Happy Valentine's Day!

To all mamas and daddies from their sweet little tots,
To all family and friends, from their little buddies,
With love.

Photo: Christopher at bedtime.

Small-but-Interesting Acquisitions

First, hairpins! They appear to be made of a sort of plastic, but they vary a good deal in color and pattern, which I am not used to plastic tortiseshell pieces doing. The box, labeled "Imperial", isn't much help either. I have no idea how old they are but thought them fascinating. Photo: six tortiseshell-patterned hairpins from a box of eight. Second, a length of black bauble trim! It's fun to hold, as the cord is silky and the baubles, which are shaped like tiny short cylinders, bang around in a satisfying way. Again, no idea how old this is. Photo: length of black silky bauble trim.

Designing a Dolly Varden Dress

Note: As June 2012, this project has been on hold for some years, since Regency projects intervened, but I may take it up again.

Having the proper corset ready, courtesy Originals by Kay (Kay Gnagey), and having made the proper bustle with the Truly Victorian Grand Bustle pattern (TV 108), the next step in the Dolly Varden ensemble project to design the dress.

I've been playing around with various designs and every little while have examined fashion plates and photos anew to refresh and check the design ideas. It is quite apparent that there is no one Dolly Varden design...the term was bandied about loosely. Most dresses presented a vaguely eighteenth century look, featuring a polonaise or polonaise-style overskirt and brightly colored fabrics or sometimes striped fabric. Most dresses lacked a train, but some had them. See A Brief History of the Dolly Varden Dress Craze in this blog for details.

Photo 1: A Dolly Varden dress design...not the final one.

Design Options

Two basic design options emerged.

Design Option 1

The first design, which currently pleases me most, is dominated by a poufy overskirt. Have a look at the figure on the right in photo number 2.

Photo 2: pannier overskirt designs from Peterson's, January, 1869. Image courtesy La Couturiere Parisienne.

The pattern would be a variation of one published in January, 1869 and titled Pannier Overskirt, featuring a split front with a nice little updrawing just to either side of the hips, recalling panniers, and much poufing in the back.

The overskirt would be trimmed with bows. Bows highlighting updrawn side panels were popular in 1872, says Cunnington's English Women's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. Again, following Cunnington, the back of the overskirt would be covered by a large bow with short tails, the bow attached to a belt.

The pattern published with the plate is actually for the figure on the left. Here are the original instructions (thanks to Couturiere Parisienne, again):

... made of claret cashmere, and trimmed with frills of the same and satin piping to match.
The tablier front is to be cut double, and without a seam down the center; a notch will be
found o one side of it, and a corresponding notch on one side of the rounded side breadth,
showing how these two pieces are to be joined together. The back breadth and side breadth
are joined by the corresponding notches. Both sides of the panier are alike; when the
breadths are all joined, the edge of the side breadth is to be laid in plaits from notch
to notch; there are in all five plaits... and a satin rosette added at the side where the
first (top) two plaits are arranged. A crinoline bustle should always be worn beneath this
kind of skirt.

Yet I can alter the panel to make the figure on the right! Take the front panel and split it down the center, and then extend the side panels across the back. Examine the two figures and you can see that this can be done, yes? Here's how I'd toile it, anyway:

• The side piece has tucks taken in it and then is seamed into the front piece, which itself is flat-ish. You can see this is true in both pictures.
• On the figure on the right, the front, instead of being doubled, is cut as is.
• The front piece appears to have just a little tuck made in it, too, so that it's drawn up a wee bit before it joins the side piece. This makes for a pretty drape as well as a tiny wrinkle, which the artist has rendered below the rosette.
• The placement of the rosette at the seamline on both figures I bet highlights the related nature of both costume designs.
• Otherwise, there is no real difference in the overskirt designs.

Google has placed the 1869 Peterson's volume online, so the pannier overskirt pattern is available. See page 77.

The underskirt in the pictured design is lovely but doesn't really suit the floofiness of many Dolly Varden originals: it's too severe. Therefore, I would probably include headered puffings with bias band trims (see the second design option below), which were so popular during the period.
I also like the way the bodice in the right-most figure is treated, although by 1872 the waistline had fallen a bit. It's rather clever: the bodice lines form a vee shape, reflected in the upside-down vee shape of the overskirt. Also, can you see the reference to an 18th century neckerchief in the wide falling bodice collar? I can. With some care, I could I would probably try to alter a Truly Victorian pattern to make the bodice. If I chickened out? Just change the bodice design to the ubiquitous square-necked design offered by Truly Victorian (TV 400).


For fabric, bodice and overskirt would be made in a an eighteenth century-ish beflowered pattern, while the underskirt and trimmings would appear in a plain French blue. Since a Dolly Varden dress is usually meant to be simple and informal, I am doing a first version in an inexpensive cotton waiting in the stash, flat-lined in more cotton to give it more body. I know that it will likely not give the drape that the original wool would give it.After all, wool drapes crazily beautifully, or a crisp silk, which drapes ditto, only crisperly, would do that too. I can only hope that making it up that with the cotton won't be depressing. Grrr.

Design Option 2
The second design of interest is more my own, and includes elements common generally that year, with only the fabric and the slightly bell sleeves with eighteenth-century style sleeve flouncing to mark it specifically as a Dolly Varden design. Have a look at photo number 1. Frankly, it's probably better for the cotton I have, being simpler and less reliant on drape, darn it. It would also look super in a flowered lawn or voile.

In this version, the bodice is a basic square-necked look(again, TV 400), trimmed at neck edge with a tiny tightly gathered lace or voile frill. The overskirt is the common apron-front design, gathered up at the sides and then falling in a fluffy, polonaise-y pouf in back. Both bodice and overskirt would be made of the flowered fabric; again the underskirt and trim would appear in the plain fabric.

Photo 3: Truly Victorian's TV 400 1871 day bodice pattern. I'd choose the view at top right.

Besides the apron and pouf, the main elements are the trimmings. Trim was what distinguished so many dresses in this period. It's been surmised that now-common sewing machine made making trims easier, so dresses began to be loaded with them.

In this dress, the trims are all variations on puffings. The neckline features a narrow puffing with a header on each side; in the center front, about the button closure, there is a small bow. The overskirt is edged with a wider puffing, the stitching on either side of the puffing covered with a blue bias band. Above the scantily flounced underskirt bottom is a similar puffing, even a bit wider.

Photo 4: An example of a large puffing applied to a sheer skirt. The puffing itself is the gathered puffy band in the center. To either side a band of insertion has been sewn to hide the puffing stitching. At the top edge is a gathered header; at the bottom is a very scantily gathered lace ruffle. Detail of photograph of a Mrs. Davidson, Montreal, Quebec, 1870-1871. McCord Museum.

Because puffings might get in the way, the sleeve cuff area features a simple gathered ruche, the stitching covered with the blue bias banding. The sleeve ends are flounced like they might be in the 18th century, with scalloping, and inside are faux undersleeves in white voile, similarly scalloped.

