Plans

I'm hoping to get back behind (in front of?) my machine soon

Initially I wasn't going to make any creative plans for 2025. Both Christmas Day and my birthday earlier this month were completely taken up by having to deal with family issues, and this is only going to happen more frequently, and for longer, in the future. Indeed, part of the reason why I knit so much now is that it's far easier to take that with me when I have to be away from home than taking my sewing. So with all this in mind, there seemed no point in planning any projects.

But then it struck me that this was being a bit defeatist. Yes I may not get much done, but surely it is better to have some plans and accept that they may be derailed, than to not even try. So, with the understanding that these are very much aspirations, here we go.

Historical sewing
The success of my Victorian toile has definitely made me want to revive my 1874 ensemble project.

The ultimate aim

Realistically, there's no chance of me completing the whole thing in a year, but I would like to get the under layers done. I've decided that I do want to make a new corset using this Truly Victorian pattern, as the Laughing Moon one has too little waist definition. After that, the next things to make will be the bustle cage and petticoats. All of these can be done as challenges for the 2025 Historical Sew Monthly (along with a couple of other things, if I really get going), and I'm hoping that this will spur me on.

Stash
I say it every year, and every year I fail dismally - I really want to sew from my stash. The stash shop definitely helps in reminding me what I already have, but not going into fabric shops would be a bigger help. This wonderful Tom Gauld cartoon appeared in The Guardian last year, and I did give serious thought to building something similar for fabric storage!

Painfully relatable

I seem to be having a bit of a confidence crisis about getting things to fit properly, which is putting me off sewing at all, so I need to find a way to address this. Also, I have come to the conclusion that some of the fabric in the stash will never be used, either because my tastes have changed since I bought it, or I should never have bought it in the first place. So there will definitely be some stash reduction this year, as I rehome several lengths with people who will actually use it.

Part of the stash shop - two more used, and one rehoming candidate

Knitting
Having finished both my other projects, I have finally started my Poppy jumper.

The kit for Poppy

I went with my plan to knit the sleeves first, so that they are not waiting for me at the tail end of the project. With 2.75mm needles for the ribbing and 3mm needles for the rest, this is the finest gauge knitting that I have done so far, and it's going to take me a long time. I suspect that another project (with bigger needles) might get picked up for light relief. Even double knitting would feel chunky after this! Which brings me to

Waiting to ambush me

Squirrels
Whether I plan my year down to the last week, or take a more relaxed approach, I know that a squirrel project or two will always come along to disrupt things. Let's just see what 2025 brings, and be grateful for anything that I do get done.

Making a 150 year-old toile

My coursework is all submitted, so I can finally admit to what I've been working on for the last few weeks.

Detail

Eight whole years ago, I blogged about a pattern from April 1874 which was in a box of 1940s/50s patterns which I bought at auction. It was from the Journal des Dames et des Demoiselles, and consisted of a single sheet of paper, printed on both sides with the overlapping pieces which were the norm at the time. Each side contains the pieces for two garments and an accessory, plus small illustrations and brief notes.

Side 1

Side 2

Then, four years later, making up one of the designs was one of my sewing goals for the year. I chose this one because a) I liked it the most and b) I had been able to find the associated fashion plate online, complete with a back view.

My choice - pattern illustration and fashion plate

Like a lot of people's goals for that year, that didn't happen, and the whole idea was shelved. However, when I discovered that I could make something as part of my submissions for my course, I went back to it.

I have never come across anything which gives any suggestion of how well, or otherwise, these magazine patterns were made, so I had no idea if this would actually work. I warned my tutors that this was very much an experiment and chose to just make a toile, exactly as it was on the pattern, from plain white cotton.

I traced off the relevant pieces, which was not that difficult as each piece has its own distinctive line style, and added standard ⅝" seam allowances.

Some of the different outlines

For positioning the pieces for cutting out, I relied on a mixture of costuming books and guesswork.

Cutting out

The deep front darts and the back with its pleated lower section were both easy to do, but when it came to sewing the bodice pieces together things became more confusing.

