Hats in Vogue (patterns)

I’ve been doing lots more hatmaking* at Hat Works recently, but as I haven’t yet finished any of my creations, it will be a while until I blog about them.

When I was deciding which blocks to use at the fabulous Summer School (three whole days of hatmaking - bliss!) it struck me that I’m becoming more adventurous in my choices. Partly this is down to experience; initially it’s hard to envisage what a finished hat will look like just by holding a lump of carved wood above your head. But I think it’s also partly down to seeing hats with complete outfits on vintage pattern envelopes.

For years hats featured heavily in pattern illustrations, only disappearing as hat-wearing became less common. Patterns for blouses and more casual clothing such as housecoats were hat-free, but with dresses and suits a hat was almost essential. In fact, so many of my vintage patterns feature hats in their illustrations that for this post I decided to look only at Vogue patterns.

What follows is a very picture-heavy post; so make yourself comfortable, and prepare to enjoy lots of hatting goodness!

Naturally outdoor clothing such as these capes would be worn with a hat.

1938

There may have been a war on, and hats may have been expensive and hard to come by, but Vogue Patterns clearly saw no reason to let standards slip.

1940 (left) and 1942 (centre and right)

Post-war, hats were definitely back. From large (and carried) . . .

1947

. . . to small . . .

1948

. . . to medium-sized and veiled.

1951

Occasionally, the odd hat-free illustration began to appear (although being without gloves for a formal occasion was clearly unthinkable).

1954

But hats were still the norm.

1954

Designer patterns seem to have featured especially extravagant creations, in both drawing and photograph.

1955

I particularly like this example (although I imagine it would be very hard to make!).

1956

There is a block very similar to this shape in the Hat Works collection. Unfortunately it's a bit small for me.

1957

At first glance, this Vogue Basic Design appears to be hat-free.

1960

But the illustration continues on the envelope back.

Not one but two hat examples

In the early 1960s hats still appeared in illustrations.

1961

But the increasingly bouffant hairstyles which also featured just don't look compatible with hat-wearing.

1963

Not that this troubled the 'young fashionables', or perhaps the hat was chosen to accommodate the hair. I love the way the previous owner of this pattern has experimented with different crown shapes!

1964

A beehive-shaped crown seemed to be the solution on this pattern as well (with a illustration "Photographed in Rome").

1968

Massive halo brims were obviously also a feature of the late 1960s.

1968

They weren't just a flight of fancy by the illustrator, either. Blocking this hat must have been very hard work.

1969

By the early 1970s, more pattern illustrations were hat-free. Not all of them, though.

1972

But by the late 1970s even designer patterns, which tended to be more formal, often did not feature hats in either the photograph or the illustration.

1977

And by the 1980s pattern envelopes were back where this post began, with hats only appearing with outdoor clothes.

1986

* - It is indeed hatmaking, because I am making hats from scratch. My step-great-grandmother, Granny T, and my great-aunt, were all milliners however, because they were trimming hats which had already been made.

The Big Stitch - part 3, a finished dress!

After all the hand sewing on the bodice, the skirt of my Big Stitch dress was quick and easy - once I'd got the fabric. The skirt of the original dress was already a bit shorter than I’d normally wear. I knew that I would need to take some off the top to make it bigger at the waist, so it was going to end up shorter still. So I decided to add a plain black band round the bottom.

Black cotton; what could be easier to find?

Quite a lot of things, as it turned out. A hunt through the 'plain cottons' remnant bin in my local fabric shop quickly revealed that not all black cottons are created equal, and it took a while to find anything close to the shade of black used in the skirt. On top of that, the remnant needed to be a similar weight to the skirt fabric in order for the whole thing to drape properly. Finally I found a reasonable match, and it was a big enough piece. Phew.

The pattern was made by tracing round the bottom of a quarter of the skirt, drawing a line 15cm / 6" down from there, marking the extension of the fold and seam lines, and adding seam allowances. The original skirt hem was just an overlocked the raw edge turned under and machine sewn in place, so it was easy to unpick. I made up the band, sewed it on, and hemmed it the same way as the original.

