1920s Dress with Some Issues

I didn’t need this dress. I bought it anyway. First of all, it is a really great dress. Secondly, it has some problems and I felt sorry for it. And finally, it was cheap. I just couldn’t leave it to become someone’s Halloween costume, and then be throughly trashed.

So, I brought it home. The truth is, I was in search of some wintertime projects. This one should occupy me through a few cold and snowy days.

I need to add that this is a really great dress. The asymmetrical chiffon layers are just stunning with the applied trim ovals. It’s a great balance of what the 1920s were all about – a straight (or boyish) silhouette with a touch of romance. I was hoping the dress would have a label, but sorry to say, there isn’t one.

Most of the problems are with the upper bodice. As you can see, the shoulders are pretty much gone. This dress is very light, but even a mostly chiffon 1920s dress with suffer in the shoulders if left to hang. That’s what’s going on here.

You might can tell that there are two layers of chiffon, one black and the other beige. Both will need to be replaced.

There are a few other little issues, like this small hole in the drape, and a rent on the bottom flounce. But ninety percent of the work will be to the upper bodice.

Note that there is an appendage on the right (your left) hip. I’m thinking of using it to replace the upper bodice. Will I be ruining the balance of the dress?

Another problem with the bodice is this lace. It seems to be there for a bit of modesty, as the sheer part of the bodice is quite low. At first I thought the lace was a later addition.

You can see that the stitching holding the lace in place is definitely not original to the dress. I was feeling all smug about thinking the lace was an afterthought until I spotted something else.

This is a bit of the lace where it was originally stitched to the bodice, and then cut away.

The lace is actually very nice, with that metallic thread over-embroidery. So after replacing the chiffon, I’ll reattach the lace in the original place.

After all this work, I’ll not be keeping this dress. This is a dress that needs to be seen, and it is definitely strong enough to wear. It doesn’t fit into my collection, and as pretty as this one is, most museums already have plenty of unlabeled black dinner dresses. The lack of provenance would make it difficult to fit into a history museum collection. So it will be sold, hopefully to someone who will cherish it and who will look marvelous in it.

Of Course You Can Sew!, 1971

I plucked this book out of a Goodwill bin as it was being carted off to the place of no return. I don’t really collect sewing books, but I do have a nice grouping of them that typify the era in which they were written. A quick look through of this book by Barbara Corrigan fit the bill as one to add to the group.

My guess is that the book was written for the preteen and young teen set. The book came from an elementary school library and the check-out card was still in the book. Most of the girls (and all the readers were girls) who checked out the book were in the fifth and sixth grades, but a few were younger. The book was popular, with the card being full.

And no wonder. This was just the sort of book my twelve year old self would have loved. The projects within were just the sort of thing I was always making. There is a section on using simple commercial patterns, but most of the projects were made from squares of fabric or textiles such as towels and other household linens. The dress and bag above are typical. What was interesting was how the bag was made from the part of the towel that was cut off to make the dress. Even in 1971 textiles were not for wasting.

Many of the projects were sportswear. I remember people making similar garments from towels, especially beach cover-ups and bags.

The projects got progressively harder as one moved through the book, but lots of drawings and diagrams made the directions easy to understand. Here you see how to cut a caftan from towels.

Once the novice sewer moved past sewing plain straight seams, a gathered skirt was introduced. The skills were the same, but the addition of the gathers must have seemed like a big leap in ability.

There were also cute designs for making things from bed linens. A girl could have night clothes to match her sheets.

This was the Seventies, so of course there were ponchos.

This sewing corner would have driven me wild with envy. My sewing spot was the dining room table.

I was completely charmed by this little book, perhaps because I would have loved to have had it in my early sewing years. The text was so straightforward, without a bit of talking down to the youngsters that it seemed totally relatable, even though the author, Barbara Corrigan, was in her late forties when she wrote and illustrated the book. The illustrations were cute and modern, and while not the height of 1971 fashion, they were what girls were actually wearing at that time.