I've found a good overskirt pattern that has a fullish apron front, a nice lift up the sides (with tapes), and plenty of pouf and length in the back. The overskirt pattern in Jean Hunnisett's Period Costumes for Stage and Screen (plate 19, view F) will work, reports Heather McNaughton of Truly Victorian patterns.

Petticoat Patterns

I plan to set a fluffy, highly flounced petticoat over the bustle. I'll use the Truly Victorian skirt pattern TV201 as a base pattern, but trim it as lavishly as I can. De Gracieuse has several plates focused on petticoats. Here are two examples of trained petticoats from 1872. I like the version on the left with the pretty ruche with bias band applied to the center, but not having time at present to attempt a knife bottom flounce, would
replace it with the gathered flounce at the right, edged at bottom with Valenciennes lace.

Photo 5: 1872 petticoats from De Gracieuse. Memory of the Netherlands site, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag collection.

Harper's Bazar Nineteenth Century Fashion: All Online

A red-letter day! Cornell University's HEARTH site put much of Harper's Bazar online...from the magazine's inception in 1867, in fact, until 1900. I am enchanted.

One of the sources for high-style fashion news in America, the magazine's engravings are superb, and the text is full of fashion news, sewing and needlework instructions, fashion plates, articles and poetry, and in every other issue, a full set of patterns, too. Sadly, Cornell has no plans to post the pattern supplements. I wrote to ask them about it and they replied the same day.

Here is a sample of text describing the carriage dresses featured on the July 18, 1868 cover:

1. Dress of blue silk, with tablier simulated by a puffing of the same, edged with narrow black lace, which begins at the waist, and sloping on each side borders the entire bottom of the dress, excepting the front breadth. Two similar rows of puffing, separated by black lace, are set above this on the bottom of the skirt. A row of silk bows, composed of four loops without ends, are set down the middle of the front breadth, in the manner of buttons. Large carriage mantle, with "full slashed sleeves, of black cashmere, lined with rose-colored silk, and trimmed with gold fringe and galloon. Black lace bonnet, with gilt diadem, and red rose and leaves at the side.
Fig. 2. Dress of changeable silk (gorge de pigeon) trimmed with a box-pleated flounce. Black lace mantelet attached to the bonnet. Corsage half low, with white muslin chemise Russe. Sleeves tight, trimmed with three silk folds. Belt edged with a bias fold of silk. Half long gloves of peau de Suede; changeable silk parasol, to match the dress, lined with white gros de Naples, with wide changeable fringe.

You see? Incredible detail.

Some of the plates and patterns in Harper's Bazar are the same as those in De Gracieuse of the Netherlands, and the supplements for that magazine are available online (see my Fashion Plate and Photo Sources list for details). Why are the patterns the same, you might ask? Because Harper's Bazar took much of its content from Die Modenwelt in Berlin, which in turn seems to have copied Paris fashions.* America still leaned heavily on Europe for fashion instruction in those days.

The posted pages are fairly well scanned, although many seem a little dark, and the text is fully searchable, a real boon.

See the magazine index.

* The book Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers, by Regina Lee Blaszczyk (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) states that Die Modenwelt was published across Europe, using the same fashion plates, in some 13 languages. De Gracieuse, I surmise, was one of these.

A Favorite Kitty, Happily Adopted

Several weeks ago my friend Polly told me about Sophie, a four-year-old cat up for adoption from the Scott County Animal Shelter. Polly had met her at Petsmart and thought she'd be a lovely companion for our kitty Ladybug. Sophie, she said, was sweet-natured and purry and pretty...and liked children! Inexplicably left by a family when they'd moved, she'd spent over four months without a home already.

I'd been so hoping for another kitty, and so I visited her page on Petfinder. Without ado, I fell in love. She's a dilute calico, long-haired, gentle-eyed. She wants to be cradled. She wants to remain close to her people all day. She needs love. We have plenty and more to give, I thought.

Photo: Sophie's sweet, soft face. Courtesy Petfinder.

We couldn't adopt her: family life here is so short on sleep and long on work due to the twins that my husband couldn't see adding another member just yet, so with regret, he nixed the idea.

I scrambled to see if a friend or friend of friend could take her in, not the first time I've done something like this. So many little kitties I've fostered, fed, socialized, found homes for with family, with friends. In recent years tiny striped Piper, named for his big voice, sat on the car armrest between my husband and I from Kentucky to Asheville to meet my parents, and then lapsat his way to Wilmington, North Carolina, to be their kitty. A year or so before that sweet-natured, floppy, sprawl-all-over-you Dixie flew with me to Atlanta in his own carrier to live with a colleague. And there have been others. I hoped to help Sophie, too.

Sophie Finds a Home...with Natalie

This morning I spoke with Polly, and what a funny thing, Providence heard me, for Polly saw her adopted. She'd been back to Petsmart with two kittens she's trying to place, and sitting there in the adoption corner, she watched a little girl and her parents arrive. They found Sophie's cage. They had it opened, the little girl picked her up, and fluffy Sophie settled in her arms. The girl had vision problems, Polly said, and looked like she very much wanted a friend to love. The little kitty, it was clear, wanted a friend too, and cuddled with the girl. And so she was adopted, and off they went. The little girl's name? The same as mine: Natalie.

Photo: Fluffy fur and diluted colors, and a playful paw, and that happy tail, like a flag.

Coincidence, say you? Hmmm. As my mother said, her Natalie (me) so wanted to save a kitty but couldn't, and already has Ladybug to love. This little Natalie wanted and needed a kitty friend, but didn't have a kitty, so the right Natalie for the kitty was found.

Last Saturday Sewing Circle: Materials for The Inaugural Meeting

We've done it! A group of us are trying out a period sewing circle, to meet on the last Saturday of every other month. At this inaugural meeting, we'll talk about the varied nature of period sewing, think about what each of us would like to make, and I will show a portion of my antique clothing and period-inspired and period reproduction pieces.

Photo: Pauline in her walking skirt, circa 1911. Photo courtesy Big Brown House.

Period-Inspired Skirts: A Fun Starting Project

Because many period-style skirts need fitting only at waist and sometimes hips, and because they're often made with straight seams, they make a good starting project. Fashionable and wearable they can be, too. Who doesn't like a little swish around the ankles?

Without getting too deeply into fashion history, I can tell you that in years past the term "walking skirt" meant a skirt that was easy to wear for, well, walks and rambles, shopping and informal occasions like snipping flowers. Walking length skirts were normal for working clothes, too, when you expected to become grubby and needed to climb or kneel without the pretty appendage of a tail -- a train -- trailing behind you.

Photo: Dame Nellie Melba, 1909, in a skirt with quite a tail...er, train. From State Library of Queensland, Australia, uploaded to Flickr.

Here's a video from 1904 with many shots of women in skirts of walking length: see how they move! (See also the post on Edwardian Promenade about the clip.)





Here's an original walking skirt with felled seams. Functional and pretty! See the blog post "Anatomy of a 1900-1911 Vintage White Heavy Cotton Skirt".

