Miscellaneous sewing

There's not a lot to report this week, as my sewing has mostly been scrubs. So far I've completed two sets, complete with scrubs caps made with matching fabric on one side, and a jollier print on the other. They are not especially hard to sew, but it's not interesting work. And while undeniably necessary and useful, they don't look terribly exciting, either.

The first two sets

On the plus side, these were made from stashed fabric, so can be added to the Stashometer totals (which have also been updated to include the Ditto Fabrics yardage).

15 metres in credit - but not for long

Up until now I have been using old bedsheets, and one thing I have noticed is that these blunt sewing machine needles really quickly. I'll be glad to make the rest from the 'proper' fabric, which has recently arrived. There was far too much to pre-wash in the washing machine, so it had to be done in the bath, instead.

The ducks are helping

For the good of my mental health, I have decided to intersperse scrubs-making with a bit of my usual sewing, in this case my April dress for the Vintage Sew A Dress A Month.

My April dress

The fabric was a remnant, and there is only enough for the short-sleeved version of the dress. So far I have cut everything out (including an added in-seam pocket because - pockets), and made up the bodice apart from the side seams.

Progress so far

I'm also engaged in one of my habitual dressmaking dilemmas: agonising over buttons.

The four possible choices

I really like the two-tone pink (second down), but while it looks striking close-up, it rather vanishes into the fabric at a distance. In fact, only the green stands out.

Spot the buttons

Fortunately I've still got a lot to do, so I can leave that decision for a while.

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!

I finished a thing!

Normally I wouldn't get this excited about finishing a dress, but these are not normal times. I was chatting to my friend F the other night* and we both agreed that our concentration levels are hopelessly low at present. So I'm taking the completion of any task, no matter how basic, as a win.

Woohoo - a finished dress!

This is my second dress made from Vogue 2787. I decided that I wanted to finish it before I started my April projects, as it has been on a hanger on the door of my workroom for ages. I thought it had been there since last year, but actually I started it in August 2018!

The pattern

Its previous appearance on the blog

After I made the front I sewed the centre back, shoulder and side seams, and that was as far as it got. Amazingly, I hadn't lost the facing pieces in the intervening 18 months, so the next thing was to sew those together and attach the facing.

With side seams, and pinned-on facing

After that, all that was needed was the zip (hand-picked, as ever), the sleeve and skirt hems, making and attaching the shoulder pads, and the buttons at the back neck. Far and away the trickiest thing was selecting the buttons. Buttons of any yellow apart from an exact match - which of course I didn't have - looked dreadful, so I experimented with picking out the other colours in the fabric.

Possible button choices

In the end, I settled on the vintage red set on the left.

The buttons in situ - with matching earrings

The soft cotton that I used this time is a far more appropriate fabric choice for this pattern than the crisper cotton I used previously; the gathered sections drape much better.

Showing the gathered sections at the neck and hip.

Sadly, because this was finishing off a dress already cut out, there's no impact on the Stashometer. However, the shoulder pads were covered with lining fabric taken from my 'lining offcuts' stash, and the seams beneath the armholes (the weakest point of this dress) were reinforced with tape from my 'leftover bits of tape and binding' box. Even though I'm a firm believer in wasting as little as possible, sometimes in the past it has seemed a bit daft to keep all these odds and ends when I live so close to a fabric shop and can 'just pop out' for anything I need. Suddenly however it doesn't seem so silly any more!

Home-made covered shoulder pad

Tape to stop the side seam from tearing below the armhole

I'm really pleased with how this dress turned out, and so glad that I finally finished it. I'm looking forward to it getting lots of wear when I can get out and about, and might even manage to get some pictures of it somewhere other than in front of a yellow wall!

Blending in

* - Not in person, obviously. When we stopped to think about it, we realised that our socialising mostly consists of me going round to her house for a good natter and a couple of glasses of wine followed by copious cups of tea - all of which we could easily replicate over the phone. Sadly what I can't do is play with her cat; but he does recognise my voice over the phone, and miaows a greeting to me!

Missing this handsome chap!

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 - Re-Use

Because I had my graduation outfit to complete for the 13th, and I was meant to be going on holiday for a week after the ceremony, I had decided that I needed something quick and simple for the Historical Sew Monthly this month. So I chose February's challenge; Re-Use. This is defined as "Use thrifted materials or old garments or bedlinen to make a new garment. Mend, re-shape or re-trim an existing garment to prolong its life.". This seemed the perfect fit for a job that's been on my to-do list for ages; fixing my 1911 corset.

