A few posts ago, when I introduced The First Picnic Of The Summer, I mentioned my involvement with other events that same weekend. It’s time to share pictures of another event from that weekend: an afternoon of music, dancing, and Model Ts at the Braintree Historical Society in Braintree, MA.
Let’s start with atmosphere: some Model Ts! Model Ts were produced between the years 1908 and 1927 by the Ford Motor Company. My grandfather worked for Ford years ago (though not on Model Ts!) and I have family members who still live in Michigan, so I feel a special connection to that part of car history. As far as I could observe, all of these Model Ts were still operational, drivable, and licensed to drive on the street! Neat!
Front view of a Model T.I love the luggage storage on this one!Pretty swanky, with all that gleaming wood!I like that this picture has a modern car in the background!Need I say more? It’s labeled!“R. I. Brow & Son; Oil Dealer” I love it! Especially with the canisters attached.Two Model Ts parked in front of the barn.A pretty fabulous red Model T with be-boater-ed gentlemen lurking behind it… (They had no idea I was taking a picture! bwhaha!)
The reason we were in attendance at this event was to do a few small dance performances. We did the same 20s dances that we performed at the Great Gatsby: the Charleston, Tango, Foxtrot, and One Step. I don’t have pictures of the performances… but in between performances we had time to wander amongst the Model Ts and have a picnic lunch.
Oh yes, and I wore a new 1926 dress and my all new American Duchess Gibsons! I also attempted some “make-do finger waves” in my hair. Basically, that means that I didn’t try for real finger waves… I just put some gel in my hair and used a fine tooth comb on the top bits. Since my hair has natural waves it just dried in a sort of wavy way and I put up the back in a low bun. I think it turned out pretty well, though, for not trying that hard!
This link contains an affiliate code, which provides a small benefit to my shoe fund. This does not affect my impressions and reviews of this product.
The dress was made because we needed day clothes for this event and my other two 20s evening dresses are not appropriate. As I mentioned in the post May Fabric Stash Additions when I shared this fabric, I wanted a cotton so it would be lightweight and washable… and this is what I wound up with. I thought it might be to sailor-y, but in the end I don’t think it is! I like that it’s a rather striking color and not something I would normally pick out for myself.
I didn’t use a pattern for the dress, I just sort of used my measurements and made it up while referencing a lot of 20s patterns in the COPA archive for skirt shape, mostly. The front and back bodice and sleeves are all one piece cut in the kimono style. It’s all french seamed and the skirt and sleeves are finished with hug snug. The waistband is a little messy on the inside, because I haven’t taken the time to finish it and because the sides were doing a weird thing I had to fix with a wonky side dart. But eh, no one will see the inside! I’m glad it’s done and I like the faked tie-collar.
Gibsons!
The Gibsons are comfortable and cute. I like that the sole is a little thicker than on my Astorias, because it means the pointy toe shoe leather isn’t getting scratched while I walk (as it is on my Astorias). The toes are pretty pointy but they are starting to stretch to my foot shape, so that’s good.
Trying to pose… “This is an engine. It moves the car.” Plus, new dress and a good view of my hair!Looks a lot different from a modern car engine, doesn’t it?A better view of my new 1926 day dress and Gibsons.Another view. The red car is fun, too!
The blue cotton is slightly sheer, so I made a cotton slip to wear under the dress to add opacity. It’s made of the same $1/yd white cotton that the trim on the dress is made of, so if it shows at the neck or elsewhere it just blends right in. I used the same measurements I used for the pink slip of my 1925 beaded dress. I was inspired by looking at 1920s patterns to add the curved panels on the side instead of having another straight slip.
White slip to go under the 1926 day dress.
As I said, in addition to looking at cars and dancing, we also had a picnic lunch.
1920s picnic!After eating we listened to some stories read aloud.And read some 1920s magazines!
One of the most exciting parts of the afternoon was when one kind gentleman asked if we would like to sit in his 1920s car! Of course we said “Yes!”
“How do I drive a car?”Practicing my princess wave.