Some Skirt Options for Our Circle

Sense and Sensibility Patterns carries a pattern called the Beatrix skirt, that was inspired by the skirts that Beatrix Potter lived in on her farm. The style dates to 1909 and depending on the fabric used and how you cut the waist and hem, and how you sew the seams can go from outdoorsy and functional to the elegant clinging line of that year, complete with a small train. The skirt is fullish, but is not meant to flare out. Like most skirts of that year, it's composed of multiple gored panels: 9, in this case. The panels help shape the skirt around the body for a smoother line.

Photo: Outdoorsy version of the Beatrix skirt. Photo courtesy Sense and Sensibility patterns.

I've made this skirt several times and have helped friends to make it too, and each time it's a fun process. There was the dressy version, for instance, and now the version that will be incorporated into a lingerie dress. For our purposes, the pattern is especially helpful because Jennie Chancey, the pattern designer, has posted illustrated directions. What I can show is how the pattern can be altered and period techniques used to create different effects.

A 1911 Skirt That Flares More
You might also be interested in a plain five-gore dress skirt from 1911. That year skirts flared out around the feet a bit more...the last year long skirts would do so. This pattern for this one comes from a high school textbook of the era called Textbook on Domestic Art and must be drafted. You can download the entire book from Google and print out the pages you need.

The drafting directions are clear, and the process requires little more than large sheets of Kraft paper or newspaper, a yardstick, a pencil and eraser, and the ability to add and subtract. Detailed drafting directions for skirts as a whole, based on a five-gore underskirt (petticoat), start on page 74, with directions specific to the skirt itself starting on page 119. Now, since these patterns are based on proportions, we may have to fiddle with the initial draft a bit if you aren't proportioned like ladies of the era, and most women aren't: the textbook expected this. See my blog post on drafting and using algebra to get the right sweep on an underskirt from a pattern in the same textbook, for instance. It all ended well...

An Narrow 1912 Skirt

If you're willing to read teeny-tiny print and do some drafting, you can draft a narrow skirt, from 1912 from Thornton's International System of Ladies' Garment Cutting, available on the Costumer's Manifesto site. I made a skirt for my friend Denise using one of these patterns, called the "New Style Costume Skirt" and it turned out very nicely. Construction was easy since the skirt was only in two pieces, but if you decide to make this skirt, we'll need to cut the fabric somewhat large and carefully fit it to you because it is snug around the hips.

For directions, see page five in the series of scans and look for the New Style Costume Skirt image and its directions page .

If you wish to try another Thornton's pattern, or any other Edwardian pattern, for that matter, that will be fun too, but since I'll not have made those skirts, we will have to do some fiddling and thinking things out, especially if the pattern is to be drafted.

After We Meet, What Next?

If you use a commercial pattern, you'll obtain the pattern, and if you want to draft one, you can either try it yourself or we can meet and do at least part of it together...if you don't mind small children underfoot.

Then, it's on to cutting out and fitting, and basting...so in my next Sewing Circle post, I'll write about period manuals that I think cover these issues most clearly, along with some superb dress diaries, fully illustrated, that show all this in action!

See you soon, ladies!

Edwardian "Lingerie" Dress Diary: Part 5

It's been awhile since I've had much to report on the Edwardian tea dress that I started, goodness, last spring! You know how it goes...you get sidetracked with other projects.

Anyhow, I've gone back to it in as much earnest as I can muster, and have gotten the sleeve cuffs mostly added. This doesn't sound like much, but the cuffs are entirely of period lace, and I had so little of that lace that one cuff wasn't long enough to go around my wrist.

Old Sewing Stitches Make a New Cuff

So I had to take a tiny remaining lace fragment, and attach it to one end. I did not seam it the way you might with two pieces of fabric, but used as closely as I could an old method described in Frances' Grimble's The Ladies' Stratagem -- I laid one end of the lace over the other end, hoping that the pattern would match up decently, and then very carefully overcast and sewed the two pieces together with as invisible stitches as I could do, following the curves of the lace pattern.

Photo: the cuff in progress: the ends are being overcast together. Click the image to see how the pieces of lace are joined.

What this did was to blend the fragment in with the rest of the lace...if you look carefully you can see the join, of course, but it's not only less visible than a regular seam would be, but uses less lace so was able to eke out what I needed to go 'round my wrist.

I still had 'nary enough lace to seam up the lace into a cuff, soooo...I am in the process of overcast stitching the two ends together, with tiny, very close stitches. Again, this is an old method.

One last thing. One cuff makes use of an existing period machine-stitched hem to create the cuff hem. The piece of lace for the other hem -- the too-short one, natch -- lacks this premade hem.

Soooo, once again I turned to an old hand-sewing method. I turned the hem double like normal, but then "stitched", and this is the formal term, down the hem. To make a line of stitching, you 1) pull the needle up through the fabric for your first stitch, then 2) carry the thread back behind where it came up a few threads, push the needle through to create a stitch, then pull it up in front of the stitch the same number of threads forward as you did backwards, then 3) carry the thread back and place it in the hole made by the previous stitch. Do this over and over again. You will create what looks like machine stitching, but with only one thread.

This stitch is time-consuming, and I am not yet very good at it at all, but the result does look enough like the machine stitching on the other cuff to take casual observation. See the picture above.

I took a tip from Elizabeth Stewart Clark's board and attached the work to my knee with a pin. The tension created on the fabric helps you to make a straight line. Other sources suggest you draw or base a line to follow, so your stitching line won't wander: I'd forgotten that when I did this hem and you can see the line wander a little.

Photo: the bodice to date

Next Steps

After I get the other cuff attached, and bind the raw inside edges with voile, then I finish the back of the bodice with hooks and eyes, and sew down endlets of lace back there, then attach the bodice to the skirt, oh, and add period lace insertion to about a foot above the skirt hem.

Cheri Owned Fabric of the Same Pattern: Did It Come from the Same Dress?


I wrote about doing up the cuffs on the Sense and Sensibility board, and what an usual surprise, Cheri wrote to say: "Oh I wish now that I would have waited to sell some fabric that I just sold. ::sighs:: Did yours look anything like this: http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=12920645 Why is it when I get rid of something or sell something, it's afterwards that I wish I hadn't?!"

Photo: Cheri's piece of fabric. Photo courtesy Cheri.

Oh, my goodness, it's the same pattern! Plus, she bought it from an Ebay dealer too: I'd gotten mine from a dealer in Maine, but she cannot remember where hers came from. We wonder...was it the same person?

New Boots!

New boots, new boots, nothing like the love for new boots.

These are darlings, besides being so comfortable, as so many boots definitely are not. They're what a friend called paddock boots, from Bob Mickler's, a tack shop here in town, and their shape and the snap button boots on the side recall the button boot style that I love so well.

Made by Ariat, they're sturdy as anything, constructed of strong leather that still manages to be supple, and the sole not only has a shank as almost as wide as three fingers held together, but also one of those air package thingies inside. I can easily wear them all day.

What an unexpected Christmas gift from my husband! We'd agreed to exchange only a book apiece, but there was this lovely treat, a big box under the Christmas tree, and was I happy! I've been without boots. Had wanted badly to purchase the Fugawee Victoria balmoral-style boots, which the Ariat boots hint at, but since whatever boots I found needed to be worn with everything, indoors and out, period or not, these were so practical. Hooray for practicality with a traditional, vintage touch.


