Kickstarter Update: Trims, Frills and Furbelows - only 9 days to go!

Thank you so much for your support of my project - and for getting me so close to my first stretch goal - if you can help spread the word who knows where this project will end! It would be absolutely amazing if it ended up with both an extra chapter and a second book.

As you can see by the table of contents image attached below, there is a lot that will be included in this book, including scale patterns you can use for your own projects. Please let me know of any other trims you would like to see added to this book. Curators in the UK are working with me right now to identify the best garments from their collections to use as examples and I welcome all of your suggestions of other collections to visit.

Remember, as written in the original campaign information, this A4 book will contain

• full-length colour photos of each garment used, 
• high-resolution close-up photos of trims showing front, back and inside the garment showing how it was attached, and 
• step-by-step photographic and written construction tutorials for each trim 

A few extra tiers have been added to the pledges and you now have the chance to add a 2018 Calendar to your rewards.

Many thanks, again, for joining me on this journey!
Aylwen Gardiner-Garden 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1245085016/trims-frills-and-furbelows

Regency Neck Ruffs

Regency-era neck ruffs are also called lace ruffs or frills; neck frills; double frills of worked muslin; fraise; cherusse and betsies. 

 

...Petticoat of worked muslin...Spencer of dark blue cloth, edged with scarlet. Ruff of white lace round the neck. Plain muslin handkerchief. York tan gloves.

March 1794, Gallery of Fashion. Morning dress

Lady Elgin wearing a fraise over a chemisette, 1804, by François Gérard

Countess Therese Czernin (1798-1896), drawn in 1819

Walking Dress: Ladies' Monthly Museum, August 1815:

Robe of Jaconet Muslin or Fine Cambric, made high in the neck; the back and sleeves made very full; a double Frill of worked muslin round the neck; bottom of the robe to correspond”

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (2 January 1783 – 22 July 1853)
Portrait of Anna Maria Magnani
Oil on canvas, 1814 31 × 22 cm
The Hirschsprung Collection, Art museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

Fiche-guimpe, 1810

My Sewing Experiments

This was a neck ruff that I taught for a Regency Neck Ruff workshop at Jane Austen Festival Australia in April 2012. I used a sturdy cotton and did not teach whip stitch gathering as shown in examples below because we only had a short time to teach the fundamentals and get everyone sewing. In 2015 I'm hoping to teach a more involved workshop with whipstitch gathering and fine muslin.

Extant Examples

Since this workshop I have found more extant examples to base my work on. There is a neck frill documented in Nancy Bradfield's Costume in Detail, page 83.

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/EncryptedZoomImage.ashx?id_fichier=6311592

National Trust Inventory Number 1350308

This one has a linen centre and a tiny bobbin lace decoration, ‘typical of the trimming laces of the very early19th Century’ The Lace Mentor. Found at http://www.poppiescottage.com/products-page/the-accessories-department/