Ornate Mid-Nineteenth-Century Chemise with Front Flap

A month or two ago, when winter still gripped us hard, for solace I browsed a favorite antique shop that sometimes carries vintage and antique clothing. I hadn't looked about for more than a minute when this garment caught my eye. It was listed as a pinafore, and very reasonably priced.

Right: chemise front

It's hardly a pinafore: to my middling understanding those usually fastened at the back and at this length, were worn by children. This garment is clearly sized for an adult.

It is actually a woman's chemise, but of a variant type because it features a front flap. Until very late in the Edwardian era, fashion historians generally write that chemises were worn, along with drawers, as the undermost garments. The chemise absorbed body oils and perspiration and protected the corset, which was worn over it. Over the corset a woman would often add a corset cover/camisole. This protected the dress and corset from each other and might also keep the corset from view if the main dress or waist (blouse) was at all sheer. At times, I have read that the chemise and corset cover were made in one: the chemise would feature a flap that could be pulled out and over the top of the corset. That that is how this garment is meant to be worn.

Very curious as to what I had, and wanting to share pictures of it with others who love antique clothing, I posted information and questions about it on my beloved Sense and Sensibility board. To my delight, other members enjoyed seeing it, and were curious about it or had information to share about it. The garment description that follows is immeasurably improved by their contributions.

Materials

The garment is made of an opaque, tightly woven, mid-weight fabric that hasn't any sheen at all. I thought it to be cotton, then wondered if it might be linen. It's of a plain weave, with occasional very, very small slubs in the thread. The fabric as a whole is the color of high-quality cream from the top of the milk bottle. Not dead white. On the inside of the garment there is a little yellowing , but very little, and there are a few pinpoint rust stains and one or two droplet size stains.

Suzi Clarke, costumier in London (http://www.suziclarke.co.uk/), wrote in a post of the fabric: "It is possible that it was made from "Horrocks's Longcloth", a firm washable cotton made and sold in England by, of course, Horrocks. This was a suitable fabric for underclothes, and was used for, and can be seen in, many still surviving garments."

Carolann Schmitt of the Genteel Arts Academy (http://www.genteelarts.com/) thought it longcloth too, and described the fabric thus: "a tightly-woven cotton with a smooth "hard" finish. The fabric was produced in England and the US and is very common for this period."

Longcloth has an interesting history, and while my antique sewing manuals and fashion history books mention it with frequency, none of them expound on either its nature or its roots. Finally, here is its story, courtesy Carolann:

"The name "longcloth" derives from how it was manufactured. Prior to the industrial revolution, weavers would produce fabric in lengths just sufficient to make a particular garment. Why weave more fabric than you need? It's why so many early 19th century garments (and before) have a "squares and rectangles" cut - virtually no waste. If you look at some of the cutting diagrams for chemises in The Workwoman's Guide (published in 1838) you can see how careful planning uses virtually every inch of fabric.

When commerical textile production is established, it's no longer cost effective to weave short lengths of fabric. A cotton fabric made from tightly-spun fibers woven with a tight weave suitable for undergarments and shirts was one of the first textiles woven in long pieces, hence the name "longcloth". A "piece" of longcloth averaged 62-67 yards; even today, textile production is measured in "pieces" - each averaging 62-65 yards.

One of my primary sources, in an "advice to young wives" article, advises purchasing two full pieces of longcloth when the new wife establishes her household. The first piece will provide enough fabric to make the minimum number of undergarments they should have on hand, including a dozen chemises, 4-6 petticoats, 2-3 underskirts, 2 nightdresses and 2 robes. (Notice they don't mention drawers!). Then, as these garments wear out, they should be replaced with new items cut from the second piece of longcloth. A very practical recommendation."

Right: chemise back

Construction and Measurements

The neckline is wide and shallow, and it is trimmed with a single ruffle edged with tatting. The neckline is shaped by the yoke, which gives the entire garment its shape. The yoke is quite narrow, measuring only an inch wide over each shoulder, and is identical front and back. It is trimmed with a band of broderie anglaise.

The front and back pieces are lightly gored: they are of trapezoidal shape, in the fashion that goes back centuries. Very similar to the pattern shape Elizabeth Stewart Clark uses in her chemise pattern on her site. The top of each panelis lightly gathered and stroked into place. In spots you can see the tiny gathering stitches.

The sleeves are short, plain pieces, carefully gathered and stroked into the armscyes, and trimmed like the neckline.

This chemise has a gusset inset under each arm; they are surrounded by a double layer of fabric, presumably to take strains. I understand that gussets under the arms were less and less used as the nineteenth century went on.

The seams and trim inside and out are exquisitely, precisely, almost invisibly sewn. The tatting, for instance, is made of single threads, and the thread used to whip it to the edge of the neckline and sleeves is so fine that it can hardly be seen. I do not know if I could find thread that fine now. The broderie anglaise trim is similarly fine. The main seams and bottom hem are machine sewn with a lockstitch machine, using similar or the same fine thread. These main seams are flat felled and the stitch count is very high, some 16 stitches to the inch. The ruffles are hand whipped to the neckline, and the reinforcement fabric at the underarm gussets is so finely hand-hemmed that it took awhile to find any stitching.

Measurements were taken on a dress form, but loosely:

• front and back neckline, shoulder to shoulder: 19 1/2 inches
• yoke width at shoulder: 1 inch
• sleeve diameter: 5 1/2 inches
• front flap width: 12 1/2 inches at top, 7 1/4 inches at bottom
• front flap length: 7 inches
• front and back panel width measured at arm gusset bottom, each: 27 inches
• front and back panel width measured at garment hem: 34 inches
• garment length, shoulder to hem: 32 inches

Its Date and Context in Fashion History

Much of the posting back and forth today concerned the chemise date. Portions of the posts are included here, and offer not only a date for this garment, but give a sense for how a decision was arrived at.

• Emma Ruth: You're right, it is a chemise. I would date it to the 1850s or 1860s because of the horizontal band yoke. That was the style of chemise worn while dropped shoulder seams were used on dresses. Once shoulder seams moved up to a more modern position by the early 1870s chemises with straight horizontal yokes could no longer be worn and chemises with shaped yokes came into fashion instead.
  

• Elizabeth Stewart Clark: "I'd ditto a mid-century date, due to the shape and "set" of the yoke. How are the seams in the chemise body handled? Is the body gored, or straight panels?"

• Acacia: "Perhaps more of us will join in here: I've done "surface study" of mid century but certainly not in depth. My first impulse was 1840's. I suspect it's the style of the white work that will help date it. It looks to be entirely hand sewn - is that right? It possibly could go one decade earlier into the 1830's - as you say the wide neckline hints at that, but this style neckline was still worn later - especially for ball gowns, which retained that style of open, wide neck. (After this, I detail its construction as a mix of machine and handsewing.)
  

• Suzi Clarke: "If it is machine sewn, it is highly unlikely to have been sewn before the 1850's when sewing machines were first commercially available for domestic sewing. Also, I can't remember the date when lock stitch, as opposed to chain stitch became the regular stitch, but chain stitch was the earlier."

• Carolann Schmitt: Mid-19th century chemises are one of my "specialties". I have 25+ in my collection.
  
