Narrow-Hemming the Bottoms of Seamed Garments: Advice from TreadleOnions

In the Corset Cover Dress Diary posts I wrote about having trouble creating fine machine hems around the bottom of the corset cover. The seams connecting the fronts and backs of the garment kept clogging the hemmer because the amount of fabric was too much. I wrote,

"It's impossible to do around the seams, though, so you have to stop near these eges and hand hem them afterwards. Not terribly efficient. Once you have a well-fitting pattern, might as well hem each piece BEFORE you seam the pieces."

So I asked the folks on TreadleOn, a super-duper online community for those who use treadle machines. Always warm and helpful, several Onions gave me tips on how they deal with the issue. I've reproduced several of them here, with a few edits for context.

• The way my grandmother taught me to do this is to clip a triangle off the seams with the widest point being at the seam itself, and the point being about 1/4" up into the seam. That leaves less fabric for the hemmer to have to turn and stitch, and works about 99% of the time. On lightweight fabrics, batise or light cotton, it works 100% of the time because there isn't that much bulk there in the first place. By just snipping 1/4", almost the entire snipped area is inside the hem, and if you press the seam open before running it through the hemmer, it's even less bulk.
  
  If you're doing heavier than light fabric, you should hand-crease the narrow hem at the seam so it will feed through the attachment properly.
  Marilyn S.SE TX
  
• I'm not sure how they did it in the bad old days, but when I cross seams with my narrow hemmer, I first make sure those seams are trimmed to reduce bulk. I usually cut a triangle from each one, such that it tapers from regular width to nothing at the raw edge. Then when I am sewing along and get close, I stop and remove the hem from the "curl" of the foot. Using my fingers, I fold the hem as narrow and as flat as I can over the seam, then stitch across it as neatly as I possible, with the foot riding totally on top of the hem. Once past the seam, I stop and re-insert the fold into the "curl" and proceed to the next obstruction.
  Jennifer, Calgary, AB
  
• I usually [do] the tuck[ing] or hem[ming] before sewing the seams. Recently I tried it the other way on a petticoat and it just didn't work. I usually finish my seams by pressing the seam open and then turning each seam allowance under and stitching down the folded edge. Not period authentic, but it looks nice and wears well.
  Annie, Pennsylvania

Thank you, Onions!

From the Rag Bag: a Scrap Quilt for a Baby

My sister Julie and her husband are expecting a baby boy, so I thought they might need a quilt for June Bug, as they're calling him.

Not a fancy quilt for display, but a hard-working utility quilt that he can play on and drag around, and that can be tossed in the wash. So, taking a page out of the past, I resorted to the rag bag and have assembled the simplest of quilt tops.

At left, the completed quilt top

Rag Bags

Rag bags used to be common: when clothes and other textiles outlived their original uses or began to look tatty, they'd be recycled. Small pieces would end up in a rag bag to be pulled out later to live again as cleaning rags or quilt block pieces.

Over time I've filled quite a fat rag bag. Any piece of clothing too ratty to be given to charity was cut up and the buttons and zippers saved for reuse. For this quilt I pulled from the bag remnants from some of my husband's old striped oxford shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans and other slacks, and bits of fabric left over from a skirted table project.

Piecing the Quilt

Each quilt block is just one piece of fabric, cut 5 inches square. Once all the pieces were cut, I laid them on the floor and played around until I got a pattern I liked.

At left, two samples of blocks sewn together into strips.

Then I sewed strips of blocks together, making the seam allowance the width between needle and edge of the presser foot, which is about a quarter of an inch. After that I sewed the strips together.

I only had to pay careful attention to a few things. I had to line up the blocks on each row when sewing the strips of blocks together. No matter how careful I was, not all blocks were exactly 5 inches square. After all, I used scissors when cutting them, not a rotary cutting wheel, and they were cut out of bits of fabric, not nice neat "fat quarters" meant for quilting. To make up for this I pinned the each strip to the next very carefully, easing each block to fit to the next, easing just like I might a curved seam on a collar. It worked pretty well! Only one row is rather too far off.

At left, the strips of blocks are sewn together on the Willcox and Gibbs chainstitch treadle machine.

• I also had to make sure all the seams butted up to one another in the same direction throughout. Careful pressing of the seams all to the same side before sewing helped.

Now it's time to embroider "June Bug" on a block and then add a thin cotton batting and a backing of plain blue check fabric. I will bind the outside edges with a heavy-duty quilt binding.

An Edwardian 1911 Corset Cover Dress Diary, Part 3: finished!

The corset cover is complete. Here it is at left. Compare this image to the photograph of the original in the 1911 textbook I drafted it from, which appears below. I think they are quite close, with one exception. I have a 30-inch waist, and the original was for a 24-inch waist. The cover is comfortable to wear, and fits as it should, which is a relief! I believe this is a typical schoolgirl-type corset cover, utilitarian and effective under opaque shirtwaists or bodices, but not meant for dress-up wear by any means. 

