Kitty Hudson's Dennison's Bogie Book Halloween

"There are stacks of large costume boxes filling my hallway.  All of these tied with sturdy string and filled with Kitty's trousseau for her European tour.  I believe these are being sent by train to her home.  A porter will be coming to fetch them tomorrow.  I bought kitty a special gift for her travels that she can open on her way home.  It is a diary for her to journal her hopes and dreams, thoughts and anecdotes from her travels.  I think one day that she might become a writer.  Maybe her notes will give her inspiration.

She's promised to stay in touch, but I think it unlikely.  This young woman has a full life ahead of her and I hope Charles will be a part of it.  They have so much in common.  I'm not one given to displays of sentimentality, but I noticed my cheeks are damp as I write this evening.  Nonetheless!  I will miss the evenings we've spent reading together, playing cards, hearing of her adventures from the day, her laughter at the small parties I give in my salon, her company on rainy days..." From the diary

of Madame Hoover four years past.

"Mercy me!  Kitty Hudson just arrived the day before last!  She's come of her own accord this time, and not at the behest of her mother.  Such a change in this marvelous young woman.  And she did become a writer after all.  She is here to meet with one of her publishers from a prominent women's weekly.  She's been writing articles and romance stories for several women's magazines these past few years.  Job well done, Kitty Hudson!  And of Charles?  They are an item, but she has no time for marriage and babies... just yet.  Not this flapper girl! 

Her publisher is hosting a Halloween party in a fancy hotel in the city this October 31rst.  Charles will be joining her for the event, and she begged me to make her a special costume from one of Dennison's Bogie Books.  Bogie indeed!  Nothing scary about these costumes, but they sure are delightful."  From the current diary of Madame Hoover

And so, it is from this special request from Kitty, that I came to make her a costume for Halloween.  And have her come to visit a second time.  What was Halloween like in the 1920s?

Halloween began to take off as a holiday in the late 19th century, although trick-or-treating started in the 1920s.  Adult Halloween parties were then all the rage, and a company could make a lot of money selling Halloween themed costumes and decorations.

The Dennison Manufacturing Company would see gold in Halloween ephemera.  After its move to Framingham in 1897, the company rocketed to success.  By the turn of the century, it employed a third of the town's population.  In 1909, Dennison started to make Halloween party items and became one of the two premier American companies selling Halloween ephemera.  The other was the Beistle Company of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.

Dennison published the first Bogie Book was in 1915.  The Bogie Book was the handbook to Halloween celebrations.  Today it would tell us a lot about early 20th century social life, especially for the upwardly mobile city dwellers.  The book gave party advice for simple menus, alcohol-free drinks, dancing and cards.  They also gave ideas for games and how to decorate for one's party.  They even gave advice for the business girl's Halloween party with directions to carefully prepare her decorations and menu in advance.

But one of the best things they offered were costume ideas to create using their printed crepe papers.  The costume pages were lavishly illustrated with ideas for both men and women, and the crepe paper costumes could be tossed the following morning.  There were no patterns to create from, but most women knew how to sew, and even if they didn't, wrapping and taping together a costume couldn't have been too difficult with the delightful border printed crepe paper yardage.

For the party, crepe paper and cutouts would decorate chandeliers, windows and tabletops.  A menu might consist of doughnuts, oranges and apples served "dressed up", chicken patties, potato chips, ice cream, and individual cakes and coffee.

Entertainment came in the form of fortune telling and almost always involved wedded bliss or marital affairs.  Bobbing for apples was a must for the guests, weather the apples were floating in a tub of water or tied to a string from the ceiling. Peeling an apple in one continuous piece, then throwing it over your shoulder, where it would land in some shape on the floor could form the initials of one's future mate.

Kitty was secure in her decision to remain with her soul mate, Charles, but they'd enjoy the games regardless.  Kitty was never one of back out of a challenge!   Or fun!

After looking at so many illustrated pages from Bogie Books on Pinterest, one in particular struck me as the perfect costume for her.  The "kitty" costume.  I thought it would be a snap to make, and Kitty obviously thought so.  But it took a great deal of patience and effort.

The kitty costume is made entirely of silk. Silk replicates the crispness of crepe paper and performs beautifully for intricate work.  

The ruffle around the neckline and sleeves was made from silk cut on the bias and dramatically gathered, pinned and sewn to the garment.

Handmade silk bias tape edges the hem of the bodice, and...okay I fibbed...regular black satin ribbon edges the hem of the skirt.  I didn't have the proper silk-satin ribbon for the hemline, yet the satin ribbon was the perfect choice to use for two rows of stitching.

The outfit is completely lined in cotton batiste.

