HSM 2: Blue skirt

The edwardian era has thus far been the period that I mostly have been sewing in, and  I have previously produced two skirts that could fall within that range. I have however felt like I need a skirt suitable for walking and being active in. After some browsing I fell in love with a model that is included in The Voice of Fashion from Lavolta Press:

1901 Calling Costume, p 241

Sorry about the poor image, but there it is. The original print has it made up in brown fabric, but I favored blue and could then also fit it into the second challenge of the historical sew monthly. During my research I found several examples of similar suits in different shades of blue or grey. All fashion plates below are from Fashion magazine De Gracieuse.

Pattern drafting in this book is accomplished by using graded rulers included in the appendix. I think it is rather easy, but then again, a skirt is not very complicated. I will get back once I am to fit the jacket that will accompany the skirt.

Having recently started a proper job and cashing in a proper salary every month meant that I could indulge myself and buy 6 meters of wool fabric to make up the whole suit. The fabric is perhaps a bit heavier than would have been ideal, but it was a dream to work with.

There is not really much to say about the construction, it was all really straightforward. Vertical seams sewn and left raw (awesome fabric), placket made at center back, pleats gathered, waistband attached, hooks and eyes added. At this point the half-finished skirt was hung up for a day or two to allow for the bias to stretch.

As I wanted to be able to go for walks in this skirt I had decided to make it ankle-length. Judging by the fashion plates above all skirts of the time were floor-length and had a train, but these period photographs tell a different story and gave me the courage to shorten it quite a bit.

After the hem had been cut I faced it with a 10cm wide bias strip of the same wool fabric and turned it to the inside of the skirt. Between the outer fabric and the facing is encased a piece of nylon horsehair braid that helps the skirt stand out a bit and not get all tangled up while walking. To finish the skirt of and to secure the facing I added a wide black velvet ribbon. I is possible that this ribbon will be replaced because it is just awful to handle, stiff and wrinkly! But from a distance it looks great and really finishes of the look.

Front view

Back view

Placket

Encased horsehair braid

Facing as seen from the wrong side of the skirt

Now for some pictures of it on me, sadly without the proper underpinnings. We will just have to do a photo shoot another day.

In motion with my everyday coat on top

Notice how the hem stands out, wonderful while walking

Almost something of an S-bend shape going on here

So how do I feel about this skirt? I absolutely love it. It is practical, flattering and comfortable. The making of it was fast and easy so I am not discouraged about tackling the jacket. I find it interesting to look at the original fashion plate and see how much more fullness there is there compared to my version. I did not alter the pattern at all so I have no idea what that is about. I guess that the image does not always look like the finished garment. just like when you buy a pattern today.

Facts

The Challenge: Nr 2. Blue

Fabric: Blue wool (vadmal) from here

Pattern: Calling costume, p 241 The Voice of Fashion

Year: 1901

Notions: Polyester thread, nylon horsehair braid, 6 skirt hooks and eyes, silk thread, modern interfacing for the waistband , velvet ribbon.

How historically accurate is it? Pattern is authentic, the fabric also okay. There are some synthetic notations included but they are mostly hidden. The length of the skirt is an interesting aspect which I believe is very much accurate, our ancestors probably valued practicality as much as we do. Overall 95%.

Hours to complete: 5-6h, including pattern drafting

First worn: For afternoon tea at Tjolöholms castle

Total cost: Roughly estimated I used half of the fabric I ordered for this project and that amounts to 500-600SEK. Add another 100SEK for notation (mostly from stash though) and we end up around 50 GBP.

Ref W edwardian corset

I find it hard to believe that it has only been a little over a month since I posted the final post on the red victorian corset and that I have already made another one. The previous corset was an ongoing project for almost a year, and this one went together in barely a week.

So, what have I been making then? An edwardian corset using a pattern taken from a period original! I did have an edwardian corset from before, made up using Truly Victorians pattern TVE01, and I do love the look of it. The shape is however somewhat lacking in my opinion, the measurements are obviously adapted to our modern standard. It does provide some waist definition, but when applying a measuring tape the number it shows is almost bigger than my natural waist. Maybe it has to do with it being boned with flat steels only, I do not know.

Anyways, my fingers where itching for another project and I had been ogling the period patterns from Atelier Sylphe for quite some time, not being able to decide which one to pick. Then, Festive Attyre made a review for one of the patterns and I decided to be a copycat and buy the ref W pattern. I had been looking at it previously but been somewhat intimidated by the extreme hip-spring but theese fears were now pushed aside. The corset is listed as having a 21 inch waist which meant that it probably would fit me without any alterations (adding 2 inches for lacing gap and my natural waist is barely 25 inches). Some time ago in a discussion at the HSF facebook page, there was a discussion about the use of hip and bust pads to achieve the fashionable S-bend. Someone there purposed the theory that because many corsets of the time were sold off the rack in standard sizes most women would slip in a pad or two at various points to fill out the corset and its ideal S-curve. I do not have any references for this, but to me it sounds plausible. When looking at the pattern I therefor decided not to make any changes but instead pad away any fitting imperfections.