Lessons Learned...for Next Time

• Unlike many popular corset covers of the period, on this one the shoulders are quite wide. Next round I would cut them in so that the lace and fabric didn't come out over the shoulder curve. When wearing a tight sleeve the extra fabric would tend to get in the way.
• I would retain the front fullness in this pattern. Worn under an original sheer batiste shirtwaist of bloused cut, the cover helps to hold out the front fullness nicely. By this point some shirtwaists still had a bit of blousing, while others were smooth-fronted. Speaking of which, those shirtwaists are awfully fashionable in 2006. The lace, the sheerness -- worn with a cami (just a modern version of a corset cover) it could have been made today! CAbi in fact has a blouse in their line this spring that could have been made between 1912-1920.
• The peplum is also useful as it helps to hold the cover in place under a skirt waistband. Practical!
• For this trial piece I used plain, 99-cent 100% cotton muslin. Next time I would use a fine 199% cotton batiste. The muslin is too heavy, and the threads and weave too coarse to be attractive under a lawn, handkerchief linen, or batiste shirtwaist, especially a vintage one. All of these fabrics are really, really sheer. So the inferior grade of the muslin beneath is apparent. Further, it's too stiff by comparison and again, you can actually see that the two "don't go" when worn together. Above, the original corset cover, from Text-Book on Domestic Art, 1911, p. 87. Available on Cornell University HEARTH site.
• The lace I used, while cotton, is also too stiff. Washing it a great deal might help, but in future I will use a finer, thinner lace that won't frill so aggressively under a fine lawn shirtwaist.
• I'd wear this sort of pattern only under bloused shirtwaists. A much smoother, lower-fronted, and closer-cut version would be appropriate with a dress.

Digitized Collections of 19th and 20th Century Catalogs, Manuscripts and Ephemera

If you are interested in period advertisements, catalogs, magazines, scrapbooks, diaries, and ephemera, do see the digitized collections that Harvard and Duke University have online.

Women Working: 1800-1930, Harvard University Open Collections

As Harvard describes it:

Women Working, 1800 - 1930 focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images including:
7,500 pages of manuscripts
3,500 books and pamphlets
1,200 photographs

Includes such representative items as

• Dorcas Magazine (crocheting and knitting, 19th c), (some issues)
• Ladies Home Journal, (some issues)
• Woman's Home Companion, (some issues)
• Abercrombie and Fitch 1913 Styles catalog,
• and the diary of Delia Kinglsey, school teacher (1906-1910).

Visit the site! See http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/

Above: Ivory Soap advertisement from Woman's Home Companion, January 1909, Harvard Digital Collections

Digitized Collections, Duke University

Part of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Includes items such as

• "9,000 advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920"
• 19th century sheet music!
• writings and diaries of African-American and Civil War women

Visit the site! See http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/collections/digitized/index.html

Super resources for researching and understanding fashion!

An Edwardian 1911 Corset Cover Dress Diary, Part 2

Hooray, almost finished with the corset cover! Just have to add buttonholes and the internal waist tape, and it's done. Meantime, I have added the lace to the neckline and armcyes (armholes), which was a bit of an adventure in itself. At left, the corset cover as it stands now. The internal waist tape is not pulling in the waist as much as it will, and the front is pinned together. 

Adding Lace, the Long, Hard Way 

Perhaps I was a bit silly, but I was bound and determined to have as finely finished an effect inside as outside the corset cover. No raw edges, nothing to fray, and everything as neat as neat. 

Even after reading the directions out of the 1917 guide American Dressmaking Step by Step (on vintagesewing.info) that say that you can hide raw edges on beading, I didn't "get" it. 

So here's how to do it the long way. Hem the edge to be decorated with as tiny a hem as you can manage. My Singer handcrank has an attachment that can do a 1/8 inch full hem. 

It's impossible to do around the seams, though, so you have to stop near these edges and hand hem them afterwards. Not terribly efficient. 

Once you have a well-fitting pattern, might as well hem each piece BEFORE you seam the pieces. Above or left, the Singer VS 27 handcrank with the small hemmer in operation. 

Measure the lace so that it reaches 1 and 1/2 times around the edge to be decorated. Gather it by sewing in the little margin (it's about 1/8 inch wide and looks like a mini selvedge edge). I ended up arranging the gathers so they looked a little bit like open inverted box pleats or ruching and very much like the effect! 

Then baste the lace to the the edge of the area to be decorated, with raw edge of lace on top of right side of fabric, and its selvage next to the outer edge of the fabric. 

After that, cover this tiny basted seam with beading (sewn with a seam to each side of it) so there are no edges showing. You have to fold out the lace so it sticks out over the edge of the fabric. This is fiddly work! Too fiddly, I say. Above or left, the lace being pinned to the neckline. 

Adding Lace, the Easier Way

The easier way also results in no hem inside and probably a flatter, slightly less bulky result. If only I had read those instructions more closely! Here's what you do. 

On the fabric to be decorated, say a neckline, fold the raw edge from the inside to the outside and baste it flat against the right side. Now inside you have a perfectly smooth surface, no hem, no edges. 

On the outside, now gather the lace and once again baste it to the edge...but this time, face the lace so that its pretty edge already falls out over the edge of the garment, and the selvedge edge is sitting on top of that raw turned-in edge. Baste down.

Then baste and sew the beading (one row of stitching to each side) over the combo of the basted lace selvedge edge and the raw edge of turned over neckline hem and voila...all nice and neat and tidy. 

Man, did I feel silly! I was just fixated on internal hems and didn't realize I could do them externally as neatly. Oh well. Next up, the buttonholes and buttons. Until then, bye now! At left or above, my kitty ZipZip asleep on a chaise in the March sunshine. She's in my lap right now, too.

An Edwardian 1911 Corset Cover Dress Diary, Part 1

The latest project: drafting and constructing a circa 1911 simple corset cover of muslin. 