The main event of this costume are the handmade kitty appliques.

This is far from the first time I've created my own appliques, and the process takes me back to the time I was sewing for Katy Curls and created her autumn apron decorated with fall leaves.  

I used a flexible fuse paper that creates an iron on applique.  Each little applique was made from black silk, and each little scaredy cat was carefully snipped out then iron-fused in place.

It took a longer time than anticipated to find the perfect images to use.  Clip art simply didn't have the vintage look, so I had to look to vintage Halloween postcards to find both the cat face and the scaredy cat.

With the large kitty head, I had to hand draw the features in white charcoal pencil, then snip out the tiny pieces.  Lots of fiddly work, but that's what I enjoy doing.

I have to admit that I was thrilled and inspired to take on the project because I was up in the air about what next to do, and I love sewing for Kitty Hudson.  

The skirt and top are closed with tiny snaps, which I felt much more suitable for a Halloween costume.

There are twelve 1.2" scaredy cats along the hem.  The larger cat in the center of the skirt is 2.1".  While I have all this written down to keep with the pattern I made for the costume, I often go back to my journal posts to find out how I made something.  I do forget!

Close up of applique work.

Kitty has a pair of white stockings to wear under the costume and I made her a special pair of shoes to match the ones in the illustration.  These are made of the same silk as the costume.

The shoes aren't the best I've made for her, but they were made of two layers of silk and one of the cotton batiste, to give them body and support.  Making shoes with heels is still a challenge for me, and since it's been four years since I last did this, I had to try and remember what I did originally.

The hat, as simple as it looks, took me the better part of a day to make a pattern for.  I wanted to make it just like the one in the illustration, and I feel pretty good about the outcome.  

I'd created this costume on my 1470 doll.  When Kitty arrived today, I was a bit nervous that there might be areas where the costume wouldn't fit, but it wasn't a problem.  I think Kitty has a slightly smaller waist and her legs are thinner than the porcelain 1470.  What this actually meant, was that the costume would fit Kitty perfectly.

This project was the perfect way to enjoy Halloween month, and I finished it just in time to return Kitty to Heather so she can enjoy her in her costume for the rest of the month.

Kitty Hudson's story continues, and I couldn't be happier.

I hope you'll enjoy the selections I chose from the many Dennison's Bogie Book pages I have on file.  Maybe one will inspire you to create something for your doll from the 1920s!

As for the rest of the month?  More Halloween costumes!

Happy Halloween!, Melissa

 

Esme Pumpkin Sprite

October!  Its Halloween month!  And it feels just wonderful to be in the season of autumn.  When the lighting in each day is softer.  When the early evenings give a golden glow to everything you see and feel.  It's simply my favorite season of the year.  And Halloween is my favorite celebration of the year.  Oh, I know.  Christmas is the big finale, but there is nothing to compare to joy Halloween brings to me!  

Fall is a time for the color orange.  It's my favorite color, and pumpkins on porches, pumpkins in patches, pumpkins in bins at the grocery store, pumpkins everywhere! - and pumpkin spice (not in my coffee, thank you very much!) brighten every day in every way.  

Pumpkins have long been a source of fairytale material from Cinderella's coach, to where Peter the Pumpkin

Eater kept his wife.  There's something magical and just plain fun and inspirational to that jolly gourd.  There used to be a pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay, California every year.  Still might be, but I no longer live in the Bay Area.  In some areas of the country, I'm sure families can still go out to a real pumpkin patch and select one or two, then go for a horse drawn hayride.

Carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns is a Halloween tradition that originated in Celtic cultures where turnips and beets were carved to make human faces.  The name jack-o-lantern comes from an Irish tale about a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the devil. and was cursed to wander the earth with a lantern.  Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America and found that pumpkins were ideal for carving.  Hooray for the Irish!

I am just beginning to feel a little lighter these days after a very disappointing trip in September.  It just took the life, energy and creative spirit out of me.  Life.  Its happens sometimes.

But October arrived and with it, Halloween.  As many of you know, I've worked tirelessly some years to make super fun costumes for my dolls this time of year.  I'm taking it easy this season.  Sometimes we have to step back and just let the days flow and enjoy what we have, what we've done in the past, then buy lots of new Halloween dolls!  That's what I'm doing.

However, to not work on something, to not have something to pick up and poke around on in my studio, is simply not going to fly.  I read.  Voraciously and all the time.  I just finished The Light of the World by James Lee Burke, and it was fabulous.  Three more books left in his Dave Robicheaux series, and I'll be crying buckets that my heroes won't be having anymore adventures.  I just picked up Louisa Morgan's new book, The Great Witch of Brittany, and its superb.  I love her witch tales.  And I'm watching Halloween movies, and the first season of House of the Dragon.  I'm good to go.  Sometimes we just need 

to rest our minds and reboot.  

