stars and bonnets

Shooting star left

Last week was the Perseid meteor shower. We drove out to meet up with others wacky enough to get to the spot, some wilderness area between here and Pahrump, at 3:30am. I am not sure if WHN has ever been to a meteor shower. He kept asking me if there was going to be one big moment with a bunch of shooting stars at once. Yes, that would be marvelous, but this isn't a fireworks show. I think being so used to TIVO didn't help much either. One minute a shooting star didn't seem long in theory, but in actuality, I think WHN walked away thinking TV-1, Nature-0. My nature loving Toonsters, jumped out of the car, poo'd and then try to jump back into the car.
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I love finding out about sub-cultures. If I can see a fervor as someone describes their passion, I can listen to them for hours. I ask about the community group and the subtle rules etc or I can just listen to them chatter incessantly about whatever it is. One of the leaders of the Springs Preserves knitting group, Sarah, is an expert sewer. Her specialty? Period pieces! She spends her vacation time going to re-enactments. BTW, re-enactors and costumers consider themselves completely different animals. Anyway, with my desire to develop my sewing, and listening to her and her costumer friends enthusiastically discuss their world, is infectious. Somewhere between hearing about the upcoming Civil War Re-enactment, (Sarah: "I'm from Virginia, so I could never be a Yankee, however, I am willing to be a civilian attached to brigade") and the Jane Austen Tea & Dance... I found myself agreeing to go to the Old Mormon Fort for bonnet making. Maybe it was a combo of weak from hunger or the heat or a little cajoling or a weird desire to want to see it all first hand, but at the Old Mormon Fort for my first bonnet making class I was on Saturday put on by the Southern Nevada Living History Association.

Before the group met, I ran into these fellas who spend their Saturday playing an Old West version of D&D. Character sheets, play books-- all of it was present, however, when I made the comparison, I just got a dumb girl look from them. But trust me, it looked like a duck, it quack like a duck, and this duck was rolling those weird dice.

All together there were 5 of us. Sarah and Catherine were the pros having made multiple bonnets. I went in thinking I was going to get a frame, slap on some fabric, and VOILA a 1860 bonnet to wear to The Station for BJ or craps. I was SO WRONG. First, I had to trace and cut out the 3 flat pattern pieces out of buckram, a very stiff cotton/glue combo. Sewing these pieces together- back, middle, front took a bulk of the time.

1860 Buckram bonnet with my 2007 cellphone.

After, another long tedious process was bending millenary wire to the bonnet brim and sewing it on with a blanket stitch completing the bonnet skeleton for the layering of flannel and satin. I got as far as the flannel, so no amazing pictures of my fabulous bonnet that I am sure will make you all jealous and want one, thereby starting a new trend. However, I do have some pictures from the day and other finished bonnets made by the talented Sarah and Catherine.


The bonnet Sarah was working on. She says she works fast because she used to work at Colonial Williamsburg, evidently in a bonnet making sweatshop.


Bonnets by Catherine.


Catherine modeling bonnet. Maybe it does work with her shorts and t.


Not a bonnet, but she pulls this out and says she is almost done. She knocked this out in less than a week.

So, the good news, I can learn to sew all sorts of garments from these ladies, but they will all be pre-Victorian.

Last week, I got an email from LaFujiMama who said GO TO THIS. As evidence by my bonnet making class, I am clearly subsceptable to suggestion.

So there. Proof I went.