Just a reminder of how someone might have worn one. The 1905 Butterick sewing book I have a reprint of states on p. 33, "for ordinary waists [shirtwaists]...a well-fitted corset cover answers about the same purpose as a lining [on a fancy bodice]." So one would put on a chemise and knickers, or a "combinations" instead, then the corset, then one of these corset covers and a petticoat, then the shirtwaist and skirt on top. (Above, the corset cover partially assembled. Set on the stand inside out, I have basted the channel for the drawstring tape over the waistline gathers.) 

Once again, I am using the 1911 manual, Textbook on Domestic Art, as the source for making up this garment. See the Cornell University HEARTH site, and browse for it. You can view and download each page. The directions appear on pp. 86-96, and comprise

• measuring for a basic shirtwaist pattern,
• drafting it up into a pattern and adjusting it to a corset cover,
• cutting the fabric,
• and step by step construction and finishing;
• a photo of the finished product is included.

This particular pattern produces a corset cover with an interior waist drawstring or "tape", and then a short peplum that helps keep the corset cover in place. Many corset covers don't have such a peplum; you can easily find them on Ebay. 

The textbook photo shows a simply trimmed garment with modest lace at neck and armholes, and the directions say that armholes could be simply bound with bias tape, although you could make a corset cover with all kinds of decoration from tucks to beading, or make it of eyelet fabric.

(Above, the corset cover with waistline tape channel pinned to it, from the back)

Drafting the Pattern

The pattern only requires two pattern pieces, front and back...but the front is split into two pieces for a total of three pieces. I drafted it in about two hours, including checking it and cutting it. Remember though that I am a slow worker; someone with a bit more experience could knock it out rapidly. There is also an oblong piece of fabric that you cut out to make the channel for the interior tape or drawstring to go through.

The "model" measurements for this pattern are about 15" across the shoulders and and a 24" waist. My 30" waist circumference resulted in a more boxy-shaped pattern, but the result on the mannequin still looks good.

(Above: the pattern draft sample as it appears in the textbook. The numbers are drafting points you use to build your own draft, not measurements.)

Notes on Cutting and Construction

• If you're unsure of your drafting skills, leave about an inch or so all around as seam allowance so that you can alter as necessary.
• When you have cut out both fronts and backs, mark the right side of the fabric carefully (with something that will wash out) too. Then pin the shoulders and sides, with the right sides on the outside, wrong sides together. Now, most directions would say, do this on the wrong side of the fabric. Not this time! You'll be sewing French seams, for which the first seam is on the right side of the fabric!
• Once it's pinned and you're happy with the fit, then baste it, again, wrong sides together. Um, I didn't pay attention, and on autopilot, pinned and basted wrong sides together. So when it came time to make French seams, I had no markings to work with. I had to take everything out and start over. Whoops. Don't make the same mistake! (Above, the corset cover pieces pinned up for initial fit. I have yet to cut the front into two halves; a tester box pleat is set up to mimic the button hole pleat.)
• I found that pinning and basting on the dress form felt good after a first few minutes of feeling strange.
• The corset cover closes in front with four small pearl buttons. The right front, that holds the button holes, is constructed with a "box plait", which turns out to look an awful lot like the narrow sewn-down pleat (sewn down on both vertical sides) that seems to make up the fronts of many men's and women's shirts. The result is that you have several layers to support those button holes so they won't rip.
• After you make up the box pleat, do up the French seams on sides and shoulders. To make these seams: run the first seam 1/4 inch out towards the edge of the fabric. from the seam line. Then, trim the seam allowance pretty close to that seam stitching. Then, turn fabric so that right sides are together, and run a second seam on the real seam line to enclose the raw edges inside it. Press the resulting seam so that it faces towards the inside back of the garment. Whoo! Yes, after awhile it seems more natural to do this, and it sure has a nice, tidy, luxe effect.
• Put the corset cover back on the dress form, this time inside out. On your pattern draft, you'll have made a series of X's that mark where you should gather the waist together. Silly me, I didn't follow directions. I gathered the full back, instead of just in the center of the back. Silly me again, on the front I gathered from the sides halfway to the front, instead of just across the center of the front. Once again, had to pull it out and do it over. (Above, closeup of front, with waistline gathered and tape channel basted. Note that gatherine is not heavy because you don't want the garment to be too poufy.)
• The text asks you to do two rows of gathers, 1/2 inch apart. Couple of good reasons for this. First, that's the width of the narrow strip of fabric that is sewn from one side of the waist to the other that forms the channel to put the waist tape through. Voila: automatic markings for placing it. Second, you get a more even gather. Just try to make sure that the positioning of your gathering stitches match decently one to the other. I'd tie off the gather at the end you'll be pulling from. On the other end, leave a long string so you can pull your gathers together.
• Gather as the text suggests, and use the photo as your guide. Then make up that channel strip from the directions, and pin it to the waistline, placing on top of those two rows of gathers. Arrange the gathers one last time, and baste in place.

(Above, the Singer 27 handcrank sewing machine used for this project. It does wonderful tiny stitches and uses really neat attachments, sans electricity.)

That's where I am to date. Back with the final product soon as it's done!

Edwardian and Victorian Skirt Plackets: Where to Find How Tos

Skirt plackets: who knew they could be so complicated? Or such a royal pain?

These days we put zippers in everything, even new-fangled invisible zippers that continue the seam line with no annoying and revealing extra stitching around the zipper slash.

It used to be all so very different. Women relied on hooks and eyes sewed into long plackets to hide outer skirt openings. Petticoats frequently had nothing but a plain placket with strings at the top...so that placket opening could gap! You can see an illustrated example of one of those in one of my previous posts. Oh well, at least the gap was invisible to outsiders.

