Historical Sew Monthly - April : War and Peace

Hi Folks,

Ok so the theme for the Historical Sew Monthly for April is:

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.

HSF '15 challenge 2 - Blue

Hi Folks

This is a bit late for the actual challenge date of end of Feb, but although the dress was finished I didn't have time to get this bit done. So here it is now. 

Historical Sew Fortnightly/Monthly 2015 challenge 1

Well Hello Folks

Remember last year I was attempting to do the Historical Fortnightly Challenge and had to stop before the end as the preparations for my wedding had to take priority. (Check out the label 'historical sew fortnightly' for posts showing the challenges I completed.)  Well this year it's back but has morphed slightly and I have to say I'm quite pleased actually. We are now doing a monthly challenge as laid out by the wonderful Dreamstress in her blog here http://thedreamstress.com/the-historical-sew-monthly-2015/

Suit-along: The Pockets on Your Jacket.

Well morning all

This morning Dr J. has returned to work after 2 weeks off. And it seems a little quiet here apart from the teenage boys, my son has had some friends stopping, but they are all still asleep. So it is just me and the dog for the moment and all is peaceful.  Not that it wasn't lovely having the Doc around and we did get so much done for the wedding plans, but now I feel I need to concentrate on a little bit of internet stuff and get some new items up on the website and Etsy store which I have kinda neglected of late. I also feel that I should re-vamp my blog so, hopefully, you are reading this with a new layout. And I hope you like it.

1916 in the honey pot today

Morning all

Well steampunk was fun and there were loads of marvelous outfits and creations to marvel at as the day wore on. If you look at Steampunk Doncaster facebook page you be able to see lots of good stuff. And then to round of the weekend in splendid style on Sunday the lovely Dr J. took me to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Electric Cinema (the Birmingham one), which is the oldest working cinema in the UK and always a treat.

But now it's back to reality which is infact 1916 for me this week as I'm back on the Wearing History 1010s sew along.

Did I mention to you that I was guest blogging on a few post for this sew along?
.
I did the first one a few weeks back now, but as I prepare to finish the top half on the shirt fully and then move on the the jacket, I thought I'd share with you the post I wrote about hemming....


 Well Hello Everyone, I’m Ally from Honey Pot Creations, primarily a milliner, but a dabbler in anything and everything sewing based.  I’m so pleased to be able to write this guest post. When Lauren put out the call for help with the sew-along I was a little nervous and at first didn’t put myself forward but then I thought well why not, what’s the worst that could happen, and to be honest it will really spur me on to complete the sew-along if I’m involved in both sides if you see what I mean. Do bear in mind though that this is my first guest blog and be a little forgiving on me if I make any blunders.   Well I thought I would help Lauren out by taking 3 small sections of the construction.  I picked

• Hemming the skirt
• Pockets on the jacket
• Collar options

to write the blog posts for and very kindly Lauren agreed. So today is all about hemming and we will get to the jacket all in good time.   The original instructions that came with the pattern tell us to “underface skirt 3 inches” and Lauren goes on to explain this as; ‘No hem is allowed for skirt. The longer length will work for earlier periods, since it is quite long. You can either turn up the hem, if you desire shorter than the pattern is given for, or face the hem.’ She goes on to say that she likes to face in a stiffer fabric to give extra body to the hem and I have to agree with this and will be using this method on my skirt, but for the sake of completeness we will cover both methods. As the skirt we are dealing with is not straight, we will have to look at fullness with whatever hem style we choose, so let’s look at that first. Some fabrics can be shrunk in a little and some will just need to be pressed as flat as possible, either way starts by marking your hem line. The easiest method I find is just to run a very large running stitch around the hem line in contrasting cotton.This thread will be removed later.  Also run a gathering stitch close to the end of the fabric (the white one in the pictures) Turn up the hem and baste (or pin if you are lazy like me) close to the turn.  Next pull up the gathering thread to fit the curve, on a skirt as big as this, you will find it easier to do this in sections possibly each quarter.Once all the gathers are evenly distributed you can iron. Don’t slide the iron along the hem line, as this can stretch it, instead lower the iron onto one area, steam and then lift the iron and move along to the next area. This advice is good whichever style of hemming you choose.To finish, overcast the raw edges and blind stitch the hem up.   With this skirt though, I chose to underface the hem by this method.

• Cut the underfacing to size. By using the bottom of the pattern piece you draw round the outline on your facing material, I chose calico for a medium stiffness.
• 
• Draw the bottom line and 4 inches up the sides.
• Move the pattern piece and then measuring up 4 inches from the bottom line draw another line parallel to it making a curving rectangle shape.
• 
• Cut around the shape to give you your facing.
• 
• (Rather late in the day I got round to ironing the calico, I did say I was lazy) Turn over a short hem on the top edge of the facing.
• 
• Now I chose not to join these strips together instead preferring to attach them to the skirt in separate pieces that overlap and then if there is any problem with the sizing I can increase or decrease the size of the overlap to compensate, so iron  down the short edges on two of the pieces.
• 
• If you would rather join the facing together and then sew it on to the skirt just sew up the short sides and continue as before.
• Pin the facing to the skirt right sides together, placing one of the folded over edges down first.
• 
• Place the next facing over lapping this piece and pin in place, when they are turned back over the neat side will be showing.
• 
• Sew the facing on to the fabricand iron, I always iron the seam as is first and then open, can’t remember who told me but I know it’s important. 
• Turn the facing to the inside and press again. I like to roll it in a little further so you can see a little of the skirt fabric on the inside.  
• Blind stitch in place.

