pets out of room) and then vacuum up.

You can use the same essential oils with a litre of water and a few drops of alcohol to mix them, in a plant-mister to use as an air-freshener that won't set off asthma or stink foully of chemicals!

***
IMPORTANT - some essential oils are dangerous to some people. Be extremely careful round anyone pregnant or with epilepsy.
***

Autumn Cleaning and homemade potions

2008-09-02T17:43:00.003+01:00

I posted this elsewhere, but thought it makes a good introduction to some posts I'll be putting up this month, tagged 'cleaning'. Homemade cleaning things that don't cost a fortune, cost the earth or cost your health...

Officially in the UK, September 1st is the first day of autumn. Here we are. I just went out and checked and can see two yellow leaves on the trees round here, so it's not exactly a blaze of autumn colour yet!

It feels different... the last few days have felt autumnier somehow - I keep getting urges (oh no! Urges! No, not that sort...).

Urges to cook hot dinners instead of salads... last night I used up a long-frozen leftover lump of roast beef: sliced and wrapped in tinfoil with some ice-cubes of beef-stock, surrounded by a few shallots and fat cloves of garlic roasting in their skins to be squeezed out like savoury toothpaste onto the plate; tiny potatoes roasting in their skins to be split and buttered and peppered and fresh chives chopped over them; at the last minute a tinfoil bundle of chopped black kale* with a sprinkling of water to steam...

Urges to mend; finally to get round to all those lost buttons, dropped hems, taking-up of straps on vest-tops...

Urges to launder - well, okay I have a strange relationship with my laundry! But even I have a stronger than usual urge to launder my summer things to put away surrounded by dried lemon peel and herb sachets and stems of lemon-balm wrapped in scraps of pretty fabrics, all to deter moths; to retrieve my winter woollies and heavy trousers and wash the months of storage out of them, giving them a misting as they hang on the line with a mixture of water, a few drops of rum, and lime and thyme oils (my new mixture for a really clean-smelling, fresh scent).

Urges to fall-clean - now why don't we in Britain have a phrase for this? We spring-clean along with America, but we don't appear to autumn-clean, so we borrow your phrase. Do Americans still fall-clean?
Packing away the summer months and re-instating the winter outfits for my rooms - the feather duvet (a 'downie' in Scotland and iirc a 'comforter' in the USA?) to go under my quilt, turning my quilt form its summer old-gold to its winter muted deep red; the uncurtained light-flooded windows covered by heavy rich deep-green velvet curtains, turning my bed into something that Mary Queen of Scots might have slept in (and hurrah for charity shops)!
Emptying the shelves in my tiny kitchen and scrubbing them clean, drying them off and lining with pretty wrapping-paper before putting everything back onto them.
Finding the Kilner jars, and planning pickled onions and pickled red cabbage glowing rich deep brown and deep crimson red.

Anyone else getting a change in their housekeeping as the season tips over from summer carefree live-as-you-wish, to autumn's nest-making and stocking up against the winter to come?

*Scotland's dietary secrets: whilst famed for our deep-fried mars-bars, we actually have a heritage of wonderfully healthy food - kale is like cabbage but much lovelier!

17th century christening clothes

2008-08-27T15:48:00.007+01:00

I had the immense pleasure of making baby-clothes for the christening of a 3-month old baby girl this summer.

I used the long-ago-produced sketch-pattern from the SK for the basic shape and a bit of leeway in design.

The shift is unbleached cotton as it's softer and finer (hard to get very fine linen, harder still to get it softened in time!). In retrospect, I do wish I'd used linen, just to have everything right, but then again cotton was around for very special outfits in the 1640s, and you don't get much more special than a christening gown!

The overdress is red linen (from Ikea...), a kind of deep pink cherry-red that I boilwashed in the machine and then hung on the line outside for a month to soften the harshness of the chemical dye a bit.

I used smocking for the first time, and am really impressed with its elasticity (someone asked if I'd used shirring elastic which just shows how stretchy smocking is!).

I used red thread on the shift so the pattern came from the stitches, and red thread on the overdress so the pattern came from the pleats and folds.

I may add more about smocking in the future as I really like it - not so much as a decorative thing as I always thought but for its practical applications as in the shift, and the way the fabric can speak for itself as in the overdress.