Anyhow, in making up a 1911 skirt from online textbook instructions (see previous posts for details on that textbook), I was told to make a continuous placket. See the image of a placket turned inside out, at left (courtesy Vintage Sewing.info).

Well, such a placket looks awfully thick and amateurish on a worsted wool skirt. At least mine did. I hated it and ripped it out.

Finding a Whole New World of Fancy Placket Knowledge

Don't bother in looking at most modern sewing books for fancy plackets. Most of them pay more attention to sleeve plackets. Blech.

Instead, have a look at American Dressmaking Step by Step by Mme. Lydia Trattles Coates (1917), on http://www.vintagesewing.info. See lessons 188 to 197. The text and illustrations take you through invisible plackets, extension plackets, and so on...all plackets that will look a lot more professional on an outer skirt than the one pictured above. That's an extension placket at left.

The lessons cover everything from setting in facings to handling the hooks and eyes neatly.

The date may be 1917, but the techniques should be good for quite a few decades prior to that time as well.

An Edwardian 1911 Flounced Petticoat Dress Diary, Part 3: Completion

It's done! A muslin petticoat made in 1911 style with a double flounce! I decorated the outer flounce with tiny tucks and lace insertion, threaded with pink ribbon. 

The petticoat was sewn primarily on a Willcox and Gibbs treadle sewing machine, and the garment's construction features the incredibly narrow, precise machined hems that the Willcox and Gibbs hemming attachments make possible, plus the equally precise tucks. 

This marked the first time I'd used these attachments, and they clear up the mystery of how finely sewn many antique garments are. Old machines such as the W&G make that sort of work quite straightforward. 

I used a Singer 27 VS handcrank machine to produce small gathers at the waistband and on the flounces. Only the finish on the waistband lap is handsewn. 

I drafted and constructed the petticoat following instructions from Textbook on Domestic Art, 1911. You can too! Previous posts on this blog tell more about the textbook and how to find it on the Cornell HEARTH site. 

Additional Views

The petticoat is triple-tucked. The hem on bottom is 1/8 of an inch wide, and is a double hem, that is, the raw edge is turned to the back of the garment, then turned under again to fully hide it. 

The Willcox and Gibbs attachment did that in one smooth motion, which left me rather amazed. I can't get as clean a hem on my electric machine.

The garment has two flounces. That means extra volume when you wear it. The lower flounce starts about shin height, which means the skirt fluffs at your feet when you walk, but leaves your knees unencumbered, and is cooler generally.

Closeup of the placket. It's a bit hard to see, but the stitches are tiny: chainstitchers like the Willcox and Gibbs generally make incredibly small stitches. Second, between one stitch and the next, the line is very straight. The stitch guide helps, and the precision of the cast-iron parts that drive the machine, but it may be the needle that has the most effect. I didn't know this until a few weeks ago, but the standard needles many people use on electric machines are ballpoint...that is, they're not too sharp. When the machine makes a stitch, the ballpoint edge slides into the next available hole in the weave. The commercial Schmetz needle I am using, by contrast, has a very sharp point, so the needle goes right through the woven threads, not between them. Eh voila, each stitch follows the next perfectly straight, not in a slightly offset pattern. And I thought it was my skills:} Oh well.

And last, a side view of the petticoat. Behind it you can just see the Willcox and Gibbs. Yes, that is one very small machine.

Anatomy of an Antique, Probably 19-teens Petticoat

A few weeks ago a vintage white cotton petticoat came into my possession. Don't ask me how old it is...I am still trying to figure that out! However, it's likely that the skirt is late Edwardian or early teens, given the approximately 2-yard sweep. It's not very full at all. 

How it is constructed is really interesting and some things about it I find puzzling, although they probably would be crystal clear to a real expert. If anyone can set me straight on a couple of points, it would be most appreciated. 

 How It's Constructed

This is a 5-gore petticoat. Three gores up front, and two in the back. When worn, at the top the front gores at the edges rather wrap to the back a bit. Perhaps the way the gores are set will help date it? The gores in front are very scantly gathered; those in back more so but these gathers are tiny, fine and stroked, not chunky. 

 At the back a gusset in two pieces has been inserted. See the picture below.

The petticoat is scalloped at the bottom. The scallops are set in a nice, complex rising and falling pattern. I can't entirely tell if the scallops were handmade or not: if they were machine made, they were not the most perfectly done. If they were machine made, the fabric was sold such that it was long enough widthwise to make a full-length skirt without piecing on the scallop pieces. I cannot tell the lengthwise grain on the fabric so that doesn't help: it's a plain tabby weave. Were such fabrics sold in such wide widths...kind of a la disposition? 

The skirt is set on a narrow waistband and the placket in back closes with extraordinarily long tape ties. Surely these wrapped around the waist once or twice before being tied, else, whoops, the lady treads on a tie and she goes head over heels or flat on her face. 

The Measurements

Waist, by gore measures at the top:

• left front=5 3/4" I measured several times :}
• center front=6"
• right front=6"
• left back=5"
• right back=5"

Sweep (bottom gore width) measures:

Approximate sweep is 76", or just over 2 yards. That is quite narrow, but when worn feels roomy and does not constrict movement.

• left front=12.5"
• center front=12.5"
• right front=12.5"
• left back=17.5"
• left back width to top of gusset=17"
• right back=17.5"
• right back width to top of gusset=17"

Length of skirt, top to bottom=38" (highest point of scallops), 39" (lowest point of scallops)

Waistband=1/2" wide

Placket=5/8 " wide, 9" long, not including waistband.