All in all, it was a pretty fun, low-key event. Next post I’ll share some of the more “artsy” photos from the day, as I did in The First Picnic Of The Summer: Part II.
Life! Is often great, but does rather get in the way of sewing plans sometimes…
This HSF challenge #11 had a due date of June 3rd. I actually finished sewing on June 18th, but I’ve been busy posting about other things so this has been even further delayed. Oh well, I had the best of intentions: to complete this 18th century petticoat for the Squares, Rectangles, and Triangles Challenge.
Description:
Many historical garments, and the costumes of many people around the world, use basic geometric shapes as their basis. In this challenge make a garment made entirely of squares, rectangles and triangles (with one curve allowed), whether it is an 18th century kimono, a flounced 1850s skirt, or a medieval shift.
Apricot (orange) 18th century under petticoat.
Pattern: None, but I referenced both of these tutorials on constructing 18th century petticoats. Katherine’s tutorial is for a petticoat with an uneven length (to go over panniers, or a bum roll, for example). Rebecca’s tutorial is for a petticoat with an even length (the same length all the way around, to be worn without extra supports). Both tutorials have construction information, Rebecca’s includes a bit more detail in terms of which stitches and methods to use.
Year: Loosely 1700-1790.
Notions: Thread, yellow polyester ribbon for ties.
How historically accurate?: I give it 70%. Accuracy gets knocked down because: 1- the color is a bit vibrant for the period (but it’s an under petticoat, and I wanted it to be fun!), 2- all unseen seams are machine sewn, 3- I used bright yellow polyester ribbon for ties, 4- I haven’t seen much research that shows cotton being used at this time for a single plain petticoat of this sort. On the other hand: 1- all finishing was done by hand, 2- the dimensions and method of creation are historically accurate.
Hours to complete: 6 or 7? I can’t really remember…
First worn: Well, Squishy wore it for pictures!
Total cost: $12 for the fabric. The ribbon is leftover from my childhood craft projects…
Side view.Front. See the yellow ribbon?Back. I love how the pleats fan out.
I chose to bind the top with self fabric and use polyester ties in a fun color for this petticoat, since I knew it wouldn’t be seen and I might as well use some of those things from my stash! The back half of the petticoat ties in front, then the front ties wrap all the way around to the front and also tie in front. That’s why you can see all the yellow ribbon crossing in the back. This method used a solid 3 yds of ribbon, though the ends I have to tie with are generous and could probably be shorter if I wanted to save on tie length.
Back tied in front before the front gets tied. There are hemmed pocket slit openings on each side.
I just love the color of this petticoat. It’s so bright and sunny and cheerful, especially with the yellow ribbons! There’s also a sneak peek in this last picture at what will likely be a future HSF item: the bum roll… more on that soon-ish.
The first step in constructing my 1760s Curtain-Along jacket was to draft up the pattern from Janet Arnold (you can read more about the pattern I chose in my Initial Curtain-Along Thoughts post). In my experience, sometimes the patterns work pretty well without a lot of tweaks, but sometimes you really do need to do some serious fitting to make them work. Given that knowledge, I decided to make a mock-up of the pattern without any adjustments to see how it would fit. The measurements weren’t too far off of my own, so I didn’t think I’d run into any really awful problems.
And here are the results! I put the mock-up together matching up all of the points that were indicated in the pattern.
Initial state. It is pinned down at center front, but I haven’t made any other adjustments. Squishy is pretty close to my shape, so you can see that there are some adjustments that need to be made for the jacket to fit me.First problem: the gap at the shoulders. You can see on the left that I’ve pinned out the excess fabric, and on the right side nothing has been pinned.Second problem: the center back waist point is halfway up the back! I extended the center back seam above the waist so that the waist would sit lower and match the side fullness.I don’t think anyone has a back/hip area that would easily fit into this shape…Third problem: sleeves that are too far off of the shoulder and twisted around in a way that is odd looking and uncomfortable. I had to try this on to make those observations, but you can see the problems in the picture.The solution was to take the sleeve off, adjust the armsceye, and pin the sleeve back on without it being twisty. You can see on the left side that I’ve adjusted the sleeve, and on the right I didn’t do anything.
