Learning to sew with Vogue

I remember very little about sewing lessons at school, except that I disliked them. The emphasis was on pinning in a perfectly straight line and ensuring that all tacking stitches were exactly the same length etc, and each step involved queuing for ages to have your efforts inspected by the teacher. A single, simple, garment took an entire term. What made it particularly tedious was that I was making far more complex things at home with Mum. (Shoutout here to my final sewing teacher, who realised this and kindly let me bring my own projects in to work on - thanks, Mrs Pitkeathly!)

Try as I might, I can't recall what patterns we used to make these (frequently hideous) items. But it certainly wouldn't have been Vogue - that would have been far too fancy for a Scottish comprehensive school in the 1970s. At some point however, there must have been some schools which did use Vogue patterns. The Vogue Patterns School Service had existed since at least 1956, when it launched the Young Fashionables pattern line for use in schools.

Early Young Fashionables pattern with the large envelope and flower motif

Vogue's Well-dressed Girl was another part of their offering. It appears to have been published twice a year, in March and September, and features patterns at the cheaper end of Vogue's price range.

The autumn/winter 1961 edition

It makes sense for Vogue to have had a link with schools. Sewists often have a favourite pattern brand but, because Vogue patterns were expensive, they were unlikely to be the first choice for many. If you were familiar with Vogue from sewing lessons however, there was a better chance that you would stick with them.

To me, this is a curious hybrid publication. It isn't like a younger version of Vogue Pattern Book; there is only the most basic actual sewing information in it.

Mostly repeating the information on the pattern envelope

There are no Girls, Teens or Half Size patterns in the booklet

But nor is it just a subset of a counter catalogue. At the front there are 10 pages of advertisements; for fabrics, interfacings and haberdashery, but also for bras and sewing machines.

Berlei advertised regularly in Vogue Pattern Book

Pinnock was a cheaper brand, but still expensive for a schoolgirl

I was amused by this advert for my dressform, which seems to suggest that getting your mother to do it for you is the best way to sew!

Make it easier for Mum to 'run up' your clothes!

The rest of the booklet consists of the front and back pattern envelope art for a number of patterns, starting with nine for sub-teens.

Dresses

More casual attire

For when your child insists on French couture!

The remaining 23 are mostly in Misses sizes, with a few in both Junior Miss and Misses. Because the illustrations are all from pattern envelopes very few of them, even for the Young Fashionables patterns, look anywhere close to school age models.

There are blouses . . .

. . . and skirts . . .

. . . but mostly dresses

Young and fashionable, but still wearing gloves

One of the patterns available in Misses and Junior Miss sizes

A more casual look

Only the advertisement on the inside back cover, for thread and zips, has any reference to information on learning to sew. There are offers for a teachers' guide to inserting zips and a how-to-sew handbook for teachers and pupils.

Both the guides had to be paid for

Nowhere is there any suggestion that Vogue offers any publications on sewing, which seems an odd omission. I haven't been able to find much information on the School Service, so it's possible that Vogue produced other, more practical, materials for schools. The hunt continues.

A blast from the (very distant) past

Although I'm left-handed, and cut out, pin, sew, unpick, and iron that way, I knit right-handed. From a discussion with other knitters a few weeks ago, I've discovered that this isn't uncommon. Partly it's a practical thing: patterns are written to be knitted right-handed, and doing otherwise means endless fiddling with details such as shaping instructions and cable twist directions. But for most right-knitting lefties, me included, it's simply the case that we were taught by a right-hander.

Experiment in progress

Although I only started knitting seriously in 2023, I learned the basics over 50 years ago, at primary school. The conversation about handedness reminded me of something I had long forgotten, that I confused my teacher by producing perfect stocking stitch when we had only been taught garter stitch. The reason being that I hadn't twigged that I should swap my needles over at the end of the row; I simply knitted from left needle to right needle, and then back again.

I was told that this was wrong, and duly stopped doing it. But thinking about it now - no need to do purl rows, yay - I rather wished that I hadn't. So of course, I wondered if I could pick it up again.

My first attempt was to knit one row normally, and then back following the instructions for left-handed knitting in what is, indeed, my knitting bible.

My first port of call for any knitting questions

Including knitting left-handed

This approach didn't work. Of course, the assumption is that having completed the row, the knitter will swap the needles over and do a left-handed purl row. So for me, the stitches were the wrong way round on the needle and I had to knit into the back of the loop. But more to the point, I couldn't get on with holding the yarn in my left hand.

Next, I tried photographing each stage of the knit stitch, and flipping them to the mirror image.

From this . . .

. . . to this

That didn't work either, for much the same reasons.

Eventually, after a lot of trial and error, I hit upon a method which seemed to fix all my issues.

