Photos - 16thc Whaling Station, Red Bay, Labrador by Elaine MacKay

Elaine's photos to go with her previous blog:

Martin Frobisher

Elaine's Hat

First fitting of Elaine's Breeches

Elaine's General Labourer's outfit

Elaine's General Labourer's outfit

16thc Whaling Station Clothing at Red Bay,Labrador by Elaine MacKay

16thc Whaling Station Clothing at Red Bay,Labrador
by Elaine MacKay

At the end of the summer of 2012 Kelly Grant recommended me for a Parks Canada contract to draft a set of garments based on textiles found at Red Bay Labrador. The patterns would be used to build costumes for the interpreters at the Visitors’ Centre in Red Bay which was a prosperous Basque whaling station from about 1530 until the early 1600s.

It seemed like a relatively straightforward contract. Fascinating - yes. After all, how often does one have the opportunity to sift through the archeological notes of a sixteenth century burial? My job looked even more doable because modern reproductions of the clothing had been installed at the Visitors’ Centre during the early 1990s I had envisioned that my patterns would be straight shirts based on rectilinear design, and baggy breeches gathered at the waists. Nevertheless, I knew from experience that there are always one or two new, key bits of information to be learned from any in-depth analysis. The findings from this study blew my preconceptions out of the water, and challenged my former beliefs about early dress.

The garments I was to copy came from two graves in the cemetery on Saddle Island in Red Bay Harbour. Acidic and moist soil conditions in the graves dissolved the skeletal and any linen fibres but preserved the animal fibre. Miraculously, the woollen garments were for the most part left intact and found in the position in which they were worn, in a ghostly reminder of the men who had once lived and worked harvesting oil from the sea.

My Red Bay contact sent me pictures of the display reproductions and a print-off of a chapter of a book on Spanish costume. Neither was particularly helpful. The pictures actually proposed more questions than they answered. “Why does it appear that he is wearing his shirt backwards?” “Why is the hem of that shirt on the outside rather than the underside where it belongs?” The costume book text described the dress of the higher class but said nothing of the common man so I started researching elsewhere. Most of the articles written by archaeologists focused on the maritime archaeology and the various artifacts found at Red Bay. They mentioned the burials but didn’t elaborate on the clothing so I looked in other areas. Through Ryerson University library Refworks I found a Ph.D. thesis by Élise Dubuc who had worked with Parks Canada during the dig in the 1980s. In her appendix were beautifully detailed patterns which she derived from the textile artifacts in the style of Janet Arnold. I later learned that Dubuc also headed the reproduction of the garments for the Red Bay exhibit. Unfortunately the thesis was written in French and my meagre French comprehension didn’t take me far. Three emails to Elise went unanswered so again I had to look elsewhere. Fortunately her bibliography was a great starting place.

One archaeological newsletter mentioned in the bibliography looked specifically at the whalers clothing so I contacted the publisher (Canadian Conservation Institute) for a copy. In my “thank you” reply, I asked if CCI had any more information on the clothing. “Yes” was the answer, “Quite a lot actually.” Bingo! I’d found my information source. Even then I had to jump through hoops to get the information. There was a question of ownership of the documents and to whom I should ask for permission to study them. After a number of false leads, which included a museum in the North West Territories, I was given permission to study the documents at CCI. I drove up to Ottawa for an intensive two days of research. On day one I visited the Museum of Civilization because they also had a display featuring the Basque whalers. I spent the second day in Ottawa at CCI. I was directed to a 2’X6’ table where the staff had stacked piles off documents and correspondence which had anything to do with the costumes.

These documents included the original patterns of the grave textiles along with Dubuc’s patterns which she deduced from the fragments. There were letters of correspondents from dye analysis expert Penelope Walton, and detailed examinations of the garments. Some of my initial questions were answered. I learned that the tunics were not based on rectangles with underarm gussets but were tailored with a shaped arm-scye and sleeve head. One spectacular discovery was the shape of one pair of breeches which was based on a circle rather than a rectangle. They were unlike anything that I had seen documented in any costume history text. Other questions still hung over my head. I didn’t understand why the hem was turned to the right side until much later.

If you want to know the answer to that question, an article describing my process in detail will be published in CSO Journal within a couple of weeks. A second article will be published in the January issue of Piecework. In the second article I describe developing a pattern for the knitted hat of one of the whalers. If you like, I can post excerpts of my articles after they have been published. It is a truly fascinating project and I felt incredibly lucky that I had the chance to take it on. 