Tie tapes are each 40" long!

Handmade, and Not Always Neatly! 

All you hurried seamstresses out there can relax; it'd appear that what we'd call semi-sloppy seam finish work was definitely out there. Now the Williamsburg Foundation book, titled something like "What People Wore", says that 18th century clothes were often ill-finished on the interiors. Having to be completely hand sewn, and often reused and retooled until the poor garment fell apart, there was little point in finishing each seam. I understand from Elizabeth Stewart's excellent board, The Sewing Academy at Home, (see http://www.elizabethstewartclarkandcompany.com/Forum/index.php) that simply overcasting the edges of seams was a quick and effective and common way to finish seams at the mid nineteenth century. The sewing machine's wide adoption may have helped to make neat finishes not only more common, but more a social standard, or at least that's my personal suspicion. By the time a lot of teaching texts roll around at the turn of the 2oth century, nice, even fancy seam finishes were expected. However, as with ettiquette and cooking and fashion sense, what was expected was probably far less than universal on handmade clothes.

On my petticoat? No fancy finishes there! The interior seams are simply overcast, and loosely at that, with not terribly even stitches in a fine thread. I was shocked, shocked! Rather hard to see on the picture of the interior of a back gusset at left, but you could try... 

Look at the way the waistband is sewn on, too. Nice tiny machine stitches, but look up close and you see, what's this? Edge stitching that wanders a bit and falls off the edge of the band? Quel horreur!

What It's Like to Wear This Petticoat

The petticoat is surprisingly roomy. You'll laugh but we have no full-length mirror that doesn't suffer from an advanced case of silvering. So the only shot I have is taken in front of a small mirror propped on the staircase landing, and shows only my feet. You'll note the roominess and how nice those scallops look.

An Edwardian 1911 Flounced Petticoat Dress Diary, Part 2: A Puzzle of Proportions

Currently I am drafting a 5-gore underskirt or petticoat, with dust ruffle and flounce, according to instructions in the 1911 textbook, Textbook on Domestic Art. 

It has been an interesting process. The instructions rely on sizing up or sizing down a draft based on proportions taken from a model skirt. Since my body no longer follows the suggested proportions of a waist 15" smaller than the hips, whoops, well, something interesting happened to the results, and I am still mulling over my solution and whether it was the right one. 

Instructions for drafting and then making up the skirt appear on pages 74-85. You can find the original source materials, in full, on the Cornell University Home Economics Archive (Hearth), at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/. By the way, the text bases a street skirt on the same draft...you learn how to do variations to make a pattern endlessly useful. 

Drafting the Petticoat

Here is the skirt draft illustration.

I found the instructions to be clear and simple. First, the textbook discusses the proportions necessary. From these, if you like, you can calculate the waist measure for each gore, the hip measure, and the length to the skirt bottom (minus the dust ruffle). 

However, you don't have to do this: the step-by-step drafting instructions have you make these measurements as you draft up your pattern on paper. I laid long lengths of freezer paper on my big Hancock's measuring and pinning board and drew the drafting dots and lines with pencil and ruler. 

The Proportions Problem Appears

When I finished the back gore, it looked too narrow compared to the model drawing, which had quite a flare on it. 

What was going on? 

Remember that the draft is based on proportions, right? Well, oh dear, I have a thicker waist of 30" compared to the model's 24". So when I drew the oblique line from waist to skirt bottom that forms the back of the gore, I got less of an angle than a woman with a smaller waist would have. What to do? The text states on p. 76 that "(t)he average width of an underskirt on lower edge, before dust ruffle is attached, is between 2 1/2 and 3 yards, for the average person, unless very wide skirts are in vogue". For the model that's 90" inches of "sweep", as the term has it. Well, I bet mine wasn't any 90". It didn't have the right flare at all, and I had checked my math, I hoped. 

 What Textbook on Domestic Arts Suggests Doing

The textbook writer knew that some girls would have thicker or thinner waists. So on pp. 83-84 it says,

"If more fullness is desired at bottom of skirt, increase width of each gore by starting 1/3 of its length below the waist line, on each bias side. [If you read Harriet Pepin's Modern Pattern Design on http://www.VintageSewing.info, you'll see this mode of splitting the angle of the gore into two parts in action.] For less fulness, decrease....(T)he width around bottom should be in good proportion to the height and size of hips of each individual, even when extreme fashions are in vogue." 

Aha! So I was supposed to add inches to the sweep by adding width at the bottom of each gore. Okay, how to do it?

Solving the Proportions Problem...With Algebra?

So I rummaged in the brain and remembered the simple algebra formula for coming up with a proportion. The model waist of 24 is to model sweep of 90", as my waist of 30" is to X. I solved for X and it said I needed 112" of sweep, distributed around each side gore and the back gore. By the way, that comes to the 3 yards circumference maximum suggested by the book. 

I measured the bottom width of the side gores and the back gores with a ruler...but didn't know how to distribute the inches needed to make up 112". That's when I had a, perhaps, bright idea. Using the proportion formula again, I calculated the waist/sweep proportion of the model back gore, and compared it to my waist/sweep proportion. 

Aha: I was 4 inches short on my back sweep measurement. Surely the side gore would have the same problem, but it didn't. The results were the same, no matter how many times I redid my math. Further, the four inches I needed in back, when added to the sweep of the other gores, added up to the ideal 90"! 

