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!

Recreating the Past from a Photograph

As many of you know, the Historical Sew Monthly challenge this month is "Heirlooms & Heritage". The description for it is thus:

Re-create a garment one of your ancestors wore or would have worn, or use an heirloom sewing supply to create a new heirloom to pass down to the next generations.

There is a LOT of interpretation in this one.  I decided I wanted to go with recreating a garment an ancestor would have worn - and hit the attic at my parents house. My Goodness! Did I find a treasure trove! I found a TON of photos of my Mom's paternal family. I only ever knew my Papa (Mom's Dad) and my Aunt Elva (technically a cousin by marriage as I found out!) from that side of the family. Most of the others passed away long before I was born. However, thanks to my Mom, I have heard a lot of stories.

Mom has always told me I'd get along great with Aunt Nan. Aunt Nan was one of my Papa's aunts. She apparently had an affinity for anything turquoise or pink as well and always had a ton of fashionable accessories. Over the years, I've inherited some of both hers and Aunt Maggie's (her sister) jewelry and gloves. I've been wearing some of her gloves from the 50's and 60's to various events over the past couple of years. I'm just glad I have the same size hands as she did!

A group of photos stood out when I was going through the ones in the attic.








These photos stood out for a couple of reasons - I love Aunt Nan's and Aunt Maggie's outfits (Aunt Nan is wearing the lighter colored skirt and Aunt Maggie has the darker one - plus she always has her glasses) but also I KNOW THAT PLACE!!!!!!

Great Falls, from the Virginia side

Notice, that "seat" in the rock is still there.   It's Great Falls.  My parents' home is maybe 10 or 15 minutes from there on the Maryland side.   I've been there a ton of times and recognized it immediately.   So, for fun, I decided that I have to recreate one of either Aunt Nan's or Aunt Maggie's outfits and go to Great Falls to partially recreate the photo.

Based on what I have in the sewing stash, I decided on Aunt Maggie's outfit.  I have a light weight red wool that would work for the skirt and a nice off white linen for the blouse.  As for the corset and undergarments, I'm cheating and using my Teen's era stuff.  The photos are probably from about 1906/1907 based on what they are wearing.

Going off that, I did a LOT of research and hemmed and hawed about what I wanted to do exactly.  It's hard to tell what is going on in terms of details with Aunt Maggie's blouse and her skirt.  I can see a bit more with the photo of them looking down at us, but still it's hard to say what is really going on.

So, for a base, I'm using Simplicity 8375. I've already edited it a lot for the blouse as I really just used it as a sloper. I have no doubt that the skirt will need some editing too - but it's something I can work with to get the correct shape if nothing else. The skirt is a three gore one which I know they were still using in the mid Edwardian period.

The above is what I eventually decided I wanted the blouse to look like. It's from The Ladies Home Journal 1906 via Real Historical Patterns on Tumblr. If you don't know about Real Historical patterns yet, you can thank me later. It's a fabulous resource for pre-1929 patterns.  For this shirtwaist, I love the pintucks and I like the idea of adding lace over the pintucks.  No only does the pattern show that as an option (the tiny blouse between the ladies heads) but there's this extant one over at my other blog that shows black lace over fabric rather than the insertion we are used to seeing during this time period.

So, using Simplicity as the base to get the armscye straight really (and keeping the math to the minimum since it was just increasing the neckline and shoulder rather than measuring everything out), I came up with this:

 I'll sew up the pintucks and the shirtwaist tomorrow to see how it goes.  I'm hoping this will turn out well and look just as cute as Aunt Maggie's original blouse.   For the lace, I happen to have a lot of vintage deadstock lace that will work well.  The one I'm using might actually be Edwardian.

It looks very similar to the lace that is on the extant gown I've linked to above.  I think it will add a nice frilly touch to the blouse.

For the skirt, I'm working on that tomorrow as well.  More progress photos and the final product over the next few days!

Historical Sew Monthly: Accessorize

The Challenge: July – Accessorize: The final touch of the right accessory creates the perfect period look. Bring an outfit together by creating an accessory to go with your historical wardrobe.

Fabric: Wool, linen

Pattern: Based off this Norse hood

Year: roughly 1100 AD give or take 100 years

Notions:Just the green wool thread

How historically accurate is it? It's completely visually accurate. The stitches I used are seen in several digs, including Birka. However, I did use the sewing machine to bag line the various pieces so that's no historically accurate - not that anyone would ever see the machine stitches the way I sewed it up!

Hours to complete: About four hours

First worn: I hope either of their majesties will be able to wear it at least one night at Pennsic.