I had to learn more about Barbara, and I found she lived in Attleboro, Massachusetts. She studied at the Massachusetts School of Arts, and had plans to be a fashion designer, having been an avid sewer since childhood. But she ended up in commercial art while painting and sewing wedding dresses on the side. In the 1960s she landed a contract to design and write sewing books for Doubleday, of which this book is one. She also illustrated cookbooks and pages for Highlights for Children magazine.

Vintage Sewing – 1970s Butterick 5941 Scarf Top

If you have been a reader of The Vintage Traveler for a long time, you might remember this post from 2012.  At the time I said I was going to make this garment, and it only took me seven and a half years to get around to doing so. Since I seem to have a bit of time on my hands and a large stash of fabric, I thought there’s no time like the present.

The pattern isn’t dated, but it’s the most  mid Seventies look imaginable. These were my college days, and we were all about taking something, like scarves, and turning it into something else, like a dress. It was rather like today, actually.

The pattern calls for either two 32″ scarves, or 35″ or 45″ wide fabric. I have some nice flowy silk from a box of lovely fabrics bought at an antiques show several years ago, so I went with it. It helped that it’s blue and matches ninety percent of the rest of my closet. And since I’m not really into mini dresses any more, I decided to shorten it into a top.

Sorry, no modeling but the hanging shot gives a good idea of how the top turned out.  In my original post about this pattern, it was pointed out that it looked too narrow to slip over the head. That turned out to be a fancy of the pattern envelope illustrator, as the finished product slips over quite easily. In order for the tunic to look that slim, one would need to add a belt.

In studying my fabric, I thought it was a bit plain. It wasn’t until I really looked at it that it noticed the tiny pattern of dots. And that selvage was so fantastic that I knew it had to remain.

Because the fabric was wider than the top I wanted to make, I cut off one strip of selvage and reattached it at the hem.

And because I’m a neat freak, I did a French seam on the only seams in the top. This was the easiest, and fastest, project ever. I am a very slow sewer, and even with reattaching the selvage and hand hemming the sleeves, I took only about two hours from first cut to final stitch.

Here are the instructions for the entire dress. Don’t let the “FRONT AND BACK 3” bit confuse you. 3 is the number of the pattern piece. The same piece is used for both front and back.  Basically, all you have are the two joins at the shoulders, and the two side seams if you were using scarves. Using yardage involves a bit more finishing.

Vintage Sewing – Late 1920s Silk Chemise

For a while now I’ve been thinking about the “One Hour Dress, a 1924 pattern developed by sewing expert Mary Brooks Picken. The dress was designed to be very simple to sew, and because it was the 1920s, there were no darts and such with which to contend.

The one piece pattern was like an inverted T, with the fullness of the sides being gathered at the hips. The sleeves were cut in one with the dress, and all the edges could be machine stitched.

If you follow sewers of historic fashion on Instagram, you can’t avoid seeing the One Hour Dress. I’ve seen it made with vastly varying results, from the ridiculous to the sublime. But almost to a person, it is said that there’s just no way the dress can be made in one hour. So, I set out to see if Picken’s pattern promoted wishful thinking in the sewing world.

Instead of making a dress, I thought I’d adapt the pattern into a chemise. That way if it turned out to be a disaster i could always sleep in it. In the pattern I drafted, I left off the top one fourth of the bodice, cutting it straight across the top of the chest.

Because I’m a fabric hoarder who is always picking up old material at the Goodwill dig, I had just the right lightweight silk for a chemise. I also had a roll of woven lingerie strap ribbon.

The most time consuming part of this project was the drafting of the pattern. You use your measurements to draft it to fit your figure, and if done correctly, it does make the style much more flattering. Many of the examples I have seen look dumpy because the pattern drafter did not take into consideration her height. That gathered part has to sit on the hip, not below it.

Also adding to the time was the fabric I used. Silk is slippery, and tends to be difficult to manage. And add to the time the fact that I decided on enclosed seams to help discourage unraveling of my finished chemise.

After pretty much completing the sewing, I decided the chemise was just too plain. A row of chain stitching across the top of the bodice seemed to be what was needed.