So, suspecting I had drawn my lines wrong on the gores, I redrafted them. (Oh, how boring that was.) But no! I had done it right. 

 When That Doesn't Work Perfectly, a Middling Solution

Frankly, I don't know what error I made or what principle of geometry is in effect that causes the bottom width of a gore to come out differently when you do it by math versus drawing it out. But I did decide what to do. I kept that 90" sweep, as being befittingly narrow for 1911. Then I distributed 2 inches of extra to the back gore and 1" each to the side gore. If when I build it in muslin it makes me look dumpy, well then I'll redo it with a 112" sweep, and I will have learned how proportions affect the line of a dress in a visceral way. 

I'll see how it turns out! Oh, by the way, had someone back in high school applied algebra and geometry to something interesting like sewing instead of to endless drills, I might actually have liked math class. [Note as of September 17, 2021: our twin sons have had algebra and these days, their teachers have them work out problems based on all kinds of applicable situations. Nor more plain drills. Yay!

An Edwardian 1911 Flounced Petticoat Dress Diary, Part 1: Neat Tips on How They Were Worn

My cool 1911 textbook Textbook on Domestic Art has given me some key knowledge into how people fitted and wore their underthings. In reference to what they call an underskirt and I call a petticoat, did you know:

• "An underskirt should be 1" shorter than the outside skirt, as well as narrower, except the flounce."
• The outer skirt length for the high-school girl audience was set at 4 inches above the floor...that comes to right about instep. The petti would be one inch shorter than this.
• "The flounce is added for flaring as well as beauty." Note that the flounce was a second layer to the petticoat added towards the bottom: the text's model has a 12" flounce set on such that its bottom is even with bottom of the dust ruffle.
• "A dust ruffle about 4" deep is generally put on to prevent wear."
• (The) "width around the bottom (of an underskirt) should be in good proportion to the height and the size of hips of each individual, even when extreme fashions are in vogue."
• A petticoat could have a gathered back, a pleated back, or a "habit" or straight back. The text recommends a fuller back, as opposed to the habit back, for those whose "figure" needed it to sit well.

By 1913, the situation was a little different. Garment Construction in Schools (also available on the HEARTH site) writes:

• "(The) petticoat is intended to fit closely around the hip, and is narrow at the lower edge also (2 yards)."
• "The fulness at the lower edge is supplied by a scanty frill of material..."
• Embroidery is suggested as being a pretty and effective alternative to a frill. Naturally it wouldn't pouf out the skirt either, in this time of severely vertical skirt lines.
• The top was faced with a "false hem" cut on the bias, in calico for a cotton petti, and sateen or calico for a woollen one.

Both texts recommend quite a variety of materials. Petticoats could be cotton, either plain or in colored prints with "a deep frill of material", or in flannel. Wincey (a type of wool) was used for summer wear, at least in England.

A Glimpse of the Antique Treadle Machines I Use

Part of the fun of sewing period- or vintage-style clothing is making up the pieces using vintage sewing treadle machines. At least it is for me. I find antique machines pretty to look at. My boxy, modern Bernina with its single bland pink and blue decal is a visual yawn compared to my Warwick, with its romantic hand-painted tendrils and mother-of-pearl decor on the bed, or to the elegant classicism of the legs, or "irons" that support the Willcox and Gibbs.

That's just a start, though. Most antique treadles were designed to take on a wide variety of materials, some of them very heavy and dense. They power through heavy-duty tasks that will wear out a motor on an electric machine. They won't whine if you want to go one-slow-stitch-at-a-time-in-a-really-delicate-spot. 

Granted that this is not a vintage sewing example, but I am proud to write that when I constructed floor length silk curtains recently, the Willcox managed sewing through four layers of silk and cotton lining, all together, and topped off by sticky, heavy commercial curtain header tape, without an issue. I turned to it after the Bernina refused to operate on such a heavy load. Silly me. Should have started with a treadle. 

 Then too, a vintage machine will produce vintage effects. My handcrank Singer 28k is a whiz at setting up gathers in heavy materials...it was built to do it. The Willcox (mine dates to 1911) will produce stitches so fine you can barely see them. A chainstitch machine, it was popular for making underclothing, among other things. As one contemporary guide explained, the stitches have more stretch and give than do lockstitches. You can produce simple chain stitch embroidery with it too, or sew on soutache braid just as such braid was originally meant to be attached. The "tuckmarker" produces perfectly aligned tucks of all sizes. 

There are many of us out there who love these machines, who conserve them and rescue them from being broken up for lampstands or other uses. Some of us collect them, others of us collect and use them, too. Most all of us feel that we are custodians of an important part of sewing history.

Where To Learn More If you have the least bit of interest in learning more, try these sites.

• TreadleOn, "headquarters for a group of almost a thousand people who collect and sew with 
• antique sewing machines". See http://www.treadleon.net/. This is a truly amazing group of folks from all over the world.
• The NeedleBar, "A reference site for collectors of antique and vintage sewing machines". See http://www.needlebar.com/
• ISMACS. "The International Sewing Machine Collectors Society caters to those interested in collecting and learning about full size and toy sewing machines". See http://www.ismacs.net/
• Photos of the vintage machines in my possession, at http://community.webshots.com/user/inkspot106. My collection is very small. There are many sites across the Web belonging to folks who have collected and conserved dozens and dozens of machines.