Finally I made a simple tie belt from the leftover yellow fabric, and it was all done.

Transformation complete!

It's not a huge change (I doubt if it would get me very far in the Great British Sewing Bee 'transformation' challenge), but I'm pleased with the end result. It's given me a wearable dress with a bold, non-repeating print; which is something my wardrobe totally lacked.

Before and after

A bonus was the discovery that the new bodice is a perfect match to my yellow shoes. So I decided to dress things up a bit with more period-appropriate jewellery and a hat.

Pearls, and a black straw vintage cocktail hat

I should have added a handbag (and a cocktail!)

The Big Stitch - part 2, a whole lot of hand sewing

I had hoped to have a finished dress to post about, but my first Big Stitch project (the black, white and yellow cotton sundress) has involved a lot more hand sewing than I’d expected. As a result, I’ve only got the bodice complete.

I had already decided to discard the original bodice, so the first thing I did was separate it from the skirt. I left the zip attached to the skirt, with the idea that I might be able to sew it into whatever new bodice I added, but I quickly realised that the ‘spare’ part was too long to fit comfortably into anything else. So I unpicked it altogether.

In the meantime I was also considering what pattern to use for the new bodice. I was tempted to go with Butterick 6620 because I love it so much, but I wasn’t sure how the long sleeves would work on something that’s sewn onto a skirt (I know I'm being picky, but I do like to be able to move my arms!) Instead I went with Vogue 8789, which I used for my DIY Horrockses dress.

This has the advantage of having an entirely straight neckline. Only after I’d bought some yellow cotton for the new bodice did I remember that yellow next to the skin isn’t a good look for me. It would need some sort of trimming round the neck to hide the yellowness (of both me and the fabric - that's the effect it has!) I found some chunky cotton lace which I thought would be ideal, but which wouldn’t work around curves.

Raw materials: skirt, zip, yellow and black cotton, and the lace

I decided to sew the lace onto the four bodice pieces by hand, just overcasting along the straight edges. Unfortunately once I started to sew I discovered that it wasn’t all that robustly made, and was coming apart in places. So I had to sew down loose bits and remake some of the joining bars in sewing thread as I went along. Once I’d finally finished this, I decided that a single length of lace looked a bit puny, so had the repeat the whole exercise with a second row. All this took time. A long, long time.

Trim sewn onto a bodice back section

To make the white voile lining, I cut out the bodice pieces, minus the self-facing round the neck. Then I slightly trimmed the neckline and armscyes of the lining pieces. I made up the lining and bodice separately, sewed the two right sides together round the armscyes, and turned the whole thing right way out. I wanted to understitch the lining round the armscye, but this would be nigh-on impossible by machine, so I did it by hand.

The lining sewn in place round the armscye

Next the raw edge of the bodice self-facing was turned under, making the facing the same width as the double lace strip. This meant that when I slip-stitched the facing onto the lining I could catch the whole thing down to the main bodice occasionally, with the stitches being hidden by the edge of the lace.

The right side of the bodice was sewn up completely, the left just at the top. The skirt is wider at the front than the back, and I wanted to replicate this in the bodice. I did this by tapering the centre front seam and altering the side seams so that the raw edges didn’t match. It was only after I’d done all this that I realised it would have been far simpler just to make the substantial front darts slightly less substantial! Oh well, live and learn.

Next I attached the skirt to the bodice. In keeping with the ethos of the project, I re-used the existing zip. Re-attaching an invisible zip into a made-up garment was another thing which would be awkward by machine, so I hand sewed that as well, with a small back stitch. Finally (for now) I slip-stitched the lining (yet more hand sewing) in place around the waist.

Inside view of the bodice back, showing how the front is wider

Bodice front

Next up, finishing the skirt.

Chester

Although I’ve posted about various places I’ve visited, such as York and Venice, I’ve never got round to writing about the place where I live; the City of Chester*.
(Warning: there’s almost 2,000 years of history to write about, so this is a very picture-heavy post.)

Chester began as a Roman fort, founded in 79 AD. Its name, Castra Deva, meant ‘the fort on the Dee’. In time the original timber fort was replaced with something more substantial, and a settlement grew up around it. The Romans called the settlement Deva, but unlike Londinium the Roman name was lost over time.

