PROVIDENCE -- "Queenie" can shoot pistols or rifles with the best of them.
And she also sews a pretty mean ball gown.
Just look at the hand-tatted lace and fancy beadwork dripping from this elegant black burned-velvet dress.
"You cannot over-decorate an 1890s ball dress," says Helen Henderson, a Providence seamstress known as "Queen Helen" to her historical re-enactor friends.
So why not add a few sparkly rhinestones here and there, or dozens of pleats on the hem of the taffeta underskirt?
"We won't talk about how long that took," Henderson quips as she fingers the pleats.
Sewing ball gowns, shooting dresses and everyday dresses of the 19th century is Henderson's strong suit. From feathered hats to embroidered handbags, this Vernal native knows the ins and outs of fashion in the 1880s and '90s.
Not to mention the era's "unmentionables" -- corsets, stockings, petticoats and such.
Oh, and don't forget bustles. Corsets and hoop skirts, Henderson will wear without complaint, but she'd rather leave her once-trendy bustle in the closet, thank you.
"You can't sit down in this baby," she says, showing off a rigid metal reproduction of a "lobster-claw" bustle.
This is why Henderson choose the late 1800s as her time period for re-enacting: The bustle was going out of fashion.
Of course, she quips, "Everything we wear has been out of style for about 100 years -- or more."
'Cutthroat' stitchery
A Tremonton middle school teacher, Henderson started sewing when she was about 10. Over the years, she mastered wool suits, prom dresses, wedding dresses and untold types of alterations.
She created her first period dress 16 years ago when she helped a friend with some Dutch oven cooking, which required lots of lifting, at the old Festival of the American West in Logan.
"That's when I discovered corsets save your back -- they're not as bad as you might think," says Henderson, who then started sewing old-time outfits for various stage productions.
But her interest in historical fashion grew when she and husband Syd joined the Cache Valley chapter of the Single Action Shooting Society about five years ago.
In addition to gun events, she says, "We also compete in costume contests, which are just as cutthroat as the shooting."
The burned-velvet gown, and a frock coat Henderson sewed for Syd, snared the couple second place in the society's recent regional competition in Cheyenne, Wyo. But with her six-shooters, coach gun and rifle, Henderson was also second in her age category for the target competition.
"Not only is she a good seamstress, she's a very good shooter, too," says her husband, known in the society as Syd Shleene the riverboat gambler.
Bold and bright
Folks often think clothes of the 19th century were dull and drab.
"They were not. They were brilliant, bright, electric colors," Henderson says.
New dyes invented in the 1800s resulted in vivid greens, blues and reds, she says, and "some of the prints were absolutely wild."
Even mountain man garb was colorful, at least before it became worn and weathered, Henderson says. As proof, she pulls out a stack of bright fabrics patterned in blues, yellows and reds that she purchased on a trip to France.
"A lot of the mountain men were from the Provence area of France. This is what the men wore because this is what they had," she says.
Henderson sometimes buys reproductions of 1800s fabrics. But she also picks up modern fabrics that resemble those of the 19th century, like moire taffeta, which looks like old-time watered silk. When a Cache Valley store closed out its moire taffeta for $1 a yard, Henderson took home $600 worth.
She searches for period buttons wherever she can find them and says "the quest for lace is never-ending."
To find out what old clothing looked like, the seamstress turns to photographs and drawings in books, catalogs or old magazines like Harper's Bazaar. Museum collections of vintage clothing and historical paper dolls are other sources for designs.
"I can spend days surfing eBay -- and whole ink cartridges -- getting dress ideas," she says.
Playing dress-up
Henderson's attention to detail, such as linings or hand stitching, gives her work a couture quality, says Lisa Rampton of Tremonton, who teaches school with Henderson and also sews for her.
And those details make Henderson's' pieces more than just "costumes," Rampton adds.
"She doesn't want to just give a facsimile of them, she wants them to look like the real garments would have," Rampton says.
Henderson's enthusiasm for the shooting association prompted Rampton to join, too.
"I think both of us are 12-year-olds in adults' bodies. We'll never pass up an opportunity to dress up," Rampton says.
Members of the society must create a "shooting alias," so Henderson chose "Queen Helen" in honor of Queen Ann Bassett, a rancher who hung out with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch in the countryside around Vernal, where Henderson was raised.
"She was queen of the cattle rustlers, so it's not entirely an honorary title," says Henderson, who knew some of Bassett's family.
The seamstress whips up her plain and fancy garments, which sell for $40 to more than $300, with the help of a modern serger to finish seams and a sewing machine that does embroidery work.
The shelves in her fabric room are stuffed with bolts of fabric and even boxes of ostrich feathers, for making hats.
"You can't own too many real cool hats, I don't care if you're a man or a woman," says Henderson, whose creations are found online at www.dodgecitygeneralstore.com.
Threads of beauty
This grandmother of 10 says her sewing helps her learn about history, expand her personal wardrobe and take time to "go play."
"It's a creative process and I enjoy a creative process," she says.
Even in the most ordinary authentic 19th-century clothing, Henderson says she marvels at the maker's pride in craftsmanship and the desire to add embellishments like pin tucks or lace.
"With everything, there was an effort to make it beautiful," she says. "That tells you a lot about the spirit of the people."
Comments