  I'd date this chemise c.1855-early 1860s.
  - The neckline is starting to transition from the straight band of the early-mid1850s to the deeper shaped yokes c.1860-1865.
  - It still has the square cut sleeves, gussets and reinforcements typical of this period, before the transition to sleeves cut with a bias seam and no gussets.
  - This is the same period when the cut of the body of the chemise transitions from the full width of the fabric with inset triangular gores to add width at the lower edge (look carefully - the seams can be almos invisible!) to a body cut with gored seams. In the mid1860s this cut will transition again to one with some slight shaping at the waist.
  - The fabric does appear to be longcloth - a tightly-woven cotton with a smooth "hard" finish. The fabric was produced in England and the US and is very common for this period. Cotton had pretty much replaced linen for undergarments in the late 1840s-1850s.
  - Chemises from the 1840s are square cut, with a wide 'scoop' neckline, longer and fuller sleeves, and are much longer in length. The length of this one indicates it could have been worn tucked or untucked.
  - The flap protects the inside of the dress from wear and crocking from the corset. It's a characteristic feature of late 1850s chemises. I have two chemises with a flap in the front and the back. You'll also find flaps on nursing chemises - covering the slits in the fabric.
  - The trimming at the neckline - corded tucks, whitework band, tatted edging - is very common. I have two or three chemises with almost identical trim.
  
  Chemises like this were available ready-made at very affordable prices from merchants across the country in towns and cities of any size.
  
  It's a lovely piece, Natalie.

Additional Pictures

Side view

Yoke and neckline detail showing tatting, piping, broderie anglaise trim and stroked gathers on sleeves. Note: if you view the large version of this image by clicking on it, please be aware that I used telephoto to approximately twice the actual size: it blurred the image a little but also made the tatting look coarse. In actuality, the tatting threads are fine as sewing thread. Each picot is an eighth of an inch tall. The yoke is but one inch wide at the shoulder, and the ruffle but 3/8 of an inch wide.

Detail showing gusset with reinforcement fabric under arm

In Memoriam: Inkspot Ferguson, 1990-April 3, 2008

This evening sometime after 5:00 p.m. Inkspot, our wonderful, happy-spirited kitty passed away. She had been our dancing cat with the lightest paws -- they hardly touched the ground when she'd see us and come to meet us. She spent her days with Curte, sitting on his desk while he worked, our dear friend and companion. I will write more very soon. Tonight, just hours after she has gone to be with Zip Zip, my heart is too broken. Someday we will see you again, darling. For now, you're with your kittens in a happy place.

Inkspot sometime in 2004.

Days Later, the House Is So Empty

It's been five days since Inkspot has left us, and the shock has hardly worn off. Curte tidied up in the evening and had an armload of things to bring upstairs. "Must leave room to carry Spot," he thought, and then it hit him that she no longer would stand in his arms as he brought her upstairs for the night. I pass the yellow barrel-back chair that she favored in the living room: its seat is a thick down cushion and it's close to a skirted table she could leap onto that gave onto a great view of the front yard. Usually I have a little startled moment as I realize that she no longer naps there. Yesterday something close by sounded like a cat retching after she has eaten grass, and I thought, "Oh boy, better check on her", but the sound came from outdoors.

On winter morning in late 1991 or early 1992 as I was struggling with my master's thesis and very bored, I glanced out of the dining room window, and saw a small black and white cat emerge from under a parked car in the lot below. It was such a thin little being, and I'd not seen it before.

So I went to investigate and found a bony young kitty with a big stomach and spots of engine oil down her back from having rubbed the underside of a car. She was terribly skittish. It took time, perhaps a day or two, and tuna fish and dry cat food to lure her to our second-floor landing, and from thence into our house. At first I said she'd stay on our porch at the back of the apartment, but that lasted a few hours and then she was wandering our rooms, sniffing and tentatively happy. I recall she found and ate the wrapper from a stick of butter. Clearly she had been on her own and trash-picking for some time.

We named her Inkspot for her tuxedo patterning -- not that engine oil on her fur -- and when I opened the door to the outside some days later, where it was warm and sunny, she stood near the threshold, but would go no further, and she looked at me and meowed. She did not want to leave us. So that was that. She was part of the family.

Her thin-thick self proved not to have a worm infestation but to be bearing kittens, and when the time came to deliver them, she wanted my sister's affection and help, unusual in cats, who often like privacy. She asked for help in caring for the five little ones, too: as the kittens grew she couldn't easily lift the biggest of them, fuzzy blue-gray boy Woolly Bear, and on the way from an old den to a new one, dropped him in the hallway, meowing for us to pick him up and carry him for her. We helped her carry each kitten. When the kittens used us as jungle gyms, she rested nearby.

Her Spotness, International Cat of Mystery, our Miss Silly, sweet tater purrpaw, Little Spot, she was svelte and when she purred, if you listened closely she might favor you with a breathy, elegant sound intermixed with the deep inner vibration. As the years passed, she discovered the joys of lap sitting and sleep on the bed, and took to Curte, so much so that in pictures we have of him at breakfast, there's Inkspot next to him on a chair, paws tucked under has he reads the paper; there's Inkspot next to his rocking chair on the front porch, there's a quiet moment for man and cat on the back deck in the sunshine, there she is sprawled as he works on house renovations in Atlanta. There she is perched on just three inches of chair arm in his office as he works, or on his desk next to the mouse pad, so he has to circle his arm around it to get to the mouse. There they are out in the back yard, touring the grounds together, cat in front a few steps, sometimes starting up for no reason and tearing pell-mell to a tree to climb it halfway in the joy of being alive.

My sister also wrote about Inkspot: see her post.

You were about 18, we guess, when you left us, but you graced us with sixteen delightful years. We miss you, sweet Spot.

The Wandering Milk Bottle

What happened to Noah's toy when it wandered away...the episode left him scratching his head. Watch!

The Twins Play with Their Cereal

Noah kept grabbing at the bowl of cereal while I was trying to get spoonfuls of it to feed to him. This happened week after week, until last week I had a brain-wave. If he wanted to get his hands in the cereal, let him!

So glop! went large adult-size spoonfuls of thick rice cereal onto their high-chair trays. And splat! went Noah's hands into the mushy pile. And smear! went the cereal everywhere. Later on in the experiment both hands went into his mouth, and he understood that yes! this was his everyday food and he could eat it on his own.

Christopher, true to nature, was more suspicious. He tested and examined fistfuls of cereal, and never did more than nibble it.

By the end of last week the boys had experimented with cereal three times, and bathtime each night was somewhat extended, as cereal went into ears, up noses, down necks, and dried into the hair. Yikes!

So here they are, experimenting:

1909 Edwardian "Beatrix" Plaid Wool Skirt Dress Diary

My goodness, I started this skirt November 30th, but finally it's wearable. Am quite happy with it...the drape is lovely and it's fun to wear. It's made of a pretty worsted wool plaid in a soft green with red and yellow accents and blue undertones.

I chose the trained version of Jennie Chancey's Sense and Sensibility Beatrix pattern, and also opted for the boned high waist.

The skirt is hemmed as close to the length of similar examples shown in a 1910 Ladies Home Journal (thank you, Carol!), where the illustration of a nice suit shows the model's shoe tips just peeking out in front, and a light train in back. I am wearing shoes with a 1.5 inch Louis heel, shoes of a type as close as I can get to 1909 in my (midget) price range.

Here is another picture:


The skirt lovely to walk in: it swishes quietly and romantically. I have a double-flounced petticoat on underneath that comes to the shoe tops. It keeps the skirt from wrapping around the legs, and the train also helps when I walk. However, it's so true that you must lift your skirts to climb stairs or step outside, and I found that the white petticoat would peep out when I lifted the skirt. It would be nice to have a skirt lifter to attach a belt so that my hands would be free.