Oh, I also lengthened the sleeve pattern a bit, because it was a little short on me, and extended center front so it would actually close… After making the adjustments to the pattern, I took to the scissors and cut out the real fabric, mineral felicite and peach linen lining. Then it was on to the hand sewing…
It’s been a fair bit of time since I first thought about joining in on the Curtain-Along hosted by Jen of Festive Attyre. I thought the idea was fun and I was inspired by the Waverly curtain series, but I wasn’t inspired enough to get involved… until I saw additional colorways being offered by fabric stores as yardage rather than curtains! It’s not that they were being offered as yardage, it’s just that I like the colors better and I like that they will be less represented in the costuming world, since most people seem to have gone for the traditional curtain color ways.
Waverly Mineral Felicite: my fabric.
Anyway, I mentioned way back in October that I had bought some yardage of the Mineral Felicite colorway of the Waverly fabric. It’s taken me about 9 months to get around to using it, but I’ve finally found the time! I’m super excited about it. The colors are lovely and I’m branching out (haha, no pun intended) into an earlier period than I usually inhabit as inspiration for my Curtain-Along garment.
This main inspiration jacket has the ambiguous dating of “18th century” and the details aren’t super clear cut for me to do my own clear dating. I like the simple shape, the colors, and the blue silk ribbon trim on the edges. These are all aspects of this garment that I want to bring in to my own jacket, but I also wanted to find a shape and style that appeals to me. So I did a lot of thinking about what decade of the 18th century I wanted to aim for. There was lots of looking at Pinterest. Initially I thought I wanted to aim for 1770s, but after more thinking I’ve settled on the 1760s as the decade for this jacket.
I picked the 1760s for a variety of reasons. 1- I want to be able to wear the jacket with a future quilted petticoat and quilted petticoats were most popular between 1700-1775; 2- Conveniently, there is a pattern available in Janet Arnold for a 1760s jacket; 3- I like the slightly longer skirts on the jackets of the 1760s.
The jacket below is the one Janet Arnold took the pattern I will be using from. I will likely omit the cuffs (I’ve got a future 1740s jacket project in the works with cuffs!) and will almost certainly be adding the blue silk ribbon like my original inspiration jacket.
Jacket. 1760-1790. National Trust Inventory Number 1348744
I think I like them better as pictures, though perhaps not as much for showing off the dress. They really have more of a 1920s feel to them, don’t you think?
In my opinion, it looks like a furry animal (goat, sheep, elk???) got entangled with a fringe machine. All those shades of brown are not pleasing together, to my eye. I imagine this must be very heavy.
What do you think? I’d love to hear from you if you have a differing opinon.
Recently, I’ve been doing lots of thinking about and planning for a variety of summer sewing adventures. Whenever new projects begin there is a lot of research into the silhouette, cut, and fabrics. I’ve got my oft-referenced books, but the internet contains caches of great (and trustworthy) information as well, if you look in the right places and are wary of the information that is untrustworthy.
Here is one new information source you probably haven’t come across in your internet travels: the Commercial Pattern Archive at the University of Rhode Island. “CoPA-Online contains over 50,000 scanned images (garments & pattern schematics) from 42,000 commercially produced patterns, dating back to 1868 and is growing daily.” Here is the background on this great resource:
The Commercial Pattern Archive database, CoPA, provides a unique tool for researchers and designers to recreate or date clothing from 1868 to 2000. There are several collections from the States, Canada and the UK represented in the database which functions like a Union Catalog of pattern collections. The cornerstone of CoPA is the Betty Williams Collection. Betty Williams, a theatrical costumer in New York City, pioneered research on commercial patterns in the early 1980s. She became a leader in the field, establishing a major personal pattern collection and encouraging others to actively participate in the collection and storage of patterns. Betty passed away in 1997 leaving a wealthy legacy of research, and an extensive pattern collection now housed at the University of Rhode Island. The Williams Collection is combined with the URI and Joy Spanabel Emery Collections in the Commercial Pattern Archive in URI Library Special Collections.
