By the Sea

This fortnight’s challenge in the Historical Sew Fortnightly is By the Sea. I haven’t taken part in this challenge, although I was tempted by a couple of images.

First up was this studio portrait of a lady in a dress so nautically inspired that it even seems to have an anchor attached to it!

Victorian lady, with anchor

Try as I might, I can't see anything supporting the anchor. Unless this is the Victorian equivalent of Photoshop, my best guess is that it may be attached to the skirt somewhere under the lady's right arm.

I bought the photograph at an antiques fair, and there is no information about it other than the fact that it was from the studio of Arthur J. Melhuish; portrait painter and Photographer Royal to Shah Nasser-ed-Dini of Persia. He also took a number of photographs of the British Royal family, so I assume that the sitter must have been reasonably well-off.

She was also something of a completist when it came to accessories. As well as the anchor on the dress and the large anchor necklace, she even has anchor earrings.

More anchors

The second image is from the Tinne Collection. This is a wool serge two-piece bathing costume from 1910, and was worn by Emily Tinne on her honeymoon. It has a matching pair of espadrilles and a rubberised cotton sateen bathing cap.

1910 bathing costume, © National Museums Liverpool

I love this costume, especially the colour, and in a perfect world with a lot more free time it would have been fun to replicate it. In a similar vein Cait, who writes the Curse Words and Crinolines blog, made a lovely, slightly earlier bathing costume for the challenge; you can see the result here.

Mrs Tinne's Wardrobe

In late 2011 I went to the Lady Lever Art Gallery on Merseyside to see the exhibition The Finishing Touch - Women's Accessories, 1830-1940. As well as the exhibition itself, I came across a display copy of a fascinating book; “Mrs Tinne's Wardrobe, A Liverpool Lady’s Clothes, 1900 - 1940”. Always keen to add to my library of costuming books, I trotted down to the gallery shop in eager anticipation, only to be told that the book was out of print.

When I got home I contacted National Museums Liverpool via their website to express my disappointment that the book was no longer available, and received a reply that hopefully the title would be reprinted soon. Then last summer I received an email from Pauline Rushton, curator of Costume and Textiles and author of the book, to tell me that the reprint was now available. Finally I could get my own copy!

I have meant to write a post about it since then, and a weekend visit to the exhibition, Mrs Tinne's Wardrobe, at the Walker Art Gallery has finally prompted me to do so.

Emily Tinne in 1910

Emily Tinne (1886-1966) was the wife of a Liverpool doctor. Although trained as a cookery teacher, upon marriage in 1910 she gave up work, as was normal at the time. Thereafter she brought up a family, managed the family home, and shopped. Especially shopped.

In the period 1910 - 1940 Mrs Tinne acquired a truly astounding quantity of clothes, many of which she never seems to have worn, as they still have their paper labels attached. While the sheer volume of her purchases does not accurately represent the wardrobe of most middle-class women of the time (her husband had a private income, over and above what he earned as a family doctor), the clothes themselves are typical of many of the mainstream fashions worn by a woman of her age and social position in the inter-war period.

The Tinne family in about 1926

Upon Mrs Tinne’s death her daughter offered the collection to National Museums Liverpool. Even though many garments were in too poor a condition for the museum to accept, the Tinne collection still consists of more than 700 items of clothes, as worn by one family over many years. As many of the everyday clothes of this period were either thrown away, or the fabric reused in the ‘make do and mend’ years of the Second World War, it is probably unique.

As well as buying clothes, Mrs Tinne had many garments made for her by as local dressmaker, and the collection also includes a number of 1920s and 1930s fashion magazines and paper dress pattern supplements by makers like Weldon's. By this time she had borne seven children, and her figure reflected this. Unlike the 'Plus Size’ names used by pattern companies today these patterns are, shall we say, 'frank' in their titles, with ‘Outsize’ often in the largest typeface on the pattern envelope.

Less-than-subtle pattern envelopes

The current exhibition features 14 outfits, 10 of which have never been on public display before. It includes evening and dinner dresses, furs, day dresses and a rare maternity dress from about 1920.

1930-32 day dress, © National Museums Liverpool

1934-36 dinner dress, © National Museums Liverpool

1935-36 evening dress, © National Museums Liverpool

Details of previous exhibitions from the collection can be found here and here.