I plan to remove the hem and replace it with a facing. Ideally, I'd like the front to have a 3" facing, graduating to a 5" facing in back. This helps the skirt drape and move well, according to contemporary sources. Right now, since there is a train, my hem varies too much and is actually widest at the sides.

For a 1908 article about this type of skirt, its construction, and what to wear underneath it, please see "Sewing Gored Skirts" at http://www.vintageconnection.net/SewingSkirts.htm.

For a 1908 article on how to walk and hold such a skirt -- with photos! -- see "What to Do with a Long Skirt" at http://www.vintageconnection.net/LongSkirts.htm.

The Waist Facing Construction

I love the boned waist. It's made with a facing, and the bones are attached to the seams under it. The result is so nicely low-bulk!

As a reminder, the original instructions are for a regular waistband, but Jennie says that to create the high waist of the original skirt, one can add two inches to the top of each pattern piece, add bones, and use a facing instead of a waistband. So that's what I did...

I added the two inches to each pattern piece.

After stitching all the seams and then binding them, I prepared the facing. After cutting a 2-inch wide strip (plus enough for hems and seam allowance) an inch longer than the waist circumference, I turned under one long side and both short sides and stitched them to form hems. Then I placed the unhemmed long edge against the top of the skirt, right sides together and with the ends at the placket opening, and stitched.

Then I added the bones. I placed a 2-inch bone (the plastic kind that comes encased in bias tape, in this case black bias tape) on each seam, placing it just below the facing seam, and catch-stitched it to the seam binding.

Note: I made the seam binding on all the seams all face the back of the skirt, excepting the two closest to the placket, which I faced away from the placket.

Then I turned the facing to the inside of the skirt and hemmed it down, trying to take stitches that caught the wool but didn't show at all on the right side of the skirt. At the placket edges, had to angle things a bit.

The results:





Another note: the seam binding doesn't match on different seams and some seams have two different kinds on it. That's me being thrifty: I used what I had :}

The Pleats: Construction

The placket is set into a box pleat, with the right inside corner (as you're looking at the skirt) slashed and bound with bias tape to create the actual placket. The pleat is stitched down for about four inches on each side to control gapping.

Then there are two regular pleats, each facing towards the placket, to the right and left of the placket, to arrange the fabric in the back panels smoothly. As I lose more baby weight I will deepen these pleats. One is a little deeper than the other as it is...caused, I think, by the way I did the placket (I eyeballed everything rather than measuring it.) I stitched these pleats down a bit as well: you can see that on one side I've only basted that part in place (still have some work to do!)

The results:




Plus, the original May Manton 1909 pattern Jennie drew on for inspiration looks like one for a corselet skirt. These were very high waisted indeed. The Nancy Bradfield Costume in Detail book has a picture of a woman whose corselet skirt goes almost to under her chest. This was the Edwardian version of the Empire look. So am considering adding another inch or two in height to the waist.

Another note: besides the petticoat, I am wearing an original Edwardian back-buttoning waist of batiste, embroidered, tucked, and embellished with lace insertion and trim. It is very, very short-waisted, so much so that it must have been worn with a corselet skirt, as it almost refuses to tuck in at this height. The waist is a treasured possession I only wear for special occasions :} Under this is a corset cover drafted from Frances' Grimble's The Edwardian Modiste, and an underbust, longline (to mid-hip) boned girdle, the closest thing I have to the late Edwardian tubular corset; the fit is clinging but not overtight.

An Internal Hidden Belt

A final note: Emma Ruth from Sense and Sensibility (thank you!) had this to add about the skirt construction, for the next time around:

This is random and late, but it might be possibly helpful to anyone making a skirt in future.

Those high-waisted skirts weren't designed to hover up there by magic! There was an easy way to keep them up: a hidden inside belt.

The bottom edge of the belt sits at the natural waistline, and it has darts to keep it in place on the figure. The width of the belting is the same as the "extra" height of the skirt. The skirt gets sewn to the belt at their top edges only. The belt fastens with it's own hooks and eyes separate from the skirt fastening. Sometimes they're boned, but not always. All the belting I've seen on originals looks exactly like modern petersham ribbon only it's cotton or silk.

I am not surprised that a pattern envelope wouldn't have belt instructions written on it, or even would tell you that you should use one; there would have been no reason to mention it. It was such a universal construction method that anyone who owned a skirt with a raised waistline would have known about it as a matter of course. There were detailed instructions in most sewing manuals for making them from belting bought by the yard, and some books say they could also be bought ready-made with your other sewing notions.

Here are some period sewing lessons that show how to make a belt and install it:

On the Vintage Sewing.info site:

from American Dressmaking Step by Step (1917):
http://vintagesewing.info/1910s/17-ad/ad-08.html#lesson184 (Lessons 185 and 186)

from: Mrs. Chalmers 'Lesson on the New Circular Skirt (The Delineator, 1915):
http://dressmakingresearch.com/delineator_dressmaking_lesson_1915.htm

from Tailored Skirts (1916):
http://vintagesewing.info/1910s/16-ts/ts-02.html#inside

from Tight Linings and Boning (1922):
http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/22-tlb/tlb-02.html#girdles

On the Cornell University HEARTH site:

from The Dressmaker (Butterick, 1911 and 1916)
http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;sid=6c91490d4efb364d97665c932dfa317f;rgn=full%20text;idno=4216145;view=image;seq=0003
( go to page 110)

from Dressmaking: A Manual for Schools and Colleges (1917):
http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;sid=4f511d38909911a653c22c5a93658ff8;rgn=full%20text;idno=4216153;view=image;seq=0005
(pages 387 and 388)

from Department Store Merchandise Manuals: The Notions Department (1917):
http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;sid=009afcdef49223300574fc030b975cac;rgn=full%20text;idno=4219106;view=image;seq=0009
(go to page 81 for a whole chapter on belting)

from The Dress You Wear and How to Make It (1918):
http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=hearth;cc=hearth;sid=efd75abf16bbfd5e52c50b67eda35a89;rgn=full%20text;idno=4400577;view=image;seq=0009
(pages 129-132)

After this, several of us traded posts. I've copied down bits of them here.

Celeste and I were confused about how to use the belting. So, [Emma wrote] "I don't know when the idea was first thought up, so don't trust me. It seems to me that it starts showing up in books at the same time that waistlines started to rise, which would be right around 1910.

I don't know where you can buy belting new, but it's possible to find something similar enough to replace it. It's a wide cotton ribbon or tape. It looks just like thick grosgrain ribbon or the petersham ribbon sold for upholstery. If you intend to bone it, it could be cut from strong fabric (like you'd use for a corset) instead. I have found rolls of old belting in various widths at flea markets and estate sales, mixed in with other old sewing notions.

I think the main reason it says to sew the belt to the skirt is to give a nice smooth line. Also, some belting arrangements are the way they are simply because they are designed to be done on the sewing machine. Other methods can only be done by hand and are therefore very labor-intensive.

I'm not sure if I can picture exactly what you mean, as there are several different ways of sewing belting on, so I'll take a guess. If you look at the instructions with their tiny and unhelpful pictures, the whole concept appears more complicated than it is. Part of the point of the belt is that all the bulky edges and darts and seam allowances are on the inside of the belt where they won't look lumpy; the only layer outside the belt is the skirt. Only the very top edge of the skirt is attached to the belt, and it flows down loose over the smooth outside of the belt. Obviously you then end up with the raw edge of the skirt top on the inside of the belt, and then you do have to cover it with a narrow thin facing, tape or bias binding. But that facing isn't sewn to the skirt itself, only to the inside of the belt.