Right boot, right side

Ditto, left side

Left side

Split Seconds: A Cookie with Warm Memories

Split Seconds are simplicity itself to make. Do not let the title fool you into thinking that they're "partly homemade" baked things. No, these are butter cookies dotted on top with your favorite jam or preserve and they are delicious in the way only butter cookies can be.

Because my husband and I have a bet on that we will leave desserts alone for an entire six months (I make exceptions for ladies' teas and Easter), today I wave goodbye to baking and sweets for awhile by baking these cookies, and filling the house with a favorite aroma and even nicer memories.

Cooking Collections of Memory

Back in the 1980s I started what became a series of recipe collections, each contained in a bound artist's sketch book, on nice thick paper. Each book was filled over several years and each reflects, by accident, my favorite dishes and menus during that time. Because many of the recipes are accompanied by notes, the results are also an imperfect history: old beaux, sisters, friends, dinners and parties get their time, and later there is a recounting of the evening my husband and I became engaged, and a long account written during September 11.

What I wrote about this recipe, back in book number 1: known oddly enough as Second Cookbook, 1987:

One of my earliest cookie memories. Mom used to make these pretty often, and sometimes I think I can remember her first kitchen, or the one in the first house she and Daddy ever owned. it had red counters, and lots of windows, and red and white checked curtains. One of the counters was like a bar and you could sit on one side, the breakfast nook side, and watch mom cook -- especially I remember helping her bake (i.e., eat dough, pat it or cut it out or lick batter from spoons). [Today's note: I wrote this in the eighties, when being a child wasn't so far back. Now that kitchen, circa 1963-1968, would be a spot I would ooh over as a friendly retro kitchen, with those handmade cafe curtains and linoleum -- Mom, correct me if I am wrong! -- counters with aluminum edging, and half-windowed back door out into a sunny yard with flower beds, and a white picket fence that closed with a chain and cannon-ball weight.]

Now, you can make these into long ropes which you cut into bars, or you can make them into little rounds. Red jam is best -- it looks like rubies.

Mom made them while we lived in Germany, too (when I was around five or six years old).

The cookies, attributed to a Mrs. Karen M. Fellows, come from "Fun-Filled Butter Cookie Cookbook", by Pillsbury.

The Recipe

[Note: My cooking notes are in brackets. The rest is in Mom's words.]

Bake at 350 degree F for 125-20 min.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Sift together

2 c flour [all-purpose white flour; I use unbleached local flour from Wiesenberger Mills]
1/2 tsp baking powder (double acting) [note that this recipe dates to a time when single-acting powder was commonly on store shelves, too]
2/3 cups sugar

Blend in

3/4 cups soft butter
1 unbeaten egg
2 tsp vanilla

to make a dough.

Place on a greased cookie sheet, either in long rolls [which you have rolled in your hands like play dough] or in little flattened rounds.

Make a depression 1/4-1/3" deep, either in the rounds, or [down] the middle of the rolls. Fill depressions with red jam or jelly. Strawberry, or especially rasberry, is best. [Since then I have used other types of jam and today, in fact, I am using a peach jam from Renfro Valley, Kentucky.]

Bake until light golden brown. [Again, about 15-20 minutes, but watch carefully, because butter makes cookies that are a light golden brown move to dark burned brown in what seems like a heartbeat.]

While warm, if in bars [Mom probably meant to write "long rolls"], cut [cookies] into squares. [We always cut them into narrow oblongs, so that they are not so big.]

This evening I will add pictures!

Completed: Wool Christmas Skirt with Ruche

This skirt was supposed to debut at Thanksgiving, but because I sew in short spaces between work, babycare and household tasks, it was only Christmas Eve, early in the morning, that the last ruching was completed. I wore it to Christmas Eve service and then to a dinner date at Jonathan's on Saturday, and now again to a lunch date.

Photo: the skirt debuts

The skirt panels (there are only two!) and side placket closure are copied from a plain denim skirt my mother owns and that I have always admired the fit of, but the rest is my design: I used no waistband, facing the interior instead, and sandwiching a full-length lining there; I also faced the bottom with a 2-inch hem for better hang, and of course, adding the ruche :}


The ruche idea originated as I was reading Frances Grimble's The Lady's Stratagem: so many skirts of the late 1820s focus attention on the skirt hem, and the general lightly A-line cut with slim hips was popular too. I thought, ooh, ruches are popular this year, and wouldn't it be fun to see a little ruche flutter near my feet!

Photo: skirt front

Construction

I made the skirt using, excepting the bag lining, generally period methods...from herringboning hems to placket construction to the hand-gathered and feathered ruche. The extra care makes the skirt sturdier and certainly makes the interior feel more finished. :}

The skirt panels: traced and cut

The skirt is constructed of only two panels, front and back. They are shaped with a curve at the hips on the side seams and a slight A-line cut. There is no need for darts at the waistline, at least in my case. To copy the panels from my mother's skirt, I laid the lining fabric out on one of those fold-up cardboard boards marked with inches that Hancock's sells, pinned the skirt as flat on top as I could, and traced around the edge with tailors chalk. First I made sure that back and front were the same cut... Jennie Chancey has instructions, titled How to Make a Pattern from a Favorite Garment for copying a pattern on her Sense and Sensibility Patterns site.

After pinning the lining together and trying it on to test fit it, I cut out the fashion fabric by using the lining piece as a pattern. At the same time, I traced the bottom curve of the skirt over scrap fabric and cut out a two-inch hem facing (with extra for seam and hem allowances), then repeated the process at the waistline for a waist facing.

Seaming

Next I pinned, basted and stitched up the side seams, and left them raw since the wool doesn't ravel badly and there is a lining to protect it. I left one side with a nine or so inch unsewed space at the top for the placket.

Then I pinned, basted and stitched the lining's side seams, again leaving room for a placket and machine-hemmed the lining bottom.

Attaching the lining: a sandwich effort

Then it was time to attach the lining to the skirt. I made a "sandwich": the raw top of the waist facing and raw top of the skirt right sides together, with the raw top edge of the lining in between. I pinned, basted and stitched it. I then trimmed the seam allowances very close to the stitching to reduce bulk, turned the facing inwards, and voila, the lining was attached and the seam hidden. To prevent the facing from rolling towards the outside when the skirt was worn, I carefully edge-stitched the skirt top from the outside.

I feel very fortunate to use a Willcox and Gibbs chainstitch machine: the presser foot is very narrow indeed, has a super grip on the feed dogs, which are also placed close together, and I use an extremely sharp needle. This helps me to sew neatly (usually) very, very close to the edge of the fabric: a wider presser foot would make it harder to see what I was doing, and the wider-set feed dogs would have a harder time gripping the fabric, because only one side would probably be gripped. Here are some shots of the machine from an 2006 post.

The skirt placket

Next, the placket. I made both underlap and overlap pieces for this skirt, as the wool is thin and needs some extra body. The original skirt just had an underlap, but that skirt was denim. Instructions on making this sort of placket are covered in a previous post, titled Edwardian and Victorian Skirt Plackets: Where to Find How Tos.