But back to the book. It contains beautifully clear photographs of 280 of the best-preserved items from the Tinne collection; day, evening and outdoor clothes, plus accessories, children’s clothes, hats, shoes and underwear. Overall it provides a fascinating picture of the changes in women’s clothing from the end of the Edwardian period through the looser, drop-waisted styles of the 1920s and on to the more tailored designs of the 1930s. In addition there is more information about the Tinne family, and on shopping in Liverpool in the inter-war years. An interesting read, plus lots of drool-worthy photographs - what more could you want? The book can be purchased from National Museums Liverpool’s online shop here.

A sewing bag

This is my workbox. It belonged to my mother-in-law, and was passed to me when she died. I use it almost every day, and it is a constant, happy reminder of her.

My workbox

However it’s not really suitable for taking on public transport.

I’m going on a sewing course in Liverpool in a couple of weeks, and far and away the easiest way to get there is by train. I don’t want to take the workbox with me, and as carrying a pair of dressmaking shears loose in a bag is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, I’ve bought a small plastic box which is the perfect size for my scissors, pincushion, needle box etc. Then I decided to make a bag to hold the box and any other things I’ll need.

A hunt through my stash turned up a bright curtain fabric remnant, which was ideal, and some sheeting which was a good match for the lining.

Bag fabric and lining

The great thing about making bags is that rather than trying to find something which is ‘near enough’ the size and shape you want; you start off with the ideal dimensions of the finished article, and work backwards. In my case, the bag needed to hold the box and another essential item at the bottom, have room for the samples I hope to complete on the day, and be a size which fits comfortably over my shoulder.

Because the pattern has an obvious direction to it, the bag needed to be made from two pieces of fabric sewn together, rather than just folded at the bottom. This was when I discovered that the black ‘stems’ are not evenly spaced. I added a base piece of plain black cotton to the bag, so the mismatches at the join won’t show.

The mismatched join

Unfortunately the required dimensions meant that there was an untidy-looking narrow strip on green at the side seam. I covered this with black cotton tape.

Side seam before and after

The handles are made from thick cord which I got from the ‘£1 bundle bin’ in my local fabric shop, also covered with the plain black cotton. I added a strip of the black cotton at the top of the bag as well.

The completed bag

The lining has two pockets, which are just the right size to hold pattern envelopes, plus an elasticated pocket sewn into the side seam. This is to hold a thermos flask. I like to drink a lot throughout the day, and find it best to have my own supplies with me, just in case.

Interior shot

So all in all, a made-to-measure means of transporting my sewing stuff, for very little cost. (And a little bit of stash reduction, to boot!)

Accessorize

For this fortnight’s Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge, Accessorize, I have made a bag decorated with Palestinian embroidery designs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Actually, I completed the embroidery a while ago, but the challenge gave me the impetus to make the bag up.

The completed bag

Embroidery in Palestine was always used to adorn clothing rather than for purely decorative items. As a result, very little has survived from before the mid nineteenth century; the clothes were used until they wore out, and were then thrown away. Much of the embroidery is done in cross stitch, and red is the predominant colour.

Embroidery examples

Woman from Ramallah, early C20th, Wikimedia Commons

The fabric used for clothing was originally hand-woven, which gave it a loose, open weave, and made it ideally suited for doing counted thread embroidery. Later when fabric was machine-made and therefore more tightly-woven, the women adopted the technique of sewing over waste canvas, and this was the method that I employed as well.

The embroidery completed on the waste canvas

Originally the embroidery was done with silk floss, but in the early 1930s DMC began to market their perlé thread in Palestine, and this was used instead.

Most of the motifs which I used were taken from photographs in Embroidery From Palestine by Shelagh Weir, which features a number of garments from the collection of the British Museum such as these (both images © The Trustees of the British Museum).

Dress 'thob', Masmiyyeh or el-Na'ani area, south of Ramleh, c.1920

Dress 'thob', South-west costal plain, late 19th or early 20th Century

The end result would doubtless make an expert in Palestinian embroidery wince, as I used motifs from coats and dresses from Galilee, Ramallah, Jaffa and the south-west coastal plain, whereas in the early part of the twentieth century each area, and even village, had its own particular motifs and colours. Weir mentions a conversation she had in the late 1980s with a shopkeeper, who still knew which number of red DMC thread was correct for each village!