The Gunnister coat

2008-04-12T08:30:00.004+01:00

Here are some photographs of the coat worn by a chap dug up in the C20th at Gunnister in Shetland. He had probably been there since the late C17th, but his clothes were very worn and mended and are consistent with the middle and even early-middle of the C17th.

I've added a page of sketches - top ones made at the museum, lower three are my ideas of how it was constructed, based on what I could see and very much NOT to scale!
DAMN! It also persists in being upside-down. Curses. Okay, either stand on your head to read, or do something clever like right-click to save image and then rotate it... I did that but it seems only to want to upload the original which is upside-down...

These pictures show the jacket's skirts, after a discussion about where the triangular gores referred to in the Technical Report are inserted.
After much peering up his skirts and lying on the floor of the museum causing much bemusement to Japanese tour parties at whom I just smiled and waved, my conclusion is that the inserts are just BEHIND the side, and not where one might expect them in the front off-centre.

I could see all the seams clearly, including the joining seams making "pieced" pattern-pieces (ie one sleeve made from 2 bits, t'other made from 3), and the front of the left-hand side of the coat-skirt is closest to the viewer and I couldn't see any sign of stitching, joining or anything indicating an insert. There is a heavy fold but I think this is just the effect of the front leading-edge being flared in cutting.

It is hard to see behind his arm and I don't think it shows in the pics but as far as I could see, the area just behind his elbow has what looks like a box-pleat, possibly with a covered button at the top of it, and at the bottom of this was definitely some overcasting stitching. I will try and do a sketch later.

So it looks like the inserts are just behind the elbow, kind of left-left-back. If the breastbone is North then it would be West-south-west!

2008-04-03T13:54:00.002+01:00

Frantic sewing for tomorrow's voyage north for a weekend camping and being C17th with the re-enactment mob.

Weather forecast is for bitter cold, sleet and snow, becoming very windy...!

So - I've nearly finished the stays (straps and top binding still to do; all else done and looking good although slightly too big). I've got the linen shift my pal made me last summer. I've got long grey woollen stockings (and am being inauthentic by wearing knee-length black leggings as well). I'm borrowing latchet shoes.
And I've got last summer's bodice of dark grey fine wool, which now is a bit big for me as it was made without stays.
And I've got my new skirt - 4 Scotch ells* sewn together with vertical seams, cartridge-pleated onto a waistband; one eyelet-hole and the other side of waist has a length of ribbon sewn on.
Once on and the fastening hidden to one side, I'll be wearing my last season's skirt (oh daaahling, that is sooo last season!) over it but with the front seam opened and the corners tucked up to kilt it. I've re-hemmed it so it's a little shorter than the lighter-grey petticoat under it.

Then I've a linen coif on my head and a linen kerchief round my neckline, and a black woollen shawl for extra warmth.

I think it will look quite good... no time for photos just now.

I hope it will be very warm!!!

thk

*37.1 inches

Unguents and lotions

2008-03-26T11:48:00.012Z

I finally got round to measuring as I melt and mix!

This recipe is the basis of almost all my skincare and helpfully does double-duty as boot-polish, furniture-polish and all kinds of generally useful things!

Change it by altering the ratio between wax and oil - for a harder furniture polish, add more wax, but for a runny thick body-lotion add more oil.

I know, by the way, that furniture polish traditionally has solvents (turpentine, etc) in it, but I've never fancied heating something that flammable, so I just use this and it just needs extra elbow-grease and more clean cloths to polish it off fully.

Besides, it's easier to make one big batch of something than 3-4 different things in smaller quantities, so I make a big batch of this and use it for everything.

This batch came out at about the texture of brandy-butter, thick, gloopy, but not hard. And you aren't there for six hours trying to get it to sink into your skin so you can put clothes on without wrecking them with big greasy splodges, either.

INGREDIENTS
3 ounces of beeswax candle pieces
9 ounces of olive oil (by weight)
Essential oils of choice
Herbal/flower water of choice

METHOD
Put a heatproof bowl in a big pan of cold water and heat until the water is simmering. The bowl doesn't have to actually float, but it does have to be not sitting flat on the base of the pan.

Put the broken-up pieces of beeswax (I use candles, but trim off any burnt pieces of wick or general grubbiness first) into the bowl.

Add the oil and leave it on a low simmer for ages (about 20-30 minutes) until all of the wax is melted into the oil.