One of my students shared this resource with me a few months ago and I have only just started digging into all the wonderful information that is available. You have to subscribe to see all of the patterns in the collection, but there is a free sample search that brings up a limited amount of patterns. I’ve just been using the free sample search and have found lots of fabulous patterns. Some of the patterns just show the envelope front images, but a lot of them also contain an image of the construction pieces. It’s great, because you can see lots of patterns and layouts for different silhouettes from different periods. The archive includes clothing patterns for men, women, and children, nightwear, underwear, swimwear, outwear… a huge variety of patterns and information! It is also possible to arrange to visit the archive in person.
Coming up in my sewing queue for the summer are garments from the 1760s, 1860s, 1880s, 1920s, and 1950s. Ooo, exciting variety, right? You never know in what period I’m going to turn up next! (Except that in the past it was pretty likely to be between 1810-1930… but I’m pushing the boundaries now on both ends!) So far I’ve accessed CoPA to find resources for the 1880s and 1920s. Here are some examples:
1885 Beatrice Bodice Pattern at CoPA.1927 Slip On Dress with Pleated Skirt Pattern at CoPA
During the swap and sell at last summer’s Newport Vintage Dance Week, I came across a rather awful 80s or perhaps 90s evening gown while browsing. I had been considering trying to hand bead my own gown for the Gatsby Ball during the dance week, but had determined that I was not devoted enough to the 1920s and had settled for a less time intensive green silk gown. This 80s/90s dress, though, got my brain going. What if I used the beaded section to make a beaded 1920s evening gown? No hand sewn beading required! I dithered about the decision for maybe 20 or 30 minutes and asked for lots of opinions from my friends (none of whom were very decisively helpful, I must say), but then I hurried back to buy the dress before someone else did! It was only $10 or $15, not bad, for not having to bead it myself!
Size 14 beaded evening gown with princess seams and a giant zipper.Full length glory.
The whole thing was rather bleh colored with the pale lining. I decided that when I remade the dress it would need more color than the original, but I wanted to keep new fabrics in line with the beading colors so they wouldn’t look out of place. I picked grey for the skirt to bring out the beading and I picked pink for the slip to add some color under the grey but not distract from the beading.
First thing was to cut off the skirt. I kept it because I hate throwing things away, but it’s heavy and polyester… My thought is that one day I might need some sort of petticoat base or lining for a dress that is so great on the outside that this skirt won’t detract from it if it’s not seen. In the meantime, it’s taking up space in my stash. Oh well. After the skirt was cut off I removed the sleeves. They really were contributing to the dowdy look of the beaded section and they did not add to the sleeveless 20s evening dress look I was going for. I kept those too… I have no idea what I’m going to do with them! Beaded evening bag one day, perhaps?
No sleeves! It’s getting better already.
I debated for awhile about taking out the zipper (because it would add work, you know). In the end I decided I really didn’t want to see the lap of the zipper in the back, especially since it was pulling the beading around and making it not match up symmetrically. I also removed the nude lining in the bodice to expose just the silk gauze with the beads. I’m so glad the beading was done on silk! It really adds to the look. Of course all those interior seams were french seamed and I didn’t want to actually take apart all those seams in the silk gauze. So I carefully cut the lining away along the seams then was able to pull out the lining seam allowance because it would just fray where the stitches are. That part wasn’t super fun…
Cutting away the lining to expose the beaded silk gauze, then pulling out the lining seam allowance.
But I was left with a sleeveless top of beaded silk gauze! There was more hand sewing required to get it looking nice (there was no way to get a machine in there with all those beads!): I whip stitched the arm and neck openings; sewed up the back seam where the zipper was; whip stitched all of the seam allowances down on the inside; whip stitched the seams on the outside to close up un-beaded gaps on the seams so the princess seam lines weren’t so visible… Not all of this sewing was necessary to make the top wearable, but it was necessary to make it durable. I want to be able to wear this dress for a long time and not have problems with the beading or the silk gauze, so durability was important.
Completed beaded top.