Left to right - front, side back, and back

From the illustration, it's clear that the side back is not attached to the back below the waist. However, I struggled to tell how far down it was attached to the front. The fact that the black trim goes up to the waist suggests that it is hanging free, but if this is the case then how does the front maintain its smooth line?

Close-up

I tried sewing the two sides to different lengths, and once the bodice was made up, it was obvious that sewing all down the side was incorrect. Once I had an actual garment to look at, the description "fastened at the side with small straps made from the same fabric as the trimming" made a lot more sense. The straps fasten the front to the back, and the long side back piece then covers them. The joys of actually making something rather than just reading about it!

Another thing which became apparent from making the pattern up is that the weakest point in the construction is the top of the pleats at the back waist. I suspect that the two buttons, as well as being decorative, anchor and hide any reinforcing which may be required here.

The pleat construction leaves little support at these points

Attaching the two collars was the next challenge, as there were a lot of differently-shaped curves to wrangle together. I had already stay-stitched the neckline, and decided to stay stitch the collars as well, so that I could snip to the stitching. This is probably not a period technique, but it did allow all the pieces to be pulled out straight, and they then fitted perfectly.

The sleeves were simple to construct, and once I had grasped that the back seam needed to meet the curved seam on the bodice back, they fitted perfectly.

Perfectly smooth sleeve heads

Initially I hadn't realised that the wrist straps were doubled, but that was easily rectified.

Adding the cuff and straps

A modern dressform is a very different shape from a corseted figure, so the fit on the dummy is not ideal. As this is a toile, I did not add a lining or bone the seams, but I doubt if these would have made much difference. As I haven't yet made a bustle cage, I improvised with a cushion pad tied tightly at one end, and stash fabric draped and pinned into pleats for the 'skirt'.

Side view

The front was hardest to fit on my dressform

My 'bustle' was surprisingly effective!

Interestingly, the finished garment, made with no alterations to the pattern, has a bust of 94cm/37" and a waist of 79cm/31". So the target audience was clearly not much different from that of 1930s magazines, in which the free patterns tend to be for a 36" bust. Nor does the waist/bust ratio suggest particularly tight corset lacing.

There are, of course, things which I could have done better - but that is the point of a mock-up. I'm also well aware that the pattern would need altering to fit me. But overall, I'm thrilled with the end result. In fact, it's still on the dressform beside me as I type this, as I can't bear to put it away yet! The project was huge fun to do, and proves that these patterns were not just a basic giveaway but very well-drafted and eminently usable. I've definitely encountered modern patterns which were worse. Much worse. Even though the instructions were terrifyingly brief by modern standards, when combined with the illustration they turned out to include all the information which would not have been obvious to a contemporary dressmaker.

The instructions, and my translation

I think that this may have rekindled my interest in making the complete ensemble!

Historical Sew Monthly - Go Green Glow-Up - part 2

Well, that took far longer than intended. Once I had completed the mock-up for my 1874 ensemble corset (you can read about that here) I ordered the fabric and other supplies - and then got completely distracted by scrubs, summer dresses, masks, and life in general. But it is now, finally, finished.

I had bought a metre of coutil, but because the supplier was running low on stock at the time, this consisted of a piece of spot broche and a piece of plain sateen coutil in the same colour. My initial plan was to use both, but I found that with careful positioning I could cut the entire thing from the sateen, so saved the broche for another project. The sateen piece was slightly on the diagonal, so I had to cut everything from a single layer, although given the need for accurate cutting I might have done this anyway. The trickiest party was making sure that I remembered to reverse all the pieces!

Everything squeezed in

I had kept the filleted shell of the purple corset to use as a reference. This turned out to be a good move because I found the pattern instructions a bit scant in places, especially as I was making a single-layer corset rather than a lined one.

I had forgotten just how long making a corset takes; the boning channels in particular seemed to go on forever. On the plus side, the eyelet-setting pliers I had bought some time ago but never used turned out to be a great improvement on the setting tool and hammer which I had used before.

Eventually I had a completed corset shell with boning channels, and tried it on.