There are Roman remains dotted all around the city. The Roman Gardens holds a large collection of them.

Column remains in the Roman Gardens

It’s hard to believe that 100 years ago no-one knew there was an amphitheatre in Chester; it was only discovered in 1929. Now around half of it is visible, although many of the remains are too fragile to be exposed to the elements, so have been covered over. It doesn’t look much from above, but it is thought that it could hold up to 7,000 spectators.

The amphitheatre, seen from the city walls

When I was a member of Ya Raqs we had several opportunities to dance in the amphitheatre. Performing to a huge crowd, in a space originally used so long ago, was a very special experience.

This Is Deva 2011, photograph by Sharon Baskerville

The city walls have been rebuilt many times over the years, but a few Roman sections still remain.

A section of the Roman wall,near the Northgate

At two miles long, the walls provide an almost complete circuit of the medieval city. There were four main gates, all of which were replaced with simple archways once the walls were no longer needed as defence. One of the medieval gates does remain however. The Kaleyard gate was cut to give the monks of what was then the abbey (now the cathedral) access to their vegetable garden (kaleyard), which was outside the walls. Permission to build the gate was only granted on condition that it was locked at 9pm every night. A notice on the gate warns that the gate is still locked at this time.

The Kaleyard Gate, from outside the walls

Chester cathedral

Today the walls provide a route for a traffic-free stroll.

The River Dee, the Old Bridge, and the walls

Looking along the walls to the Phoenix Tower

The Phoenix Tower and walls from below

Also on the walls, over the east gate, is the Eastgate Clock. Built to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, it is allegedly the second-most photographed clock in Britain after Big Ben.

The Eastgate Clock

Other cities in Britain have walls. Other places in Britain have a Roman amphitheatre. But nowhere else has the Rows. It’s not clear how they came about, but Chester’s unique double-decked shops have existed for 700 years. They are mostly around the Cross, the point where the four main streets join.

Chester Cross, and some of the Rows

At ground level there is one shop, usually with steps down to a floor lower than the street itself. Then there are steps up to a covered walkway (the Row itself), which gives access to another shop. As these shops cannot be seen from ground level, they often advertise their presence with hanging signs. The other side of the walkway has a flat area which was originally filled with market stalls.

Watergate Street Row, south side, showing the low ground floor shops

Watergate Street Row, north side, Booth's Mansion

The Row in front of Booth's Mansion

The city has many fine Tudor and Georgian buildings.

The Falcon, originally built around 1200

The Nine Houses almshouses, built around 1650

The Bear and Billet, built 1664

The Bluecoat charity school and almshouses, built 1717

Abbey Square

Not everything built in black and white is Tudor, however. There are a number of Victorian and Edwardian half-timbered 'revival' buildings as well.

Northgate Street, the date 1897 is just visible above the red sign

The Grosvenor Arcade, now part of the Grosvenor Shopping Centre, was built in the early twentieth century. Originally it had a frontage of cream tiles, but this provoked so much complaint that in the end the front was remodelled in a way considered more appropriate for Chester. Now only the interior and ground floor level of the front give an idea of what the original looked like.

The 'new' front of the Grosvenor Shopping Centre

The original tiled decoration

Glazed figurative corbels, and the world's least sympathetic wiring placement

Bringing things right up-to-date is Chester's newest building; Storyhouse. Opened a couple of months ago, this arts centre contains a theatre, library, cinema and café, in a building which incorporates the old Art Deco Odeon cinema.

Storyhouse

Even this long post has felt like a whistle-stop tour; I have missed so much out. So I'll finish with a shameless plug for my for friend Clare Dudman's fascinating book Real Chester, which is crammed full of stories and personal observations about the city.

* - It may not feel like a city. In fact it may often feel like a large village (especially if, like me, you live close enough to the centre to walk everywhere), but Chester is very clear on the fact that it is a city. When an article about the soap Hollyoaks in the Daily Mail last year made reference to "the fictional town of Chester", the word "town" almost caused more outrage than the word "fictional".