After getting the top finished up nicely I had to figure out a pattern/plan to make the grey skirt. I scoured my 1920s pinterest page to look for ideas. I liked the idea of an uneven hem and a skirt with extra fullness at certain points. This lovely yellow dress was my main inspiration.
1920s. Pictured on All The Pretty Dresses blog.
My points aren’t quite as long as this, though I wanted them to be… I didn’t have quite enough fabric for that. I had the added challenge of making sense of those little cut ups in the bottom edge of the beading in conjunction with the skirt. I didn’t want to sew those cut ups closed because the edge beading continued up them and it looked weird, so I had to figure out a way to work them into the skirt.
I think the yellow dress had rectangle pieces that are just left free at the dippy points. My skirt, however, has four a-line panels at front, back, and sides with diamond shaped pieces in between that go up into those cut ups. The skirt pieces are french seamed by machine. The hem was serged and then turned and topstitched by machine. The finished skirt was then attached to the beaded top by hand. First I sewed it along the beaded edges, then I turned the raw edge under on the inside and whip stitched that in place to keep the skirt from fraying.
After I replaced the zipper in the back with a seam I was able to get the beading to match up really nicely! The skirt hem with the serged edge turned inside and topstitched.Attaching the skirt to the bodice. Running stitches on the edge of the beading and then the raw edge turned under and whip stitched. (These are those cut ups in the bodice I was talking about!)
For the slip, I measured my waist and bust to determine the trapezoidal shape I would need to use. I just guessed at a length (which turned out to be about 6″ too long!). I added a few inches of ease to the waist and bust measurements to make sure I could easily put on and take off the slip without any closures. The side seams of the slip are french seamed by machine. I made tubes for the straps and machine sewed those on. The neck and hem were finished by hand because I had time and didn’t feel like pulling out my machine.
A pretty boring slip.
While wearing the slip I noticed it was showing at the underarms and front neck. The underarms were expected and I’m totally ok with that. But I didn’t want to see the slip at the front (I think part of it is because the beaded section is heavy and pulls down in front when I move), so I bunched it down with a safety pin. Will I ever sew it for real? Probably not. Sometimes safety pins are your friends.
Now i know which way is front on the slip! Not that it matters, since it’s the same front and back aside from the safety pin…
Ready for some more facts?
Fabric: ~1yd pink polyester medium weight crepe, ~1.5 yds grey polyester chiffon, and the beaded silk gauze section of an old evening dress.
Pattern: none.
Year: 1925.
Notions: thread.
How historically accurate?: I give it 85%. Polyester was definitely not in use in the 1920s and the princess seams on the bodice aren’t really accurate for these dresses either as far as I know.
Hours to complete: 20-25. Lots of hand sewing or it would have been faster.
First worn: To the opening of the Great Gatsby, old sport! I was part of a dance performance before the movie. More on that soon!
Total cost: $18-$23 depending on what I paid for the original dress, which I can’t remember!
This is the description for this HSF challenge:
The written word has commemorated and immortalised fashions for centuries, from the ‘gleaming’ clothes that Trojans wore before the war, to Desdemona’s handkerchief, ‘spotted with strawberries’, to Meg in Belle Moffat’s borrowed ballgown, and Anne’s longed for puffed sleeves.In this challenge make something inspired by literature: whether you recreate a garment or accessory mentioned in a book, poem or play, or dress your favourite historical literary character as you imagine them.
Oh wait, did I mention that my literary inspiration for this is The Great Gatsby?
Woo! 1920s beaded dress!
It was super fun to wear this to the opening of the Great Gatsby and dance in it. I was able to wear my ivory American Duchess Astorias (not for dancing, but for walking around) which made me happy, as well as a necklace recently given to me by my mom! And in the end, it’s great that the original dress was a size 14, because it gives the top that roomy/boxy/no waist 20s style on me!
This link contains an affiliate code, which provides a small benefit to my shoe fund. This does not affect my impressions and reviews of this product.