Still, the desire to do something for Halloween was nagging at me.  Esme is always the perfect little sprite to get me back into the swing of things.  So I made her a pumpkin costume.

I pulled out a sheet of orange felted wool and one of green, and started a little pattern for a puffy pumpkin costume.  Not everything we do has to be a masterpiece.  Not everything we do has to be a challenge.  It just has to be fun and inspiring.

Esme Pumpkin Sprite.

I used the existing little boots I made her for the mushroom costume and added a bit of bling to the bodice neckline with some orange beading.  It just looked too plain.  It needed something.

She has a pair of orange felt panties sewn inside the pumpkin bottom, which was tricky to design.  

Two green pumpkin leaves come off a three sided stem, which I did a little embroidery work on.  

Her costume is just for fun and will take her through the end of November.  She's a fun doll to dress when sewing with felted wool.  She's always a bright little spot on the shelf she shares with other dolls.

I've also been focusing my thoughts on Wednesday Addams and Nadja and her look-alike doll from What We Do in the Shadows.  Who knows?  Maybe there will be a special costumed doll in one of these themes.  They're everywhere right now and just looking at what others have done has been inspiring.

It's getting dark outside, and I've turned on all my electric lighted Halloween pumpkins and the little haunted house display I have in the living room.  I'm a kid again.  I'm an adult with the heart of a child that will never die.  The magic of the holidays, this special time of year, will always be treasured and celebrated!

Let's enjoy some pumpkins together!  I've selected some fun pumpkin imagery from long past and more current artists.  The super fun recent find, was that of the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz celebrating Halloween.  On Pinterest, you seldom get to learn where these images came from, but this one's a winner!  Scarecrow is scooping out green Oz-cream for the party.  I hope you'll enjoy the selections.

Oh!  I almost forgot to tell you.  I was poking around the settings in this blog site to get the HTML language off the page, and found a place to check a box that just might bring the email notifications back.  I hope you're able to leave comments again, too, if you like.  

Until the next time, Happy Autumn!  Happy Halloween!, Melissa

 

Suhani in Sunrise Celebration

Welcome September, one of my favorite months of the year.  The beginning of the 'bers.  Birthday month for me (18th).  That precious time of year when the cool mornings heat up to Indian Summer afternoons, that cool right down at night and allow for open windows to sleep comfortably by.  September. 

This will be my only journal for the month as we are finally taking a road trip, after six long years, to one of our favorite destinations - Southern Utah.  The land of red rock canyons and in the higher elevations, the turning of the aspen trees.  Perhaps when I return, I'll post and share some photos of the journey.

While I was deep into gathering fabrics and trims to design a lehenga for Cissy, it occurred to me that I'd yet to sew something for one of the Ruby Red Fashion Friends dolls by Ruby Red Galleria.  I knew they'd created a doll named Kayla with darker, warmed toned skin, and I thought she'd make a perfect little Indian child.  I found this lovely version of Kayla, after my 

friend, Julie, had directed me to a nude one with green eyes.  I liked the dark eyes better, at the time, so purchased this one.  She's roughly the same size as the Little Darling, Peggy Sue, who I've sewed for in the past, and I find this size wonderful to create for.  

I named this child Suhani, which means pleasant.  There were other Indian girl names with more exotic meanings, but I loved the way "Suhani" sounded when spoken.  

It's been a little crazy around here lately, especially with planning this trip which we leave for soon, and I'd started Suhani's lehenga shortly after completing Cissy's.  I have some gorgeous Indian silks in yellows and greens, and well, just about every color now, but this salmon pink made me feel good to work with after the cooling aqua tones of the first costume.

When designing these lehenga, I lay out many fabrics with trims on them, and sort and swap until some combination hits me just 

right.  With Suhani's silk, I had barely a half yard and this fabric is so delicate and beautiful that I couldn't afford to make any mistakes.  I was cautious every step of the way in creating this one.  It's the same basic pattern as Cissy's only smaller in all dimensions and is made without darts in the bodice.  Every doll's body is slightly different and making a fresh pattern each time is time consuming.  Because they are all different, I seldom feel like I'm ever going to get the hang of pattern making.

However, the point I wish to make is that I design as I go along.  What trim I may have chosen originally, may not get used.  Especially if a new shipment comes in and something better shows up. This was clearly the case here, and how to embellish the costume came to me as the days went by.