Ref W

I have yet do make a corset with a fashion fabric as the outer layer, simply because I find the coutil available to be so beautiful. This also makes construction a little bit simpler I imagine. For this corset I wanted to try out the drab small weave herringbone coutil from SewCurvy. It is quite breathtaking. While I was at it I ordered an 11'' busk, eyelets, lacing and 1'' twill tape from the same website. Shipping to Sweden is a bit costly, but the products are worth it.

The reason that this corset went together so rapidly is that I did not make a mock-up for the pattern. I know, you always should, but I was fed up with mock-ups after the last corset and wanted to evaluate the original fit of the corset anyway. So I traced the seamlines, allowances and the placement of the bone casing onto the fabric and cut it all out. The corresponding seamlines were aligned on top of each other and the allowances flat felled according to the instructions provided with the pattern. Nothing to complain about really, it went together smoothly.

In the pictures of the original corsets the bone casings look like they are made from twill tape, fitting two bones under each strip of tape. Attaching bone casings has been a bit tricky for me in the past. I believe most corset makes agree when I argue that the seams are much prettier if stitched from the outside of the corset, but to do this the casings must be secured to the inside and the exact seamline visible from the outside. For my TVE01 i attempted to solve this by basting the casings on from the inside using a contrasting thread and using these basting stitches as a guide in the sewing machine. This did work acceptably, but there were some errors and if the sewing machine needle had gone through the basting the contrasting thread was a bitch to remove. So this time I developed my own method. It looks dangerous and potentially is, but it worked well for me. Should you attempt it, be careful and set the speed of your sewing machine to the lowest speed.

As said earlier, when I traced the pattern onto the fabric I took the time to include the bone casings. Now, with all of the pieces assembled, I filled them in with pencil and using flat headed pins went through the center of the twill tape strips first and then through the marked line on the corset. The pins were then pulled taut to really anchor the strips, as can be seen above. The pins were placed about an inch apart.

Close-up. Finished casings can be seen in the background.

What happened next was that I placed the corset in the sewing machine and using a longer stitch started making the seam, always aiming towards the next pin. The pins could of course not be sewn over, so before the presser foot reached the pin I stopped with the needle down, raised the foot and wriggled the pin out from the back. Then continue sewing and repeat.

Here you can see me moving the pin sideways and then pushing it back through the fabric. After that just reach under the fabric and pull it out. This technique was used for the middle of the three seams on each casing. The other two were sewn using only the presser foot as a guide.

The rest of the construction did not call for anything unusual. There are plenty of instructions for inserting a busk online and I used ordinary two-piece eyelets in the back. With my newly acquired tapered awl, also from SewCurvy, I could even insert them easily without punching holes through the fabric first. The lace along the top attached quite early so that I could set the eyelets on top of it.

Assembled and un-boned. The lace is from my mothers stash, probably used for curtains some time in the past

Boning is mostly spiral steel, even though the original used flat ones. I simply find the spiral ones more comfortable and easier to work with. The also enables more dramatic curves compared to modern flat steels. They were allegedly invented in 1904 by a Mr Beanman, but weather they were used widely from the start I know nothing of. The bones on either side of the  eyelets are flat steel, as are the ones closest to the busk (I ran out of endcaps).

After all the bones went in it was time for binding. Inspired by Jill Salen's book "Corsets" I wanted to try using twill tape for binding, as is commonly done on antique corsets. I used the same twill tape as for the bone casings but tea-dyed it first (here is the tutorial I used, three bags of PG tips did the trick). I will definitely use twill tape for binding again, it was very easy to attach it and the result is very pretty.

Garters on this type of corset were generally covered or made from frilly elastics. I decided against covering because I could not decide what colour to use. Frilly elastic was on the other hand impossible to find in an appropriate colour. The dream would be to have garters as on this antique example (ebay wont let med copy the images, sorry). It is too bad that elastics or garter clips like that cannot be found anymore. I did however find two examples where very plain elastics were used:

The Met 2009.300.3124a, b

The Met 2009.300.2759a–g

Eager to get the corset finished I ordered elastic, garter clips and lever adjusters from Ebay. These were the widest I could find. Assembling them was straightforward, Bridges on the Body has a good tutorial here. The hardware she uses is just amazing, but the post is four years old and the link to where she bought them has sadly stopped working.

The original ref W corset only had garters attached at the front, but I decided to put one on each side in order to prevent them standing away from my body like a weird pair of wings. I did not use any fancy method to attach them to the corset because I was in quite a hurry, they are just stitched on with the sewing machine.

