HSM #9 + 10: Colour Challenge Brown and Sewing Secrets – Autumn Wardobe

This month I made a decision. I’m not an accurate sewer. No matter how much I try to cut the pieces precisely, to do everything neatly, to think through in advance every step I take, finished garments often don’t turn out as I had planned or expected. There frequently are fitting issues or construction mistakes (like with the dress I’ll tell about here, where I basically made the same error twice), or the fabric doesn’t behave as I had thought it would. BUT: I am really good at going on nevertheless. I finish the garments and they are wearable and often nice or even beautiful. I can work around obstacles and develop a new design if the original one didn’t work. So I decided to change my focus – instead of again and again fretting over my insufficiencies I should enjoy what I do well and what I achieve with it. Yes.

Now for this month’s sewing: On a routine check of the fabric department at our local department store I came over a soft wool in a warm reddish brown with a white pattern, which called to be made into a dress. I bought it, although I had rather a blouse or skirt in mind for the Brown Challenge. As it turned out, the fabric wasn’t very enjoyable to handle – it’s very loosely woven, so it frayed like hell, bulged and lost shape very easily, and it is suprisingly itchy, inspite of draping so softly.

Still experimenting with the 1920s back line I thought I should try a pattern in one piece, without a waist seam.

This lady I found in one of my favourite sources for twenties’ wear, the Fashion Sourcebook 1920s (ed. C. Fiell). She’ll be my model for different design ideas, with more realistic measurements than the fashion drawings from the time:

I cut the dress in one piece, without shoulder seams, originally even including the side panels. Which is where the mentioned blundering started. Now they are set in, but I still forgot to see to an overlap, so I used a strip of broad ribbon on the inside to join the two parts.

Doing the embroidery was a real joy. I love the colour combination, although I’m afraid it makes the fabric of the dress look a little duller than it really is. I learned to do cross stitch as a girl (my grandmother, aunts and my mother all did und do embroidery), but since then have rarely stitched anything. The design I came up with is very simple, so it was manageable in the given time, and I wanted something suitable for everyday wear.

Since the wool is so unpleasant on the skin I fully lined the dress. I am not sure about how period correct this is, I imagine a slip would have been more appropriate, but still. And as I had several pieces of brown lining in my stash, but nothing big enough for the whole dress, I decided to piece it together – making my entry for the Sewing Secrets Challenge. It isn’t very fanciful, but I really was at loss to develop any idea for this challenge, so this is better than nothing.

I didn’t want to miss out on one of the twelve garments though, so I made a last minute skirt from the rest of the fabric. While I am not absolutely sure if I really like the dress (it looks and feels very twenties – well, like a sack), the skirt definitely will become a favourite.

The Challenge: Colour Challenge Brown and Sewing Secrets

Fabric: pure wool, acetate lining

Pattern: my own

Year: about 1924

Notions: yarn, embroidery thread, a zip for the skirt

How historically accurate is it? Very, except maybe for the lining of the dress

Time to complete: Daily bits of time over the whole month

First worn: not yet

HSM #8 – Heirlooms and Heritage: The Honeymoon Dress

I was really looking forward to this challenge, and I started early looking and asking for photographs of my family. I found pictures I would never have dreamt of – Edwardian ladies in white on South African patios, or my greatgrandmother in a beautiful Kimono at a fancy dress ball. Of course, with the pictures came the stories, too, which was great, but gave me a lot to think. Somehow looking so closely at the women on the photographs and their clothes brought them and their fates very close, too, and I realized once more, how much my family has been influenced and damaged by the Third Reich and Second World War – as probably any other german family is, of course. There was the genuine Nazi, the quite courageous intellectual and everything in between. There was flight, displacement and loss, and after the war: the disillusioned father turning to drink and violence, a daily nightmare for his family. The child dying, playing with an unexploded bomb, and how the whole village brought precious eggs and other fixings for butter cake for the funeral meal. By some, even in my parent’s generation, who were children or not yet born, when the war ended, the question of guilt is still not spoken of. But of course, all these experiences are still present in the family, one way or the other.

Back to dresses – I decided to sew something my mother’s mother owned. I am named after her, and I inherited her sewing machine, a Singer from the 1950s, which I dearly love. I feel close to her in doing needlework, as I have always seen her doing. And the dress I chose is one she wore on her honeymoon.