I made this corset way back in 2012, as part of a sewalong run on the now sadly defunct Bridges on the Body blog. The pattern is taken from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines.

The completed corset

At the time I didn't know much about corset making. I didn't blog about the making process in much detail, either, so I don't have any clues as to why I chose to have many of the bones ending some way below the top of the boning channels. The diagram in Corsets and Crinolines shows the bones coming to the top of the corset.

Corset pieces and bone placement

The bones end far below the top edge

The effect wasn't obvious when the corset was on the dressform, but when I wore it to photograph my Wiener Werkstätte ensemble, the unboned section buckled and rolled down. It was uncomfortable, messy, and clearly wasn't doing the corset any good.

Initially I planned to take the trim off the upper edge of the corset, cut it down to the tops of the bones, and re-apply the trim. Fortunately, before I could get round to doing this, witness2fashion wrote an excellent series of articles on the changing corseted shape from 1907 to 1914 (click on the links here for Part 1 - 1907-1910, Part 2 - 1910-1912 and Part 3 - 1912-1914). This was how I discovered that the shape of the corset wasn't the problem, it was the length of the bones.

I carefully took off the binding and trim as planned, unpicked the top flossing, and removed the bones (they were all flat steels).

This shows how the fabric had bunched up

I then measured the boning channels from the bottom flossing, and ordered new steels. Most of them were around 2.5cm / 1" longer. These were inserted and flossed, and the binding and trim sewn back on. In the picture below it's just possible to see the marks where the old bones ended.

The replacement bones in place

Please excuse the poor quality bathroom selfies which follow, and the fact that I'm wearing a tee shirt rather than my chemise underneath. I had foolishly put my tea in the oven once I'd finished sewing, and then realised that this didn't leave me much time to take the photos! Despite the quality, they show that the fit is much better.

Front view

Side view

It was only when I dug out the original images from 2012 for this post that I realised that I've sewn the eyelet trim back on wrongly - the pink satin bias underneath should be visible at the top, not the bottom. So guess what tomorrow's little job is going to be?! Despite that, I'm very pleased to have finally fixed this.

The small print:
The Challenge: February, Re-Use
What the item is: Fixing a poorly-fitting corset by replacing some of the steels which were too short
How it fits the challenge: Left as it was, the corset would wear through due to bunching and rubbing. All the existing trim was re-applied once the corrections had been made
Fabric: Coutil for the corset, synthetic satin for the bias trim
Pattern: 1911 corset from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines
Year: c1911
Notions: cotton eyelet lace for trimming, flat steels
How historically accurate is it? The pattern is from an actual corset, and the materials are accurate apart from the synthetic satin, so I would say 80%
Hours to complete: 8, a fair amount of which was unpicking. Partly because when I sew something, I don't intend for it to come apart easily, and partly because I was making sure that the materials could be re-used
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: I am only including the cost of the new steels, not the materials for the original corset, as the challenge was to fix it, not make it from scratch. £11.47.

Shape-shifting

Not so much a progress report this week, more of a ponder. Like a lot of people, I suddenly find myself with more time at home than I'd bargained for, and a need for something to take my mind off the news. Fortunately, sewing fits the bill. With all the things I want to make this year, I'm really not at a loose end. But just to add to the fun, I'm hoping to use the dresses I make for the UseNine challenge as a way of ironing out some fitting problems.

A long, long time ago, I wrote about the alterations I needed to make when I'm sewing. I have a short torso, and taking roughly 5cm/2" out of the bodice length seemed to do the trick. How much and where varied between pattern brands, but it was the same amount all round. I also knew that I was (rather to my disappointment) a B cup.

Well, in the words of Joni Mitchell, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

In the last couple of years I'd noticed that my dresses were getting a bit tight round the bust, but I just put it down to middle-aged spread. What I really couldn't understand though, was why bodices suddenly seemed to be slightly short on me. It was only at the front, so couldn't be a very late growth spurt! I even wondered if my posture had changed - was I standing more upright?

Eventually light dawned; my bust has got larger. This was one effect of the menopause that I really didn't expect. I've only gone up to a C cup, but dress patterns have traditionally been created to a B. So for all these years, while I've occasionally grumbled a bit about having to alter patterns, I've really been leading a charmed life. Bust alterations, I've been led to believe, are scary.

