Fit To Be Tied!

This morning I made ties and collars. The tie rack is a coffee mug hanger that I had in my stash. It was really too big for coffee mugs, but makes a great tie rack.

I have started investigating prices in the 1909 Sears Roebuck catalog. It took me a couple of hours to make them. They would sell for anywhere from 19 cents to 48 cents. Can you imagine what the makers of the real thing were earning back around the turn of the 19th century?

It is interesting to go through that catalog. There is no rhyme or reason in the order of the contents and no table of contents either! I don't know how you would find what you wanted unless you wandered through it page by page looking at everything......Maybe there was a method to their madness. I kept finding other interesting things while I was looking for the men's ties.

I remembered that I wanted to include some celluloid collars in the store. So I sidetracked until I found them......They were not celluloid collars at that time. By then they had modernized them to rubber! They were advertised as more comfortable. They also had real linen ones, but those were more expensive. I may have to have a few of those too.I made these out of index card. I think that they look passable.

I have in my collections of real things a round box covered with a faux leather, made of stamped canvas, that was made especially for preserving these. I think it was made similar to the covers on books. The design is pressed into the canvas and then painted with something to make it look like leather. The one that I have has an elaborate oval brass box set into the top that was for studs and cuff links to go with the collars.

This was another of the things that saved washing shirts all of the time. Put on a new collar and cuffs every day and that made them look fresh and clean. I imagine that after a week, you could tell that the shirt hadn't been washed in a while. Never mind the collar and cuffs.

I finished the dressing room this morning. I still need to rip the tape off of the mirror, but I thought that you would like to see where it landed.

M'lady will be spared the site of long johns flapping in the breeze now.

That's about all I have to show for my morning's work. I should get back to it. I still have lots more stuff to make, especially after looking at the catalog. I told you those guys knew what they were doing by leaving out the table of contents and mixing things up!

See you tomorrow.