I am what I am!

Bore da! 

Ok last of the strange lingo! 

My name is Pippa I am 34 years old mum to one human child several furry and feathered children and life long history geek ,nerd ,what ever label you want to chuck my way! 

I was raised by books and drank knowledge like it was nectar and still do.

I am my families archivist for paper documents and verbal history along with the massive amount of photographs our family has accumulated. Our family spans 3 countries, Germany,Ireland and England coming together in the melting pot that was the east end in the early part of the 1900s. The family worked in varying textiles trades and even staved of starvation with a sewing machine! 

One item though, from this memory box that is family ,is treasured above all else.

The family christening gown. Sewn in the 1860s from a comercially made bodice (I will discuss these in depth when I write about tweedle dum and tweedle dee the twin gowns) and a hand embroidered Irish Linen skirt. Decorated in roses or peonys shamrocks and vines it has seen many generations of the Cronin family baptized with myself being the last, and responsible for the majority of damage. Christening gowns survive in many number because they are treasured and easily stored for future use. The cronin gown as it is known is the founding group of items that started my collection. Besides the gown there is a shawl knitted lovingly by a great grandmother and destroyed by my mother in law who laundered it and the gown incorrectly with good intentions. My sister, jo has knitted a replacement blanket with the pattern name of call the midwife, quit apt for where the family come from. The dress like all others in the collection shows signs of use and associated staining and damage, however there is a small but very hard to photograph detail which is a line of drawn thread just above where the hem detail starts. It is a line for the person embroidering it to stop so there is enough length left for the hem. the gown is machine constructed hand gathered and machine stitched to the bodice.The gown is very long i have the measurements but they are on the top floor and i am at the bottom very lazy!

Daisys 

bodice in mass produced linen and lace 

ties,which are replacements,and hand stitched button holes

damage done by incorrect laundering , instead of being dried flat it was pegged out so the stress on the seams has caused weakness and fraying

bodice and sleeves, the sleeves are part of the shopp brought bodice but embroidered with matching flowers to the skirt. The bodice is french and felled seams.

vine work , sorry it is crumpled im terrified of ironing it!

back of the hand sewn daisy

The luck of the Irish! This one small detail solved which side the gown came from. The Cronins where Irish immigrants in the mid 19th century

 

Also there are 2 bibs crochet in fine pearl cotton and decorated with a pink bow and flowers one is button one is tie. 

2 sets of boots accompany the collection and again these show a divide in time. one set is mass produced in Hong Kong in the 80s and purchased for our use of gown in the early to mid 1980s, and the other are a fine hand knitted pair decorated with fine (machine made) trim. 

hand knitted booties by Doreen Cronin

mass production label

Booties that could have come from today

Strangely the bonnet has not survived into this time,we are aware of ones existance at some point in the gowns life but where it is now I have no idea. 

With the very beautiful old gown a newer one, still 'vintage' dress has snuck its way in. Although my feelings towards this gown are mixed it is staying in the collection as it is part of the original group of items I started with. 

And so there we have it, the Cronin collection where it alllllll began. I collect garments from childhood because it is such a small frame of time in a humans life span and clothes are often worn to rags , what is left should be saved for future generations to be able to look back on. In a time of fast fashion showing how previous generations made do and mended,shortened,lengthend, added or took away to increase a garments life span will hopefully inspire them to rethink how they approach clothing.