Clearly, I am hopeless at corset-sizing. My 1911 corset came up too small, and I had to set in an extra strip of coutil down each side. This time I went the opposite way. Despite the fact that the mock-up fitted with a perfect lacing gap, the actual corset did not. Either I have lost a huge amount of weight since early April (highly improbable, given my enthusiastic 'support' of my favourite local café once it started doing cake takeaways!), or something went very wrong in the construction. Whatever the reason, I also discovered the hard way that it is really, really difficult to loosen off the laces of a fully-closed corset!

Spot the problem

Once I had finally extricated myself, I had to consider how best to remove an inch from either side of the corset. Taking the excess out of the back panels seemed like the best approach. They are large pieces and the widest unboned area of the corset, and I could reduce them without cutting and restitching the waist stay, which I didn't want to do. I unpicked the ends of the waist stay from the lacing strips, opened the seam between the back pieces and the rest of the corset, reduced the back panel, redid the seam and boning channel, and reattached the shortened waist stay.

I must say that the inside of the corset looks far neater than the inside of its predecessor.

Everything neatly finished in the right order this time

I bound the edges with purchased satin bias binding in silver grey. The original corset wasn't flossed at all; it relied on the bones being the same length as the channels and held in place by the binding. This time, in line with the instructions, the bones were shorter - and in the interim I had learned about the existence of flossing! I followed the basic instructions in Jill Salen's Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques, and used stashed cotton perlé thread as recommended by Julia Bremble of Sew Curvy. The bottom ends were done in cream thread to stand out, and the top ends in grey to blend in.

The corset bound and flossed

For the trim I used some vintage lace from my stash, positioned so that the grey binding just showed through the first row of the net ground. Then I finished off the top edge with a cream binding to match the lace.

Lace detail

The end result is quite a plain corset, but that is what I was aiming for. I wanted something that would look like a Victorian woman's 'everyday' corset, rather than something very ornate.

Worn over my chemise

Now with a proper lacing gap

I used the Laughing Moon pattern because I already owned it, and had some experience of making it up. However this review suggests that it is rather 'cylindrical', around the torso, and looking at the end result, I'm inclined to agree. Possibly the overbust shape gave an impression of greater fullness, but despite the fact that I have gone up a cup size since I made the purple corset, somehow my bust looks flatter in this one.

Side view, not a great shape

However in terms of what the challenge is meant to achieve, I'm very happy with it. The brief is to, "Be environmentally friendly and celebrate how your making skills have 'glowed-up' as you've used and practiced them by taking apart an early make of yours that no-longer represents your making skills, and re-making it so you’d be proud to use it.", and I certainly feel that it fits that bill. This is only the third corset I have made, and the first without any input from a tutor - either online or in person - and it terms of historical clothing it feels a world away from the purple satin corset. It is also something I will actually wear, which the purple corset was not, so that has to be an improvement.

Comparing the two

The small print:
The Challenge: November, Go Green Glow-Up
What the item is: 1874 corset
How it fits the challenge: Made by dismantling a non-HA overbust corset I made previously, and re-using as many elements as possible
Material: Sateen coutil
Pattern: Laughing Moon #100, Dore corset
Year: 1837-1899
Notions: Metal busk, bones and eyelets, cotton waist and bone tape, cotton corset lacing, purchased binding and vintage lace for trim, cotton perlé for flossing
How historically accurate is it? The pattern claims to be accurate for the period, but the binding includes synthetic fibres and the lace is vintage rather than antique, so I'd say 85%
Hours to complete: As they were spread out over more than four months, I lost count
First worn: Only for photographing
Total cost: Because of the nature of the challenge I have only included the items I bought/used from stash, not those salvaged from the original corset. These were: coutil £12, waist and bone tapes £3.13, new shorter bones for the front £1.72, eyelets and lacing £7.93 (the old lacing cord was usable but the wrong colour, so has gone to stash) binding and trimming £5.07. Total £29.85.

The effect on the stash

Next step, the bustle cage!

The 1874 project

Vintage and historical sewing are both paused for a while, as a friend has asked me to join her in a group currently making scrubs and other items for our local NHS trust. This is proving trickier than I'd expected, mentally rather than in terms of the actual making, and I was hugely relieved to find from this post on the Sewcialists website that I'm not alone in this regard.

What I wish I was sewing this month . . .

