For the love of the Muff! (part 1)

Ever since I can remember I have loved the idea of owning and using a muff. I blame the Quality street tins my mother and grandmother owned for this. Actually I blame them for my entire obsession with costumes from the Victorian era.

This is not mine, I have two of them but both ended up in a box in the attic after we moved, but this is one of the two version we had when I was little. The picture of a lady with a muff was on the side if I remember correctly. I really want to know but I am not to fond of the ladder leading up to the attic and besides that I wouldn't know in whcih box they ended up...

 **Cue hours a me looking on the internet looking for the right version, seeing all the other wonderful Quality street tins and wanting to have them all.**

I mean it is hard to resist these beauties!

Okay, getting back to the original topic which is Victorian Muffs and not Quality Street tins and where to find them... (or how to collect them all!)


Muffs it is!

In Regency times the muff tend to be quite large. Although smaller ones were used as well.

source: http://blog.americanduchess.com

In the 1830's they were still usually quite large

http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/

But it looks like they got smaller the closer you

get to the 1840's. This fashion plate is from 1837
and the muff here is quite small!

source: http://blog4woman.ru/

Around 1840-1845 the muff became the size I prefer, big enough to cover both hand when they are laid on top of each other and the wrists. Pretty, functional and most important manageble. It seems that the ladies from the Victorian era had the same preference because it stayed this size untill the Edwardian era, when the muff encreased in size again.

1841

http://www.darvillsrareprints.com/

1850

 1860

Source: http://www.lapl.org/

1874

source: http://www.loc.gov/

1886

1891

source: http://archive.org/

1899

source: https://hubpages.com/

1907

source:De Gracieuse

Now that I had established that the size I wanted to make was in use for most of the nineteenth centuries I have in my historical wardrobe. It was time to figure out how to make one! But as this is quite a long post, with lots of eye candy, already. I'll write about it in the next blog.

Please note that I have been looking for documentation for the size, shape and sort muff I was planning to make. There are many more historically authentic styles and size. So if you want to make something else, don't be put off and do some research. You'll find that a lot is possible!