Another slip

(I did consider calling this post "Second slip", but I thought it might confuse any cricket fans out there!)

My lingerie-making continues, and I have finished the slip which I cut out a couple of weeks ago. This one is from a Maudella pattern, which I'm guessing dates from the late 1940s/early 1950s. I should start off by saying that the photos don't really do the end result justice; it looks far better on me than it does laid flat or on Nancy.

Maudella 4267, undated

As ever with Maudella patterns, the instructions are brief!

Cutting layout, instructions, and a large Sylko advert squeezed on the back

As an aside, I must add that knickers with a button fasten at the back seems like the last word in impracticality to me!

Tricky for bathroom visits, surely?

The pattern uses gathering to shape the bust cups, rather than darts, and the front and back are each just a single piece. I made it from the same fabric as the Style slip, and again used some modern construction techniques such as stay-stitching the edges of pieces to prevent stretching, and overlocking the seams.

I definitely prefer the darted cups; getting the gathers even on such a flimsy and slippery fabric was quite a challenge. I like the way that the cups join the front section, however. The instructions are for a lapped seam here, but I chose to do a simple right-sides-together join instead.

Gathered bust detail

I do think that for me, a design with centre back and front seams gives a better fit. I have a sway back, and the way that the Style pattern flares out a little on the centre back seam below the waist accommodates it well. Having the back section in a single piece and cut on the straight grain creates a shape which doesn't hang so neatly on me - this back view illustrates the problem, albeit in a slightly exaggerated way.

Not a perfect drape

I still have some of the fabric left, and I'm tempted to draft a hybrid pattern using my favourite parts of both designs - a single front piece, two back pieces, and the cups shaped with a series of small pleats rather than gathers.

One thing which I don't seem able to do is make a plain slip. I trimmed the neckline and the hem again, this time with some pink lace from my stash. The lace is only finished along one side, so I bound the raw edges with bias binding made from the leftovers of my 1930s camisole from long, long ago.

Lace and binding at the hem

The completed slip

One thing I noticed with both this and the Style slip is that the shoulder straps are positioned closer together at the front than I would like, and certainly closer together than the straps of any of my bras. To try to compensate for this, I bound the back and sides of the top edge with one length of binding, then bound the front separately and extended the binding to make the shoulder straps. I did worry that bias shoulder straps might stretch over time with the weight of the slip, so they have stays of narrow cotton tape sewn inside to stabilize them.

Angling the straps to make them wider

The slightly fuller shape and the binding meant that this slip used slightly more fabric than the previous one.

Still some way to go to break even

Vintage sewing techniques

The Dreamstress has recently posted a piece on her blog about her entry for the last challenge of the Historical Sew Fortnightly 2013; Celebrate. She has made 1930s dress, which is just adorable. You can read all about it here.

She mentioned in her post that although the pattern is a reproduction of a vintage pattern, the instructions use modern construction techniques; namely a zip, and ordinary (non-lapped) seams.

This got me thinking. Until recently, I’d never even come across lapped seams, and the idea of using press studs/snaps rather than a zip to fasten a dress would never have occurred to me.

Lapped seams were common in the 1930s. The complex shaping of some of the clothes, like the jacket in this Vintage Vogue pattern, meant that normal, right-sides-together seams would be incredibly tricky to do.

1935 fashions

This illustration in “The Art of Needlework” shows how a lapped seam is created.

Constructing a lapped seam

All of the Vintage Vogue patterns in my collection include vintage techniques in the instructions. Some, like Vogue 2787 from 1948, give a choice of vintage or modern methods for fastening. However no alternative is offered for the lapped seams which are used in this and in Vogue 8686 from 1933.

The use of lapped seams continued into the 1950s. Vogue 8851 from 1952 uses them on the bodice.

This 1950s Maudella pattern, although short on instructions (like most Maudella patterns I own), does say to turn under the shaped edge of the bodice panel front and stitch it over the side front bodice. With all of those right angles, it would be a nightmare to do otherwise.