Say you're making a skirt that is fitted all around. You could face the top edge, but you don't have to if you're using an inside belt. The belt is a facing of a sort, only it is not sewn to the skirt at the lower edge. If you faced the top of the skirt first, you'd basically have two facings, one behind the other, which would be needlessly bulky and the bottom edge line of the skirt facing might show on the right side. That's the the only problem I can think of you might run into."

Then came a discussion about petersham and grosgrain and today's webbing. Petersham is rather like grosgrain but picoted, and shapes to the waist. Grosgrain will not shape. Today's webbing is too thick to be darted like the old books talk about. Suzi, a well-known costumer, warned us against using it and trying to pleat it.

So I did some Googling about petersham and came up with "Oh, thank heaven for Google Books! I Googled "petersham" and "darts" and what do you know, one of Sandra Betzina's sewing books came up with a sidebar all about petersham and how it bends to the waist! Please see http://books.google.com/books?id=hikmNdn-ZXMC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=petersham+darts&source=web&ots=3mfqtBI41r&sig=aJFyEvBbUcEWM3C0HaX1ivJT680&hl=en.
The Sewing Place (online) carries it and it comes up to 1 3/4 inches wide.

And Emma wrote back "Waistband webbing is definitely going to be too thick. Old belting is thin yet firmly woven, thin enough that you can put darts into it easily and without bulk. It's essentially a cotton grosgrain ribbon or tape, about the same thickness as a modern grosgrain ribbon or cotton twill tape. The only difference is that it's wider."

Since this conversation I've come upon some more information about belting:

• See Katherine's Dress Site (aka Koshka-the-cat) and her illustrated article of the construction of a teens-era pleated skirt, using belting! The belting is simplicity itself to put together, although I would not use curtain tape for the belting :} What I didn't understand in her article was the placket. Anyhow, see "A Nineteen-teens Pleated Skirt" at http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/pleated_pattern.html.
  

Splashing in a Tub of Water

Last evening marks the second time the boys had fun with a pan of warm water. I set it out, plopped one boy on each side, and let them have at it. On the first go-round several weeks ago, Noah leaned over and put both hands in, splat. Christopher tested the water with a hand repeatedly, pulling his fingers away after a moment's contact and then looking at them.

This time? Both boys put their hands in the water splat. And splat. And splash, plash, plash. Their outfits both received a soaking, as did the front of my skirt and slip.

Oh, did they have fun, and oh, did they want to smile at us about it all!

Here's a little video.

Christopher Kneels at Crib's Edge

Today, for what we think is one of the first times, Christopher pulled himself up to a kneeling position using the crib rail. He was so proud of himself that he remained there, meditatively sticking out his tongue from time to time, telling us about the view, and smiling. He remained there so long we were able to get photos and even a short video.

Later on, as the chilly air outside got chillier, the draft coming from under the front door became worse, so I ran to the grocery and bought two 10-pound bags of rice. No, we're not eating rice to generate heat. Instead, I sewed up a tube of fabric long enough to reach from one end of the door to the other, and stuffed it with the rice. Now it excludes the air quite well, if not perfectly. Since it's to drop to 5 degrees tomorrow night, we needed this aid in a hurry.

Noah helped me. He is fascinated with the sewing machine; don't worry, his fingers are being kept far, far away from moving parts.

Here's another of Noah and the machine, a Singer 27 handcrank, who, as Miz Johnny explained to me recently, is a very companionable, amenable, hard-working elderly lady :}

Here is Christopher at the edge of the crib:

A Wrapper, But of What Year?

Sometime last fall I was lucky enough to purchase a vintage wrapper. From its shape and construction, I estimate to be anywhere from the 1890s to the early 1900s, but am not quite sure of the real date.

The garment is of a black and white soft cotton flannel, and appears, from construction details to have been sewn at home. The bodice trim is a soft ecru coarse ribbon or tape. It is sewn on the dress in nice curves, but when viewed up close, the stitching that holds it down wanders a great deal, as if done in a hurry.

The bodice opens way down the front and the neckline opens into a squared V. The upper portion of the placket opening is closed three black buttons reaching down to the waistline. The buttons are mounted to an overlap that is made of a separate band of fabric sewn to the left bodice front, and the underlap piece holding the buttonholes is also separate and sewn to the right bodice front.

At the waistline a self belt with ends cut to arrow points is attached at the side seams; I imagine that it ties in front. Otherwise the rest of the front placket would gap open. Part of that remaining opening is -- partially -- covered by a small rectangular band the width of the underlap, sewn with a line of the ecru trim down the middle, and tacked to the underlap. It is not nearly long enough to reach to the bottom of the placket opening and I can't see how it was ever effective. Is a piece missing? Was this a hasty fix to a faulty front opening?

The yoke section of the bodice is lined with coarse muslin that's now ecru in color; it might once have been white. The curved yoke seams are not seamed right sides together. Instead, the wrong side of the yoke curve is seamed to the right side of the bodice front. The seam edges are left unfinished and that ecru trim is just sewn up from the seam up to the edge of the allowance. If you look carefully underneath you can see that the edge of the fabric is very slightly frayed.

The collar is set on separately and trimmed with the same trim as elsewhere.

Towards the yoke bottom a very prettily arranged frill is sewn, the join seam covered by more ecru trim.

The sleeves are set right on the top of the shoulder and are gathered in enough to create a very small puff. Again, the gathering was done in a hurry: some gathers are sewn so the resulting pleat lays frontwards, others backwards, and the gathers vary greatly in position from one sleeve to the other. Note that the sleeves are shaped: each sleeve is cut in one piece, but curving in from the elbow, so that when worn the sleeve will sit nicely on the arm, without excess wrinkling. A small tear at the front sleeve seam shows where stress was likely applied to the garment by the person wearing it. I doubt that the garment would have torn there otherwise, but could be wrong.

The self cuffs are some two inches deep. They are constructed in four pieces, sewn right sides together and then turned to create a finished tube, and joined to the sleeve. The seam is covered with the ecru trim. The cuffs ensure less wear at the sleeve edge.

The back of the wrapper below the toke is in two pieces, seamed down the center. At the top, an inner and outer box pleat are set in a point at the yoke point.

The wrapper hem would just trail the ground, I believe. The bottom of the skirt is simply turned up rather than being faced. A narrow edge is turned to hide the raw edge, and then turned again in a wide hem. To help pull the skirts to the back of the body, the hem is some three inches wide in front, while it gradually widens to between four and five inches in back. Where necessary, small pleats are taken in the hem to account for the fact that there is more fabric in the hem length than in the length it is hemmed to.

All in all, the wrapper shows what I think are some nice design and construction elements: the pretty front bodice frill, the handsome yoke and flowing back pleat treatment, the graduated hem. At other points, however, the garment appears to have been constructed rather hastily, and not everything worked. That front opening just confuses me.

An Edwardian Ruche-Trimmed Hat, part 2: Pictures

Oh, seven or so months after I finished and wore this straw hat to tea with our society at Flag Fork Herb Farm, here finally are pictures. Over a year and a half ago I'd started the hat and steamed it into shape, and had begun the laborious task of pinking and then ruching cream-colored dupioni silk to the entire underside of the hat brim and a bit of the top.