There is a little homemade album of this journey, taking place in 1930, to Korcula, a kroatian island.

My grandmother was eighteen when she married, much younger than my grandfather, the eloquent pastor adored by all the confirmands, and I wonder how she felt, all at once being a married woman, so much sudden intimacy, and if she had a foreboding that this marriage wouldn’t always be easy.

I think she looks rather sweet and very young on these pictures, but happy, too, and I do hope, she was.

The pictured clothes I find quite surprising. They are much plainer and less fussy than what I have seen in illustrations, even from mail order catalogues, which are supposed to mirror what people actually wore. And some of them I find almost daring, modern anyway, like this little suit:

As the wife of a pastor, I assume, her clothing had to be neat but modest, but maybe as a girl she dressed really smart? Here she is in bathing attire:

And this is the dress I wanted to make:

(I love her sensible footwear, by the way!)

I think she is wearing the dress on the picture with the archway, too, which gives a clue to how bright the different colour blocks were. Of course I didn’t find a fabric matching these blocks, so I had to colour it myself. After making a muslin to get the position of the blocks right, I took white cotton and started painting it in greens:

I taped the stripes to get the edges as clean as possible. Working with paint is quite a different thing and was new to me – you can mix it, but it wasn’t easy to find the right shades, and I needed several attempts for this:

This took some time, but apart from that the sewing was easy. I think the dress has a very basic pattern, without any darts or closures, so I made it up myself.

And this is what the finished dress looks like:

I already had suspected that it was a little shorter than the original, which proved to be true:

Also the skirt isn’t as wide as that of my grandmother’s dress, which is a pity. I think though, hers was of lighter fabric. Since I wanted a non-transparent material, mine is thicker, so accomodating more fabric in the waistline would have made it too bulky. All in all my dress does not match hers a hundred percent, but it gets pretty close. But anyway – I think it’s beautiful and very wearable. It suits me well, and I like to wear it in remembrance of her. What a rewarding challenge!

The Challenge: Heirlooms and Heritage

Fabric: white cotton

Pattern: my own

Year: 1930

Notions: thread, fabric paint

How historically accurate is it? The way of colouring the fabric propably isn’t. The rest of it is, so: 90%

Hours to complete: about three weeks

First worn: several times yet – I was on holidays in Italy and it was perfect for this (well, exept for the impracticality of white clothes when travelling with children)

HSM #7 – Accessorize: The Cloche of Revelation

What I did for this month’s challenge was my first approach to 1920s hats. Wearing hats in everyday life isn’t always easy, I think. 1930s hats are as impractical as can be – high on the head with a shallow crone, they catch the wind and do nothing to protect curled hair from the rain (of both of which we have ample in Hamburg). Moreover on most occasions I feel more or less overdressed wearing one. My alternative (for winter, too) are berets, which is what I have been wearing with my new 1920s things as well. But now we’ve had some hot days, and I really needed something else. I never was particularly keen on cloche hats, but they aren’t difficult to get, so I decided to buy one and refashion it – and I am converted.

This is what it looked like, when I bought it:

I reshaped it, narrowing the brim at the neck:

And gave it new trimmings. I wanted to use the fabric of the Sunday Best Dress from the Blue Challenge (blue and cream) and imagined something taking up the narrow pleating it has on the skirt and at the neckline. This didn’t work well though. It looked fussy and somehow just not at all 1920s, so I settled on a more sober version, which suits me very well. The buckle is cut out of cardboard and then covered with cloth. Since the creamy colour was too pale to go well with the straw, I took the yellow fabric of last month’s dress for the buckle, which looks better:

I also made the buckle smaller.

And this is the result:

The hat goes with almost everything I wear, especially well, of course, with the blue ensemble (or the skirt alone, which I wear quite often without the blouse) and with the brimstone dress. But what I am absolutely smitten with is the wearing comfort: It doesn’t fly away when it’s windy, or fall down when I have to bind children’s shoelaces. I just put it on and am fully dressed, protected from the sun and don’t have to think about it further. Great! What also took me by surprise was the fact that I don’t feel more, but less weird wearing the hat with my outfit – I guess, it just shouts “Twenties” so unmistakeably, nobody has to wonder at what’s it all about. And I get a nice remark literally every second time I am wearing it.