Ok this is where I need to make a confession, you may be thinking that I was using a cream facing on a dark fabric to make it easy to see in the photos and I probably would have dyed the facing if I thought it might be seen, but you see I decided that the skirt was a little too long for me and for some reason I decided 6 inches had to come off, well I did a bad thing and just folded up the pattern pieces to get the reduction. The real problem came when I folded up 6 and down 6 too (not up 3 and down 3), so I end up cutting the pieces 12 inches shorter than the originals, oops. I realised as soon as I held up the cut out fabric. Although the skirt is too short you can see the calico gives a nice fullness. Well there had been a thread in the facebook event page discussing this very problem, and some very clever person suggested putting a ruffle on the bottom, so that is exactly what I decided to do. I cut out 3 straight lengths of the fabric, joined them into a tube, hemmed top and bottom and then attached to the bottom of my skirt with small pleats.From this you can also see the other option for hemming which is to turn the raw edge over twice and sew down. 

I hope that you may have found something in all that useful, I have to say I enjoyed doing it and it’s interesting thinking about each step, rather than just doing them, so I’m looking forward to the jacket now. Oh and once again thanks Lauren for letting me join in. Hugs and kisses Ally

So that's what I wrote and now you're up-to-date, I'll share more later in the week. oh and if you want to see the rest of the posts on the sew along they can be found here, on the sew along facebook page.

catch you later.

Hugs and Kisses

Ally

Edwardian Undergarments, now there's a use for lace.

good morning all.

Today I intend to delve a little further into my outfit for the 1914 fair and the Wearing History 1910s Sew-along.

Well the more I look into this Edwardian and 1910's fashion the more involved it gets. Apparently around that time ladies were wearing blouses made of fine chiffon and other sheer fabric so their under-garments could be seen through.  This with the fact that the corset had gotten lower and was now underbust or just a small shelf effect, meant there was a call for a new item.  Enter the brassiere into mainstream apparel.

French ad from 1901

The silhouette for the time was a lower mono-bust, most brassieres just held them tightly squished  in place so there would be no jiggling about.  For ladies with less, there were pads or boned cages to give the appearance of a full bust and for ladies with more there were ways for reducing the overall appearance, by tighter squishing.


Images taken from Lauren's blog about her sewing and the pattern for pads is available from site Wearing History where you can also find the suit pattern if you would like to join the sew-along.

So now not only do I need to make a new corset, but also a 'brassiere' style item but I think this might just be the perfect use for some of the antique lace I was gift awhile back.  The Edwardian's loved lace, lots of lace.

I think I have found the corset pattern I intend to use it's from bridges on the body, Jo who write that blog ran a sew along for it back in 2012, sadly I missed that one, but can still use all the useful insights they came up with., this pattern is available to copy for free. Thanks Jo.


The muslin wasn't too bad size wise, but I think I may make it a little shorter so that it will be useful for other things too, and the suit skirt is fuller, not the tight hobble skirts of earlier in the period so I'm sure I will get away with it.

not looking like much yet.

now I'm off to the stash to find some suitable material, least you don't need very much for small items.
Speak to you all again soon

Hugs and Kisses

Ally

Wearing History 1910s sew-a-long

Good Morning All

I hope you have all had a marvelous weekend, myself and the wonderful Dr J. joined the Moselele lot on Saturday for a charity busk and raised lots of money for a really good cause.  It was outside, the sun shone and we had a great time and then in the evening, we happened to be close to the hotel we are having our wedding reception at so we popped in with the signed contract and had a look at the room with the evening lights and it so pretty and not at all modern, so that was lovely and we are feel very excited about the whole affair.

But on with today and I am mainly thinking about a sew-a-long I have joined to sew a 1910s suit

I bought the e-pattern to download and print out at home, just a little bit more convenient for me and if I make a mess of any alterations I can always print it out and start again. Lauren the lovely lady running the sew-a-long has done a post on printing the patterns out, so if you wanted to join in and felt a little nervous about that part it will all be covered in her blog posts, as will all the aspects of sewing this lovely suit.

She also asked for help in the blogging and I thought that sounded quite like fun and would give me a chance to practice giving a little more detail, something I don't tend to do on here, as I know I have a lot of readers who aren't really into sewing or crafts and just like a little 'chat'. So over the next few weeks you will be hearing quite a lot about the 1910s and this suit.  I have a stall at a fair over the summer that is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, so I also have a goal for wearing the suit which will spur me on.

The suit is from 1916 so it will be 2 years early, but I'm sure I'm not that fussy.

So for today here's some pictures to get you in the mood..

this one is 1914s and the skirts do tend to be longer and tighter 

and I just love these evening dresses. The fashions all look quite relaxed and easy to wear, but believe me underneath all those gowns there lurks a corset, just a different style one to the tiny waist, push up boobs job you may have come to associate with historical corsets. No the corsets these ladies are wearing look a little more like these.

and as they start lower they left some ladies looking for a little more support for their upper half shall we say.  I say support, the look was really to flatten them down as much as possible really and this continued into the flapper look of the 1920s. 

The whole effect of the undergarments was to give clean smooth curves with no bumpy bits.

The logo for bridges-on-the-body really shows the change in outline well.

But what does all this mean, well I haven't looked at this era before so guess what? I haven't got a suitable corset yet, and now I need to decide whether to attempt the look with modern undies or just go all out and make some of the correct type and knowing me I will end up with a 1910s corset by the end of this, (infact there is a HSF challenge coming up that would fit this perfectly so there you go).

I have to say I'm excited about the whole affair and eager to get cracking, so I'll be off and do just that.

Hugs and Kisses

Ally