How 1910-1911 Clothes Really Looked When Worn

I've stumbled upon a truly fascinating series of photos of a young woman and her friends and family, circa 1910-1911. A number of them are snapshots as opposed to posed shots, of this young woman, Pauline, and her friends on a park bench, or mugging for a photographer, or Pauline posing thoughtfully in a meadow.

Formal posed pictures can show you someone's outfit at its best; a snapshot shows the outfit as it actually lived on the person...lapels awry, buttons straining fabric, hat flapping in a smart breeze. Then too there are the intangibles: in Pauline's photos you glimpse how people walked and sat or lolled in their clothes, and how they felt in them.

If you look carefully at these particular photos, you will see a long coat that Pauline favored, for instance, and didn't mind wearing out to play in. You'll see exactly how she wore it, sometimes with a hat, but no gloves in evidence. You'll see a handsome suit she sported one fall or winter day, and in one special snap of Pauline and her classmates, you'll see how a group of women all differently approached dressing for an occasion. How they wore sashes, or whether they choose plain skirts or ones with buttons or pleats, what neckline treatments, and how they did their hair to complement their outfits, is all crisp and clear.

See the Pauline set, maintained by BigBrownHouse, on Flickr, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/93468869@N00/sets/807535/. With kind thanks to BigBrownHouse for those shown here.

Patterns for a 1911 Wardrobe Online

The Textbook on Domestic Art, published in 1911 for use in high schools, teaches readers how to draft patterns for and then make up, step by step, pretty much a complete wardrobe, excepting a proper corset. What a treasure! Pretend you're a high-school student at that time, and you're off...

You will want to know the basics of sewing, such as how to do a running seam, but many concepts are actually covered pretty well. The patterns are basic ones lacking fancy trimmings other than ruffles: you add trimmings as you like. The patterns can be easily altered for an adult woman, I believe. Drafts and some photos are included.

Basic pattern drafts include:

For cotton materials:

• Drawers.
• Five gored underskirt (petticoat) with dust ruffle and flounce.
• From this you also move on to make a plain five gored dress skirt, kilted or pleated skirt, underskirt with bias flounces; circular upper made from five gored skirt draft.
• Shirt waist draft without sleeve. From this basic draft you make also (a) Corset cover, (b) Chemise. (c) Night gown with sleeve.
• Plain tailored shirt waist.
• French (bodice) lining draft.

For woolen materials:

• Seven gored skirt.
• Nine gored skirt.
• Designed waist on shirt waist pattern.
• Coat.

The book also describes the tools and types of fabrics you need (there is also a decent glossary of period fabric terms near the book's end), how to insert boning (!), the basics of ironing, and so on.

Therefore, if you're looking to build a Titanic-era wardrobe, this is probably a pretty good place to begin.

How To Get the Textbook

Visit Hearth: The Home Economics Archive at Cornell University, at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/. Choose Browse from the left nav bar, then browse for the book. You view and download the items page by page as text, page images, or PDF files. You can search the full text to find the pages you need. The pattern making starts around page 64. Before that you learn essential stitches, detailed handling of buttonholes and buttons, and so forth.

More about the Hearth Archive

It's a slow process digging through everything, but the archive contains literally hundreds of books about everything from sewing to childrearing to women’s wages. All with their original formatting and illustrations. Go Cornell and Ithaca, my hometown!

What if You Want to Produce Something Fancier? More Sources

• Try the Thornton’s cutting guide (1912) on the Costumer’s Manifesto, in the 1911-1920 pages at http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/1910links.htm. Drafts for peg-top skirts, Magyar blouses, Norfolk jackets, they’re all there. You won’t find a teaching guide for making them up, however.
• VintageSewing.info has the 1917 book American Dressmaking Step by Step, at http://vintagesewing.info/1910s.html. I love this book because it teaches you, with plenty of photos, how to make about any period seam imaginable, apply the fanciest of ruffles and insertion and trimmings. I frankly do not think that such techniques had changed that much since 1911, although skirt and bodice construction had certainly morphed more than a bit.
• La Couturiere Parisienne, at http://www.marquise.de/, that marvelous site, offers pattern drafts of clothes in this period, plus some instructions for making up, and often a photo of the result. They also have a translation, from German, of portions of a book on period sewing technique, dating to 1908. Since clothes of that period were considerably poufier and fluffier and fuller, some of the instructions will not apply to 1911-1912.
• Fashion drawings and photos of actual pieces are all over the Web. Sources for these that come immediately to mind: Among the Hedgerows, Demode, Costumer’s Manifesto, Sense and Sensibility, Fashion-Era.com. I’ve also run searches in Flickr using the tag “1911” and have come up with delightful period photos of people, often in more relaxed attitudes, with their friends, than what you’d find in a portrait-style shot. You see the clothes as they were worn in action, all stretched and mussed up.
  
  Happy sewing!

And Now, Said Chemisette Pattern

This chemisette, also known as a dickey, is a handy little item for wearing under a suit. They require little fabric to make, are easy to maintain and are cool. Back in the day, when women wore more underclothing, and fewer rooms were well or overheated, dickeys made a lot of sense. Today they still make sense, provided the weather, inside or outside, isn't too warm. That's because a dickey is nothing but a shirt front and back...there are no sides and no sleeves! Therefore, protect your good suit's lining they will not, and if you're wearing wool and it's a warm day, you're stuck with your suit all buttoned up.

Dickeys, I understand, started out in the 19th century, and maybe earlier, as economical fakes: shirt fronts that masqueraded as full shirts for men who lacked the money to purchase and maintain a full set of dress shirts.