. . . and what I'm actually sewing

So, in part to remind myself that this too will pass, I thought that this week I would properly explain my 1874 project. I've briefly described the background to it (at the bottom of a long post), but here's the detail of exactly what's involved.

I'm planning to make this outfit.

The 1874 project in a nutshell

I know that this illustration dates from 1874, April 1874 to be precise, because it is part of this pattern which was in that month's issue of the Journal des Dames et des Demoiselles.

Showing another of the garments on the pattern

I blogged about the pattern four years ago, and even traced off the pieces for the jacket. The sleeve pieces, and how they fitted together, were fairly clear.

Upper sleeve, under sleeve, cuff and straps

The bodice was harder to understand, not helped by the fact that I only had the front view to go from.

Bodice pieces

Shortly after this, I applied to do my Masters, and the pattern was forgotten. When I first had the idea to pick it up again, I turned to the internet to try to understand what the back might look like. Initially found myself entirely lost in a muddle of Early Bustle, Late Bustle and Natural Form eras, but eventually I realised that I was starting to be able to tell them apart - yay! Then one evening, I was doing more research (aka browsing fashion plate images on Pinterest and idly scrolling though the ‘More like this’ option) and found . . .

Bingo!

This image of an 1874 fashion plate had been posted by Isabella in her (now sadly no longer updated) All The Pretty Dresses blog. Curiously though, it's not from the Journal des Dames et des Demoiselles, but from Le Moniteur de la Mode. It is exactly the same pattern, however. The purple skirt just visible on the right is the one shown in the photograph of the pattern above, and the green and brown ensemble is also on the pattern sheet.

Clearly the same drawing

I wonder if it was wholescale plagiarism, or if there was some connection between the two publications?

It will be some time before I tackle this pattern, however. I have no clothing from this era, so I need to make the whole lot. I am working from the inside out, so that each item I make has the correct garments underneath it. The full set will consist of:
- chemise (already made)
- drawers (already made)
- corset
- bustle cage
- petticoats
- skirt
- overskirt
- jacket (or 'casaque' as it is called on the pattern).

I might also make a corset cover if I think the outfit needs one, and I also hope to make the hat, and ideally a parasol as well. The chemise, drawers and corset are all from the Laughing Moon Mercantile pattern number 100 - Ladies' Victorian Underwear. For everything else apart from the jacket (and probably for some of the construction details of that), my starting point will be this book.

Izabela makes beautiful costumes (you can see examples of her work here), and the book is packed with useful information - I've already used some of her helpful tips while making my corset mockup.

I must admit that I'm not sure what I'll do with this outfit once I've completed it, but it will be a long time before I have to think about that!

Historical Sew Monthly - Go Green Glow-Up - part 1

I'm carrying on with two of the elements of last month's HSM contribution - working with something I have already made, and corsetry.

The next part of my 1874 ensemble is the corset, and I'm making it for the November challenge; Go Green Glow-Up. This is defined as "Be environmentally friendly and celebrate how your making skills have ‘glowed-up’ as you’ve used and practiced them by taking apart an early make of yours that no-longer represents your making skills, and re-making it so you’d be proud to use it. It can be as elaborate as a total re-make, or as simple as getting the ribbons or buttons you didn’t have time to source at first.".

I'm actually taking apart something I completed seven years ago! This corset was my contribution to the Historical Sew Fortnightly (as it was then) Lace and lacings challenge way back in June 2013, but I had actually started in in November 2009, on a short course.

The 2013 corset

This course was the first time I’d tried corset-making. We used the Laughing Moon Doré corset pattern, but adapted to make a modern overbust corset with a modesty panel.

Back view showing the modesty panel

All in all it is a strange hybrid, I suspect more intended to be worn as a fashion garment than as a historical corset. It was only years later, when I bought the pattern in an attempt to actually finish the thing, that I discovered that the version we had started on the course was missing many of boning channels. I added these, but the end result was very messy as it meant that some channels were under the waist tape, and some were over it.

Boning channel chaos

As boned bodices and pseudo-corsets are not really 'me', the end result has languished unworn in my wardrobe for almost seven years. It no longer fits me, even if I did want to wear it. My 1911 corset was made between starting and completing this project, and I did start a third one, but then Things Happened, and it was abandoned.