Don't let it overheat; keep it on a low heat.

And don't jump the gun - the whole liquid must be clear liquid with no tiny specks of wax at all.
Now fish out the pieces of wick from the candles!

Remove the bowl from the bain-marie (that's the pan of water, for posh chefs).

Now, do NOT let it separate into hard wax floating on oil! Stir with a fork until it stops being see-through liquid and starts to change into a creamy gloop. Keep stirring (maybe have a good radio play on, or someone to chat to!).

Once it's gone creamy, you will find that hard bits settle on the walls of the bowl. Scrape these off and add to the general gloop in the middle.

I use an electric beater from this stage onwards because it smashes lumps back into the gloop better than my hands and a fork can.

Now add the essential oils - I like mine strong so I added 30 drops of lavender, 25 drops of rose-geranium and 15 drops of bergamot essential oils.
I also added 4 drops of benzoin, which is supposed to slow down the dispersal of aroma into the air so I hope it makes the scent last all day, but it's the first time I've used it!
Then I added 50 drops of Marigold Compound, but you can use orange-flower water, rosewater, any water you like - I've used tap-water before now when I ran out of others.

Keep whisking hard, keep on, keep on - it you leave it alone for long, a hard crust forms on the top which won't rub into your skin properly because it's separated wax.

So keep on whisking at intervals until it's completely cool, even underneath the bowl. Keep using a spatula to make sure wax isn't clinging to the bowl separating.

Finally you end up with a frothy light mousse-type lotion to put into jars and use!

CAVEATS
As always, it's up to you if you make this - I don't react, but then again I don't react to most things. So use sense - try a dab on your inner elbow or behind your ear, leave it for 24 hours: any redness or soreness or itching, then don't use it on your skin. Do take care with essential oils as well, especially if pregnant or with certain medical conditions such as epilepsy.

Dashing away with the Smoothing-Iron...

2008-03-21T10:20:00.008Z

Today I am laundry-maid.

I am not stupid, so I'm currently whizzing my bed-linen through a 60-degree cold-intake machine-wash. The alternative would have been to soak it all overnight in a bath filled with water and washing-soda; then to take it out and rinse it a bit; then to soap it and agitate it A LOT; then to rinse it well; then to put it in a huge cauldron of cold water and bring it up to the boil and boil for a while actively; then to take it out and drain it; then I'll be at the stage I'll be at when the machine stops shortly.

What about bleaching? I don't, if I can help it. Soaking in washing-soda or in borax usually works; or leaving out on the line for sunlight and moonlight to fade a stain. I wish I could bleach my undersheet because it is poor-quality polycotton and looks 'orrible.

What's washing? My fitted polycotton underneath sheet (I don't like this as it is the 'wrong white', can't be bleached despite claiming to be 100% cotton which it clearly can't be, and persists in greying steadily; must replace it soon with a proper sheet!); my beautifully white heavy cotton top sheet (my late Grandmother's, pre-war, barely used); my homemade bolster-cover in 100% cotton twill, a good white; two plain cotton pillowcases, good whites; two lace-edged cotton pillowcases (the cases themselves are falling apart and have visible holes in but once starched they seem robust enough to keep using; the lace is crochet but looks lovely); two heavy-twill pillowslips; several handkerchiefs; a couple of little mats for standing vases, mugs, etc., on.

What happens when they have finished washing in the machine?

I mix a big enamel basin full of starch, made with powder starch (from Feathergills Emporium in Hebden Bridge, online shopping available) and a bit of borax. Then I add some Reckitt's Blue to this starch-water, combining the blueing and starching in one go.

Once dipped, I don't even try to wring them - and have no mangle - so I lug them dripping to the washing-machine and do a 'fast spin' cycle to drain them.
Then I usually put the lighter things, like pillowcases, on the line or clothes-horse so they can dry a little more; the rest goes in the tumble-dryer.
I don't starch the twill pillowslips as these just go straight onto the older two feather pillows to contain leaking feathers, and are then sewn closed with a line of red thread oversewing.

Ironing starched items requires an iron that is HOT and that is CLEAN. Don't even think about ironing properly-starched items with a low-temperature iron as the starch needs to 'cook'.

Once ironed, everything hangs over the clothes-horse or over chair-backs to air - this is important as otherwise they can end up clammy and chill, if folded straight after ironing.