The Challenge: Accessorize

Fabric: a ready made straw hat, remnants of two dresses

Pattern: none

Year: about 1926

Notions: thread, cardboard

How historically accurate is it? For looks: very. But the hat is, of course, not accurately maufactured, and I used some glue, so I’ll give it 80%.

Hours to complete: about five hours

First worn: several times yet

 

HSM #6 – Out of your comfort zone: The Brimstone Butterfly Dress

Actually, I am sewing out of my comfort zone since I started to seriously try to grasp 1920s fashion and clothes making, which has been some months now. I’m still far from feeling at home with it. Nonetheless I had plans for something else: I wanted to work with buckram. I had one go at it years ago (unsuccessfully) and now thought of making a hat based on it. The problem is, that my list of needful projects is long (I really need to get rid of my last maternity clothes), actually including one or two hats, but rather of straw or felt, and anyway with a rounded crown, nothing with right angles and sharp edges. The list does not include that buckram based handbag either, which I halfheartedly began to sew and dumped after having messed it all up.

Then I had absolutely no further ideas, and June was already half over. I didn’t want to miss the challenge though, even if it was just for my own record, so I decided to cheat a little und do something that at least would be out of my comfort zone to wear: something yellow.

It doesn’t show very well in the pictures, but the dress is of brimstone butterfly cotton – and it’s my first yellow item of clothing ever. It’s based on the One Hour Dress from the mid Twenties and was quickly assembled, although of course I needed two hours alone for fiddling with a self made bias binding for the neck, before taking it off again and using ready made binding.

I’m still not fully comfortable with the width at the back (well, it looks a little better on the dress form than on me), but I guess that’s basically what Twenties’ dresses are about and I’ll get used to it. On the whole I like it though. It feels a bit like being clad in lemon ice cream wearing it, but it is a nice light and sporty dress, reminding me of summery afternoons and tennis on the lawn.

The Challenge: Out of your comfort zone

Fabric: yellow cotton, about 2 meters

Pattern: the one hour dress, like here

Year: 1924

Notions: thread, white cotton bias binding

How historically accurate is it? Very, I’d say: 95%, leaving 5% for anything inaccurate that I just don’t know of.

Hours to complete: about one week of snippets of time

First worn: last weekend on a party at the baltic sea

HSM #5 – Practicality: The Homemaker Dress

My first plan for this month’s challenge was to make a Hooverette, the house dress so typical for the Thirties. But somehow I just didn’t get really exited at the thought – too feminine and frilly for me at the moment (although there already have been two very nice examples at the Historical Sew Fortnightly, by Jen and Leimomi). On the other hand I was quite jealous of the dress Erin did sew for the Blue challenge. So I settled on a Twenties’ house dress: a simple cut without much trim, made of sturdy cotton, and checked, as many house dresses in the Twenties were made of Gingham.

Since I am still trying to understand how Twenties’ dresses work and fit, my plan was to buy an original pattern and sew it just following the instructions. I took the Morning Frock from the Vintage Pattern Lending Library, a reproduction pattern dated 1920, although it must be from the mid twenties originally. What I didn’t think of was, that going for my present (post-pregnancy) bust size the dress would be too big in every other respect. So I ended up altering it after my own mental image of how it should fit anyway. I still think it very wide in the back, although I shaped the blouse a little bit there.

The collar took me some time. First I made it in a light blue fabric, which made the whole dress look even more nurse-like und rather boring. The white fabric I finally used is part of an old bedsheet, so it’s pure cotton, too, and you don’t have to worry about hot ironing. Then I made several attempts to get the collar on symmetrically – not successfully. The ties are merciful though, they mostly cover this, although they strongly remind me of girls scouts’ neckties. And I am happy I bothered with making bound slashes.

All in all I like the dress, but the missing waist feels really strange, and although it’s marvelously comfortable I am not sure, if it will become a favourite. We’ll see.

The Challenge: Practicality

Fabric: Checked Cotton, remnants of a cotton bedsheet, remnants of something dark blue, feels like cotton, too.