The four steps of forming a right-to-left stitch

To check how it compared to knit-and-purl knitting, I cast on 30 stitches, and knitted a sample where on purl rows I slipped the first stitch, purled four, knitted 20 by my right-to-left method, and then purled the final five. There was no obvious change in the purl rows.

The end result looks the same

I'm sure that this is an established knitting method somewhere, but I've never come across it. Next, I want to check how/if it affects my tension, and experiment with using it for stitches such as yo, k2tog and ssk.

Finally, one other consequence of my being taught to knit at (Scottish) school rather than by my (English) mother is that I knit in the lever style. It's a fairly niche skill where I now live, so on my summer trip up to Edinburgh I was delighted to see this picture by photographer and community worker Sandra George in an exhibition of her work.

Someone knitting the way I do!

Riviera dress completed

With apologies to Jane Austen

I am struggling to generate any enthusiasm for making a new corset. This is based entirely on past experiences, which have all involved a lot of work for a less-than-satisfactory result. So far, I have printed off the pattern and then realised that the size pack I bought, several years ago, is now too small for me. Fortunately I only need the next size up and can grade it from the sizes I have, but it's still not a great start.

Naturally my mind started wandering to "What else can I do instead?", and then I spotted my long-neglected Riviera dress.

This one (in case you'd forgotten)

The name comes from the fabric

The dress was almost complete apart from the gathered ribbon trim I had started to sew around the neckline, but this turned out to be a very fiddly and slow job, so I stopped doing it. In October 2023.

This was why I gave up

Suddenly seized by a desire to finish this dress, I unpicked the ribbon on one side and tried an alternative method - which unfortunately turned out to be just as fiddly and slow. This was the point at which I would normally throw the dress onto the back seat of my car, and take it to Mum's for a second opinion. Instead, I tried to imagine what she would suggest. As it's been so long, doing the simplest finish possible to just get the thing done seemed the most likely response. So, I sewed the ribbon flat around the outer curves, and gathered it on the inner curves. Then I pressed out as much of the fullness as I could. Given that the trim was synthetic, and on the straight grain not the bias, it pressed remarkably well. I added a faux bow at the front.

What I did instead

Although it's not in the pattern, I added a waist stay, mainly so that the corded waist detail wouldn't gape at the zip. Then I hemmed the skirt and, a mere 166 weeks later, my 'easy' dress project was finished!

All done!

Did I mention it has pockets?

And of course, #sewnshownseated

And it's another win for the Stashometer as well.

I'm not sure if it's ever looked this good

Ettie completed

I have finished my Ettie petticoat. I'm not sure why, but it seemed to take forever. None of this was the fault of the pattern, which was excellent. Leimomi had thought of everything, even including cutting layouts, which seem to be a rarity these days.

Not that I used them. There are pattern pieces for the two ruffles, with each four of piece being cut out. But the pattern also includes the dimensions of finished ruffles in case you want to just mark them out on the fabric. Plus, the pieces can be cut on or across the grain. So my ruffles were made from irregular length pieces cut to leave the minimum of waste, and joined make the total length. As a result, I only used 2.9m rather than the 3.4m requirement on the pattern - all my experience of squeezing dresses out of slightly-too-small remnants paid off!

The leftovers, with 6" ruler for scale

The petticoat is made from a front, back and sides, joined together with French seams. There is a placket opening between the front and the left side, but I swapped this to the right as that is easier to use for a left-hander like me. I couldn't imagine how a placket would work on a French seam, but the step-by-step instructions talk you through it. They even include the size number of snap fastens and hooks & loops to use, which gave me a good excuse to rifle through my box of vintage haberdashery.

Placket with Size 1 snaps, and Size 2 hooks & loops

The dust ruffle is attached first.

Laid out flat

The result seemed a bit long on me (I'm not particularly tall), but I didn't want to take the ruffle off and re-apply it, so instead added a pintuck.

Historically accurate shortening method

Then it was time to attach the outer ruffle. By this time I seemed to be wrangling So Much Fabric. I was very grateful to be sewing on my Singer 66K, with its long arm and large harp space.

A fight to the death with cotton lawn

On the subject of my machine . . . Some of the gathering stitches on the ruffles required a very small seam allowance, which in turn required me to attach the seam marker using the leftmost of the two screw holes. For some reason, this never fastens as tightly as the other one. I rescued some card from the recycling box, cut two small pieces, made holes with my pattern-cutting punch, glued them together and - success!

My high-tech fix

The top edge of the outer ruffle is covered with more lace. There is the option to make this an insertion like on the ruffle, but I just left the fabric behind intact.

The completed ruffle

And here is the end result. The cotton lawn is so fine that the corset flossing and binding are visible underneath but despite that, it's quite heavy. The result of all those ruffles, no doubt.

Side and front views

Even though I used less fabric than the pattern called for, it's still further into the green for the Stashometer.