Finally it is all carried upstairs and the bed is made, cases pulled onto a feather bolster and four feather pillows (a nightmare to allergy sufferers!) ending with two feather duvets and a vintage French quilt, and two of my late Grandmother's pre-war lambswool blankets folded over the bed-end for extra warmth for feet on winter nights.
Heavy lined velvet hangings, weighted at the hem for opulent swaying movement, are pulled round the high Edwardian bed-head as it stands in an otherwise draughty dormer window.

Making Lotions'n'potions

2008-02-09T14:21:00.003Z

Or in this case, bath-salts, because I don't have to calculate the quantities, whereas with the other things I make, I have to get round to making them whilst writing down the exact amounts and time and so on...

Fancy bath stuff is always useful as a present for people, even for men if you tell 'em it's a muscle-soak. It's also lovely for yourself when you feel tired, blue, ill, have period-pains, there's a 'y' in the day...

But the stuff tends to be pricey. And full of chemicals you don't need and don't want. Especially if you have asthma, eczema or a liking for not polluting the planet.

So here's the How To for home-made ones which are exactly the same only cheaper and without the chemicals. Why do they put 'em in... these work fine without the parabens and nasty synthetic scents...

INGREDIENTS:
Coarse crystal Sea-Salt
essential oils of your choice
food-colouring of your choice

METHOD
Put salt in a large non-plastic bowl (because plastic can take on the smells, making your next batch of cakes a bit weird).
For 250g of salt, I use a total of 25 drops of oils. This is on the strong side, so if you like only the faintest scent, use less.
Add two to three drops ONLY of food-colouring if you want a pastel tint.
Stir for longer than you think it needs.
Put in glass jars or bottles. I use old wide-mouthed glass 1950s milk-bottles, with a scrap of silk over the top held by a ribbon tied in a bow.
Don't store them in the bathroom as the salt will take on the steam and set into a concrete lump.
I use about 50g for a bath.

I use cochineal for a pretty rose-pink, along with 10 drops lavender, 10 drops rose-geranium and 5 drops bergamot: that makes a relaxing soothing anti-anxiety bath, according to aromatherapy guides. According to me it makes a bath that smells lovely and that relaxes me because I associate the scent with spending time away from the world, and with chocolate and a favourite book to follow...

CAVEATS
I don't know anyone who has reacted adversely to these but if you have any medical conditions that may react with essential oils then check with your GP; if you are pregnant then avoid most essential oils.
Be stingy with the food-colouring - I'm not responsible if you overdo it and end up with blue skin or a green bath!

Staying in

2008-01-29T08:39:00.000Z

This week I am mostly making mid-C17th stays. They aren't accurate re-creation stays, because I am cheating and machine-sewing them. The shape and pattern are as accurate as I can make them, and the linen is unbleached 24-count with rigid steel 'bones' down the centre-front but the boning is mostly Rigilene and the thread is polyester.
Part 17th century and part 21st century.

Compromising stays, so to speak...

Above is the card template, made from Drea Leed's Custom Corset Pattern Generator. It seems pretty good so far although too broad across the top so the back lacing-edges meet; I'll need to lop some off and re-do the boning-lines once I've cut the lacing-edges.

Here, above, is the bottom left edge; at the left of the picture is the centre-front of the stays, and you can see in the main part of the picture the three tabs, as yet uncut; there will be a line of boning from top edge to bottom edge at each side of the tabs, keeping the stays from digging in at the waist. Apparently.

Here are the stays half-made. Centre-front at left, lacing-edge (ie centre-back) at right, uncut tabs at bottom.

THH

First, catch your hare...

2008-01-29T08:17:00.000Z

... as Mrs. Beeton may or may not have written. I must check that some time or other. The first posting in an occasional weblog about ways and means of running a household in the historical past; ranging from hand-sewing clothes to scrubbing floors, from hierarchical practices of a stately home to managing in a tent.

I think that's about it for now. I hope to add photographs at some point, either of Things Wot I Made or of Things Wot I Done. And lots and lots of references. Oodles of those. You can never have too many good reliable sources.

And an occasional borrowed old image like that above linked from cartoonstock.com. A classic Punch-esque comment!

Thankyou for your time, ladles and jellyspoons,

The Historical* Housekeeper

*and, occasionally, hysterical...