Aaaargh!

When I made Butterick 5748, I used a size larger than I normally would, shortened the centre-back by 5cm as usual, shortened the centre front by 4cm, and tapered the waistline between these two points. This seemed to work, but I wear the dress with a belt, and it's got a wide neckline, a full skirt and no sleeves, so I didn't have to worry about the fit of the larger size anywhere else.

Out of curiosity, I then took the bodice front in the size I'd usually use, added my standard shortening alteration, and then altered the pattern using this FBA method from the Curvy Sewing Collective. My first attempt at making the bodice up was dreadful (too dreadful to even photograph), because I'd got the bust point in the wrong place, so the darts were spectacularly wrong. The bodice length, width and neckline all seemed fine, however.

My altered pattern piece

The extra length at the bodice front and the extra width at the bust are quite similar to the changes I made myself, so I'll need to consider which method to use on future dresses. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience of fitting a C cup bust, or who has had to alter their fitting practice in line with a changing body - this is all new territory to me!

When it all goes a bit wrong (and then right)

So, Vogue 1277. The outfit I was making for my graduation. The outfit for which I have made one dress bodice toile, one full dress toile and one jacket toile (give or take a few sleeves). The outfit I have been working on for weeks. Last weekend I finished the dress bodice in the 'proper' fabric, and tried it on.

And. I didn't like it.

I had already accepted that my tailoring skills weren't good enough for me to complete the jacket in the time available, so was just making the dress. But it was only when I tried the bodice on that I realised that most of the detailing is on the jacket, and the dress on its own is quite plain.

Vogue 1277, the dress

This hadn't been a problem with the white toile, but I was concerned that a darkish blue version worn with a black gown over it would look too severe. The hunt was on for an alternative*, and at first I considered wearing something I had already made. But somehow this didn't seem right, after completing an entire dissertation on home dressmaking.

While looking through the stash for inspiration, I unearthed a length of navy viscose with a small floral print, which I'd bought for its 1940s look. And it struck me that I had the perfect 1940s pattern to go with it. In my dissertation I had discussed the authenticity (or otherwise) of reissued patterns, and had used my comparison of Simplicity 1777 and 4463 to illustrate the point. What could be better than actually wearing some of my research for the graduation ceremony?

Eureka!

In terms of construction, I mostly followed the methods I'd used the last time I made this pattern up. The only difference was that I used a zip, rather than a placket and press studs, for the side opening. In theory this was to save time but, as I always hand pick zips anyway, I'm not sure that it ended up being any quicker.

This is definitely a pattern which needs a fabric with drape. The previous, cotton, version has not softened over time, and the gathers at the waist bunch up awkwardly. In fact, I'm considering unpicking them and pleating the fabric instead. The viscose works perfectly, however. I founds some buttons which matched the brown of the flowers, and I think that they provide just the right level of contrast.

The completed dress

On top of this, the navy background went well with the blue hood of my graduation robes.

With my robes and degree certificate

(As a side note, I was unreasonably happy to finally get to wear a mortarboard. I did my first degree at Liverpool, and the female graduates weren't allowed to wear mortarboards at the ceremony - we had to wear weird square berets instead, which were a nightmare to keep on. I haven't exactly been nursing a grievance for 34 years, but still.)

Anyone who followed the progress of my Masters on this blog (thank you!) will be familiar with the Dissertation Police and their vital role in getting me over the finishing line. So it seemed only right that they accompanied me to the ceremony at Chester Cathedral. My parents meanwhile watched the livestream from the comfort, and warmth, of their own home - the cathedral isn't the cosiest building to sit in for two hours.

Flanked by the police, F and D

Not only did this end up being the perfect dress for the occasion, it became my March dress for the Vintage Sew A Dress A Month, and it also used up some stash fabric as well. Although I do have to confess that some fabric has been bought recently. I've discovered the Ditto Fabrics website, which I fear may be a Very Bad Thing. I tried to resist, honestly I did, but then I came across this.

Because who doesn't want a dress with pineapples on it? (image © Ditto Fabrics)

So fabric has gone out, but fabric has also come in.

Still in credit

* - Just to be clear, Vogue 1277 hasn't been completely abandoned. I still want to make it, but it's now more of a long-term project.