Pattern: Vintage Pattern Lending Library, Z5302

Year: about 1924

Notions: thread

How historically accurate is it? Very, I think. I only took the back in a little, that might not be absolutely authentic.

Hours to complete: I just can’t keep track of the hours – my sewing time comes mostly in half hour snippets. However, I started on May 1 and did the last stitches today.

First worn: not yet

HSM #4 – War & Peace: The Black is the new black Suit

The garment I made for this month’s challenge actually dates from the mid thirties, when World War I was already some years past. Still, had it not been for the Great War, it would not have existed as it does: a black skirt suit for everyday wear.

Black had been the colour of mourning for a long time. I read that even in ancient Rome clothes of dark colours were worn for mourning, but definitely by the 19th century female mourning attire in Europe was universally black. I think black evening wear existed, but it was no colour used for day wear. This changed after WWI. So many soldiers had been killed (supplemented by the deaths caused by the Spanish Flu, which alone cost the lives of more than 25 millions), that black clothing was omnipresent in all spheres of life and all social classes, so gradually it lost its distinct meaning. Since then it has gained great popularity for clothes of all kind (an early example being the famous Little Black Dress of Chanel’s from the twenties).

So here is my report for the suit I made: It is actually an UFO I had started before my pregnancy. The jacket was all done, and I am quite proud of it. It follows this pattern:

Although it looks a bit ruffled on the dress form, it fits very nicely, the setting in of the sleeves (my personal nemesis) and the bound buttonholes have worked out well, it looks as neat on the inside as on the outside, and I like the buttons on it, although they are not vintage. The fabric is a fine wool of good quality, pleasant to work with and enjoyable to wear.

Going for the skirt I took the black fabric from top of my pile and started. I had made a muslin for it and it turned out fine. When I went looking for the lining fabric though I had to realise I had used the wrong fabric. Bad news on a monday morning. The good news was, that when I unfolded the original fabric, I found a nearly finished skirt, with lining and all – which had completely slipped my mind. Well, yes. Not so good news for my brains, maybe. Unfortunately I hadn’t made a muslin at the time but just fitted the skirt as I went along, and this shows in the seams, which are a bit uneven and rippled. Well, it’s nice to see anyway, that I have made some progress over the last year, and the second skirt looks much neater. For the sake of completeness, here it is:

Although of course there is not much to see in a basic black skirt. It is a classic thirties form with six panels and a side opening and is of a linen/wool blend. I like and already wore it.

The Challenge: War & Peace

Fabric: 100% wool (+linen/wool blend) – both from stash, I don’t remember how much I bought of it.

Pattern: Vintage pattern for the jacket, both skirts my own patterns

Year: about 1934

Notions: yarn, two zips, four buttons

How historically accurate is it? Very! Only exception: the back opening in the original skirt and the plastic buttons. So: 95%

Hours to complete: I cannot say – most of it was done over a year ago. The second skirt took me about 5 hours.

First worn: The whole suit: not yet. The jacket several times over the last months. The second skirt yesterday, playing soccer mum for my daughter.

Total cost: No idea, same as the Hours to complete-question

I have to say, that I really loved this challenge! It was something to ponder on, which was fun, and I was pleased, too, that all the reading and looking at pictures in the last months bore fruit. Of course this also took me back into my thirties-comfort zone, and after the experiments with twenties’ clothes, this really felt like home. It seems though, that there will be rather more twenties stuff – I just can’t bring myself round to daily doing a roller or pincurl set, when most days I don’t see anybody except my family and maybe the grocery clerk. So I guess it will be a twenties bob next time I go to the hairdresser. And without the appropriate hairstyle I always feel strange in vintage clothing.

On that note – practicality!

HSM #3 – Stashbusting: Stepping Out Dress

I very seldom buy fabric I don’t need for a current sewing project, but of course I assembled some of these projects in different stages of completion, and I just can’t cast away anything textile, so my stash consists mostly of leftovers. There is also the scrap basket, which is overflowing (although my daughter, who is free to use it  for her freestyle sewing and fancy dress things, helps to reduce this). All this compiling feels really nerdy, but it actually pays off, for quite often I can use remnants of clothes I made to match them with other garments or accessories – very thirties.