One nice little touch: Chapter XV of Frances Grimble's The Lady's Strategem, titled "The Art of the Mantua Maker or Cutter of Gowns", covers what was then called "plain sewing" in quite a bit of detail, as she has translated sewing manuals from French. At that time seamstresses made quite a bit of use of tight overcasting to finish edges of fabric, and to seam two pieces of fabric together!

Since I didn't want to create unnecessary bulk where the underlap and overlap are joined at the bottom, I pinned the two pieces together and tightly overcasted them, placing the stitches very close together, to prevent ravelling of the raw edges, and the stitches just far enough back from the raw edge to hold the seam securely. This method probably would not work on seams that get a lot of stress or with ravelly fabric. Here, however, it prevented me from having to hem or otherwise finish the bottom of the placket and so doing, create extra bulk.

Interior finishes, fasteners, and facings


Next, interior finishes at the waistline and lining placket: I roll-hemmed the edges of the lining at the placket opening, and carefully herringbone stitched the lower edge of the waist facing down onto the lining (not catching the real skirt fabric, however). Herringbone stitches have give to them, so they can take a little pulling, and they look neat! You see them used in the linings of older nicely tailored coats, for instance. If you've never used a herringbone stitch before, check the manuals at http://www.VintageSewing.info.

Photo: interior finishes at the placket. If you click on the image to see the large version, you'll probably spot the place where my vaunted neat edge stitching wavered a bit!

Let's see, after that, I attached the hem facing at the skirt bottom...same method as the waist facing, but without sandwiching the lining, as the lining hangs free. I hemmed it to the inside of the skirt carefully with what the Regency era called "side stitches" and later eras called a hemming stitch.

Then it was on to attaching hooks and eyes and snaps. I do not like zippers, as a matter of taste. As for using both hooks and eyes and snaps, some Edwardian manuals suggest putting a few hooks and eyes up top, then snaps lower down, where there is less stress. So that is what I did.

Photo: herringbone stitches attach the waistline facine to the lining. You may note that there is an incipient wrinkle in the facing: I gained a little weight at Christmas and gracious, if it isn't stressing the skirt! I had it fitting very closely, you see. Hmmm.

The ruche

At last, the ruche. I used fabric on the straight of grain rather than the bias, since I like the body of it. I cut it three inches wide (I wanted a bold effect!), cutting two lengths twice the length of my skirt hem circumference. After seaming them into one long length, I sewed a tight stitch straight down each long side about a half inch from the raw edge to try to control excessive fraying.

After this, I ruched. All this means is that I took a longish needle, threaded it, and sewed basting stitches down the longways middle of the fabric. I pushed several little gathers of fabric onto the needle before drawing the thread through; this helped the stitches be of even length and speeded the sewing. Every six inches or so I gathered the fabric and sewed a backstitch or two to hold that section so it wouldn't "ungather", then repeated the process.

By the way, 2x the skirt circumference was not long enough for a full ruche. I ended up having to cut another length, to ruche that, and to, carefully as I could, hand-seam it to the other pieces without showing. It worked pretty well. That's what can happen when you work by guess and by golly, no?

After that? I "feathered" the edges of the fabric by laboriously pulling threads until I had a narrow fringe.

Photo: the ruche. Note the line of stitching near each feathered edge, to, I hope, control raveling a bit

The final step: I tacked the ruche down at precisely the level where the skirt facing was hemmed inside the skirt: this hides any showthrough of those hemming stitches :}

There you have it. I used lots of handwork for just a simply two-panel skirt, but I enjoy handwork, and the result is, I think, pleasing.

A thought about the fabric: it's a very lightweight wool plaid, in cocoa with blue and pink bars, so soft as to barely be seen and I believe the fabric is a worsted...I am not over-familiar yet with wools. It's from Hancock Fabrics, which each year seems to carry at least one very nice wool. Anyhow, the wool has a marvelous drape, but unlike heavier wools, is apt to wrinkle if sat upon long. I see some wrinkles in the front caused, I am sure, by holding warm little Christopher for almost an hour in the pew box...he'd act like a warm iron :}

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, a very merry Christmas. The creche you see belonged to my mother's family, and battered as the figurines are, I couldn't imagine unwrapping and setting out any others. Displaying them, I see the Christmas miracle, but also memories.

The Christmas Skirt...Almost There

Wouldn't you know that the eve before Christmas Eve I'd be sitting on the floor, under a blanket, as close to the fire as I can get without scorching, ruching madly and then equally madly tacking the ruche to the Christmas skirt that was supposed to debut at Thanksgiving.

While we're using the word "mad", let me say I was rather mad to find that the estimate of 2 times the skirt circumference for the ruche was by just 6 inches not enough, and so I have to cut more fabric, ruche it, and then stitch it to the rest and try to hide the seams. And have until 4:30 tomorrow, when we leave for Christmas Eve service, to do it...in between work, baby care, cookie baking and pasta sauce making. Oh, and laundry. Umm hmmm. Typical.

Photo: a peek at the Christmas skirt with its ruche set at top of the hem. Don't ruches remind you of fancy cake decorations?

From Fall to Winter...But Lengthening Days

Yesterday marked the winter solstice, the darkest, shortest day of the year. This morning it already feels brighter to me, for now, each day, there will be a little more light, and then a little more, and a little more, until it is spring again.

Photo: Noah behind the potted oregano-cum-geranium, which is jammed next to a Chinese fan palm.

Meanwhile, we'll appreciate how the barren tree branches are sketches in the sky, how the sun reflects from the occasional snows, how the winter birds sing on the random warmish afternoon, when there is a hint of earth smell in the air.

Indoors, we will create a little springtime of our own, in the back guestroom, where morning and afternoon, it is always bright.

Photo: Christopher inspects the same plants, the geranium bravely blooming. Outside, rain patters on the window.

On Virtue

"That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the centinel."
Oliver Goldsmith
The Vicar of Wakefield

For some reason, The Vicar of Wakefield, an old copy of which I picked up at the International Book Project, is resonating, lines and scenes from the book interrupting mundane tasks today like making bean soup and dishwashing.

Virtue comes from within, I agree, and if it's set deeply enough, if it's normal to you, you'll respond less to invitations to act inappropriately, yes?

But Oliver, don't forget about the influence of the people around you!

It appears -- the book is as yet half unread -- that our Wakefield family is about to find that norms from without are going to have a hard time balancing with the norms within.

Oh, my baby boys, what we have ahead of us, too...

Sigh.

Memories of a Fall Photo Shoot

Fall is long gone, say the snow-trimmed trees, fall is far away, say the blackened walnut hulls lurking underneath their cold white blanket.

Yet this fall and two happy twin boys romping during our late October photo shoot will remain fresh and green in my memory so long as I live.

Photos, right and below: Noah in Ashland's walled garden; Christopher holds a black walnut.

Thanksgiving for Everything

...My cup runneth over.

23rd psalm

...Our cup runneth over...

May your Thanksgiving run over with thankfulness too.