In the meantime, I have read so much about corsetry in other people's blogs that I feel I understand the subject much better. So when I started my 1874 project it seemed like a good opportunity to try making the Doré corset properly. And once I saw the November challenge, I decided to dismantle the unworn purple corset and reuse the busk and bones.

I had kept the pattern pieces which the course tutor had provided, and could even remember where they were! Although they were supposedly based on our measurements, when I compared them to the Doré pattern I discovered that they were exactly the same apart from extension for overbust. So I was surprised how well the original corset had fitted me, given that I have a short torso. I redrafted the pattern to my new size, took off ½" from the bodice length, and added ½" at the bottom so that the busk and bones will still fit. I have a long crotch depth anyway (basically, my waist is in the wrong place between my bust and hips!) so this won't be a problem.

I then made a mockup in calico, and even reused some of the old bone casing tape for the curved boning channels. The pattern needs a few minor tweaks, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

The mockup worn over my chemise

Side and back views, with pinned-on lacing strips

I have ordered some coutil, and while I wait for that to arrive, I shall make a start on my April dress for the Vintage Sew A Dress A Month. It's also one of my #UseNine2020 choices.

Butterick 2535, from 1943

Historical Sew Monthly - Basic

This month I've completed the May challenge for the Historical Sew Monthly; Basic. This is defined as "Make a garment that can be used for many occasions (like a shift . . .)". For this challenge I made the chemise of my 1874 costume, because what is more basic than a chemise/shift?

I used the same pattern that I used for my drawers, Laughing Moon pattern #100, Ladies' Victorian Underwear. I adapted the pattern to remove the opening on the front yoke, click here for the full details.

The completed chemise

I decided to sew the front and back together and then do the pintucks all the way round, whereas the instructions suggest doing the pintucks first on the separate pieces. Because the chemise will be worn under a corset, I also ignored the suggestion in the instructions to use ordinary or French seams, and instead used flat felled seams at the sides. I started with the chemise pieces wrong sides together, to keep the inside as smooth as possible. Happily, it appears that my pintucking skills have greatly improved since I made the drawers.

Once the chemise part was completed, I pinned it to the yoke, right sides together, and sewed most of the way round. The only part which I omitted was the straight section at the centre front -  it was just too difficult to manipulate the fabric. Instead I turned the yoke part under once I had pressed and graded the rest of the seam, and hand-sewed it down. Then I turned under the seam allowance of the yoke, and slip-stitched it in place.

The hand-sewn portion of attaching the yoke

The photograph above also shows the embroidery I did on the chemise yoke. Although embroidery appears on earlier chemises, from the examples I found online it appeared that by the 1870s it had largely been replaced by insertions, but I didn't have any suitable trim to do this. Then I found this illustration of late 1870s combinations in Nancy Bradfield's Costume in Detail (page 250 of my 1997 paperback edition), which appeared to show an embroidered yoke.

Embroidery inspiration . . .

. . . and my sketch based on this

Despite the embroidery, the completed chemise looked a little austere. I wanted to add some lace trim, but everything I could find, either for sale or in my stash, was too wide and/or too synthetic. Then in a separate box in deep, deep stash I found some narrow cotton lace! It is a little darker than I would have liked, and now I wish I had done the embroidery in off-white to go with it, but no matter. It's not as if it will be on show!

Another two metres out of the fabric stash!

The small print:
The Challenge: May, Basic
What the item is: A chemise
How it fits the challenge: A shift or chemise is probably the most basic part of any ensemble
Fabric: Cotton, possibly voile
Pattern: Laughing Moon #100, Ladies' Victorian Underwear
Year: 1870s-1880s
Notions: lace for trimming, embroidery floss
How historically accurate is it? The straight seams are sewn by machine, which would have been possible at this time, and the rest is handsewn, so I would say 80%
Hours to complete:This project has really demonstrated just how slowly I sew. The embroidery and lace trimming took me a fair while, and the total was around 24 hours
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: The fabric and lace are from stash; I'm estimating £14 for the fabric and £3 for the lace. The embroidery floss was £1, so £18 in total