My plan for the stashbusting challenge was to eventually sew a 1930s pyjama I bought fabric for shortly before I got pregnant. But then there was an invitation to a party and the glamour girl in me gained the upper hand, so I ended up with this: The fabric is a very light polyester satin, using the shiny as well as the dull side. I had made a dress for another festivity from this, a pretty uninspired maternity gown: I never really warmed to it and it was clear I would not wear it again. It had quite a lot of fabric in the front panel, plus there were ca. 1,5 m left in my stash, so I deconstructed the dress and made new use of it.

I used the basic skirt and tunic patterns I already had adjusted for the last HSM challenge, so this again is a two piece dress meaning to be a one piece. For the top I omitted the sleeves, made a deep v-shaped neckline with a vestee-like insertion and added the sash, hold with a buckle on the left side. The skirt has a godet on the left, which shows the dull side of the fabric, to give it some flare. The whole thing was done quick and dirty. The cheap fabric didn’t behave as I wanted it to, and there are many spots I wouldn’t recommend a close look on. I have mixed feelings too, when it comes to authenticity. It has a 1920ish feel, and apart from the clearly modern fabric, all the details and features are period accurate, but I’m not sure they would go together in one garment. The plain tubular shape, the vestee neckline and the even hemline would indicate a dress from the first half of the decade. But evening dresses would have ankle length until the mid twenties, while sleeveless daywear wasn’t common until after that. The shiny fabric seems strange too for a day dress, but apparently that was not uncommon.

Anyway, all this is just book knowledge. It seems I haven’t seen enough of twenties fashion yet to get a feel for what would work and what wouldn’t be right. So I’m not awfully proud of this, still it was finished within a week (which is fast for me), and it was fun to wear!

The Challenge:  Stashbusting

Fabric:  Polyester satin, not sure how much of it

Pattern:  Basic skirt and tunic patterns, adapted

Year:  about 1924?

Notions:  Thread, hook and eye, snaps, vintage buckle and, uhm, a safety pin

How historically accurate is it? I’ll give it 50%

Hours to complete:  About ten hours

First worn:  Last weekend to a very nice party

Total cost:  None, everything was from stash

HSM #2 – Colour Challenge Blue : Sunday Best

For the February Challenge I made a two piece frock from the 1920s.

I am pleased with how it turned out, although it wasn’t all fun to get there. The fabric I used is a rayon crepe. These did exist in the twenties, although I’m not sure about the single components – this one is a little stretchy, which I don’t think would be historically accurate. It adds a lot to comfort though, and wool or silk crepe would have been too expensive anyway.

I started with the skirt, which was quickly sewn. It is based on my basic skirt pattern, with added pleats, looks elegant and is really nice to wear. The trouble was with the blouse … It’s not a secret, that twenties fashions are designed for and look best on a boyish figure – which is exactly what after my recent pregnancy I have not. I realized this, when I made the first fitting. I tried the blouse (with a much higher and plain neckline) on, expecting simple yet sophisticated art deco elegance, looked into the mirror – and felt like an elephant. Lowering the neckline, adding the buckle and bow (the opening pleats echoing those in the skirt) and narrowing the whole thing made it much better, but I had a couple of dark hours until I figured that out.

Constructionwise this is a fake because it is not a fake. Ensembles like this, which were very popular in the twenties, usually consisted of a blouse like mine, but the skirt would not sit on the waist, but be attached to a bodice, as shown in this illustration of “How to make dresses the  modern Singer way” from 1929:

This would be quite easy to sew, I think (no fitting at all at the waist), and wonderfully comfortable to wear. But since I needed a garment with separate upper and lower parts, I made it a real skirt.

The Challenge: Colour Challenge Blue

Fabric: 2,5 metres of blue and a small piece of cream rayon crepe

Pattern: based on a basic skirt pattern and  KwikSew 3601, both modified Year: mid twenties

Notions: thread, zipper, buckle

How historically accurate is it? The overall look is really good, I think. The pattern of the blouse is fine, too, with underarm darts and otherwise not much to it. But the skirt, as I mentioned, isn’t at all accurate, of the fabric I’m not too sure. The buckle is vintage, but more like 30s. So, hm, about 70 %?