By the time the hat was finished, the shape had worn out and the hat brim flopped again. If you want the shape to be stable, you should store your hat in its own box, the brim sewn, if necessary, into the correct position. Instead, I had put the hat in a closet and eventually other hats came to rest on top.

Here are pictures of the results. At the tea we decided we preferred the flat brim to the original Cavalier-tilt version planned.

Here is the hat underside.
















And a detail of the silk ruching.


















Finally, the hat as worn to tea. Since the hat design is meant to evoke 1910-1910, the era of enormous, grand, over-the-top hats, the era which also saw a pencil-thin dress silhouette to balance the wide toppers, I wore a narrow-lined dress. However, since I'd had those twin boys two months before, the silhouette was less slim and appealing than planned. Ah well.

Note that had I worn the hat in period fashion, it would have sat tilted more forward by far than it does and the underside would not show nearly as much. It would also have been trimmed with several long, full ostrich plumes.

What, More Baby Videos?

The remainder of the Christmastime clips of Noah and Christopher, promised a few days ago:

Our Babies Dance to Aaron Neville

They really enjoyed Aaron Neville's Lousiana Christmas Day.



Christopher Says, "Mna, Mna, Mna, Mna"

This one you'll have to turn sideways, because I don't have video editing software yet and so cannot change the orientation!

Christmastime Silliness with the Twins

The boys sure have enjoyed their first Christmas season. They've laughed and giggled until they've worn themselves out, have shaken wrapping paper and crinkled up circulars from the daily paper, Christopher has mastered sitting up, and Noah has mastered the art of the screech. Herewith, video documentation:

Christopher Gets More Than He Bargained For



Playing in the Good Ship "Noah"

I didn't know boys could laugh together so much. This sort of thing goes on intermittently all day.



Noah Takes Control

...of the video camera. Apparently he wasn't enamoured of all the attention his brother was getting.




To Come on Monday or Tuesday:

• our babies dance to Aaron Neville
• Noah's hiccups have him trying to go airborne
• Christopher says: "mna mna mna mna"
• The tumble and what came of it
  

The Twins Again: Merry Christmas!

Noah and Christopher wish you a very merry Christmas.

This morning, Noah played a baby shepherd. Here he is:



On the Third Sunday in Advent, we dined out with friends at Holly Hill Inn, and the boys dressed up. After returning home, they played in the family room, and at one point Christopher decided to take one of Noah's socks off. Lots of laughter followed. Here they are:

Dad, a Few More Scenes of the Twins!

My, my, my, are the babies morphing. A few weeks ago, they noticed each other but only one at a time. As of a few days ago, boom, we have two little babies who enjoy each others' company!

Noah and Christopher are fun to feed, too. No more tickling their faces to encourage them to eat cereal. Like little birds, they're ready with their mouths open, these days. Mmm, Noah says, mmmm, good.

Laptime

Here, then, Noah and Christopher sitting on Mama's lap on a cloudy day, giggling and talking and batting each others' faces.



Now, the results aren't always this giggly...was it two days ago? Christopher liked Noah's apple-bright cheek so much that he reached over and pinched it, and didn't let go. Jane had to step in, and of course Noah was wailing. When I walked in a few minutes later, Christopher played up his angelic face, while Noah's eyes were rimmed with red.

MMM, MMM, Good!

Here we have Noah telling us that rice cereal, like Campbell's Soup, is yummy in the tummy.

The Twins Are Growing, and Each Has Discovered He Has a Brother

This past month I've been taking short videos of the twins with my camera. The results may be grainy but they sure are fun. At this point the boys have each discovered that there is another creature like himself in the house. This results in some interesting exchanges. Sometimes things are a little one-sided, and at other times (oh no!) the boys already show their facility for claiming what is another's. You'll see if you watch...

Noah Discovers He Has a Brother


Noah Steals the Ducky Book from Christopher...


and Christopher Steals it Back (after a distracted moment)


Happy Twins Say Good Morning!

Two Little Halloween Bears

Here are Noah and Christopher in their Halloween hats and mitts: they dressed as little brown bears. They didn't want to show their paws, little bums: the insides of the paws have little light-brown paw pads!

I sewed the hats and mitts on my antique Singer 28 handcrank, a lovely machine, so easy to use, so accommodating of fleece!

A Half-Edwardian Ensemble (Historybounding)

Edited Sept 17, 2021 to note: This was an early example of historybounding :}

Today is Hallowe'en, and this week on the Sense and Sensibility board it's "Week in Historical Dress". So today I dressed in an Edwardian-inspired mode. Curte and I lunched at the Ashland estate, home of Henry Clay, Kentucky's hero and our nation's Great Compromiser. Afterwards we took a few pictures. The first shot was taken in Ashland's formal garden, which is walled by 7-foot hedges, and arranged into beds of perennials, topiaries and shrubberies, lime trees in pots, and statuary.

About the outfit: The 5-panel herringbone wool skirt and underlying flounced cotton petticoat were drafted from a 1911 pattern. My locket is from my mother's family and is inscribed for Christmas, 1911, while the gold bangle dates to somewhere in the same period. The turtleneck mimics the high neck and tight sleeves popular during that age, as does the loose bun hairstyle. The belt is appropriate for work wear, although its dimensions mayn't be right. As is typical with these types of outfits, my shoes aren't appropriate; I am wearing loafers. I have some heels with a basically proper look, but they are too high, so that the skirt length goes off: it should be around the shoe tops or so.

The second image was taken on the piazza at the back of Ashland house. Ashland was built in the 1850s, and is such a friendly place. It sits on 17 acres in the Ashland Park neighborhood of old Lexington; that neighborhood was developed in the 1920s from Ashland farm and neighboring Woodland Farm (I believe), under the design guidance of the Olmsted brothers. What a rich farm it had been; we live in Ashland Park and the topsoil in our back garden is thick, dark, earthworm-riddled loam. Here it is October 31 and a local strain of phlox, from a family in nearby Versailles, is still blooming, as it has been since June.

It seems that most Ashland Park residents treat Ashland as home and a sort of extended back yard. We lunch there at the Gingko Tree, an outdoor cafe that offers traditional Kentucky lunch dishes, loaded with cream and good things, we picnic there, walk, jog and play frisbee there, we help in the gardens and volunteer in the house, and each Labor Day we attend a jazz concert there. I like to hope that the Clays would be pleased that we love their old home so well.

Christopher and Noah, in Motion

Summer passed, and fall is passing. Outside the bedroom window I hear a heavy breeze, heavy with rain, and cold to boot. Yes, it's 50 degrees; so says the thermometer. Goodbye, warm weather!

It's beginning to be the time of year for more indoor activities, and pulling together family pictures and videos is just one of those. Of course, we've been inside most of the warm months anyway. The twins needed so much care, being preemies, and the drought brought dog days to Lexington from June onwards, with few breaks. There weren't many evenings cool enough to plop the boys in the stroller and take them outside.

Left: Christopher in an arty shot, burrowed into his blankets.

Despite the heat and all the work, we had time to enjoy our new little family, and so this evening I have a few videos and pictures to share. The videos are short, but, well, we enjoy them. Perhaps you will too.

And no, I haven't forgotten sewing. I have pictures to share of several more pieces of vintage clothing I've come home with and studies, and several new online sources for vintage fashion information.

The Twins' First Videos



Here is Christopher trying rice cereal for the first time.