An Edwardian Hairstyle: Four-Part Video Tutorial

Here is a fascinating, four-part video tutorial on creating a very pretty Edwardian hairstyle. It's not a Gibson-girl pompadour, but more complex, more sculpted, as video author Wildilocks explains. Ms. Wildilocks is a professional hairstylist, and the style she creates is not for the faint of heart, and could not be done by onesself.

Photo: the completed hairstyle

Nevertheless, for those of us sans friends or family who can style our hair, there are still techniques that we can learn.

Worth watching!

Part 1
In which we learn how to part the hair, start the several ponytails that form the bases of the hairstyle, and start creating rolls and puffs.



Part 2
In which we focus first on the top rolls and puffs, and then on the back hair, teasing the ponytail there to create puffs.


Part 3
In which we create a roll on the side.


Part 4
The completed hairstyle. Lots of puffs, rolls and sculpting, especially on the back and sides.

The Past in Review: More Photo Resources

If you're interested in period photographs, do spend some time with the daguerrotypes and photographs of families, couples, houses, military scenes and more offered on these sites:

• the Daguerrian Society's site,
  
• the Earthly Angels blog,
  
• the Hugh Mangum collection ca 1890-1922, housed at Duke University (zoomable, so you can see details!)
  

The images can be so evocative. I caught myself smiling at some of the faces; others I studied in fascination, wondering what lay just outside the bounderies of the photographs.

Photo: Young lady on a bicycle, circa 1890s; Hugh Mangum collection, negative no. 274.

Note: These resources have been added to the Fashion Plate and Photo Resources list.

1890s Shirtwaist? No, 1980s! About the New Edwardian/Victorian Style

In the last post I showed a shirtwaist I made with sleeves patterned after the giant leg 'o mutton sleeves popular circa 1894-1896. The rest of the sewing detailing I took from an original shirtwaist that I thought dated to the very early 1890s.

Having asked on the Sense and Sensibility board about how to copy the garment, several of the more senior members pointed out that several features on the blouse, especially the horizontal bust darts, show that this blouse dates to the New Edwardian fashion in the 1980s and was handsewn by an admirer of that style, which was popularized by makers such as Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley. Oops! Ah, so while this blouse is vintage, it is not antique. Collecting clothing is such a learning process!

Here below I describe the shirtwaist and then the Sense and Sensibility members discuss it and give a history of the fashion movement that spurred its creation.

Photo: Edwardian renaissance 1980s shirtwaist

Blouse Construction

The shirtwaist is an interesting garment, so I thought it might be helpful to show that shirtwaist so you can see how it is made.

In the first photo we have the shirtwaist front. The garment is made of a a very soft, sheer windowpane checked cotton. It's trimmed with inexpensive eyelet, of the sort still available today, although the eyelet stitching is tighter than that found now.

In front, the bodice section features a bust dart to either side as well as a pair of darts taken from the bottom. One of the bottom darts was sewed in backwards, which makes me feel better as a seamstress.

Photo: shirtwaist interior

As discussed in the last post, the inside of the garment shows it was very simply sewn. While the main seams are french, so the seams won't look messy when the sheer blouse is worn, the armscye seams are left unfinished. The bottom hem, which you cannot see, if just turned up once and sewn.

The collar is finished nicely, though, for all it's so simple, It appears as if the collar was cut with an inside and outside piece, and the lace trim was sandwiched in the seam, with collar pieces right sides together, and stitched, and then the collar pieces turned out, so that the trim raw edge was hidden inside. Clever, eh?


The sleeves are interesting, too. Note the little tucks that are set into the back side...the sleeves are made of one piece, so the tucks would have been set right after each sleeve piece was cut out, and then the sleeve would have been sewn up.

The cuffs are neatly finished, too.


Here is exterior of a cuff.


Here is the interior of that same cuff.


All in all, it's a graceful little garment!

Dating the Blouse, and A History of the New Edwardian/Victorian Movement, by Sense and Sensibility Board Members

The ladies on Sense and Sensibility kindly assented to my reprinting their comments here, as instruction not only in garment dating but also in features of New Edwardian style.

After Emma Ruth pointed out the bust dart issue, I checked in with the S&S folks again. Acacia wrote:

Natalie, have you considered that this might be a 1970's blouse? It's got that "Gunne Sax" look. I may have owned a very similar blouse at one time. Check if the back button holes appear to be machine stitched. Check to see if there were ever any wire supports in the collar (which might indicate an earlier date).

I wrote back, describing the blouse much as I did above. Then Acacia replied:

It certainly sounds like you have some lovely vintage sewing techniques in this blouse. I wouldn’t place too much thought into the use of selvage. Home sewers do what they like.

I can’t offer any more thoughts on this. It may indeed be from an earlier time, but the New-Edwardian fashion trend during the 1960’s-1970’s produced some very pretty garments that would match your blouse. The back neck closure was common enough during this Edwardian revival. A homemade garment could include everything you’ve described. Another extremely popular designer during this period was Laura Ashley. There were lots of sewing patterns available (from the big companies to some of the smaller independent companies) to make these styles. Folkwear Patterns showed up in the 1970’s as well.

It's a lovely little blouse. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Frances Grimble of La Volta Press wrote:

That is definitely a 1980s blouse. It's the Ralph Lauren/Victorian revival look. Some of the commercial ones were quite fancy and expensive, but there were plenty of home-sewing patterns for that style as well. I made one from a Vogue pattern, with a lot of hand sewing, and another one from hand-embroidered vintage dresser covers. I also have several of the fancy commercial ones. It is very pretty; but if you want to make one like it, the easiest thing to do would be to surf eBay for similar patterns from the 1980s.

Then we chatted a little about the learning process, and Frances undertook to explain the style a bit more. It's fascinating, as she describes a revival of period fashions that from which our current love of period fashion has had such help:

Sure, go ahead and quote. I will add, that if you often want to date garments (or accessories or costume jewelry), one thing you need to do is to become familiar with later styles that copied those garments.

This body is actually closer to an 1880s breakfast-style basque (to be worn in the morning over a skirt) than to an 1890s blouse. Those however usually have princess seams or long front darts rather than the two kinds of darts, and they usually button in front. The sleeves are usually cut in two pieces. These basques are also usually trimmed around the bottom, and often are more highly trimmed in general.

The 1890s style blouses are not as close fitting, and they also do not have the two kinds of darts. Usually they have a front to be worn at least somewhat puffed, with tapes sewn onto the back at the waist to bring round and tie, to keep the puff, and the blouse in general, in place. Usually the part below the waist is so short that, even if you're very short yourself, it's hard to keep the blouse tucked in without not only the ties, but a very tight-waisted skirt on top, and preferably a belt too. Vintage clothing dealers often sew some more fabric onto the bottom.

But the plain body with two kinds of darts, the one-piece sleeve slightly puffed at the shoulder, the sheer material, and in general the features, is absolutely 1980s.