Sometime along in there women caught on to dickeys, too. I have an Edwardian era dickey, mostly handsewn, in fine net and cotton, with a boned lace collar.

The dickey pattern at hand I made up for a Mystery Tea our Ladies' Tea Guild I attended this weekend. It took perhaps 5 hours to make, but that includes scaling up and adjusting the pattern, changing the collar style, and fitting it. As I am a slow seamstress, many of you could whip through the thing in no time flat. The material? Perhaps a half yard of white 45" muslin, in scraps!

The following pattern was adapted from The New Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing, Frances Blondin, editor. Published in 1943, in the midst of WWII, and put out in a second edition in 1946, the book takes you back to the Make and Mend era, when war shortages had women remodeling their dresses year after year and sewing up outfits for themselves and duds for their children from Daddy's old suits.

The pattern I used didn't come with sizing, but I found that the dickey fit me pretty well: my measurements are 36" bust and 30" waist, on a 5'6" frame, of average proportions; I am neither long- nor short-waisted.

I chose the gathered band collar since it appeared frequently in fashion drawings from 1940 of women's suit outfits.

One more note before we begin: if you look at the pictures you'll notice a lot of vertical seams down the front, a couple down the back, and one across the lower back. Those aren't from the pattern! That's me using up narrow scraps of fabric by seaming them together before cutting out the pattern. I just made sure that I aligned the seams such that they appeared symmetrically on the front and back.

Here's how to make the dickey/chemisette:
1) Scale up the patterns. I placed the pattern pieces on a cutting board with 1" squares, bought from Hancock Fabrics. You could measure out a grid with 1" squares fashioned from paper bags or even newspaper. Then you can size up the patterns just as I did. I eyeballed where each pattern line fell in a given square and replicated that line on your 1" square grid. If you have a measured cardboard cutting board, you can place stick pins at all the corners of the pattern and then in key curves. Then connect the pinhole dots with pencil.

2) Pin the front and back pieces together and fit it over your shoulder. The seam line should sit right on the shoulder. You'll probably find the back short: I did, and added 5 inches to the bottom.

3) Cut out the front and back. Both pattern pieces show one side: fold your fabric selvage to selvage and place left side of pattern on the fold.

4) Pin front and back together and try on again. If you're fussy, baste. Think the fabric isn't laying correctly on the shoulder? Pin the offending loose spots and after taking off the pieces, trim them and try on again.

5) Stitch front and back together only at the shoulder seams with a plain seam. If you like, finish the inside of the seam with a fake french seam.

6) Finish the side outer edges with a narrow double hem to prevent fraying.

7) Now you prepare the collar. Take a scrap of muslin the circumference of your neck plus enough for ease in wearing and about 1 inch for hems, and about 6 inches or so wide. I literally tried on a scrap around my neck until I felt it fit me well and was wide enough for taste. I folded the fabric not one, but 2 times, so that there is an inner layer that serves as interlining. I made sure I had about an inch (x2) extra on the bottom to seam to the front/back and to fold in.

8) Next, slash the back in the center down low enough to slide the chemisette over your head. If you're lazy, you can just fold back the vertical edges and hem them but naturally that will result in quite a little gap. I instead made a facing out of a scrap of fabric. Consult your favorite dressmaking book for facing neck or back openings...it's a bit much for me to explain here but actually goes really fast.

9) Gather the front neckline edge of the dickey almost from shoulder to shoulder. I made smallish gathers for a delicate effect. If you want big, full, gathers, use bigger gathering stitches.

10) Fit the collar to the neckline and seam it. You can encase the neckline edge with the folded over long sides of the collar: that hides the gathered eddge and keeps it from poking you. Me? I was in a hurry: I'd seamed the collar closed already and just seamed it to the dickey by sewing right side to right side. Not the best plan, as it resulted in all that gathered material, fine though it was, poking me when I wore it, but anything for speed when you're sewing under a deadline!

11) Finish off the ends of the collar with hems: make sure to leave enough on the ends to meet at the back of your neck and hook-and-eye it closed. Or you could leave one end longer than the other and overlap it? Much nicer effect, I'd think.

12) Prepare the waistband. I cut 2 pieces, each 7 inches by 17 inches. I turned under 1/2 inch on all sides for hems. Then I folded each piece in half lengthwise, and marked the centers. I finished off the ends with turned-in seams.

12) Affix waistband to front and back of dickey. I gathered the central section of the front with big soft gathers to taste. Then I took one of the band pieces, inserted the front into it, making sure the center of the band was at the center of the dickey front, and edge stitched the band closed. I seamed the back waistband in the same way, omitting the gathering. You will find such bands long enough to close easily with a button or (oh my!)(a safety pin) on each side.

13) Affix hook and eyes to collar.

That's what it took.

You can play with the design and add lace to the collar, add insertion lace down the front in vertical stripes or in patterns, add tucks, whatever pleases you.

The Encyclopedia states the following about dickey fabrics: "Since the charm of neckwear is its crisp freshness, the prime requisite for fabrics is that htey should launder well. Pique, handkerchief linen, dress linen, organdie, ginham, broadcloth, dress silks and rayons are suitable." (p. 170).

One last note: to get a sense for how a band collar worked when I wanted to change the original pattern, I consulted Harriet Pepin's Modern Pattern Design, another 40's work that is a really truly gem for understanding how clothes of that era were designed and constructed. You can find that book online, in full and illustrated, on VintageSewing.info.

Citation: The New Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing. Frances Blondin, editor. New York: WM H. WIse and Co., Inc. 1946.