 

NSCCD Summer Residency by Kelly Grant

Made in Nova Scotia November 2013 by Kelly Grant

Yes, it’s true; Sally and I spent an entire afternoon chatting about textile related things one Friday not too long ago.  I asked her if it was possible for us to set up a blog where we could all contribute, so that we’d know what everyone was up to and possibly could get together and work on some projects.  I have been feeling a little like I am lost in my own bubble sometimes, and am losing track of what other textile junkies are up to.  I told her that I’d contribute, and here is my first entry!

Summer Residency at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design

Every summer, the Centre for Craft and Design opens up their studios to artists in the form of a self directed residency program.  I applied this year and was accepted, my project plans were to weave linen textiles from the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  I am an 18thC re-enactor, so this project has been in the back of my mind for a while. Over the course of the summer, I wove strapping to re-seat a couple of ladder backed chairs that we use re-enacting, tea towelling and dishcloths and the major project was to weave yardage for shirts and aprons.  I ran out of time before getting to my fourth warp, yardage for a tablecloth.  I ended up sharing the studio space with just one other textile person, who was creating needle felted sculptural items and doing some hand embroidery.  All the looms in the space were mine to use...oh, if only I could have cloned myself!

The shirt warp turned out to be quite the diva mistress.  I blazed through the strapping, towelling and dishcloths.  The shirt took me all summer to create.  I began on the July 1^st weekend, winding on 15 metres of string onto the warping mill.  That took the better part of a week, as I was hoping to weave a plaid, so there was much counting to be done.  Then, the warp took me and several friends most of the month and many cans of starch to wind it on the back beam.  When I finally got it all on and not in a tangled mess, I walked in to weave the next morning and found that the warp had slid off the ends of the back beam and tangled itself.  I had been using paper to separate the rounds, not the greatest thing with this much warp.  After a temper tantrum of epic proportions, I pulled off what I could by winding it on to the front beam, cut the snarled mess that remained, and started to wind it on again, this time with lees sticks supporting the rounds.  I am now a convert to the lees stick and will wind all my warps that way from now on.

I managed to weave enough for a shirt for my husband Pierre and an apron for my mum or I to use when we are working around the re-enacting camp.  I hand stitched the shirt and finished it the night before the show was installed at the beginning of September.  As I put the finished shirt into the wash for one last test before installing it in the gallery, I prayed that I wouldn’t have a pile of string to install after all of our hard work.  I am happy to say that the shirt survived the wash and will now enter the second phase of the project, being worn by Pierre at encampments so that we can see how long a shirt might have survived in the field.

I have the remaining warp (that tangled mess) safely in a large Ziploc bag waiting until I have a loom of my own and space to untangle the mess.  I ended up using 15 cans of spray starch, after soaking the whole warp in a starch bath.  I think I needed so much starch because of the air conditioning in the studio.  I know my skin also went through a lot of hand cream over the summer!  I’m thinking that this project will have to wait until the weather is damp, and not too hot or cold as air condition and forced air heating could play similar havoc to a linen warp.  I would also like to see if I can get the warp to weave up tighter, I wasn’t quite happy with that issue, no matter how hard I beat done the weft threads.

You can read about all my weaving antics on my personal blog at http://kellyarlenegrant.blogspot.ca/

So, who’s going to be next?  We want to hear from you!

And we're off! Blog lauch intro...

Made in Nova Scotia – Made in Canada Blog 

Can you hear the buzz?! Interest is increasing in “locally” made clothing and textiles. Some of us even harbour the dream of ‘seed to sew’ or ‘sow to sew’ as NSCADU phrased the process for their recent conference. Any way you put it, there is an undeniable attraction to the idea of planting seeds which are literally transformed into textiles, or working with fleece from a flock of sheep up the road. 

It isn’t rocket science – we are able to do this too.

This Blog is a platform for you to share your “locally” made clothing stories with a broader community and to participate as we make and document history. 

Kelly Grant and I met at a local café recently to discuss some local dress history (is there any other topic to discuss?) We were in so deep that two hours breezed by before the call of nature forced us to surface.  Kelly blithely suggested that she could write a piece if I set up the blog, and she had suggestions of other people who could write about their local clothing stories. People’s dreams do come true, and the clothes are being made. 

The problem is that we don’t all know about all the projects and experiences that are happening right here in our own backyard. There are several flax and linen projects in progress (one might even be secret), which may or may not have some degree of overlap. Certainly, they could all benefit from a sharing of the collected wisdom about growing and processing flax that has been gathered together and preserved by a few determined individuals.

There are many steps in the definition of “local” and we want to hear about your participation.

Please send your story to me:  sedoucette@gmail.com. This blog will become an archive of our Made in Nova Scotia – Made in Canada experiences as we reclaim our capacity to make our own clothing and textiles. Hope to hear from you soon...otherwise you may receive a pointed invitation: Kelly told me that all I had to do is to give you a poke! You know who you are.