This salmon silk is simply heaven.  Its light and thin for a brocade and the nicest thing about the metallic brocade pattern, is that it has little diamond shapes.  Given that, I was able to turn patterns this 

way and that to get the most out of the fabric I had to work with.

I wanted to do more with this costume.  Push myself into adding more sparkle and bling.  I can be so safe and boring when it comes to things like this.  Myself, I dress very blandly and non-descript, so glamorizing a doll does not come easily to me.

It was my intention to dress Suhani and simply display her.  Other costumes would not be on the horizon, but now that I've completed the first one, I just may have to make her two or three more.  

I also wanted to focus on her jewelry, and I'll get to that in a bit.

Suhani's choli (blouse) is a cropped top with a lower scoop in back than Cissy's was.  Because of her long, thick wavy hair, it wouldn't do any good to make this a feature, so I'll save that for another costume.  I did trim the edge with an "old gold" with sequins trim from India.  Choosing this trim set the tone for the rest of the 

costume.  

I'll mention Julie again, as she had shown me a drawing someone drew for a costume like this that was entered into a contest for Ruby Red Galleria to select new doll costuming from.  What Julie loved was the little bag with the elephant on it.  I love elephants!  And I wanted to do something with elephants for this costume.

A beloved icon of Hindu and Buddhist faiths, the Asian elephant has been intertwined with human history for centuries.  Hindus believe the Buddha was reincarnated from a white elephant and they worship the elephant head deity, Ganesha.  Many Hindu temples in southern India include elephants in annual festivals.  

There is an elephant festival that takes place during Holi.  Holi marks the beginning of spring, and the festival is held each March. The Elephant Festival is celebrated in the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan.

I'd come across these gorgeous little old gold and sequin elephant appliques as part of some lehenga tassels I'd purchased from India.  The tassels themselves were far too large for a doll, but trimming out the embroidered elephants would work perfectly to parade around the hem of Suhani's skirt.

The tassel Suhani wears from a clip on her skirt is also very traditional.  From another tassel length I cut appart, I cut down the clip that had diamond shapes hammered into it, just the right size for Suhani's skirt.  The beaded and sequin tassels were trimmed of their ruffle to make them a smaller size.  I adore these elephants and intend to make sure Cissy gets a costume with them on her lehenga, too.

As for the jewelry, I put some effort into this and made it myself from parts of purchased Indian jewelry for women.  One of the most charming earring sets that women wear are called Jhumka.

Jhumka is a type of earring worn by women in the Indian subcontinent.  It is bell shaped and typically made of metal.  It can be jeweled or enameled and is highly decorative.  Jhumka translates to the word bell and the earrings got their name as there is typically a jewel or metal beading that jingles inside the bell when the head is turned.  

Suhani is wearing Jhumka with pearl dangles.  Her maang tika (teeka, tikka - it seems to be spelled many ways), is a strand of chain and pearls with a centered jewel embellishment on the forehead.

I made her necklace from chain and brass ball drops.  I have yet to discover the name of this traditional style of necklace and its significance, outside of its simple elegance and charm.  

Suhani wears gold sandals made by an artist on Etsy known as Lorelie.  LorelieCreations did a fine job with them and while I do enjoy making shoes, there was simply no need to do so.  I don't mess with perfection.

Suhani's dupatta was made from a sari cloth which was one of my first purchases in looking for fabrics.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of this fabric but was happy to at least be able to use it for this purpose.  I added beaded and jeweled embellishments.

I've included some lovely images of Asian elephants below.  There is even one with Queen Elizabeth (gosh I miss her!), on a visit to India.  What I came across in looking for Asian Elephants was the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha.  This is a spiritual and humanitarian organization with temples in several areas of the U.S.  How exciting!  I could visit a real Indian temple within the U.S.!  Dream on.  But, if I'm ever in Chicago, I'm going to try.  The two photos below with the temple entrance and the white elephants are from the center near Chicago.

I thoroughly enjoyed making Suhani this costume and do in fact think there will be another for her in the future.

I spent some time this morning sorting trims and jewelry and tassel bits into four Sterlite storage tubs.  My studio is still a disaster with folded silk fabric stacks all over the floor.  When I'm working on a new costume, my work surface gets completely covered with everything and in time there is hardly a place to work.  I just keep adding and shoving stuff out of the way.  The madness of creativity!

The next time I write a journal post will be in October.  It will be time to think about Halloween.  There'll be a new Club Grace box in the vacation hold mail.  In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy every precious day that September brings.  Mark the 23rd as the Autumn Equinox and give a nod to China's Mid-Autumn Festival on the 29th.  How I wish I'd be home to make costumes for Ten Ping and Gigi.  

Love, Melissa