In the 1970s there was a fashion for “Victorian” styled garments, which was to some extent mingled with the also-fashionable “peasant” look. The styles were very loosely derived from historic (and ethnic) models, and cheerfully combined the features of various eras. They included things like empire-waist tunics and long dresses, calf-length cotton skirts with a ruffle at the bottom, and white cotton blouses with nylon lace. Pure cotton fabrics were very fashionable, often of a rather coarse weave and often with little floral prints. Coarse 100% cotton machine-made bobbin lace was trendy and you can still find lots of it for sale on eBay. Popular manufacturers included Gunne Sax and Laura Ashley (neither of which did particularly high-quality construction).

The “Victorian” look gradually became more sophisticated and began to feature higher-quality fabrics and construction. Fashionable garments included blouses in the style you have, usually semi-sheer, cream or white, and decorated with lace in some way; for example a high lace collar and wide cuffs, and/or a sewn-on lace jabot, and/or a lace yoke, or the whole blouse made of lace. Handkerchief linen was widely used for these blouses. Other styles included long, full skirts made of fabrics like velvet, suede, or handkerchief linen; upholstery brocade vests styled more or less like mid-19th-century men’s vests; tailored tweed jackets and long skirts (to wear with the fancy blouses); long khaki cotton front-buttoning “safari” skirts; and fake or real Victorian or Edwardian lingerie worn as outer garments, especially petticoats, camisoles (new ones made of little cotton prints were also popular), and for the more daring, long drawers (worn peeking out from below a petticoat or from the unbuttoned bottom of a safari skirt). Trendy manufacturers included Ralph Lauren and Jessica McClintock (the fancy bridal/evening division of the company that made Gunne Sax). Sewing was regarded primarily as a form of personal expression, and some sewers put a lot of hand sewing and/or embroidery into their creations. Folkwear patterns were especially popular with people who liked the “Victorian” look; but patterns for styles from Ralph Lauren and other nostalgic manufacturers were also widely available in the big pattern catalogs.

Some of the earlier Renaissance and Dickens fair merchandise (it was the same vendors) was very beautiful; some people were doing art and hadn’t figured out they needed to mass produce to make a profit. There were two California designers (one died young soon after hitting the movie-star market, the other is now making astronomically priced couture accessories) who specialized in a kind of Victorian or Edwardian look. They made a very simple style, like a straight camisole, a peasanty empire-waisted dress, or a corset with no boning, and then put umpteen layers of trimming on it. Even more trimming than the real thing; but they were able to make it work. They liked to work in pastels, though the mock-corsets were usually dark.

Some really amazing garments were also sold at the fancy textile art shows. Some were made of hand-woven fabric (alas, the styles of hand-woven garments were usually rather crude) or were knitted, or they were hand-painted silks. I still have an amazing full-length knitted coat with three-dimensional trees worked into it all over, and a tapestry-style knitted sweater with pictures worked in a flat knit.

Suzi Clarke, a costumier in London chimed in:

You take me back to my "best" years!! I still have a drawstring neck full length dress in a Laura Ashley print that I made. I left off the underbust drawstring, and wore a tie belt. It came in extremely handy for a pregnancy dress in that long hot summer of 1977. And I had crushed velvet loon (very loose) pants and fitted jacket , a blouse like Zipzip's, and cotton gingham skirts with ruffles on the hem and a blouse wwith leg o' mutton sleeves. I never stopped wearing long skirts! And there were the Indian muslin tops, and wrap skirts, often in stripes. Oh, lovely memories!!

Nancy wrote:

Yup, this whole thread is making me a little nostalgic, too. I was in high school and college through most of the '70's, and Gunne Sax and Laura Ashley were highly coveted. I still kick myself for letting my mother get rid of a floor length peach-colored gauze Gunne Sax formal I had when I was 20....

Frances wrote back:

What I remember is the 1980s more than the 70s. I used to go into work at publishing houses dressed in Edwardian clothes and be told by management how high-fashion my style was. Which management liked, because editors had to "meet with the public," which basically boiled down to authors--meaning a lot of editors preferred to wear jeans.

Re the blouse, one other point. I used to collect Victorian and Edwardian "whites," and I still have over a hundred white antique blouses. One thing I've never seen is a sheer batiste or lawn in cream or ecru. Embroidered net, yes. Lace, yes. (One Edwardian fashion for the pouch-fronted blouses was to sew strips of coarse bobbin lace together to create a fabric, then cut the blouse out of it, using two or three straight strips of lace sewn together to make the collar and cuffs.) Cream Irish crochet, yes. Opaque medium-weight linens in ecru, yes.

Sheer cream or ecru cottons and linens: No. They were used a lot in the 1980s, and I personally prefer them to bright whites, but the Victorians and Edwardians did not like them much for blouses. I'm not saying they never used them for anything, but they seemed to like the boil-it-then-blue-it look.

Thank you, Sense and Sensibility members for this trip back to one of the chief roots of our love of period dressing.

A note: I only have the online names that the other members have given; otherwise I'd give them more formal mention.

1890s "Good Witch" Costume: Precis...and the Twins as Kittens!

This year, our boys and I dressed in black and white for Hallowe'en. The twins were Ladybug's kittens, and sported black and white kitty ears and little black tails, and I dressed as a good witch circa 1890s, with black antique skirt and white leg o' mutton sleeve shirtwaist, capped by the obligatory hat.

Photo: The twins and I on Hallowe'en evening. Oh dear, their ears are perfectly perky, but one of my sleeves has quite a droop.

The boys loved their ears and tails, especially the ears. When they see them in the cabinet now, they want us to pull them out so they can be worn again and again.

My camera having been on the fritz during construction of these costumes, only a precis follows.

The Twins' Kitty Ears and Tails
These were so easy to make.

For each ear, I cut a square of black fleece, folded it into a triangle, and stitched it into an ear shape. Then a triangle of white felt was stitched to the front to create the inside of the ear. Finally, I whipstitched the ear to a knit hat, in a slight curve, so as to make the ear rounded in back and hollow in front like a real cat's ear. The curve also helps the ear stand up on the hat.

Each boy's tail is nothing more than a long rectangle of fleece folded lengthwise and stitched into a tube, then turned inside out to hide the seam. To give the fluffy effect, I overcast stitched a length of maribou to both sides, wrapping it around one end so that the end of the tail would be fluffy, too.

The Good Witch Costume: Shirtwaist

The centerpiece of this costume is not so much the hat as it is the shirtwaist.

I used the Sense and Sensibility Beatrix shirtwaist pattern for the bodice, choosing the flat-front version rather than the gathered front. The bodice is straightforward to construct, offering no surprises, and the instructions are comfortingly complete. The bodice part consists merely of a front and two back pieces, and a collar.

Photo: A slightly more close-up view of the shirtwaist.

An Antique Model

All stitching and finishing I modeled on an original shirtwaist from the period in my possession. The shirtwaist is very plain, and very plainly homemade: most seams are French, but the armscye seams are left unfinished, the shirtwaist hem is just turned in once and stitched, the back is closed by only four snaps, stitched without apology right through to the outside of the blouse, the stitching in the hems neat but set more than an eighth of an inch apart. Of the two darts in front, one is set in backwards, a feat that reassures me...not every seamstress in the past was great or always fixed their mistakes!