For more information on Palestinian costume, click here.

I did the back of the bag first, with two rows of simple motifs. Once I was happy with it, I moved on to the front. Then I stitched the cord which forms the strap up the sides of the bag, and then wrapped it in embroidery silk. This was actually trickier than the cross stitch, and the back is definitely not as neat as the front.To finish the bag off, I added some tassels, and Roman period glass beads from Tillermans.

An example of beaded tassels

The back of the bag

Much clothing in the Middle East incorporates elements to protect against the evil eye, and in the case of Palestinian embroidery it was common to include a deliberate mistake, to distract anyone or anything which was tempted to harm the wearer. I included this idea in the bag, by slightly changing the order of the colours in the cord wrapping.

The light blue thread is in a different place on each side

Although I’m pleased with the end result, there’s a certain sadness associated with this project. Originally the bag was intended to hold my sewing kit when at events with Ya Raqs; over the years I’ve had to do various running repairs on costumes, and even on the tent! However a combination of other demands on my time and a knee injury has meant that reluctantly I’ve had to give up dancing with the troupe. I’ll keep dancing (and making costumes), but there is a world of difference between dancing for myself, and avoiding the moves which I know will cause me problems, and performing in group dances. So at present, I have an accessory, and nothing to accessorize. However I’m sure I’ll find a use for it, as it’s too pretty to just put away.

The small print:

The Challenge: Accessorize

Fabric: black cotton from stash

Pattern: made up myself from various examples

Year: 1930s (when DMC threads first became available)

Notions: embroidery silks mostly from stash, black cord for strap
How historically accurate is it? the motifs and decoration are based on actual garments, the combination of the motifs is almost certainly wrong
Hours to complete: quite a lot!

First worn: not yet

Improved Productivity Levels

Now that all the fabric painting has been done, the next stage is couching the beads round the various motifs. That’s a lot of hand sewing, and I could really do with something to listen to while I sew. It doesn’t have to be radio or CDs; I frequently treat television as ‘radio with pictures’, and just glance up from time to time. If I could find something which Mr Tulip could watch as well, that would be even better.

Happily for me, something which fits the bill exactly has just started.

When I first got together with Mr Tulip, I knew nothing about cricket (apart from the fact that England weren’t very good at it at that time). However it quickly became apparent that Test Match Special was going to play a big part in my life, so it made sense to at least understand what was going on. Almost 20 years later, I remain hazy about the precise details of leg before wicket, but have done an awful lot of sewing while listening to cricket commentary.

It’s some time before the first Test Match of the season, but the 2013 IPL (Indian Premier League) started on Wednesday. I certainly won’t watch/listen to all of the games, but 76 matches over 54 days equals a lot of potential sewing time.

And just to show what I’ll be doing, here’s a picture of the section I'm currently working on.

Before and after the beading

Beaded dress - progress report

What a difference a year makes! As well as 50 Fabulous Frocks, the Fashion Museum is still showing Glamour, the display of evening dresses which opened last year. Visiting it again, I was convinced that some of the exhibits had been changed, as I had absolutely no recollection of them. However going back to the photographs I took then confirmed that the dresses had always been there. Clearly different things just caught my eye a year ago.

The 'new' exhibits

Interestingly, both of the dresses in question were worn as wedding dresses, although neither of them is white. I’m not sure why this lemon yellow silk satin one didn’t register in my brain, as it is a similar style to the 1950s red cocktail dress which opened the exhibition, and which became one of the inspirations for my Vegas Night dress. I love the shape, the waist detail, and the way that the darts almost meet at the bust. There’s obviously all sorts of interesting detailing going on at the back, but sadly this was the closest I could get to seeing it.

1961 Nettie Vogue dress

Clearly 12 months ago 1920s beaded dresses just weren’t making an impression on me. That has certainly changed.

1926 wedding dress

The gold brocade fabric is beautiful; such a delicate design.

Brocade close-up

And the beading! I especially love the way the size of the pearls tapers down the fringe.