Looking good (by slightly nefarious means)

I should explain that I have a fair amount of plain cotton of different weights in The Stash. Because so much woven fabric sold as '100% cotton' these days is mysteriously stretchy (well hello, unlisted elastane content), when I do come across plain true cotton fabric in white or cream, I tend to buy some while I can, and don't count it as a stash addition (#sorrynotsorry).

The remainder of this particular length is going to be made into a corset cover. But first, I'm going to make a new corset. My 1911 corset is greatly improved by my recent alterations, but there's no denying that the lacing gap is far too wide. I don't feel I’ve done very well with corset-making so far, so I'm not excited to get started, but needs must. At least I'm using another Scroop pattern to make it, so I'm giving myself every chance of success.

Next up (image © Scroop Patterns)

Finally, the petticoat is my entry for another Historical Sew Monthly 2026 challenge, and here are the details.

The small print:
The Challenge: December, Bottoms
What the item is: Mid-teens era petticoat
How it fits the challenge: It covers my bottom half
Material: Cotton lawn
Pattern: Ettie petticoat from Scroop Patterns, view C
Year: 1915-1917
Notions: Cotton insertion and hem lace, snap fastens, hooks & loops, elastic
How historically accurate is it? The pattern is based on a 1917 sewing pattern and the materials are authentic for the period
Hours to complete: Too many to admit to, I’m a very slow sewist
First worn: Just for photos
Total cost: £34

Insertion exhaustion

Or 'So many hours, for so little result'.

The culprits

I'm on to the next item of my 1915 ensemble, the petticoat. For this I'm using the Ettie Petticoat pattern from Scroop Patterns. It comes with four different views, covering your petticoat needs from 1890 to 1920.

Image © Scroop Patterns

All the petticoats have lace at the hem as well as insertion lace on the ruffle. I chose view C as best for the skirt that I will, eventually, make. As well as the outer ruffle, there is a narrower dust ruffle underneath, also hemmed with lace.

When it came to buying lace, the choice seemed to be between cotton but a bit clunky, or finer but synthetic. I went for the former. It is similar to Torchon lace, but in a very thick thread. The insertion lace was 2.5cm/1" wide but, because it is cotton, I decided to wash it first, just in case. Sure enough, it shrank a little. Fortunately I'd bought extra, so I thought no more of it.

I made up the ruffles, using lapped seams for a flatter finish rather than the recommended French seams. Then I applied the lace, following the extensive instructions given in the pattern.

The hem lace is applied first. It should have been stitched along the top edge, but I decided to do the stitching further down so that the stitching for the hem was covered by the lace.

Pinning on the lace

The pattern matching gods decided to smile on me, and the joins on both ruffles were perfect.

Ta dah!

Sewing the narrow hems was very fiddly, but on the right side, the machine stitching disappears into the lace as I had hoped.

The stitching is barely visible

The wrong sides were a little less successful, even though I sewed wrong side up. In several places I missed the hem, and had to catch it in place by hand.

Fine at the far right, off everywhere else

Anyway, on to the insertion lace. This I did sew right on the edge.

Very precise stitching was needed

I applied both bands before doing anything else.

All sewn on

Then it was time to, very carefully, cut the fabric behind the lace. The bold pattern made it easy to find the centre line.

I held it up to the light to cut it

The cut edges are pressed back, trimmed to 9mm/⅜" either side, the raw edges folded under and then stitched in yet more narrow hems. The pattern instructions warn that this is difficult to do with lace narrower than 2cm/¾", and this was the point where the lace shrinkage really became a problem - especially trimming off the tiny amount of excess fabric.

10 metres of doing this was very tedious

As is obvious from the picture above, I trimmed, pressed and hemmed one edge before starting on the other. I also only cut the centre of the second band once I had completed the first.

Eventually it was all done.

Dust ruffle and outer ruffle

I've written on here before that I am a slow worker, but this was absurd. It took me over 12 hours just to apply all the lace. Admittedly, I did things like carefully hand sew the lace joins, and I got a little faster and more accurate with practice - I was very grateful to be sewing on my treadle machine, where I can control the speed easily. I must admit I found it a real grind, and sewing white lace onto white cotton with white thread on looong seams (I used an entire bobbin of thread overall) was very tiring.

It's given me a whole new level of respect for the women who did this sort of work for a (probably very meagre) living. Dover Publications' republication of the 1909 National Cloak and Suit Co. catalogue contains several pages of petticoats. A few just have flounces, but pintucks and/or insertions feature heavily.

5002 is the plainest, and cheapest

5006, with its rows of Torchon insertion, is similar to my petticoat. All for just 98 cents.

Four rows of insertion lace would have finished me off

Obviously 98 cents in 1909 bought a lot more than it would now, but I can't imagine that the woman making this petticoat earned a great deal for all that work. It makes me very glad that I am making my petticoat purely for myself and am not on piecework - I would starve!