I’ve got these two related final notes:
The safety pin was patented by Walter Hunt on April 10, 1849. “Hunt’s pin was made from one piece of wire, which was coiled into a spring at one end and a separate clasp and point at the other end, allowing the point of the wire to be forced by the spring into the clasp. It was the first pin to have a clasp and spring action and Hunt claimed that it was designed to keep fingers safe from injury – hence the name.” From about.com’s entry on Walter Hunt as an inventor.
Serging/overlocking/merrowing was invented by the Merrow Machine Company in 1881. From wikipedia’s entry on ‘overlock’. It has been used to finish seams since at least the 1920s, according to the Vintage Fashion Guild (they’ve got a whole page of neat vintage clothes dating information that has good dates for when different sorts of construction styles and methods came into use!).
I’m eager to share pictures of the grand ball with you, but I want to insert this post before continuing to ball pictures. One of my friends had the ambition to complete a Regency court train to wear during the reception I showed pictures of last post. It’s a pretty fabulous train made of velvet printed with golden bees and trimmed with opulent gold lace.
The actual owner and maker of the train.
It’s not the sort of thing to be danced in, but that’s fine, because it attaches at the waist, so it’s easy to take off. During the course of the evening some of us tried on the train and tried out different poses in it. So nice of Antonia to share with all of us! It was quite grand and fabulous.
It’s my blog, and that means I can share as many pictures of me as I want…! Spoiled sounding? Probably… Okay, fine, I’ll return to my more humble un-royalty roots.
There are some absolutely stunning extant court trains out there. Here’s my pinterest page of court gowns and trains from all different periods. And here are some of my favorite Regency court trains to inspire you.
ca. 1809. The Met.1809. The Met.First Empire From the Chateau de Malmaison Costume Collection appFirst Empire From the Chateau de Malmaison Costume Collection app
There is an event at Dress U in about a month that requires court gowns or trains. I won’t be there, but I’m looking forward to seeing pictures of other people’s fabulous court trains! I hope you’ve enjoyed these silly pictures. I promise that the next post in this series about the Regency Weekend will be pictures of the ball: no more delays!
The reception was to include a toast with sparkling cider, so we pre-filled glasses to have ready to go at the right time. In addition, we worked on laying out the refreshments in pretty glass compotes and on silver trays as well as making the punch and laying out all the necessary silverware and dishes. Preparation was a bit hurried and I have to confess to getting super grumpy at one point…
Picturesque filling of the glasses.Picturesque grumpy face.
The alterations I made to my skirt to fix the rip created a new issue. Sigh. See those horizontal wrinkles on the rib area? Because the front of the skirt hangs differently now, the front skirt wants to wrinkle. I can fix this problem, but ugh! It’s so much easier when the clothes just fit perfectly!
Partially completed spread of refreshments.When everything was ready we joined everyone else for some pictures in the lovely ballroom, where there were real candles in the windows! So pretty!These mirrors are stunning and beautiful, in addition to being wonderful places to pose for the camera.I thought my hair looked particularly regal for this event. Here’s a good picture of my poof and laurel wreath tiara.
It’s convenient for these sort of events to have hair that is easily made poofy. I don’t have any short bits of hair around my face (aside from frizz…) so curly tendrils for Regency hair styles don’t work for me. This had become my go-to Regency style: center part in the front with the front bits of hair saved for last; the back part of the hair put into a pony tail and brushed out to be super poofy, then rolled on itself to create a self rat and hide the ends. The poof is then pinned in place, the front bits are wrapped down and around the back which creates lovely lines on the back of the head, and finally the tiara is added to define the area between part and poof. The whole thing is finished off with a liberal douse of super hold hairspray to contain the frizz and keep the style in place.
But enough pictures of my dress and hair! After these reception pictures we all descended the stairs to the sidewalk, where we watched a celebratory champagne bottle be opened with a saber. Neat!
Ready?Each person was served with a glass of sparkling cider on his or her way back up to the ballroom.And then we all had a bit of time to socialize and admire the room, the people, and the circulating cider refills.
When the cider was beginning to dwindle (which didn’t take too long), the time had come for the dancing to begin. And my, what dancing there was!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 