Here's Noah's first solid food experience, and yes, it's rice cereal, too.



Here is a slice of a incandescent Sunday afternoon, with babies and cats, on the front porch.



Finally, we record Christopher's private language. Is he a soprano chipmunk?

A Few Still Pictures



The boys of a sunny morning, watching their mobile. Noah is to the left, while Christopher, at right, works on turning over. Getting himself from back to stomach is his primary activity these days.











Noah at the dinner table.

In Memoriam: Zip Zip Kitty, April 1992 - June 2007

Our Zip Zip. Oh how we miss her. Our Purrpaw; little Foursquare - her squares of calico color decorating the back of her neck in quadrants; Purrball; Kitty Zip; Kitty in a Catsuit; Wibble; Whipple; Kittens Plural (applied to one cat: go figure); Sweet Purr, Zhip-Zhip. Endless affectionate names to call our sweet best companion for 15 years. Her mother, Inkspot, of whom Zip was probably the last living of her five kittens, is so blue without her kitten-soft, thick-furred, blue-eyed, dilute calico daughter. She asks to go outside and then sleeps endlessly in her rocking chair on the front porch, and we find it as hard to console her as we find it to console ourselves.

At left, Zip Zip in late 2004.

Zip Zip, my husband, and I shared our lives' most important moments to date. Zip's fascination with strings and sewing notions, her waiting at the base of trees, nose upraised, ears perked, tail quivering, while squirrels danced, heads down, and chattering, teasing her just feet above. She wouldn't hunt, but loved to watch, and the squirrel population grazed nearby restful and unmolested. Zip, her tail like a flag, galloping ecstatically to Curte in the backyard, to roll over in the grass and rub her back in it, purring, while he talked to her, Zhiiiip, Zhipppp, you silly. Her bout with bone cancer, which took her left foreleg; I stayed and slept with her in the guest room until she recovered enough to manage the rest of the house. Through rounds of kitty dialysis and special food, from which she'd rebound with energy and purring largely intact.

She helped us through my bout with severe chronic illness, through graduate school, multiple moves, meeting my future husband and thinking he was a good guy worthy of napping in his lap, marriage, two house renovations and endless furniture rearragements, both of which she disliked as a unwanted change in a happy routine. Though our marriage, and move to my husband's hometown: the drive up I-75 left her meowing faintly and continuously in my arms while I tried to steer, while her mother foamed at the mouth, all of us panting because we had the heat on in the Saturn to help the overheating car survive a traffic jam. Through my pregnancy and the arrival of the two boys.

At left, Zip Zip on June 22nd.

She fell at age 15 years to the effects of chronic kidney disease and the stress of getting around without her left foreleg, lost to bone cancer two years ago. The arrival of the boys didn't help: she felt confused and we were all stressed trying to pay loving attention to all of each other, and none getting enough.

Not Much Sewing for Awhile: The Twins Have Taken Over!

My goodness, is time a different entity now! Since the arrival of our twin boys on May 31, time has become both more blurred and less elastic. We live by their stomach clocks: every three hours the boys open their bow-shaped mouths like tiny birds for their next bottle of milk. We grab sleep, wake, run errands, wash them, love and hug and kiss them, during the intervening hours, whose minutes flee so quickly.

At left, our twins at three days old.

So quickly and through the fog of sleep deprivation, so that it's already difficult to remember that their fingers measured less than the length of my pinky fingernail just four weeks ago, that they slept through their feedings, that we hardly knew what color their eyes were, that we were elated and I was in pain from the sequelae to the c-section for weeks, that to compound the change we lost our beloved companion Zip Zip, for whom this blog is named, and spent days worrying about her decline, days crying mourning our loss, until now it's a soft ache that I doubt, like all good loves, will ever fully fade away.

Now we each of us have had some measure of sleep, Mom, my husband, and I, and the boys are growing and growing, and the smaller twin, at six pounds, and plucky as he was in the NICU, is first to look around him with interest, first to examine patterns of black and white. Born at 35 weeks, 4 lbs. and 15 oz., he didn't need but a little forced air for a short time, and the warmth of the heated beds, and by his second day my husband was feeding him with a bottle and he was drinking in the same methodical way that he maintains now. He was Baby B, the baby to the right, before birth, and he didn't move and wiggle as much as his brother, so we named him Noah, which means restful and peaceful.

His brother is more volatile: he gulps his milk and then has a hard time burping; he eats too fast unless you set him up for a slow, quiet meal, and then is gassy and miserable and worries his parents and grandmother. He's bigger, too, and was at birth too, but, we understand from the NICU that the bigger twin often has a harder time. He needed forced oxygen and a feeding tube, and his heated bed, although at day 3 he graduated to our room and to the regular nursery so that we could care for he and his brother. He's still a little slower to develop; his huge eyes watch you with warm, vital interest, and his looks are loving, I fancy, and he loves, loves, loves to be held, but his face has yet to light up to that almost smile that Noah is already gracing us with. He fusses and fumes, and his soundtrack of peeps and gassy groans is practically continuous, even in sleep.

Above, the twins on June 17th.

So these are our boys and for awhile sewing and vintage machines, like other hobbies, move to the background, remembered fondly but with detachment and engaged in at odd moments, and right now, truth be known, not at all.

Box Pleating Dress Trim by Hand and By Machine

I had been planning to trim a bed jacket with box-pleated trim for some time but wasn't sure how to do it. None of my antique sewing manuals were of help; the closest I got was the Harper's Bazar reprints in Frances Grimble's Reconstruction Fashions book. They illustrate complex pleatings but don't say how to achieve them!

Turns out there's help!

If you want to box pleat narrow trim by hand, it's simpler than it looks. All you need is pins and the fabric to be pleated. What you do is to make little accordion (knife) pleats of the same size, one to the right, then one to the left, and then one to the right, and then one to the left, and so on.

To see how it's done, have a look at Jennie La Fleur's YouTube tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbJyLaHS6b4. Thank you, Jenny!



To make box pleats by machine, you can use a fork to manipulate the fabric to the left and right, just in front of the sewing machine needle. Heather McNaughton demonstrates this on her Truly Victorian pattern site. See her Help and Answers page at http://trulyvictorian.netfirms.com/FAQ.html and click on Fork Pleating. The video is in Quicktime, takes forever to load. Be patient. I had to wait nearly an hour to download it.

Two New Posts All of a Sudden: Why the Delay?

To put it plainly, life has changed a lot since last fall. Back then I was working on an Edwardian corset cover in batiste, with a 26" waist. That waistline is temporarily no more, as my husband and I are expecting twin boys late this spring. So all the sewing action is centered around maternity wear and baby wear. Plus wear for the house...curtains and London shades, crib ruffles. Mom and I are very busy on that score. Yes, that's the other big change: my mother retired to our town and is now close by. It's delightful.

The maternity wear is still retro inspired: I prefer high-waisted loose dresses, not the clingy fashions now current. The two posts below make that clear.

If a chance presents itself, will show the embroidered saques I am making for the boys. The patterns from them come from the World War II era.

Well, dinner calls. When you're expecting, dinner times have a new urgency and it's best not to wait too long.

New Chocolate and Mint Polka Dot Maternity Dress! Brief Dress Diary

Barely five minutes before my friend arrived yesterday so we could go to our ladies' tea society St. Patrick's Day tea, I finished this new maternity jumper. My heart was in my mouth...wasn't sure she'd ring the doorbell and I'd still not be quite dressed and at the ironing board.





Had a favorite jumper that I outgrew a few weeks ago, and loved the bodice. So simple and you just slip it over your blouse...no zips or buttons or strings. When you get bigger, twisting and turning is less easy than it was.

Plus, the high waist is very slimming. Some of my other dresses have a natural waistline and I look much, much bigger -- I kid you not! Plus, most maternity dresses today highlight the shape too much: I am happier with flowing curves, not tight delineations.

Thought to use the Threads magazine pattern-making trick that uses painter's tape. I placed tape over each piece of the jumper bodice in turn. I made sure to cover each piece entirely and carefully so that when I pulled it off it would retain the shape of the original. (Exception: center front and center back pieces I just did half of, like one would in a regular pattern.)

Then I flattened them all out onto Kraft paper and made adjustments. I added extra room, lowered and widened the neckline, as the original was a little claustrophobic looking, and added 1" seam allowances for fitting. Voila: pattern pieces!

This jumper had no darts, but curved seams instead. They are easier to pattern and produce a lovely line, but are harder to sew.

After that I made a muslin toile, found I had too much room, and cut everything down, and made sure to adjust the pattern.

Using the toile as a full lining, I made up the bodice in the chocolate and mint polka dot polished cotton from Hancock's. Unlike some of their quilter's cotton, this is tightly woven -- it didn't fray much.

For the skirt portion, I used pattern pieces from a maternity dress pattern I already own, but because that pattern was not for late pregnancy, much less a twins pregnancy, I added two panels, one to each side of the front. I fully lined the skirt as well for better body and durability.

Only the front is gathered, and the gathers were handsewn at about 5-6 to the inch, as I think finer gathers look better. Sadly, some of them flattened out a bit too much when I machine sewed over them for durability. Phoo.

The dress has room to grow in both bodice and skirt yet because I have several months to go. It's loose in back. I wanted a straight back line, nothing clingy, but this looseness was too much, so I tied on a ribbon on the waist and it created two back bodice pleats naturally, one near each underarm, so the back still looks smooth (phew!). Now that was a nice, unexpected result.

The only thing I am unhappy with was part of the original: the back bodice seam between bodice and skirt is lower than the front; the ribbon tie accentuates the sliding line. I should have changed that too but wasn't thinking. Oh well.

Yes, the front hem rides up: I have a temporary hem there, but room to hem it properly. Just didn't have time yesterday!

If energy allows, would like to make the Regency dress pattern from Jennie Chancey's Sense and Sensibility pattern line, slightly shortened, as another springtime dress.

Regency Chemise Made into Maternity Nightgown Brief Dress Diary

At long, long, last, I completed the Jenny Chancey's Sense and Sensibility Regency chemise...tweaking the pattern to make it into a maternity nightgown with lace and a ruffle.

Here is the gown on my dressmaker's form, with pillows added to simulate the, um, maternal, look. I howled at the result; maybe you will too.



Here is the gown from the back:



You can see that there is plenty of room. Indeed, when I wore it the other night it turned out to be a great fit: it doesn't bind or cling or bother your torso. Most maternity wear these days has a waistline and I find that soooooooo uncomfortable.

I used the Simplicity version of Jennie's pattern, which as we know has more ease. Then, per her instructions on this site, I added width to the front and back panels.

The gown made of 99-cent natural muslin. Sure, it's a low thread count, but it softens up in a hurry. Let's hope it doesn't disintegrate.

The gown is trimmed with cotton lace hand whipped on at the neckline; it is gathered with Offray pink cording. I added a ruffle at the bottom too, set on wrong side to wrong side, and overlaid with cotton beading threaded with Offray pink and white ribbed ribbon to hide the join. All seams are flat-felled. Sleeve hems are hand rolled and whipped and the hem behind the ruffle made using a machine hemmer.

The gown was sewn on two antique machines. For the flat felled seams I used a 1911 Wilcox and Gibbs treadle machine that you see in the background of one of the pictures. It looks very small up top and has the prettiest cast-iron legs, all scrolls and leaves. It produces remarkably tiny, perfectly precise stitches.

I also used a Singer hand crank of the same era. That machine you crank by hand, as the name implies. It's actually quite a fast, reliable machine, doesn't tire your arm, and can go literally anywhere with you.

I used a Singer ruffler attachment to create a fairly tight ruffle. Have attached pictures of the ruffler on the machine and the results. The ruffler is actually older than the machine: ones made after the 19-teens have more settings.

Here is the ruffler. The regular sewing foot is behind it so you get some idea of the difference:



and the results:



There are a few more photos of the gown minus those silly pillows at http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j306/ZipZIpInkspot/

Lastly, because I couldn't resist, here is Zip kitty, our darling who had bone cancer and a resulting amputation, napping in our laundry basket.

A 1909 Edwardian Fitted Corset Cover Dress Diary, Part 2: Cutting, Basting, Stitching

Here is the second set of steps I followed in making up a 1909-era fitted corset cover from Frances' Grimbles' The Edwardian Modiste. All the pattern pieces being drafted in pencil on heavy Kraft paper, I next cut them out. I marked each in pencil with all the pattern markings from the originals in the book. I also noted on each piece where the shoulder and side seams are, where hems and finished edged are. I marked how many pieces of fabric to cut from each pattern piece, and marked the grainlines (following Frances' instructions, p.8). Cutting the Pieces from the Fashion Fabric For this project I used 100% cotton fine white batiste fabric. After ironing it, I laid it doubled on the work table, since I'd need to cut two fabric pieces from each pattern piece. Each pattern piece was carefully pinned to both fabric layers, and outlined entirely around with blue tailor's chalk. Then I cut out all the pieces. After that came something that proved critical: when sewing books tell you to transfer all pattern marks to the fabric, they mean it. With a garment as fitted as this, it's a major pain if you forget to copy a mark and thus can't line up a piece with its mate properly or can't figure out where a hole goes. When transferring marks such as seamlines, make the with full lines, not a series of dots. I used both pencil and tailor's chalk. It's SO much easier to follow a full line when pinning and basting pattern pieces together than to try to reconstruct the seamline in your head from a couple of wide-apart dots. Just try to follow a few dots when pinning prcisely curved bodice seams, for example! Pinning the Corset Cover Pieces Next I pinned the fabric pieces together. I pinned them on the mannequin, because that was was able to see the fabric drape on teh body and know with more surety which piece was to go where. All the pieces ended matching up pretty surprisingly well when I took into account easing curved pieces one to another...when I pinned them straight with no ease the pieces didn't match up at their ends. Another reason to pin on the mannequin and not flat! Only pieces that didn't match perfectly was the side underarm to side front piece. Still don't know why but it didn't end up affecting the fit. Also found that following Frances' suggestion and pinning from the bottom of the pieces up to the neckline, with the pin points facing up, worked better for some reason. Basting the Corset Cover Together Being rather persnickety, I follow old sewing book guidelines and baste everything before I sew it. Following Frances' suggestion, I basted pieces together from the waistline upwards. Again following suggestion, I basted in this order:

• the front pieces together,
• then the side front pieces to the front pieces,
• then the underarm pieces to the side front pieces,
• finally the back pieces to the underarm pieces and the top of the back pieces to the side front pieces at the shoulders.

If alterations were needed, I was told to make them at the underarm seams and the shoulders, but none were needed really as far as fit to the body. The fit was pretty close.

What didn't fit was the lengths of the pieces. Some were too long, so I marked the spot where they should be cut on the original Kraft pattern pieces.

