Shirtwaist Progress!

I posted yesterday about how I'm trying to recreate my Aunt Maggie's outfit she wore to Great Falls around the time my Papa (grandfather) was born.   So far, so good!  The shirtwaist is almost done.   I used Simplicity 8375 as a base.  From that, I stretched out the shirt so I could add pintucks, lengthed it, and switched the sleeve around so that rather than a bell curve sleeve like in the Simplicity pattern, I had a sleeve more like the one in the pattern from 1906 below:

Ladies Home Journal Pattern 1906

Really, I just folded part of the sleeve pattern back and redrew that part on the other side. It takes all of a minute.

One of the big things was making all the tiny pintucks. I went with 20 of them.

 This is Abby plus the fronts and backs of the shirtwaist, sewn at the shoulders, and the 20 pintucks.  I also added pleats to the back, as per the extant pattern, which honestly add a nice detail once the blouse is completed.

 After making all the pintucks, I wanted to add the antique lace.  It's deadstock lace - never used- so no one took apart any dresses to get it.   Not that I'm completely against that - I just don't like seeing one little tear and the next week seeing all the appliques up for sale - the dress gone and thrown in the trash.  We need these items to learn from and you can't learn from what isn't there anymore.

Anyway, I pinned the lace to each of the pintucks and sewed it down.  It was a bit worried about the lace but it turned out fine.

 The shirtwaist without sleeves!   I added lace to the collar since it needed something.

 

 The pinned back pleats.  I kept playing with these.  Eventually, I sewed them down to give a puffy impression in the back so that the pleats would stay put.

 The almost finished shirtwaist!   It still needs buttons and to be gathered more at the waistline but it's clearly a blouse now.  :-)   I didn't have a lot of lace left so I used what I did have to make a small detail on the sleeve head.

 Just a touch of lace continuing on to the sleeve.   It helps to get rid of that plain look, I think.

 Detail of the sewing patterned lace.   It came out well, I think.  I'm at least happy with it.

The finished back minus the buttons yet.   I only sewed the pleats to the waist - this way, the hip area is still free.  

Next up, the skirt!