Lovely use of on-grain and bias cutting

As well as the seams and fastens, Vogue 8686 includes instructions for top-stitching the belt which exactly match an illustration in my 1930s “Weldons Encyclopaedia of Needlework”.

Belt illustration centre left

Given that the instructions on early C20th patterns tended to be ‘concise’, it’s easy to see that books such as my 1930s sewing manuals filled a need for more detailed information. The pages on side fastens, snap fastens and hooks and eyes in Weldons would all have been useful for the home dressmaker making Vogue 8686 in its original form.

Skirt plackets

Press studs and hooks and eyes

More plackets, and how to support a pleated section of a skirt

“The Art of Needlework” includes six pages of instructions on how to put together a skirt from a pattern, again presumably because a number of dressmakers would have found the pattern instructions themselves insufficient.

Skirt instructions

The skirt in question (Fig 185) and illustrations for pleats

Both books go into some detail on how to make and sew pleats.

Zips were available to the home dressmaker in the 1930s but may well have been a novelty; Weldons does include a short section on how to use them.

However zips, even in 1950s, were far chunkier and less smooth than modern ones. I bought this dress at a vintage fair, and some day I intend to make a pattern from it. Although there is no label in it, parts of it are beautifully finished inside; I wonder if it was made by a professional dressmaker?

I'll make the skirt longer

But the zip! Not only is it a pale beige (although the side placket is so well constructed that it hardly shows), but the metal teeth are so rough that it was a struggle to get the dress onto the dressform to photograph it: it kept snagging on the fuzzy fabric of the form.

The dress also has one of my favourite period features, pleats at elbows. But that is a whole different technique.

Sleeve shaping

Patterns past and present. Part 2

Vogue 5949 was the real surprise of my collection. Despite dating from 1963, the pattern pieces are unprinted.

1963, but unprinted

This pattern has a single metric reference, the first I found in my vintage patterns. At the top left of the envelope front the bust measurement is given as 86cm as well as 34".

Envelope back

The yardage details on the back include '1" Belting for B belt interfacing'. I was intrigued as to how the belt was made, as neither of the belted dresses illustrated on the envelope front have buckles. This must have been artistic licence however, as the sewing instructions (unlike Maudella 5151, there are instructions on making the belt) include attaching the buckle and making hand sewn eyelets.

The sewing guide has an unusual layout, with lots of illustrations and instructions together, and arrows linking the two. It does allow several instructions to be explained in the same illustration, for example 11, 12 and 13.

The curious instruction layout

As well as this there are instructions on fitting, which start with, "Wear the heel height and type girdle you plan to wear with the garment". Presumably not wearing a girdle was unthinkable.

Like my other Maudella pattern, 5391 does not have a date on it. However the envelope front proudly announces that this is a 'Printed Pattern'.

Printed, and considerably cheaper than the Vogue pattern

The whole envelope design is simpler; the front has just the illustrations and back views, while the back has the fabric requirements, albeit for 36" wide fabric only, and details of the pattern pieces.

A much simpler envelope layout

The pattern pieces look very boldly printed to me, although this may be because they are for a single size. Interestingly, there is information on the pattern pieces in three languages as well as English, and the seam allowances are marked as 5/8" and 1.5cm.

Printed pattern pieces

The price has gone up by 3d, possibly to pay for all that printing! The instruction sheet hasn't got any larger, though, and is only in English.

By 1967 Simplicity patterns no longer announce "printed pattern" on the envelope, presumably it is no longer a novelty. It is the first of my patterns to include "synthetics" as a suggested fabric, although only for view 2; presumably for the skirt, collar and pocket flaps.

Synthetics make an appearance

The pattern pieces for Simplicity 7066 are printed in five languages as well as English.

My 36" bust still makes me a size 16, though.

A postscript to last week's post. Yesterday I was telling my mum about looking through my patterns, and the extra pattern pieces I'd found with Simplicity 2683. She explained that the fabric she had used was quite narrow, so she'd had to split the skirt pieces. It was a crisp white seersucker with an overall pattern of blue flowers, and she had edged the collar and cuffs with broderie anglais trim, as suggested in the pattern. Funny how both of us have trouble remembering something we did a couple of weeks back, but can recall in detail clothes we made ages ago!

