HSM 2017 #4: A very wide apron

Maid plucking a bird
(Pehr Hilleström, circa 1776)

A while back, I found a piece of vintage linen with nice selvages at the local thrift shop, and thought it would make a good 1770s working apron. I wanted an apron that a kitchen maid or wife in a lower middle class household might wear while doing chores.  She would likely have sewn it herself, rather than paying a seamstress.

Unfortunately, 18th century Swedish body linens were rarely preserved for posterity. As far as I know, there are a few shirts and some royal baby clothes, but no women's shifts or linen aprons. One of the reasons for this is that the paper mills used linen rags as their raw material, and from 1738 and on, a law required each Stockholm household to deliver a certain quantity of linen rags to the paper mill—otherwise they would be fined. This may have improved the inflow of rags to paper mills in the 18th century, but it doesn't exactly benefit today's historical dressmakers. So we have to turn to other sources of inspiration instead.

Durán Textiles: new cotton prints in May

Durán Textiles are discontinuing their current line of screen-prints, to introduce a new line of block-prints. Here's what their site says:

New block prints in May
A small scale production of 10 block prints will be available from mid May. The fabric is a light weight 100% cotton quality, 120 cm width, in a varaity of floral designs. This quality is suitable for period dresses from late 18th century- to mid 19th century. The fabrics are also suitable for folk costume (bunad) aprons.

Several of their current fabrics are mid-18th century, but their new line focuses on later eras that are popular in mainstream historical costuming. I look forward to seeing their new fabrics!

Edit:
A couple of months have passed, and the new prints still haven't made it to their website. I hope any issues will be sorted out soon, so we'll get to see their new products.

The Peacock Scale

In thinking about how to grade historical accuracy, I realized that not all aspects of accuracy are equal. If the over-all impression of a garment is strikingly inaccurate, it doesn't really help if a closer examination shows that the details are correct (e.g., consider a hand-sewn 18th century shift made from shock pink linen).

So, IMHO some requirements are more basic than others, and need to be fulfilled before I can get "accuracy points" for other aspects—sort of like a parallel to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

From there, I came up with this four-level scale as a guide to self-grading my historical garments: