This is actually my fourth sweater. The first was my 1917 Knitted Sweater of Angorina, the second hasn’t been posted to the blog, and the third was my 1920 Sweater of Determination. Each sweater has been a learning experience in some way, and this one was no different!
One thing I learned with this sweater was about multiple different ways to increase and decrease symmetrically on each side of a piece (a sleeve for example). This was a rabbit hole I went down that I think was sparked by my wondering why the stitch instructions were different for the left and right side raglan armholes.
The method of increasing or decreasing is an important one made by the pattern designer because every stitch has a different look and different types of stitches may or may not look symmetrical when knit up. Also, the increase and decrease stitches have a slant to them, so it’s important that the slants are going in the correct direction. This resource clearly outlines different increase and decrease methods.
You can see the decorative symmetry of the shaping on the armsceyes in this pattern in the photo below. I love how it looks!
I also learned how to K2Tog TBL (Knit 2 Together Through The Back Loop). I’d K2Tog before, but not through the back loop. I found this explanation of K2Tog TBL to be the most helpful.
And, I learned about picking up stitches along an already finished edge, which is something I hadn’t encountered in any of the things I’ve made so far. This technique is used for the cuffs on the new sweater. I found this information and this information super helpful in terms of figuring it out and making it look nice.
The pattern for this sweater is a PDF download from Subversive Femme on Etsy. It is the 1950s Fitted Raglan Cardigan pictured below. The pattern was easy to download and the quality was clear and easy to read.
My cardigan (the end result) generally follows the pattern image, so that’s great! There are a few differences:
1- My understanding of the instructions created a vertical pattern that doesn’t quite match the one pictured on the orange sweater. I’m not sure if I was doing something wrong or not, but I don’t mind how mine turned out.
2- The pattern image clearly shows full length sleeves, but the instructions definitely produced ¾ sleeve sleeves with weird proportions in terms of circumferences around the arms. After making one, I puzzled for a bit, then decided to take it apart and knit a new sleeve with alterations to make it longer.
Below, you can see the comparison of the sleeves: the original sleeve that follows the directions is on the left and my altered version is on the right.
3- I made up the sweater in a bust size 38″ (the largest size included in the pattern). As much as I love my sweater, it is a bit small. I’d prefer it to be an inch or two longer in length, a bit bigger in terms of torso circumference (the buttons don’t really stay closed), and definitely bigger in the size of the armsceyes (it’s a bit tight under my arms). This makes sense, since my bust measures 40″. Someday I might make another version of this sweater and adjust the pattern to have more space in the areas where I need it.
The pattern seems to have been published by a yarn company and states quite clearly that “Correct results can only be obtained by using Lee Target in ‘Motoravia’ Double Knitting Wool.” Well, I didn’t use that… I used Red Heart With Love acrylic yarn in boysenberry, because I had a bunch of it in my stash (enough, I thought or at least hoped). It was leftover from my Deauville sweater, I liked the color, and it also seemed to be a similar weight to the Lee Target wool, which Ravelry has great information on and photos of.
I figured that if the sweater was a complete disaster I wouldn’t have spent tons of money on yarn for it. In the end, I didn’t have quite enough yarn and had to order another 6oz, but luckily I found the right yarn, in the right color, on Etsy and the skeins don’t have dye lots, so I had enough to finish the project!
Being acrylic, this cardigan is quite warm. It’s great for being outside in the cold, but I’ve found that wearing it inside can sometimes make me too warm. That’s true of most acrylic sweaters I own. I can’t count on them being part of an outfit all day, because I often take them off at some point.
This sweater took about 46 hours of knitting to make, plus another 4 ½ hours of unknitting (either to take apart the sleeve that was too short or because I’d mixed up a stitch somewhere along the way and had to go back and fix it). It was made over the course of about 10 months.
For materials, I used about 18 oz/925 yds of yarn and 7 plastic buttons that I found in a coordinating shade of deep pinky/purple, after a lengthy hunt on Etsy. The total cost of the materials was about $20, plus some shipping for the buttons and extra skein of yarn.
I had a wonderful time tromping through the woods after an early snow last October to document the new sweater and the black wool ¾ circle skirt I’m wearing with it. Despite the fit being a bit small, I’m very pleased with the cardigan and have added it into my regular wardrobe rotation even outside of a photo shoot walk.
While it’s fun to make historical things that only get worn on special outings, there’s also an added bonus when things can be worn more often for everyday life!
I’ve found it so easy to make wool circle skirts to fill out my wardrobe with warm, vintage inspired styles. I started with the brown wool ¾ circle skirt I posted about in 2017. Last year, I posted about the burgundy wool ½ circle skirt I made. In between those, in the first months of 2019, I decided to add a black ¾ circle skirt. It’s a great basic!
It really is basic: a ¾ circle skirt with side seams and a center back seam.
I used 1 ¾ yards of 60″ wide wool, a scrap of interfacing, thread, a zipper, and a few yards of hug snug for the hem. The total materials cost was about $33.
The side seams allowed for the easy addition of pockets! Here are my pockets ready to be set in. They’re made from the black wool and have serged seam allowances to keep everything tidy.
The main circle part of the skirt is set into a basic rectangle waistband. The waistband is interfaced with a strip of upholstery canvas to keep it from crumpling while being worn. Because my wool fabric is opaque I used this random geometric scrap for the interfacing.
The waistband closes at the back with a button and buttonhole above a lapped zipper. The geometric interfacing was showing when I cut my buttonhole open (top photo, below), which just wouldn’t do! To fix it, I used a black sharpie to darken the white threads that were showing (bottom photo, below). It worked like a charm!
Here’s a back view of the skirt. You can see the zipper lap and also just barely see a pocket opening on the right side.
This skirt is mostly machine sewn with the edges finished with a serger. The waistband is finished by hand. The hem is faced with black hug snug sewn by machine and then hemmed by hand for an invisible finish.
I’ve been wearing this for well over a year, but hadn’t yet found a moment to take photos. This day was perfect, as I was also documenting the completion of my sweater (a post on that will be forthcoming!). Plus, we had the most magical snowy winter woods to take these photos. It felt like Narnia!
I haven’t posted about mask making on the blog. It’s felt as though doing so would sort of confirm the situation of wearing them. Ignorance is bliss, right? Or something?
Last weekend, I was going skiing and finally decided that the masks I’d been using weren’t going to cut it for that activity. Instead, I made new gaiter style ones!
I made my new gaiter masks from old t shirts in the spirit of recycling, extending the use of clothing I already own, and using what I had on hand. I was excited, took photos of my process, and wanted to share them, hence the inspiration for finally sharing about mask making.
Gaiter masks made from old t shirts!
The (Rather Lengthy) Background
I’ve made it through the last 9 months using self-made masks with ties. Here’s a colorful assortment of my masks, made from cotton scraps of old projects, random fat quarters I had in my stash, and old sheets for most of the ties. Recycling again!
I have very few subtle masks… I made enough to wear them every day and still be able to launder them no more than every few weeks. This is only a sampling!
I have a single mask that has elastic (made specifically to match my 1834 yellow dress, because tying a mask on with 1830s hair and a bonnet just did not seem feasible!). My preference for masks with ties come from the fact that I wear glasses most of the time and don’t like the feeling of more things behind my ears. Also, it’s nice that the lower ties can double as a neck cord when needed, such as when I’m driving between errands.
But for skiing, a tie mask with a helmet was just not going to work for me. I don’t even think the ties are long enough to go over a helmet. And ties under the helmet? It would be a pain to adjust, so I wasn’t inclined to do that, either. I’ve seen people wearing the gaiter style masks for months, especially for physical activities, but I don’t like the idea of breathing through polyester and I’ve been stubborn about wearing the masks I had already made.
In my mulling over the idea of a gaiter style mask, I realized I could make my own, to whatever specifications I want! However, I didn’t have fabric yardage easily accessible that was stretchy. But then I had the thought that my donation pile had a number of t shirts that no longer fit… and that recycling them into gaiters would be a wonderful way to keep their life going!
So, without further ado… a tutorial!
The Tutorial
I started by laying one of the old t shirts out on my table. I smoothed out the layers, but didn’t worry too much about it being perfect. It’s a knit that’s been folded for quite awhile, so there were some wrinkles to contend with, as you can see.
I measured a rectangle 10″ wide by 11″ tall and cut through both layers of the shirt at the same time, leaving me with what you see below, as well as an oddly shaped scrap I’ll keep that and see what other creative uses for it I can come up with! (If you have a small-ish or large-ish head, or a t shirt that is really stretchy or really not-stretchy, you might need to adjust the measurements.)
Finishing the gaiter mask is much faster and easier if the bottom edges of the rectangles use the finished bottom edges of the t shirt as the ‘cut edge’. That means not cutting anything off that side!
Pin the vertical edges right sides together and stitch them with a straight stitch on the machine using ¼” seam allowances. (You can use a straight stitch because you’re not trying to preserve vertical stretch.)
Here’s what my gaiter looked like after sewing the sides. The fabric should make a tube!
Once turned right side out it should look something like the photo below. If you’ve used the finished t shirt edge for one side then you’re close to being done!
In my case, the t shirt I used was two layers of fabric in the front, which is why the left and right sides of the top edge in the photo below aren’t finished in the same way–they weren’t on the original t shirt either. The two layers allowed me to seam the vertical seams in a way that encased the raw edges between the double layer side of the mask. Nice!
But most t shirts are not two layers in the front, so how to finish those raw edges of the seam allowance? They won’t fray, because the fabric is knit, but if you don’t want them flapping around you can flat fell them using a zig zag stitch.
The tan and white gaiter mask below is halfway through having the seam allowances flat felled. I’ve pushed all the layers of seam allowance to one side and am using the machine to zig zag over the cut edges. It’s a little tricky to make sure that only the part you’re intending to sew gets under the presser foot of the machine, but going slowly and checking where all the layers are makes it completely do-able. (I had enough of the tan and white fabric to make this whole mask double layer, but not all t shirts have enough fabric to make that possible.)
Here is what that looks like when finished. (This gaiter also has a hem already, which is the next step!)
Finishing the top and/or bottom edges of the tube is the last step!
In the tan and white example above, the edges are already finished because I used two layers of fabric and turned them right side out before stitching the sides. To keep the layers in place I zig zag stitched near the top and bottom edges through both layers as a final step. (I used a zig zag so that the stitches would allow the fabric to stretch without breaking the thread.)
Back to the teal example we’ve been looking at, I simply folded up the raw edge of the fabric and top stitched over the edge with a zig zag (in the same way as for the seam allowance finish on the tan and white example). I used ½” seam allowance for the top and bottom edges. It looks like this when complete!
And that’s it! Each gaiter took me about 30 minutes to make.
Final Assessment
I wore the teal gaiter while skiing! I don’t plan to wear these every day, but for that purpose the gaiter style was great!
I did find that it tended to slip down as it absorbed the moisture of my breath, in combination with the head movement required to check behind me, etc. while skiing. Due to this, I had to pull it up somewhat regularly. I eventually tucked it into my helmet a little better and that made it stay in place. Another solution would be to take tucks in the sides to make the top circumference smaller. Or, perhaps, for next time (or for you!), make each rectangle ½” smaller across (so only 9.5″ instead of 10″) to make the gaiter a little more fitted.
The two layers of fabric on the front of my gaiter felt thick enough for virus protection while still easy to breath through. All that condensation made for a pretty damp mask after a few hours though… It was fine while I was out in the cold, but after taking it off in the car on the way home I had no desire to put it on again without a wash (though that’s true with any mask, regardless of the style)!
Whether this inspires you to make a gaiter mask or not, I hope my t shirt recycling inspires you to also consider recycling textiles (or other materials) in some way… perhaps in a way you hadn’t considered before!
I think it’s fair to say that 2020 was a year of unexpected challenges. Despite that, I remain grateful for many things, including the ability, materials, and motivation to sew. The motivation came and went, if we’re being honest, but it was more often present than not. Keeping my hands busy while making things helps me, sometimes.
The blog had its 10 year anniversary in November! Wow! I guess I have plenty to say! Also, the blog hit 400 followers this year! Thanks for reading and joining me on my sewing adventures!
I participated in the Historical Sew Monthly for the eighth year. This year I was able to complete 6 out of 12 challenges, which is more than I’ve done in the last few years. Yay for that!
This year’s event season was cut short, but before things shut down I attended 3 balls and 1 other event (tea, picnic, outing etc.). I’ve also been grateful to attend 3 socially distanced outings in the later part of the year.
To Do Lists
Last year’s to do list was completed by July! It was great to finish off a few projects that had been sitting around the sewing room for a few years: namely, my 1925 Coat and an 1885 wool dress that I don’t have photos of yet. (It was far too warm in July to consider photos of a heavy wool bustle dress!) The 1875 ensemble was a big project that I had fun making. I’m looking forward to getting more photos of that in the future.
I also did a pretty good job at the things on the ‘maybe’ list from last year in the form of my 1875 hat, 1830s cotton day dress, and some modern dresses, pants, and skirts. Some of those were remakes, but I think they still count.
So, for 2021’s ‘definitely’ to do list, we’re keeping expectations modest in scope (Is that cheating? Can you cheat on your own to do list?):
1885 wool mantle (already done in the first days of the new year!)
Small muff to go with my 1885 mantle (already done in the first days of the new year!)
Updating a hat to go with my 1885 mantle (already done in the first days of the new year!)
1838 cotton day dress bodice (this is close to being done!)
The ‘maybe’ to do list:
The 1790s stays I started in the winter of 2018
1790s petticoat
1790s dress
1836 cotton day dress
Modern dresses, pants, and skirts
I’m so grateful to continue to find joy in sewing. I hope that joy continues and brings sparks of inspiration to each of you in some way, as well. Wishing all of us joy, gratitude, and good health!
A few years ago, I decided I wanted a 1920s coat. The goal was to make it for an event, but I ran into some construction problems along the way that caused me to give up work for awhile. In January, after letting it sit for about two years, I was tired of looking at the half finished project and worked up the determination to actually finish it.
Though I’ve only worn it once so far, I’m very pleased that I finally finished this coat! It is quite decadent and elegant to wear (and it’s nice to have completed the project so I can put it away)!
My inspiration started with the pattern below. I was intrigued by the flared side pieces and overlapped closure. I enlarged this pattern and did a little adjusting for my proportions.
With the pattern ready to go, I purchased the exterior fabric of the coat and got to work. The exterior is made out of fleece backed velvet upholstery fabric from Fabric.com. Thankfully it isn’t super stiff, like some upholstery fabrics are. The fleece backing is actually quite soft and the exterior has a low pile and lovely sheen. It shows every little brush against the nap though, so I was super careful while making it, transporting it, and wearing it to keep the pile brushed the right way.
The inside body of the coat is lined in tan silk shantung. This was a remnant I purchased years ago from a local discount fabric store. I’ve never found a good use for it until now, when I managed to just squeeze out the pieces I needed for the coat.
Unfortunately, that’s also where the problems started. I cut the sleeve linings on the cross grain of the silk (because I was running low on fabric). I know that grain and cross grain can behave differently, but these were drastically different! The sleeves were so constricting!
Also, I hadn’t widened the sleeves enough to actually move in even without the silk lining! I could get my arms in the sleeves but there was no way I was going to bend them or use them for any useful purpose. Oops!
What to do???
Well, with the event I had intended this for fast approaching… I gave up. I put the project on the back of a chair (so it wouldn’t get marks in the pile!) and moved on.
Two years later, I decided it was time to finish the coat. In the spirit of forging ahead and in order to make things work, I changed a few things from my original vision.
For the sleeves, I scrapped the silk linings, opting to just leave the arms of the coat unlined. This worked because of the softness of the fleece backing. In addition, I was able to cut cuff facings and binding for the armhole seam allowances out of my failed sleeve linings.
I thought I could let out the under sleeve seam and it would be enough extra fabric to make the sleeves comfortable. The needle holes had left scars on the fabric, but I figured no one would see it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough!
So, I ripped out the let out seam, dug out my fabric scraps, and pieced a section down the entire length of the arm. The piece is about 1″ wide at the wrist and 2″ at the armsceye. What was I thinking with my original pattern??? Thankfully the added piece is not obvious, since it’s on the underside of the arm. And I suppose that if you didn’t know where sleeve seams should be it wouldn’t look out of place!
As well as actually fitting my arm (and allowing for movement!), the bigger armsceye on the sleeve allowed me to move the sleeve up on the shoulder a bit, too, which helped the coat not look oversized.
In addition to the sleeve changes, I also changed the front edges of the coat from that nice jag with buttons to straight from collar to hem. I realized there was no way to do buttonholes I would be happy with in my very thick velour and that the angle I had very carefully sewn just would not lie flat. A slight tug line at the inside corner really bothered me.
I looked at these two pages from a 1925 Sears catalog to help with the design choices at this point.
These helped me decide on the button closure. There is one button and corresponding thread loop on the hip and another below the collar.
The Sears images also helped me decide on the location of the fur trim. The bands and collar are made faux fur leftover from my 1814 Wizchoura Ensemble, also from Fabric.com. The collar is especially warm and comfy when buttoned shut, though it’s also a lot around the face… so I think wearing it open is more likely! This combination of red pile exterior and tan fur shows up multiple times on my 1920s Outwear Pinterest board and it was nice to use fur I already owned instead of buying more.
I decided against fur trim on the cuffs and instead kept the French cuff look, set off with two buttons. This was a feature from the original pattern that was supposed to mirror the jag on the front edges that I eliminated.
I didn’t change the flared side pieces of the pattern and I’m very pleased with the end result. They give a 1920s flip to the otherwise very straight shape of this coat.
The six buttons on the coat are from Farmhouse Fabrics. They’re big, about 1 ¼” across, and they have a wavy pattern on them that helps make them interesting looking without being distracting. They match the velour so well!
All together, the materials used on this coat are: 2 ½ yards of the fleece backed velvet, approximately 2 yards of silk shantung for the lining, scraps of faux fur used on my 1814 Wiztchoura, 6 large buttons, and thread. The total cost of these materials is about $70, including shipping.
I didn’t keep track of the number of hours spent making, altering, and finishing this coat, but I would guess that it is around 30-40. There was some serious frustration in there (or despair, as Anne of Green Gables might say!).
As you can see in all the photos, when I finally wore this coat in January 2020 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, the Christmas decorations were still up. I loved (and still do!) how festive the coat looks with the decorations, but by the time this post was written it seemed a bit late for the holiday look here on the blog, so I decided to save this post for this 2020 holiday season. Now, after many months of missing fabulous indoor spaces and events, I’m particularly pleased that I have these photos to share!
But enough about sewing for now! Let’s share a beautiful day full of dazzling sunlight and gorgeous fall leaves. And apples!
This outing started with the idea that I wanted to go apple picking for my birthday. It was determined by my friends at some point over the summer that apple picking should be done in 1830s dresses. The result was lots of sewing… and new dresses all around! (And as you’ve seen, we also took tons of photos to document the new dresses!)
But back to the point: apples!
The orchard we went to had a variety of apples available to choose from, some of which were historical heirloom varieties! They varied in size, quite small (2″ or so across) to large (4″ or so), and color, from very dark red, to yellow, to nice medium red.
It was fun to hunt in the trees for apples that were special enough to make it into our collection bags.
We often went father away from the paths than most people, which helped us find areas without other people for photos and good looking apples!
We couldn’t have had better weather! It was a perfectly comfortable temperature and the sun was beautiful.
It was also a bit breezy, which was lovely and fresh feeling.
The leaves were starting to change, adding pops of orange, red, and yellow to the sea of green foliage.
One can work up an appetite apple picking! We had a picnic lunch on a local town common to refresh ourselves before another round of photo taking.
I imagine we made a spectacle at the apple orchard. Mostly because of our clothes, of course, but also because of the photo chains! It’s hard to see, but there are actually three of us taking photos in this photo, which is being taken by a fourth person!
Isn’t this apple tree magical looking? It reminds me of some sort of gateway into another (pandemic free…) land.
In this year of curtailed historical adventures, it was especially wonderful to have a sunny outing full of fun and laughter! Plus, we had yummy apples to eat at the end of the day and to take home with us!
Today’s post is going to share more details about and photos of my new 1834 yellow dress. If you missed my last post about this dress, it was a lengthy one sharing oodles of construction details and photos. You can read that past post here.
Here is a reminder image of the fully accessorized dress!
The biggest accessory is my newly completed 1831 bonnet. There is a recent (lengthy) post about the construction of that here, if you want to learn more about it.
I also added smaller accessories, in the form of a petersham belt and brand new reproduction buckle. The wide petersham is a length of ribbon I purchased from The Sewing Place–I highly recommend their many colors and widths! The buckle is a fabulous reproduction buckle from Ensembles of the Past. It’s a bit hard to see the wonderful detail in this photo, but there’s a photo later in the post that shows the detail much better! The Ensembles of the Past blog also has a post sharing how to easily use ribbon to make an endlessly (and easily) adjustable belt out of ribbon! I highly recommend both the buckles and a read through the blog post!
Back to the dress itself. Let’s start off with the Historical Sew Monthly details. Challenge #9 is Sewing Secrets:
Hide something in your sewing, whether it is an almost invisible mend, a make-do or unexpected material, a secret pocket, a false fastening or front, or a concealed message (such as a political or moral allegiance).
In this dress, I have two secrets, both of which I mentioned in the dress construction details post. One is pockets in the skirt and the other is that the bodice of this dress is detachable.
First, the pockets. Yay! My pockets are made from the dress fabric. They are French seamed and set into the side front seams of the skirt. On the inside, they look like this.
On the outside, they look like this. They’re a secret because they camouflage so well that you really can’t see them at all unless I pull them open or my hand is disappearing inside!
Second, the bodice detaches. This is very unusual (and possibly unheard of) for the 1830s, though it becomes common practice by the 1850s and 1860s. This system allows me to attach the current bodice, which I’ve dated 1834, or a second bodice that I have in the works which is dated 1838. That opens a whole world of possibilities in terms of showing changing bodice and sleeve styles without needing to create an entire second dress!
A bit closer up, you can just barely make out a loop on the skirt waistband that connects to a hook at center front. There are hooks and loops all around the skirt and bodice waistbands to connect them together.
Now that we’ve seen the relevant dress features, let’s look at the other HSM facts:
Fabric/Materials: 7 ¼ yds of reproduction print cotton, 1 yd muslin, a scrap of canvas for the waistband of the bodice, and a scrap of flannel for the cartridge pleats.
Pattern: Adapted from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 1, with adjustments for fit and style, as well as The Workwoman’s Guide.
Year: 1834.
Notions: 2 ½ yds narrow cotton yarn for cording, 2 ½ yds of narrow white lace, and about 23 hooks and loops.
How historically accurate is it?: 95%. The pattern, silhouette, construction methods, and fabric are all quite good, but there is machine sewing on the interior seams.
Hours to complete: 25.75 hours.
First worn: In early October, for an apple picking outing, picnic, and photos!
Total cost: Approximately $60.
In addition to the HSM details, I want to share some more photos as well. These photos were taken during an all day outing in October. There’s still a post coming that will share apple picking photos from the outing, but there were many good ones from our later in the day photo shoot as well.
These next photos were taken in a neat conservation area that has beautiful, varied scenery that includes a pond area, open fields, wooded paths, huge rhododendrons, a meandering river, and this lovely row of pine trees.
I enjoy the line of trees and the interesting perspective they provide. So here you go, a front and back view of this ensemble.
Farther along our walk through this beautiful area we stopped to take some artistic detail shots of the sleeves of this dress. First up, the mancheron on the shoulder of the dress. There’s some pretty good pattern matching to admire and it’s fun to see the gathers up close, too.
Here’s another view of the mancheron and sleeve puff, with the zig zag cuff trim in the background.
I can’t decide if I like that photo or this next one best! The next one is similar, but the focus of the photo is on the zig zag cuff trim instead of the mancheron.
The last detail photo shows the cuff trim in even greater detail, as well as my new belt buckle from Ensembles of the Past!
I purchased the ‘antique gold’ color. I love it! It’s substantial in weight, has precise and delicate details, and will probably outlast me in terms of durability. (This is just my opinion–I’m not paid to say these nice things!)
The last photos I have to show you are a bit of a teaser for the apple picking photos that are still to come. We had the most gorgeous autumn New England day!
The sky was a brilliant blue. The temperature was wonderfully comfortable–neither hot nor cold. The leaves were changing and were starting to crown the trees in vibrant red, yellow, and orange.
And a fresh breeze lifted our spirits and our bonnet ribbons! I’ve so missed events and outings. This was much needed (socially distanced) relief for weary souls. I hope that you have also found relief and joy in these trying times!
Many years ago (well, in 2012), I started a bonnet that was intended to match my 1822 Walking Dress. I was making a whole ensemble, with the dress, a muff and tippet, and also a bonnet and chemisette. It was more than I had time to complete for the deadline at the time. The chemisette was not even started, but the bonnet was patterned, cut out, started, and then abandoned.
In the intervening years, the bonnet pieces have sat in my UFO box, patiently waiting for me to come back to them. This year, as I was making my 1834 yellow dress and thinking about how to accessorize it, I remembered the bonnet and wondered if the shape and color might work for the 1830s. It seemed more useful to use something that already existed, and was already partly finished, as opposed to starting something new, so I decided to go for it!
This is the state of the bonnet when I picked this project up again this fall. It’s not bad progress, actually. All the pieces were cut out of buckram, flannel, and slightly slubby silk; the buckram assembly was started; the flannel was basted on; and the edges of the pieces were wired.
All of that turned into this!
In this post, we’ll follow along with my construction process. Future posts will have more finished ensemble photos as well.
Inspiration
First, let’s go back to the inspiration for this bonnet.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a bonnet that is dated c. 1820, pictured below. It is silk and appears to be satin edged in velvet. It looks brown to me, but it’s also possible that it is black and that lighting and fading from age cause it to appear brown.
This is what I was aiming for when I started patterning in 2012. However, after finishing my bonnet, I realized that my brim shape is more open and high, and less forward, than the shape of this bonnet. This surprised me! And actually, it worked out in my favor, as the shape I patterned is more 1830s than 1820s.
Despite the shape not being quite like The Met bonnet (maybe someday I’ll alter the pattern and try again for the 1820s shape), I still took much color and material inspiration from it. I liked the tone on tone silk with velvet trim, the edges trimmed in velvet, and liked the lightweight silk ties (plus, I had all of these materials in the stash in perfectly coordinating purples!).
The trim needed to be different for the 1830s, though. I liked this 1830 bonnet, particularly for the inside of the brim trim, and this 1826-1830 bonnet for the fabric loop trim. There are other inspirational fashion plates showing floral trim inside and outside the brim on my Pinterest board for this project, as well. My bonnet is a melding of all of these sources of inspiration.
Construction
With my half finished pieces in hand, I decided to attach the tip of the bonnet to the side. Here is that step, pinned in place. These pieces were hand sewn together.
I’d decided to baste my flannel in place in order to help it follow the contours of the shapes instead of pulling away. On some bonnets (such as one covered in transparent fabric) these stitches might be seen, but I was confident that my silk would hide these quite well. The alternative would be to use spray adhesive to hold the flannel in place, but I didn’t have that at my fingertips 8 years ago.
In addition to the basting stitches in the middle, I also roughly whip stitched over the outside edge of the brim to hold the flannel in place.
I took this brim piece and basted it to my assembled crown, then stitched those two layers together using a Z stitch. Pinning this was fiddly, as I had to get the buckram seam allowance of the side to slip under the flannel of the brim smoothly.
The next thing to do was cover the brim with my silk, but I still had the problem of getting the fabric to follow the contours of the curves without pulling away. When I started on this step I only had rubber cement on hand. I (smartly!) tried a sample to see if it would show through the silk. It definitely did! The rubber cement sample is on the bottom of the photo below. Not what I wanted! So, I ordered Krylon spray adhesive, which I knew would do the job. When it arrived, I tried another sample. The spray adhesive sample is on the top of the photo below. Success!
I used the spray adhesive for the inner and outer layers of the brim covering. It worked wonderfully, just as I had expected it to. The only exception is that I accidentally left a mark on one of my brim pieces where I’d let too much spray build up and had to recut that piece. So if you try this, make sure to do very light coats with the spray adhesive if your fabric is thin enough for it to show through!
Here is the inside of the brim, with the seam allowance clipped where it meets the crown.
And here is the outside of the brim, with the seam allowance clipped so it can lay along the outside of the side band. You can see the interior of the brim showing on the extreme left of the photo, on the other side of the wired edge of the buckram. You can also see that by this point I’d put the silk covering on the tip of the bonnet. The seam allowances of that piece are clipped and then stitched over onto the side band through all the layers.
This photo shows the Z stitches holding the silk tip piece in place a little better than the last photo. It also shows the side band. For this piece, I pressed under the brim side seam allowance ahead of time, pinned it in place, and then turned the top edge under as I went along, so it would be just the right width. Stitching this piece on covered all of the seam allowances you can see in this photo.
In the next photo ,a few more steps have been completed. The side band was sewn on, the silk edges were trimmed and bound with bias velvet, I cut bavolet pieces (out of my glue stained brim piece!), edged the bavolet with bias velvet, and attached the bavolet. The great thing about the spray adhesive is that it’s not so glue-y that it gums up a needle or makes things hard to sew through, so I had no problem with any of these sewing steps.
As a side note, what is a bavolet? Interestingly, my go-to source for definitions, the Oxford English Dictionary, does not have an entry for this word! I believe that is because it is actually French, not English. I would define bavolet as ‘the curtain piece at the back of the bonnet’. There is more information about this word, including examples of the word in use from the 19th century, in this French Vocabulary Illustrated blog post. If you know of other good places to find a definition or etymology of the word bavolet I would love for you to share!
Back to the photos! All the long purple stitches around the side band are from attaching trim. I find that double thread makes it much easier to attach trimmings such as feathers and flowers, as you can double back through your looped thread to hold things in place and it makes it a little extra sturdy. The nice thing about doing all of that before lining the hat is that it makes for a really elegant interior when all is finished!
Below, you can see what that trim looks like from the exterior. I used some scraps of velvet to make loops and a variety of vintage paper and velvet millinery flowers and leaves in white, pink, and gold.
I’m super pleased with how it turned out, but it took hours to decide on the placement and then sew everything in place. It was finicky… The trim kept causing the bonnet to fall over as I was trying to place it and when sewing it the thread kept getting wrapped around the different elements and getting stuck. Plus, to make the stitches on the brim invisible they had to catch just one layer of the silk (as opposed to being stitched all the way through all of the layers) without pulling the silk away from the flannel.
Finally, it was time to make a lining! This used the same pattern pieces as the tip and side band and was cut from scraps of ivory shantung. The seams for the lining were machine sewn.
After I put the lining inside the crown of the bonnet, I covered most of the raw edges of the purple and ivory silk with a band of brown cotton velvet. This blends with my hair and provides a bit of a velcro effect to help keep the bonnet in place, in addition to providing nice finishing! This is the same process that I used when making my 1875 hat earlier this year.
At the bavolet edge, where there is no brown velvet, the ivory silk was turned under and sewn in place. I also added lightweight silk ribbon ties as a finishing step.
Finished!
Here is the finished bonnet, being worn with my 1834 yellow dress! I love that the purple coordinates with my yellow print dress fabric without directly matching any of the colors in the print. It was also fun to choose white, pink, and gold floral trimmings for the bonnet to echo the colors in the print. I think the combination is anchored well while still being distinctive parts.
This photo clearly shows that the ties are purely decorative. I left them hanging free so that they could elegantly (usually!) move around. So what keeps this giant sail in place on my head? (Because I can say with certainty that a bonnet this big is basically just a wind catcher on the top of your head!) It will stay on its own… until moving around. I used the back section of my hair to make a bun, at just the right height so it would sit in the crown of the bonnet, and then used two hat pins at different angles to anchor the hat in place through the bun
I found that I placed the curl bunches too far back on the sides of my head when I tried to put on the bonnet and had to push them forward to get it to sit in the right place. It was unexpected how far forward the curls needed to be. As I’ve done in the past for 1830s side curls (explained here in 2016 and again in 2019), I used my own hair on top of mesh poufs to create the side curls. The combination of my hair getting very long and the curls needing to sit in front of the bonnet means that these curls are larger looking vertically than what I’ve had in the past. It seems to fill in the shape of the bonnet well, so I guess it’s good!
The other thing that the above photo does a good job of showing is the trim on the inside of the bonnet, which was also finicky to place. I had to get it in the right location so that it would organically grow out of my planned side curls hairstyle. The bonnet looks quite silly without the 1830s hair to go with it (and one might argue that it looks silly, in scale at least, even with 1830s hair!).
Speaking of scale, this bonnet is quite large. With the trim, it stands more than 8″ high on top of my head. I had to hold the brim when wind picked up while wearing it–the hat pins kept it in place but it would pull at my hair which wasn’t comfortable. Also, it required a pretty severe slouch in the car in order to not hit the roof! Thankfully, I was able to be a passenger while wearing the bonnet, so that I could arrange it, with the hat pins, in front of a mirror and then not need to sit up or look around while driving. Pretty silly! A carriage would have made so much more sense!
Just The Facts
While this bonnet does not qualify for any of the remaining challenges of the Historical Sew Monthly this year, I would still like to share the facts about this bonnet in the format I would use for an HSM garment. So, without further ado, the facts!
Fabric/Materials: ½ to ¾ yard each of floral cotton flannel and purple silk shantung, scraps of purple polyester velvet and ivory silk shantung, about ½ yard of buckram, about 3 yards of millinery wire, and a small piece of brown cotton velvet.
Pattern: My own.
Year: 1831.
Notions: Vintage millinery flowers, thread, and about 1 ½ yards lightweight silk ribbon.
How historically accurate is it?: 90%. Pretty good in terms of silhouette, construction methods, and materials; however, there are a few modern materials mixed in (such as spray adhesive).
Hours to complete: 15.75 hours to finish, plus maybe 6-8 from years ago.
First worn: In early October, 2020.
Total cost: Approximately $35.
Thanks for sticking with me through another long construction post! I have one final photo that also hints at an upcoming post… 1830s apple picking adventure photos! Happy autumn!
Some of my recent posts have mentioned my excursion into sewing clothing from the 1830s. Most recently, in September, I posted about making a corded petticoat to help support a fashionable 1830s silhouette. I also shared a reminder about the fabric I’ve had in mind for an 1830s dress since I bought it seven years ago. It’s finally time to share the finished ensemble created with that fabric!
Today’s post is going to focus on the construction of this dress, but, never fear, upcoming posts will share more finished garment photos as well as construction details about the bonnet.
There is a lot of information about this dress to share and many photos of the process, so I hope you’re ready for a lengthy post!
Inspiration
As you probably guessed from the title of this post, this dress is from the year 1834. The trimming details and shape are directly inspired by the dress pictured below, which is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The V & A Dress is dated to 1830-1834. From a style perspective, this makes sense as these are the years from this decade with the largest sleeves, but it is also around this point in the decade that sleeve fullness starts to slide down the arm. This look that is just beginning to show in the V & A dress, which achieves the falling look with the addition of the mancherons at the top. The mancherons both practically and visually push the fullness of the sleeve off the shoulder.
What is a mancheron? The Oxford English Dictionary has the following entry):
mancheron, n. 1.French Heraldry. A sleeve used as a charge. Obsolete. 2. A piece of trimming on the upper part of a sleeve on a woman’s dress. Now historical.
Patterning
The pattern for this bodice is based on patterns contained in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 1 and Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Women’s Clothes. I was able to start with my basic darted 1860s bodice and adapt it for the 1830s using information about grain line, dart placement, etc. from the books. This worked well because I know the basic darted bodice fits in areas that can be fussy to fit such as neckline, armhole, etc. and those things (in the 1860s) are still very similar to the shapes from the 1830s.
The sleeve pattern is from Plate 12 (page 84) in The Workwoman’s Guide (published in 1838), which can be viewed on Google Books here. I used the big circle sleeve (Figure 8–shown made up in Figure 7) and varied the top shape so that it forms a downward V shape to allow for my mancherons, which are patterned based on the V & A inspiration dress.
The ladies at American Duchess created a very helpful video discussing sleeve shapes from the 1830s, including showing mockups of a few different sleeve patterns from The Workwoman’s Guide. It is wonderful for seeing how the flat patterns turn into 3D shapes, which I found to be very helpful as I dithered about sleeve patterns.. You can view the video here. Lauren also has a blog post talking about 1830s sleeves, which shows the pattern I chose to use in various stages of its construction, from being flat to being made-up.
The skirt is based on information from the same books as the bodice pattern. It is made of 3 panels of my 45″ wide cotton fabric.
Construction Method Disclaimer
I chose to construct this dress in the mid-19th century way of separate bodice and skirt. This is odd for the 1830s (in fact, I can’t think of any examples that are done this way) as they are usually sewn together to make a one piece dress. However, as I was pondering sleeve options and considering my yardage I was faced with an exciting prospect.
There are so many sleeve variations in the 1830s–super poof, takes-a-while-to-get-used-to-looking-at elbow poof, meticulous pleated details as the poofs are reduced and contained… I wanted to make more than one! Also, I had 10 yards of my beautiful reproduction cotton and I expected my 1834 dress to only use about 7. What would I do with the last 3 yards? That’s not enough to make another dress. But… it is enough to make another bodice, even with giant 1830s sleeves that use a full yard for each arm!
I decided to make one skirt with two bodices, so in addition to this 1834 dress I also have an 1838 bodice halfway completed. It is a variation on a theme, using mostly the same bodice pieces, but with a different front style and different sleeves. More on that in the future, but for the purposes of this post it is an explanation for the fact that the skirt of my 1830s dress hooks to the bodice in a way that is common in the mid-19th century, as you can see below. (The loops on the skirt waistband blend really well with the pattern on the fabric, but you can see them if you look really carefully.)
Skirt Construction
As I mentioned earlier, my skirt is made up of 3 panels of my 45″ wide cotton. They are carefully pattern matched to keep the scrolling consistent across the panels and to help hide the seam lines. They’re not perfect, but they are pretty darn close.
Two seams are on each side of center front and one is at center back. The two front seams have french seamed pockets set into them below the cartridge pleats. This is wonderfully helpful while wearing the dress! I made sure to make the pockets big enough to hold a phone, keys, etc.
The fullness of the skirt is cartridge pleated to the waistband. I find that this quantity of cotton is weeny looking when cartridge pleated to a waistband without a little help to create loft, so I sandwiched a single layer of cotton flannel into the pleats to help them have a little bit of puff. I just used scrap flannel from my stash for this–the fun dot print pictured below. This is the top of my skirt pressed and ready for pleating!
Here is the skirt in the process of being pleated. The top edge is left raw and folded over the flannel before I ran two rows of parallel stitches to form the pleats.
I absolutely eyeball my cartridge pleats! My stitches are vaguely even but I really don’t worry too much about that. I mark the quarter points of the skirt and waistband and then adjust the pleats to fit. No math for this process!
The waistband has a single layer of canvas inside (a scrap from a decorating project) to help stiffen it and provide stability for the cartridge pleats and closures. This is machine stitched to the cotton where it will not show.
The cotton is then wrapped around the canvas and whip stitched in place. I finished the waistband entirely before whip stitching the cartridge pleats in place.
Bodice Construction
The construction of this bodice is pretty straightforward as 19th century bodices go, though I spent a bit of time searching out photos of extant dress interiors from this decade so I could see how they were finished (or left with unfinished edges!). I found these dresses featured on All The Pretty Dresses very helpful, especially as they have interior views: late 1830s green/blue/red cotton print dress and early 1830s brown dress.
There are other inspirational dresses on my Pinterest board for this project, as well. Many of them are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Those are excellent because you can really zoom in on the photos to look at details, but unfortunately they don’t often show interior views of the dresses.
The hardest part about this bodice was the pattern matching! It was mind boggling to keep the flowers growing upwards, match the wave, keep the dark pink flowers at corresponding places, and keep some parts on the bias and some on the straight.
For example, here is my first attempt at the front bodice, which is cut on the bias. It’s not awful… but it’s just not quite right, and that bothers my eyes.
I very carefully tried again…
And was able to get this, which I was much happier with!
And I was able to use the reject front piece to cut out a pocket piece (and later a bit of bias as well)… no waste here!