Total Cost:  The white wool was a remnant at Joanns that was 50% so $8.16.  The red linen was left over from another outfit.  The green wool thread I think was about $4.00 but I really can't remember.  It's been in the stash thread for a very long time.

This is what the hood looks like lying perfectly flat.  It really is just two gussets and a long rectangle.

Close up of the decorative stitching.

This is really for the Pennsic gift basket.  The kingdom Atlantia is giving a basket to has a King and Queen who are very into Norse.  Luckily, I had some lovely white wool, red linen, and green wool thread on hand to make up something that is both Norse but easy to carry back home to Utah.  :-)

I bag lined each of the pieces individually and then used the decorative stitching to bind the pieces together.  So the gussets are just squares with the square lining attached to them.  If you cut the decorative stitching, the hood would fall apart.

I did try the hood on to make sure it fits.  It fits.  I know, I look like death warmed over right now.  Oh well.

The entire edge of the hood is done in a simple running stitch.  The pieces are bound in a herringbone stitch - which is a very simple way to add a bit of decoration.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it and I hope their majesties are as well.

Late 16th Century Dutch Cloak

Sorry for the bad picture. My Dutch Cloak is finished!

First, the inspiration:

Taken from Katerina's Webpage

http://www.kostuemforschung.de/1207.html

These are just a few of the examples I found. This style was worn pretty much everywhere in Europe in the late 16th Century. I liked the trim layout of the purple extant one so I loosely based my trim layout on that.

Making the darn thing:

I decided on epaulettes, full sleeves (rather than hanging sleeves because that got complicated), and I used red wool for the fashion fabric. I purchased the red wool at a local thrift store for $3.90.

See? As for the yellow tag regarding cleaning, I'm 99.9% sure this was a thick wool blanket at one point in it's life and that it had been left in someone's mothball filled hope chest. It still faintly smelled of mothballs. Not so faintly when I ironed and steamed the jacket.

Anyway, I also used what had been blue silk curtains for the lining also from the thrift store and also just as inexpensive. The trim is the same trim I used on the German gown last week. I still have some more... It was originally 35 yards and I have no clue how much is left but it's still a lot.

I have no clue what else to use it on...

I'll figure out something.

Anyway, the Dutch cloak!

The cut is just a generic sleeve pattern I've developed over the years, a trapezoid shape for the body, cut on the fold so I didn't have to sew the shoulders, and the semi curve of the epaulets.  Originally, I was going to have cuffs and a collar but those got thrown out.  I ended up not needing the cuffs, I just folding it all in and whipstitched the edge.  The collar...yeah.  Not fun.

Altogether, this is a pretty easy pattern to make.   I really love the cloak and it's WARM.  I wanted a short cloak for Pennsic since it's a muddy year, again.  No sense dragging a cloak through the mud when I can just put on an extra petticoat or say screw it and put on leggings (not like anyone will see!   My skirts are all to my ankle at least.).  

Pickles!

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This year, I decided to grow some herbs and see if any veggies would grow. Although the carrots appear to be a dud as well as the lettuce, I have a bumper crop of cucumbers. I'm not a huge fan of cucumbers - I like cucumber water- but I love dill pickles. Consequently, I also planted a lot of dill. :-)

Currently in my garden, I have strawberries, two different types of basil, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, mint, dill, and cucumbers growing in my yard. At first, it was just a couple of cute leaves for the cucumbers so I didn't think much of it. Then, last month, it seemed the cucumbers took over the garden. So much so, I had to move the rosemary, sage, and oregano! Everyday, I have to go outside and redirect the vines - which are still growing and still have new yellow flowers on them.

This week, two cucumbers, pictured above, were ready to be picked. As you can tell, these are pretty fat cucumbers (maybe all the rain we've been getting? I haven't had to water the garden in about two months now...). I decided to pickle them because I really just don't like plain cucumbers. I'll eat them but they aren't a fav.

So, to pickle them, I ended up needing two pickle jars and two batches of the below recipe. I used a combination of the recipe from Instructables on how to make dill pickles and The Kitchen.

1. First, I washed and cut the cucumbers into quarters and then in half.  This made them small enough to fit in the jars.   Barely.  
2. I then soaked the cut pieces of cucumber in water in a bowl in the fridge for a couple of hours.  This makes for some excellent cucumber water later on.   
3. I boiled the jars I was going to use in my soup pot because I really don't have anything else.   They are just leftover pickle jars.
4. I then got some fresh dill and four garlic cloves; pressing the cloves and putting all of that in the jars.
5. Taking the cucumbers out of the fridge, I placed them in the jars.