Stitching the Corset Cover Together

I could have used felled seams, but chose to use French seams. Both seams leave no edges needing some sort of finishing...all raw edges are enclosed by fabric.

Here's where I made a silly mistake! A French seam is sewn in two parts.

First you stitch 3/8 (or 1/4) inch OUTSIDE the seam line, in the seam allowance area. Then you flip the pieces inwards and sew ON TOP of the seam line to enclose the fabric pieces' raw edges.

Note that means marking the seam line carefully on your fabric...do not guess on this one unless you're really skilled, which obviously I am not.

What I did by mistake was to start by sewing on the actual seam line. That meant that when I flipped the pieces over and sewing about 3/8" in from the edge, I was taking up 3/8" or so of fabric on each side. All in all I lost an inch and 3/4, at least, so when I put the corset cover on the mannequin and then tried it on me, the poor corset cover was WAY too tight. Had to take out all the seams and start over.

Yet at that point I had trimmed the seams! So this second round I couldn't do French seams because I didn't have the needed amount of fabric. Instead I did straight seams, and then carefully rolled and closely overhand stitched the raw edges by hand (with both raw edges of each seam held together and treated as one). The effect is quite dainty actually, and probably better in terms of less bulk than all but the finest French seam would be, although the seams are not as strong.

Cutting the Neckline and Armscyes

What, you say, this hasn't been determined by the pattern?

Nope, it hasn't, really. You could go with the original neckline, but the general directions written in The Edwardian Modiste allow, nay almost expect, you to play with the results and get them to what you want, not what the pattern thinks you may want.

I decided where I wanted the neckline to be based on the cut of a chemise I have. I actually put on the chemise and then the corset cover over it.

To make an even curve that matched on both left and right sides of the neckline, I then marked the curve of the neckline, following the curve of the chemise but just a little higher up on the chest, marking on ONE SIDE of the neckline ONLY, in my case the left side. Then I took off the corset cover, folded it along the front seam, and then copied the neckline curve to the right side of the neckline. To copy the chalkline more easily I held up the doubled fabric against a windowpane so I could see through the fabric and trace the marking.

The back of this corset cover is made in a V surplice, so there is no back neckline to speak of. All I had to do was blend the neckline with upper hemline of the back pieces. Mine matched without much blending neccessary.

Now I needed to set the hem allowance OUT from the actual neckline. Did this by measuring 1 inch out from the neckline and marking a second line.

Now I put the cover back on the mannequin inside out and turned in the neckline, clipping little Vs as needed so the fabric would turn in neatly. I avoided clipping seams as much as possible but when I had to, dotted the seam edge with Fray Chek.

For the armscyes (armholds), I did basically the same thing. This time I based the armholes on a semi-loose, semit-fitted armholes of a sleeveless princess-cut chemise dress that I wear a lot and whose armholes are very comfortable.

A 1909 Edwardian Fitted Corset Cover Dress Diary, Part 1: Drafting

A more form-fitting corset cover being needed for an ensemble nearly completed, I decided to construct a fitted sleeveless corset cover from the January 1909 issue of The American Modiste. The pattern is reprinted in full in Frances Grimble's The Edwardian Modiste. So far, the project has gone amazingly well, excepting one silly mistake on my part. This Part 1 of the dress diary covers drafting and cutting the pattern. Left: The corset cover diagram and its pattern pieces. The cover fits snugly in front, and has no front closing. Instead, the two back pieces end in long ties; the back pieces cross over one another and the ties come around front and are tied. This means that the cover can be eased or fitted as needed. I liked that simplicity. Using the American Modiste Pattern The American Modiste patterns were designed to be used with a set of special proportionally scaled rulers. They are marked in proprietary units made of numbers and letters. Frances Grimble's book supplies you with printed copies of the scales in the back of the book. You pick the particular rulers that fit your measurements, and then use them to draft copies of the pattern up to your size. Since Frances didn't have access to the curved ruler, she suggests using a French curve to make up the curved parts of the pattern. Drafting the pattern proved to be much, much, much easier than I thought. Certainly easier than trying to size up the pattern on the computer and then printing out and matching bits of paper to one another. I don't have a big projector and so couldn't project the pieces up on a wall. Creating Scaled Rulers This pattern required a bust measurement ruler, called a "scale", and a "length of waist" (neckbone to waist) measurement scale. Mine are 36" and 18". Left: The corset cover diagram and the two scaled rulers. Therefore, I needed the 36" scale ruler for the bust. According to instructions, I doubled the length of waist measurement and came out with 36" again for that scale. I traced the 36" scale onto a sheet of paper. I pasted that to a piece of cardboard, and then cut it out carefully, and taped to a housepaint stirrer. Voila: scale ruler! Drafting the Pattern Pieces You need a big sheet of nice, stiff Kraft paper, a pencil and eraser, a French curve, that special scale ruler, and an L-square marked in inches. Each pattern piece is marked onto a sort of grid, with a "baseline" across the top, the 0 point at top right, and a vertical axis running straight downwards from 0. The result looks like a backwards, upside-down L. Each pattern piece is laid so that the straight of grain runs straight up and down. At key points in the pattern piece, such as a left edge or the top of a curve, horizontal lines are measured out from the vertical axis. For example, if you're looking at the pattern piece for the back, there is a horizontal line drawn at 11 units+D sub-units down from 0. It is drawn out to the left 15 units+C sub-units. It marks the extreme left edge of the pattern piece at the waistline. Above: Drafting horizontal crossline points on the Kraft pattern paper with the special ruler. What you do for each pattern piece is to:

• draw the baseline and vertical axis with the L square.
• Then you use the scale ruler, and working from the copy of the pattern piece in Frances' book, measure where each of the horizontal grid lines meets the vertical axis.
• Then you use the scale again and draw out each horizontal grid line to the length marked on the book's copy of the pattern piece.
• Then you connect each end of each horizontal line like you would dots, following the outline of the pattern piece in the book. You use a French curve to help you with curved sections.

Above: drafting a curved section of the pattern. Not having my own French curve, I copied one on paper and cut it out.

The pattern pieces have a certain amount of ease built in, but not much. Some hems are built in and some aren't, and some seam allowances are marked, and some aren't. Frances Grimbles' directions tell you to add extra for seam allowances and ease, and so I did...ended up having plenty and to spare, and was able after fitting the cut pieces, to re-mark the pattern pieces with adjustments so next time I have a good fit for me right off the bat.

Left: The pattern pieces drafted.

Vintage Dress in Motion

Ever wondered what attending a Civil War ball or an Edwardian soiree might be like for most of us, that is, those of us not priveleged to be either Keira Knightley or a movie extra?

These days ordinary people are filming events like this and posting them on sites such as YouTube.

Take a Civil War-era ball, for instance. You can hear the strains from a live band playing country dance and ball dance tunes, and watch rows of happy dancers from Maine perhaps, or Maryland, or wherever it is, rustle and turn and step to the music. The sounds of colorful skirts swishing mix with laughter and chatter. It's neat. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibtkNuGvg9A

The Edwardian soiree is a smaller affair, but still fun to watch. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgpnYUKlctA.

Then there's some plain fun. A band out of Europe -- Cibelle and her man have such lovely accents -- reinterpret a luminous, funny song while promenading their way through London, dressed in late Victorian garb.



For more videos and to see what one costume maven has bookmarked, see jenniloves2sew's YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jenniloves2sew.