Here is the front piece after flatlining (the fronts, side backs, and backs of the bodice are all flat lined with muslin), stitching the darts, and putting cording down the center front seam.
Ah yes, the cording! There is 1/16″ cotton cording in most of the bodice seams (front, side back, shoulders, armholes, neckline, and to finish the cuffs). This detail is taken directly from extant 1830s dresses.
My cording is made up of bias scraps, some as small as about 4″ long, that are pieced together. The cording is machine stitched. I made it with even seam allowances for most of the seams, but thought ahead and offset the seam allowance for the neckline cording, to make it easier to turn it under and whip stitch later. The photo below shows the neckline cording (on the top) and regular seam cording (on the bottom).
Here are the side back pieces with the cording attached, before being sewn to the back pieces. As you can see, I carefully matched my pattern across these two pieces as well.
And here is one side back sewn to its corresponding back, with the cording in the seam. Even across these pieces my pattern matching is pretty good, especially at the bottom!
And the back! It also makes me very happy, but was a super mind boggle to figure out! I have a flap that overlaps past center back, covering a pleat on the other side that will anchor my loops. I found this detail on a number of 1830s dresses, including this 1835-1836 dress at The Met and this c. 1837 dress at The Met.
It doesn’t look like much until it’s lined up to be closed… and then it’s perfect!
The final step was to finish the bottom. I wanted to have a self fabric waistband on this bodice, as with the bodice at the V & A, so that I would have the option of wearing my dress with or without a belt, while still having the visual change of pattern in the fabric.
The outer waistband and inner muslin facing encase the bottom seam allowance of the bodice. They are machine stitched at the top, have graded seam allowances, and then the muslin is whip stitched along the bottom.
Sleeve Construction
With the bodice mostly assembled, I moved on to the sleeves. These are not flat lined.
I upgraded my sleeve puffs for this ensemble by giving them ties to attach to the armsceye of the dress so I can control the height that they sit at. This is essential for getting the right shape poof with this sleeve style. Looking into a sleeve, here is one sleeve puff tied in place.
I edged my decorative mancheron and cuff zig zag with narrow lace before attaching them to my sleeve. The cuff zig zags are sewn on by hand, while the full tops of the sleeves are gathered and machine sewn to the mancherons (you can see a the seam allowance from this seam in the photo above).
After the trim was added to the cuffs, I sewed cording to the bottom edge and then a muslin facing to finish everything off. This allows me to have nicely finished edges for the sleeve openings, which extend up about 8″ and allow for the tight fit of the forearms.
Here’s what that looks like flipped up and ready to be slip stitched along the top edge. You can see my hand sewing from attaching the cuff zig zag.
So… I got this far and realized that my sleeve was too narrow (even though I’d had no trouble in my mockup!) and my hand wouldn’t fit through the opening! Even if I made the opening higher, the sleeve edges wouldn’t butt, but would have a gap!
It’s good to have extra fabric… Having extra allowed me to make the decision to cut off the old forearm pieces and piece on new ones (with careful pattern matching, of course!). This meant redoing the cuff trim and finishing, but I couldn’t find a better solution. The seam hides under the crazy big sleeves, so it’s really not noticeable at all (even if I hadn’t pattern matched the seam!).
Finishing
Finally, after these various successes and challenges… the dress was done! Here are some more photos of it in its finished state.
This is the inside of the bodice with the skirt attached. You can see machine stitching, seam allowances mostly left unfinished (they really don’t fray at all), neck binding, closures, etc.
This closeup shows a shoulder seam, as well as the neckline and armhole finishing. The bias on the neck is turned under and whip stitched. The lace is sewn on top of that. The armhole seam allowances were trimmed and then roughly whip stitched to hold the layers together. You can also see a little square of the twill tape tie for the sleeve puff (it is sewn to the armsceye seam allowance below the shoulder seam).
Here is the finished cuff opening. Hidden under the zig zag are the hooks that correspond to the loops on the muslin facing.
This is the center back opening with all of the closures in place. Those hooks really do camouflage well on the brown scroll, don’t they? Doing the closures this way leaves lots of seam allowance at center back for me to make alterations in the future if I need to.
This photo shows the inside of the skirt and bodice. Specifically, you can see the raw edge of the top edge skirt seam allowance folded to the inside (the skirt is intentionally shorter in the front than in the back, which you can see in the varied top edge seam allowanced length), the french seam of the pocket, and the skirt opening, which is simply an opening in the back seam (no placket on this skirt, the fullness of the cartridge pleats easily hides the opening).
One last photo! This is the cartridge pleats and bodice waistband from the exterior. Cartridge pleats are always visually intriguing to me and I also love how the waistband of the bodice is perfectly cut to show off the scroll and flower pattern.
After so many construction photos, here is a reminder of what the completed dress looks like from the exterior. I’m looking forward to sharing more photos in future posts!
Thanks for sticking with me through this very long post!
The first outing of my Plum Pants With Pointed Pockets was to pick peaches! This was a great socially distanced and outdoor activity that I highly enjoyed (apparently the orchards around here are seeing record turnout for pick-your-own this year due to people looking for outdoor activities).
The orchard was lovely, full of charming vistas, and it was easy to walk to the far ends of the orchard where there were few people.
Here I am, casually picking peaches in my plum pants! Lest you fear that masks were not worn on this outing, here is the photographic evidence that I did have a mask with me. I intentionally sought out areas with no other people around so that I could remove my mask for a few photos.
In addition to the fun of hunting for the best peaches on the trees, I had a peck of peaches to bring home with me at the end of the day!
These were the most delicious, sweet peaches!
I ate them plain, I blended them down to make peach puree for cocktails, I baked a peach-thyme galette, I added them to smoothies… There was a lot of peach in my life for a few weeks!
Yum! I’ll definitely be picking fresh peaches again in the future!
And I’m pleased that my Plum Pants have been worn a few times since the peach outing as well!