The brine:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt

The above is what I used as the pickle juice. I brought it to a boil on the stove and then, while it was still hot, poured it over the cucumbers (remember, the dill and garlic are already in there), sealed up the jars, and stuffed them in the fridge. You'll need a towel or pot holder because it will all be hot as you put it in the fridge.

Now, to wait! I'm hoping to take a jar to Pennsic. They should be well and soaked by next week. We'll see!

1490's Venetian Gown

The above is the inspiration for my dress.  I had some lovely mint green damask I got at my thrift store for dirt cheap and some orange dupioni for $4 a yard on Fabric.com a few years ago.  The two went together amazingly well so I thought to make the above style.  I used a very heavily modified version of Simplicity 8735 to get the shoulders.  The skirt is just gathered or pleated rectangles.

Before Abby attacked.  :-)

So...the dress dummy doesn't have shoulders so it looks a bit ridiculous on her.  I'll try to see if I can get pictures of me wearing it tomorrow but with all the flash flood warnings lately, I'm not sure.   The color of the dress in the side photo is the best.  The rest are washed out greatly.  I gave up last night and just wore it inside. The lighting inside isn't the best and you have to deal with my messy living room as a backdrop but the colors in those photos are way better than the cell phone ones. You can easily see the golden orange and the mint green of the outfit.

Feel free to ask any questions!  I plan on wearing this at Pennsic.  I'm hoping Midnight Madness.

This is what happens when I try to sit down.  This strange black and white furball thinks it's playtime.  :-)

Historical Sew Monthly: Out of Your Comfort Zone

The Challenge: Out of Your Comfort Zone - I know. It's late. But it's done!!!!

Fabric: Blue wool, white linen, red wool,  goldenrod linen blend I think (for the lining), duck cloth

Pattern: My own!

Year: 1530's ish

Notions: The trim, thread

How historically accurate is it? On a visually accurate scale, I'd put it at maybe a 3 out of 5. There is a LOT of hand sewing in this (all the trim, the puff and slash, eyelets) but there are still some slight issues - like the trim placement appears later. More on all of this below.

Hours to complete: Way, way too many. I started this for the blue challenge.

First worn: Pennsic, hopefully!

I've always loved the Cranach gowns but never attempted one myself. All those puffs and slashes! I've been studying them for years but just never bothered to pattern one until now. I bought the blue wool back in January I think. The red wool is stash and the trim I've had probably since I started sewing. I know I got it off of ebay many, many years ago. I got roughly 32 yards of it and probably still have about 20 yards after this project.

http://jeannedepompadour.blogspot.com/2013/04/german-style-from-1468-1588.html

The above is roughly the style I was aiming for. I'm sure most readers have seen variations on the Cranach gowns before. First, I had to figure out how to make the puff and slashes without buttonhole binding each and every last one of the slashes. Luckily, Whilja's Corner has an excellent tutorial that I liberally used.  Since the wool I used is 100% wool and not the kind prone to fraying, I just stitched the corners of the diamonds back and stitched the slashes open.  I then put a piece of linen the same length as the red wool behind the red wool and sewed the top and bottom trim pieces to this length of fabric.  Then, I sewed this piece to the blue wool that would be the skirt.

For the bodice, my inspiration came from a 16th century Hungarian Bodice although the trim placement is similar to many other regional styles at that time. Really, this dress was an excuse to finally use this trim.  There are some examples of trim being applied around the slash and puff part of the dress, such as above.  The second lady in in this collection of pictures also appears to have trim around the puff and slash - similar to what I've done here.

https://hantverkat.wordpress.com/tag/landsknecht/page/2/

The lady above also appears to have trim both above and below the slash marks.

For the skirt, I did a pseudo-box pleat that I attached to the bodice and then sewed a piece of linen to encase the pleats and the bodice edge.  The skirt extended about an inch beyond the bodice, which gave me a nice bridge for the skirt gap in front, but also made the linen inner belt/encasing piece very necessary.  For the pleat, going right, the pleat looks normal, going left, the pleat is double what it should be for all except the first front pleats.  This allowed me to use twice as much material in the skirt so I could get the correct volume in the skirts.  The skirt itself is 184" (467 cm) in width - or a little over 15 feet (4.6 m).  So yes, the waist is bulky.  By using the linen encasing strip, I'm directing that bulkiness down rather than having it sit up inside the bodice like I normally would.   I, amazingly, only destroyed one sewing machine needle sewing the pleats to the bodice.


I'll try to get better pictures in the morning.  I'm just glad it's done.

Back of dress

Detail of the linen casing inside the dress

Detail of the insides of the dress

Detail of the puff and slash

The dress :-)