The ubiquitous 18th century cap...

Caps are a clothing item that many shy away from. No wonder, when most of our childhood years we associate them with an elasticated mob cap. Period movies put them on old maids, and it is rare that we see them on main characters. On the other hand, how many times do we see them worn for the wrong situation? How many times do we see them worn to a costume ball? And how many times do we 'not' see them worn under a hat or bonnet?

Below are some pictures I took of reproduction caps and portraits at the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg. There is so much variety, so we no longer need to look like cookie cutters!

Pretty things!

I went back to the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Colonial Williamsburg this afternoon and took more pictures. Everything is so pretty and inspiring. I'm supposed to be packing my bags to fly back to Australia right now so I'll leave you with pictures and will add captions and information later. Enjoy!

Making an 1830s beaded watch chain

Yesterday was spent at the Colonial Williamsburg Education Centre with Christina Westenberger learning about 1830s beaded watch chains. We were given a kit and started making our own, to finish in our own time.

1830s beaded watch chain supplies

Reproduction watch chain and graph pattern we are following

A working example

And another extant example

Christina provided us with wonderful instruction sheets and all the materials needed to make a full-length chain. She was very organised and started out by showing us portraits of 1830s women wearing the chains. Until now I have to admit that I never noticed their presence in 1830s portraits.

There is a wonderful article online: Woven Bead Chains in Early 19th-Century American Dress by Lynne Basset, 1995 and an example on exhibition at the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Colonial Williamsburg as part of their Fashion Accessories from Head to Toe exhibition that runs until December 31, 2012.  This exhibition features costume accessories from the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth century. If you can't view this wonderful exhibition in person, there are a selection of items online in their e-museum. Unfortunately the watch chain is not viewable online and my photo is too grainy to see anything.

Lynne Basset also wrote an article "Guard Thy Hours: Bead Watch Chains of the 1830s" in PIECEWORK, May/June 2000, pg 37-40. This article shows a portrait of a New England woman wearing a bead watch chain in the early 1830s.
Lynne Basset wrote a more comprehensive article, "Woven bead chains of the 1830s", in the December 1995 issue of Antiques.


Below are two portraits I found online in a quick google search, both show the watch chain worn around the neck and then tucked into the belt.

Mrs Pearce, 1835. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Centre, Williamsburg, Virginia US.

Source unknown.

Most chains in collections today are 40-60 inches long and half an inch wide and close with a silk ribbon tie. They often have a date and name woven into them and were both used by the maker and given as gifts.

Aylwen Gardiner-Garden making her reproduction 1830s watch chain.