First up were the shoe bags. I first wondered about shoe coverings last time I was at Landmark Inn. I had stuffed my shoes in my carpetbag to transport them. As I was walking quite a bit outside, the shoes managed to get quite dusty and dirty throughout the weekend. Putting them back in my carpetbag with all my other things at the end of the event made me really think about getting something to cover them with next time. Low and behold, "The Workwoman's Guide" has a project for that!
The book actually contains two different shoe bag directions. I went with the second option entitled "Another Shoe Bag". I liked the design much more than the first one. It seemed simpler to whip together.
No dimensions were given (probably because it would vary by shoe size) so I had to guess at the measurements. Made from polished cotton and edged with silk ribbon. They close with a simple button and buttonhole closure. I did end up making them a bit bigger than they needed to be, but they work.
The next project was a simple glove case. I have a very hard time keeping both gloves in a pair together. I can always manage to find exactly one glove for each pair-no actual pairs. I thought that keeping all my gloves in a case would help that situation.
I won an auction on Ebay of twelve pairs of vintage gloves all belonging to a single woman (who happened to share my glove size!). While not all of them were appropriate for early Victorian, I did manage to get about eight pairs of usable gloves from the set plus a few very long pairs of kid gloves for 20th century if I ever go back into doing that.
Gloves in the 1830s seem to be wrist length, just like for the 1850s and 1860s. Some of the originals in museum collections are embroidered. Others were plain. I did find some references to gloves in several 1830s etiquette books so I have included them here.
"Etiquette for the ladies: eighty maxims on dress, manners, and accomplishments" (1837) states that "Gloves ought always to harmonize with the rest of the dress. When colored gloves are worn, the most delicate tints should be chosen. Nothing is so vulgar as an incongruous glaring-colored glove."
"The Ladies' Pocket-Book of Etiquette" (1840) states "If you meet a gentleman in the street who is upon such a degree of intimacy with you as to warrant the offer of his hand, you will retain your glove, although he most likely will take off his. The same observation applies to any other situation in which a gentleman offers you his hand when you have gloves on." The same book says "Ladies do not wear their gloves during dinner" in a later section.
I made my glove case up with three pockets-one for white gloves (on the very bottom so they have the least opportunity to get soiled), then black gloves, then colored gloves. The case closes with a china button and hand worked buttonhole, just like the shoe bags.
Simple, quick projects are fun! And these are quite useful!
Enjoy!
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