#1830's

Costume designed by John Bright and Chloe Obolensky for Liv Tyler in Onegin (1999)

Here are some (not very good) photos of me wearing it! I'll have to get some better ones at my parents house later, because there is absolutely no good space to take photos in my apartment. I don't have any other 1830's things to go with it, and don't currently have plans to make any. I just wanted this dressing gown specifically.

Anyways! There are 6,957 triangles, all sewn together by machine, but most of the actual garment construction is by hand. The unevenness from all the patchwork seam allowances made it very fussy, and the tailoring took at least twice as long as it would have in a normal fabric. The velvet was also a challenge, being the soft drapey wobbly kind, but I managed. I accidentally made my triangles a bit smaller than the ones on the original (C. 1835, Powerhouse Museum collection.) which means there are more triangles than there had to be, but that's ok. I really enjoyed doing the patchwork, it's the most wonderfully soothing brainless task ever and I will definitely make more patchwork things.

I'm very happy with how it turned out! It's comfortable and fits pretty well, and is warm but not excessively so.

I kept timesheets for everything, and I haven't added them up yet, but once I do I'll know exactly how long all of this took.

• Shoes.

Date: 1830's

Place of origin: France

Phlox taken from 'Gleanings of Nature' by Robert Mudie.

Published 1838 by W.S. Orr.

Fisher - University of Toronto

This Friday, the 30th of May, is Walpurgis Night! (Valborgsmässoafton, or simply Valborg, in Swedish). Walpurgis Night is celebrated in several European countries. It is a celebration of Saint Walpurga, but in Sweden it is, before anything else, a celebration of the arrival of spring. It is traditionally celebrated by gathering around huge bonfires. At the oldest universities in Sweden, a lot of more or less local Valborg traditions take place.

One tradition is that the student choirs gather before the bonfire is lit to sing songs celebrating spring. Längtan till landet, (longing for the countryside), is perhaps the most iconic one. It was written as a poem in 1838 by Herman Sätherberg, and arranged for a male choir in 1839 by Otto Lindblad. The song is often referred to by it's initial lyrics, "Vintern rasat" (Winter has been raging). The lyrics describe the snow melting away, to give way to spring and summer.

Although the song is traditionally sung by a male choir, here is an example of a version with a female student choir from the university of Lund, one of the oldest in Europe. The singers are, as is customary, wearing their student caps from their graduation from gymnasiet.