Hours to complete: about three weeks, for more or less half an hour every day

First worn: at the christening of our little boy

Total cost: ca. 50 €

HSM #1 – Foundations: Cosy Bloomers

I didn’t find it easy to come up with something suitable for this first challenge. Anything fitted like a girdle would not fit for long and I am not in need of one. Another slip would be a good thing, but not wearable at the moment, since I will have to wear two piece garments for quite some time. What I could use though, since I am no great friend of tights, is something to keep the part above the stockings warm on a cold day. So this was my choice: passion killers from the twenties.

Not spectacular, but I stuck to the motto “You can never have too many chemises” (and they do look better worn than on the hanger, but talking about underwear in public feels weird enough without showing pictures of me wearing them). It’s a pair of bloomers, like they were worn in the 1920s and early 30s (and very similar in earlier decades, I think), in the basic version – without separate yoke or inset crotch, and not made of rayon or silk, but rather wintery of cotton flannel. I had ruffles on the leg openings, but it made them look (and feel) even more granny-like, so I left those out. I haven’t seriously worn them yet, hope they are not too bulky. But cosy they definitely are!

The Challenge: Foundations

Fabric: 1,5 meters of cotton flannel

Pattern: based on Simplicity 3688, modified

Year: about 1930

Notions: thread, elastic band

How historically accurate is it? Rather. The elastic band might not be authentic (I couldn’t find out much about elastics around that time) – but it does not show. The rest is fine.

Hours to complete: about 6 hours

First worn: not yet

Total cost: ca. 30 € (although I’d rather not be constantly aware of all the money I spend on this …)

Here we go …

The reason for me to start this blog is the fabulous Historical Sew Monthly 2015, hosted by The Dreamstress. Some time last year I stumbled over the Historical Sew Fortnightly 2014. I liked the idea a lot, but – to accomplish any dress in two weeks time, let alone an elaborate gown like some of the participants did, did (and still does) seem impossible to me. When the question came up, wether the whole thing was worth the effort of organizing it, I was nonetheless alarmed – I really wouldn’t want to miss it. Now the intervals have been changed to monthly challenges, and so I think I would really like to give it a try.

And these are the challenges for 2015:

• January – Foundations: make something that is the foundation of a period outfit.
• February – Colour Challenge Blue: Make an item that features blue, in any shade from azure to zaffre.
• March – Stashbusting: Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims & notions that you already have in stash.
• April – War & Peace: the extremes of conflict and long periods of peacetime both influence what people wear.  Make something that shows the effects of war, or of extended peace.
• May – Practicality:  Fancy party frocks are all very well, but everyone, even princesses, sometimes needs a practical garment that you can DO things in.  Create the jeans-and-T-Shirt-get-the-house-clean-and-garden-sorted outfit of your chosen period.
• June – Out of Your Comfort Zone: Create a garment from a time period you haven’t done before, or that uses a new skill or technique that you’ve never tried before. 
• July – Accessorize: The final touch of the right accessory creates the perfect period look.  Bring an outfit together by creating an accessory to go with your historical wardrobe.
• August – Heirlooms & Heritage: Re-create a garment one of your ancestors wore or would have worn, or use an heirloom sewing supply to create a new heirloom to pass down to the next generations.
• September – Colour Challenge Brown: it’s not the most exciting colour by modern standards, but brown has been one of the most common, and popular, colours throughout history. Make something brown.
• October – Sewing Secrets: Hide something in your sewing, whether it is an almost invisible mend, a secret pocket, a false fastening or front, or a concealed message (such as a political or moral allegiance).
• November – Silver Screen: Be inspired by period fashions as shown onscreen (film or TV), and recreate your favourite historical costume as a historically accurate period piece.
• December – Re-Do:  It’s the last challenge of the year, so let’s keep things simple by re-doing any of the previous 11 challenges.

I am really exited about participating! I have had some very nice ideas and am still working on others and generally start the sewing of 2015 much inspired and in high spirits!

There are some  special preconditions in that I gave birth to my second child in October 2014. This will mean a figure constantly changing over the course of the year, it rules out one piece dresses (unsuitable for breastfeeding) and of course there will be limited time for myself, mostly coming in small bits, which have to be used always and promptly. I had quite a good start though, so I am confident and most of all: thrilled!