Patterns past and present. Part 1

This week I was going to post about Shambellie House, the Scottish National Museum of Costume. However the always excellent Dreamstress posted about printed and unprinted dress patterns, which sent me off to check when printing first appeared in the various vintage patterns I own. Looking at them, I realized that there have been far more changes to patterns than just printing.

The oldest pattern I own is Simplicity 2683. This dressing gown in the style of Dior's 'New Look' is a pattern of my mum's. Unfortunately she threw out most of her old patterns over the years (how I'd love to own the various 1950s ones she had, now only remembered in photographs of her wearing her creations). I suspect that this one escaped because as a dressing gown there was less problem with it becoming dated.

The sole survivor of Mum's 1950s patterns

The pattern gives yardage requirements and cutting layouts for 35", 39", 41" and 54" fabric. Mum however grew up during World War Two when fabric supplies were limited. To this day she ignores cutting layouts and squeezes garments out of ¼ yard less fabric than suggested.

Yardage requirements for a variety of fabric widths

As a result of this, to reduce wasted fabric she had split the large skirt sections into smaller pieces, and made an extra pattern pieces out of scrap paper. One section is made from newspaper; the 1 August 1954 edition of the Empire News (where she worked as a secretary at the time). This is great for dating when Mum made the dressing gown, but leaves me with tantalizing snippets from the time. Who, for example, was featured in the "John Gay's Showdown" column, under the headline, "At fifteen she's got the whole world at her feet"?

One of Mum's extra pattern pieces

This pattern consists of pattern pieces already cut out but unprinted; the darts, tailor tack points, grain line, notches and the letter identifying the piece are all punched out of the piece.

Bodice back

It's not just the pattern pieces which look strange by modern standards; the instructions are only a single sheet of paper, with the cutting layouts taking up most of the first side. Right at the bottom of page two is, 'Copyright, 1948, by Simplicity Patterns Co. Inc', making it far older than I thought. Possibly patterns stayed in production for longer then, particularly for items such as dressing gowns.

Most of the instructions

In my late teens I made a dress from this pattern, shortening the skirt to a more suitable length. Looking at it now, I can't imagine how I got it to fit. The pattern is a size 12, and according to the Standard Body Measurements on the pattern envelope, my 36" bust makes me a size 18. Ouch. On the plus side, I discovered that it's not a dressing gown, it’s a housecoat. If I ever make it up again, I can 'receive guests at home' while wearing it!

Maudella 5151 is high on my 'to make' list (view 2, since you ask). I have the fabric ready, and just lack the time. Maudella Patterns was a British firm, founded in 1937 in Bradford, West Yorkshire. In the 1980s it was taken over by New Look.

Too much information?

The pattern has a lot of information on the envelope front; as well as the usual drawings of the different styles there are also back views, yardage requirements, suggested fabrics and notions (including the intriguingly spelled 'dress zipp'). This may be because a lot of the envelope back is taken up with written cutting instructions which complement the layout diagrams on the (tiny) instruction sheet. There are not separate pieces for each dress and neckline style, as there would be today. Instead there are overlays which are placed over the main, unprinted, pattern piece, matching the punch holes to align them.

Cutting out instructions

Again the instructions are a single sheet of paper, this time little bigger than a sheet of A4. Despite the promise of "Step by step instructions inside", a fair amount of dressmaking knowledge is assumed. I particularly like step 7; "Make a 1" wide belt and add to dress".

Too little information?

The pattern is sized by bust measurement only. As the bust measurements given in the yardage requirements are 34, 36, 38 and 40, I feel relatively slim.

Back to Simplicity. No date on the instructions or envelope, but it proudly announces that it is a 'Printed Pattern'. And my 36" bust has slimmed down to a size 16, so progress all round!

Printed patterns at last!

Still along way to go to the modern pattern, though.