Beading and fringe

More was in store, as there was another 1920s beaded dress to drool over elsewhere in the museum. Sadly there wasn’t much information about this one.

Pink chiffon and silver beads, mid 1920s

It was good to see the detailing around the hips on the 1926 dress, as I want to do something similar on my 1920s beaded dress, but hadn’t found much evidence of such a design feature before. Then I found this sunny example in All The Pretty Dresses (and then spent far too much time drooling over the other pretties which Isabella has posted there).

Hip detail and handkerchief hem

But enough ‘research’, time to actually get on with some dressmaking! I had already decided that I wanted a band of gold-coloured pattern round the hips, and had come up with a design, again based on Egyptian tentmaker motifs.

Several versions of the hip band, the final one is at the bottom

Unlike the panels, this was to be the same colour throughout. The design is far too intricate to cut out from a different coloured fabric and attach as appliqué, so I needed to paint it instead. Not onto the dress directly, but onto a further piece of satin, which I would then attach along the outer edges. I then decided to also do a small motif to put on the dress front, at the neckline.

To paint the designs I needed to block out the areas of the satin which I wanted to remain ivory, and flood the remainder with thin paint. I also wanted to paint a large piece of the satin in the same colour, and use this for binding the neckline and armholes.

Outliner applied to hip bands top left, and extra motif bottom right. Plus plain fabric to paint

This didn’t go entirely smoothly. In some ways I found it far more difficult than painting the motifs on the panels, as I was trying to keep the colour as even as possible. It was important not to go over any areas twice, which would make the colour darker, or let any areas dry out and leave an obvious join to the next area painted. Even though I thought I had applied the outliner with a fairly generous hand, clearly it wasn’t enough, and the paint ran in some places.

Paint run - too big to be covered by beading

I hadn’t made enough of a barrier between the hip bands and the piece of fabric which I was painting for the binding, either. When I came to paint the latter, the colour ran into the former and left a tide mark. Fortunately this should be lost in the seam allowance when I join the two bands together.The solid colour for the binding isn't a uniform as it could be, either.

Two coats of paint at the ends of the hip bands

Worst of all was the extra motif I had designed for the neckline. I painted this first, and had a totally blank moment about how the outliner works. For some reason I thought it was like batik wax, and acted as a barrier on the fabric. In fact it only prevents the paint from spreading out, and if you paint straight over it, it doesn’t stop the paint from soaking into the fabric.The completed motif in the photograph below clearly shows that I worked from left to right, and realised my mistake too late.

Before and after paining

I spent a while pondering how this could be rescued, before deciding that the only thing for it was to start afresh. Fortunately a) I had some spare paint and b) I made my mistake on the small design, not the big one.

On the plus side, the first, botched motif did then give me a trial piece to play with. When I bought the Dylon paints for the dress panels, I also bought their gold paint, thinking that I might use it on my orange dress. However it turned out to be a very pale gold, which gave an almost pearlescent effect, so I instead I used some Deka gold paint which I had already. While the Dylon gold may be a bit feeble when used on its own (there is a sample at the top of the embroidery hoop in the photograph below), when painted over the yellow it gave a lovely, subtle, gilded effect.

All the painting complete

Unfortunately despite my best efforts this doesn't really capture the lustre, so you'll just have to take my word for it! But that, finally, is all the painting done.

Stripes

This fortnight’s challenge in the Historical Sew Fortnightly is Stripes. I haven’t taken part in this challenge, but you can see the other entries here.

I do have some news on the stripy front however. Ever since I visited the Off The Peg exhibition of Horrockses Fashions last autumn, I have wanted to make my own Horrockses-esqe, bias-cut bodice dress from Vogue pattern 8789.

Horrockses advertisement

Vogue 8789, view A

On our recent holiday I came across Over The Moon in Glastonbury, a lovely shop selling vintage items, gifts, haberdashery and best of all, fabric. (Actually the fabric is right at the back of the shop, but glancing through the window in passing, it was still the first thing I saw!) I found this pretty mauve striped cotton, which will be ideal.

Stripes

Not that I think I’m going to need a cotton summer dress, or my Victorian sunbonnet, for some time. It may be officially spring, but this is what our garden currently looks like.

Brrrrrr!