The Sleeves

The sleeves I drafted from Hunnisett's Period Costume for Stage and Screen 1800-1930, choosing the 1894-1896 gigot sleeve (pattern A, pattern sheet 30). Sleeves during these years attained their greatest size.

The sleeve is gathered all the way around the armscye, as one might expect. Here is where I learned a lesson. I took tiny gathering stitches, as in my original antique shirtwaist model, but...but, but, I only made one row of gathers, not two. Upon stitching the sleeve to the bodice, though I tried to get close to the gathering stitches, I couldn't help but flatten out some of those pretty, tiny gathers. This doesn't happen when I run two rows of matching gathering stitches and then stitch between them. In fact, upon inspecting my original model and another original gathered garment, you can see that the original gathering stitches are left in the garments, and appear just outside the seam; they in effect hold those tiny stroked gathers in place. So my shortcut resulted in so-so, rather large, somewhat uneven gathers so common on modern garments, not the tiny, evenly spaced gathers I aimed for.


The Hunnisett sleeve design has two other interesting features.

Photo: shirtwaist front showing the curve in the sleeves.

First, after the sleeve is seamed up, the sleeve is drawn up from underarm to elbow in four small pleats placed right on the seam. This shapes the sleeve into a curve, making one want to hold one's arms slightly crooked, which I believe was considered a more elegant stance than allowing one's arms to hang down at the sides.

Second, the sleeve is set into the armscye so that the sleeve seam is a little towards the front, not parallel with the bodice side seam. This also curves the sleeve and by extension, the arm in the sleeve.

I drafted the sleeves to their original size, and it proving too hard to estimate their length, given the strange shape, I stitched them to the bodice and tried them on. The wrists proved to be too narrow, so, following my model antique shirtwaist, I opened up the sleeve seam at the wrist for two and a half inches, and hemmed the opening with a narrow 1/4" hem.

Trying on the shirtwaist again, I found the sleeves too long. Grrr. So, I simply turned up the wrists into a cuff, that turned out to look not only pretty, but to suit common styles of the era. However, the sleeve still wrinkles a bit below the elbow, meaning it's still too long.

Next time, I will cut the sleeves shorter.

Finish, and Achieving the Bouffant Sleeve Shape...with a Dip in Sugar Water!

I closed the shirtwaist with snaps, per my original. Nothing of note there.

As many 1890s ensembles featured collars contrasting in color with the rest of the bodice, as well as bows tied behind, I tied a dark ribbon around my neck, bow in back. Had time allowed, I'd have made a proper black collar bow with the usual poufy bow, sans tails.

When I tried on the shirtwaist, the sleeves drooped sadly. How to attain that fluffy-but-stiff pouf? Starch, bien sur.

However, my spray starch didn't cut the mustard, even when applied liberally.

Not being possessed of liquid starch, or possessed of time or energy for making my own with cornstarch (idea courtesy Hank Trent on Elizabeth Stewart Clark's board), I thought to employ the old trick of dipping the shirtwaist into a sugar syrup, then drying and pressing it.

So I mixed about a teacup full of sugar with three or so cups of water, heated it until the sugar dissolved, and commenced to dipping the shirtwaist.

The sugar solution was perfectly clear and acted like a slightly cold water, until I touched it and realized that it left a very thin, sticky film on my hands, and on the shirtwaist.

I dipped only the sleeves and shirt front, then wrung them out and hung the shirtwaist to dry.

Once almost dry, out came the iron and I began to press the shirtwaist.

But oh my! What I learned by trial and error! Never touch an iron to something that's been covered with sugar or it'll stick and leave a film on the iron. Out came the press cloth.

Then press, press, press, as hard as I could. I had to dampen much of the shirtwaist, for the sugar solution had left a faint mark at its edges, and that needed to be blurred away.

Nevertheless, the ironing went well, except without a pressing ham or sleeve board, it was hard to deal with the boufiness of the sleeves...they are all curves so you can't easily iron the sleeve flat, and the armscye is too narrow to allow the sleeve to be pulled over a full-size ironing board.

Once ironed, I put on the shirtwaist, had my mother snap up the back...it's impossible to do alone...and voila!

A note: I used this project as a tester, a prototype for a nicer shirtwaist down the road. It was a good learning experience. I wouldn't try a fancy leg o mutton sleeve without prototyping, since you're dealing with a very three-dimensional sculptural form that yet does not cling to the figure and relies on pleats and gathers and stiffener to achieve its shape.

The Skirt

The skirt is an original antique, made of what looks like a combination of silk and wool, woven with a gorgeous feathery pattern in relief. It is very thick and heavy.

The skirt lacked a waistband when I bought it, and the waist measured more than 50 inches.

It closed with a short placket with underlap and a single large, heavy snap midway down the placket.

If I get a chance, I'll add more photos of the skirt to this post.

Photo: the ensemble from the side back. You can see the back pleats and the tails from the ribbon around the collar.

The skirt is made of one front panel, a gored panel to each side, and two back panels, with the placket set in the center back.

The skirt is completely flatlined in polished cotton, and there is a deep hem facing in stiffer cotton as well. The bottom is finished with brush braid.

I believe the skirt to date to the late 1890s or early 1900s: it's built just like the skirts Kristina Harris describes in the Victorian Sewing Techniques book.

I folded, to the depth of about an inch and a half, the top of the skirt over onto a wide, thick grosgrain ribbon, and stitched all panels except the back ones to the ribbon from the right side.

Then I set each back panel into an inverted box pleat topped by another pleat facing to center back, and hand-stitched them to the ribbon. Setting the back into a few pleats was common in the 1890s, and to make the skirt fit me, required doubled pleats.

I should have used a hook and eye or bar as closure (can't remember which is more correct), but in a hurry, used a snap. Not a good plan. Snaps unsnap under stress.

All stitching was made such that it didn't harm the original, and could be removed easily.

The skirt was worn with a plain, masculine belt, common in plain shirtwaist and skirt ensembles.

That's it. The project took several weeks, but since my sewing stints averaged 15 minutes to 25 minutes in length (that's all I can squeeze in to busy work and family days!), really didn't consume many hours.

Wearing the Ensemble: Notes

The ensemble was suprisingly comfortable. The skirt moved easily, even if it was quite heavy, and the pleats in back and the construction inside ensured it didn't cling around my knees. However, going up and down stairs was a bit tricky because the weight really is a bit to handle, especially when you are carrying a boy and attempting to lift the skirts out of the way.

The shirtwaist's sleeve cut, what with the smallish armscye, and sleeve pulled into a downwards, front-facing curve, do make it hard to raise the arms too high, but then, so do my modern, heavily darted, "feminine fit" blouses, which also untuck annoyingly every time I lift my arms. The most interesting thing about this shirtwaist was that the pouf at the top was comfortable...it was so nice not to be constrained by a tight shoulder! On the other hand, I was rather, well, wide, and that was hard to get used to.

Though the evening was cool, I was toasty: I wore a camisole and corset cover underneath the shirtwaist, and petticoat under the skirt. It all kept the chill away. However, I wouldn't vouch for a sugar "starch" on a hot day: don't you know that the nice stiff sleeves would turn into a sticky, miserable mess! Next time, liquid starch, please.