I don’t have a copy of the original booklet written by Ms. Picken, but I can guess that in order to make this dress in one hour, the hemming would have to be by machine. Again, I wanted something a bit prettier. I turned to my 1927 Art of Dressmaking from Butterick patterns. For lingerie the book suggests taking the finished garment to any fancy sewing establishment and let them do a professional hem with their picot machine.

Times have changed, and there is no professional sewing establishment in my neighborhood, and I doubt a single picot edger can be found either. I considered all the stitches on my fancy machine, but the silk was so delicate that even with a base layer, it was pulled out of shape by the stitching. So I decided on the hand-stitching route. Add another two hours to this one hour chemise.

The big question is: Can the One Hour Dress be made in one hour? I believe it can be if certain conditions are met. The drafting of the pattern does not count in the time to make the dress. A non-slippery and non-ravelly fabric like cotton broadcloth must be used. All edges must be finished by machine. There can be no embellishments. All seams must be plain.

I didn’t take a photo of me wearing my new chemise as I’m much too shy to put a photo of me in my underwear on the internet, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how good it looks. I’m short, and so is the chemise. Maybe Ms. Picken knew what she was doing after all.

 

Vintage Sewing – 1966 Givenchy Coat

I can’t believe it has been so long since I shared a sewing project. That may be because I haven’t been sewing, except to make repairs and alterations. But a recent cold kept me at home and I needed a project to take my mind off the sniffles. I have had both the embroidered linen and the vintage 1940s rayon plaid for years, and my plan was vaguely for a coat, and I had looked at dozens of patterns trying to decide what design to make.

Having an urgent need for a project got me to settle on a pattern I already had – one that I’ve always wanted to make. I have written quite a bit about a series of four patterns that Givenchy designed for Audrey Hepburn to wear in the 1966 film, How to Steal a Million, so I’ll not go into detail about it here.

I had made McCall’s patterns from this era, and I have always been pleased with the quality of the instructions. This was the case with this pattern. The instructions were straight forward, and the coat went together very easily. I am short, so I shortened the length and the arms a bit. Other than that I made the pattern as drafted. The only thing I’d change is that I would made the pockets deeper. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be making them a bit deeper by adding to the bottom of the pockets.

The coat has some details that might frighten off less experienced sewers, but the instructions were so good that the pocket…

and the buttonholes were a cinch. I was concerned about the bound buttonholes because several of them were set into where there was embroidery, but that did not present a problem.

I put the lining in by hand, as I have had mixed result when trying to bag a lining by machine. It all fit together beautifully.

Once I got started on the machine, I could not stop. I just could not let the scraps of these lovely fabric languish in my scrap bag. So I did what anyone would do – I made a hat.

I had made this mid 1970s pattern before, and liked it. It was a quick and simple make. I do doubt that I’ll wear the hat with the coat. It seems to be a bit too matched.

I bought this fabric at a place that sells factory end runs. Even at a discount place, it was not cheap. Yes, it does wrinkle a bit, but I am loving wearing it, as it is just the right heaviness for early spring, and it is terrifically comfortable.

In fact, I wore it today, a touch of spring on a rather chilly mountain day.

1910s Pajamas, Butterick 1893

In the late 1910s and early 1920s, few women were wearing pants, even when sleeping.  World War I did did bring the idea of wearing pants to women though, partly because wartime work made pants so much more practical than dresses.  But it took World War II with thousands of women entering factories before pants began to really be acceptable wear for women.

And that is why I fell in love with this early pants for women pattern.  Yes, it is for pajamas, but they are very similar to the styles of pants that some women had adopted for factory and farm work during WWI.

The top takes its cue from a popular sports style top – the middy.  It is easy to see how this could have been inspired by the bloomers and middy sports ensemble of high school and college girls of the 1910s.

I got this mainly for historical interest, not really to sew, though I might try my hand at a pair of pajamas from 95 years ago.  Unfortunately the directions are missing, but I think I could muddle my way through.  As my grandmother often reminded me, the directions are for people who don’t know what they are doing.

A bit of icing for this cake – the original sales slip was tucked into the envelope.  This pattern was purchased at J.Lurie in Chicago, on January 15, 1920.