Now for some pictures of the finished corset!

Inside

Outside

Detail of boning channels. Flat felled seams visible behind.

Eyelets inserted over lace. Tea-dyed twill tape binding

Lace matched at center front.

Garter. The white at the end barely shows when attached to stockings

Next are pictures of the corset on my mannequin. It does not make it justice as it is somewhat larger than me and much less squishy.

I will attempt to take some pictures of it on me and with proper padding underneath. Stay tuned!

A circular skirt

Once you make a petticoat you better make something to wear with it. I have for long been planning to make a circular skirt with a flounce to my Edwardian ensemble, but of course no did not start on it until the day before the event where I wanted to wear it. Again I turned to the patternmaking book form 1908 to draft the pattern and followed the measurements given to make it as easy as possible. The only change I made from the basic pattern was to add about 10 cm at the center back to make a pleat there.

Pattern diagram

The fabric was from my stash, a grey cotton fabric that looks like a mixture between wool and velvet. Kind of weird, but nice. To keep the pieces from stretching I used my machine and sewed a seam around them all. The fabric does not seem to fray to any great extent so when I sewed the center front and back seams I left the seam allowances raw and pressed them open. Different views of the finished skirt can be seen below. The pattern made for a pretty long skirt so it has a bit of a train. Not very practical, but oh so fabulous.

Side

Front

Back

Before attaching the flounce to the upper part of the skirt I made the placket and the belt. There is quite a lot of fabric in the flounce so it was easier to not have that being in the way. For the placket I once again used the instructions from Cloak & Corset, but this time made the placket in two separate parts. Since the opening is concealed in the pleat I only used one hook and eye and one button halfway down. To strengthen both the placket and the belt they were faced with fusible interfacing. In order to fit the skirt to the waistband two darts were needed in the front.

Skirt placket at center back

Placket concealed in pleat

The flounce was sewn on wrong sides together with the skirt. One of the seam allowances were then folded over and stitched down, making a flat felled seam. The join is barely visible as it is but I might add some kind of decoration in the future that covers it.

Seam joining flounce and skirt

Example of skirt decoration, from here

The hemline is faced with horeshair braid (nylon) to help it keep its shape. Since the bottom edge is very curved I did not simply fold it up, but attached a strip of fabric cut on bias and turned it to the wrong side of the skirt. It was then secured on the inside using the machine to make a blind hem. I would have made it by hand but my body does not care for so much hand sewing.

Finally, a picture of the skirt being worn:

1900s Petticoat

We will start of by looking at the first piece I made to go with the 1903 corset, the petticoat. This was the first petticoat I have ever made and it involved a bit of improvisation, but I am overall pleased with the result. My main inspiration was the Edwardian petticoat from Past Patterns:

Past Patterns Edwardian petticoat

Sadly, I did not buy the pattern since it would require shipping from the US to Sweden. Instead I went to a pattern making book published in 1908 that is readily accessible online and that I have been dying to try out. Perhaps I made an over complicated petticoat when I choose to use the pattern for a five-gored skirt that is fitted over the hips. From what I have understood, the patternpieces for an underskirt is often just squares that perhaps taper towards the waist. Anyway, the five-gore pattern is the one that I used and I did not alter the measurements from the books since they appeared to be quite close to my own.

Pattern diagram and description

After I drafted the pattern I cut it about knee-high and tried to add some width to create the flounce. In retrospect, even more width was needed.

I used a plain, cheap cotton fabric from Ikea for the whole petticoat. Construction was pretty straight forward and it is mostly machine finished. The side seams were all french seams, the placket was made in a single strip and I made an ordinary belt. I had never made a placket before, so the eBooklet on plackets from Cloak and Corset was very helpful. The finished petticoat, somewhat dirty after having been dragged across wet grass in the botanical garden, is seen below.

Front

Side

Back

Placket and a few pleats made to fit the skirt to the belt

 For decoration I covered the seam joining the flounce and the body of the skirt with lace beading and inserted a satin ribbon matching the corset.

Lace beading

A bit further down there is a lace insertion for which I followed a tutorial from Wearing History. I also added some 1cm wide tucks for decoration and to reduce the length.

Lace insertion and tucks

I dithered for quite some time on how to finish the bottom edge of the petticoat and just two days before the picnic decided to add a row of gathered lace with a dust ruffle underneath. There was however no suitable lace to be found in the stash so I just put on the dust ruffle and covered the seam with some bias binding laid flat on top of the seam allowances.

Dust ruffle

The dust ruffle is made from the same cotton fabric. I cut loads of 10cm/4 inch wide strips that were hemmed on one side. I used a presser foot that makes the hem automatically, that device is really the best thing ever! The other side was pleated using the automatic ruffler extension to my sewing machine before being sewn to the bottom of the petticoat. At the moment I am not sure if I should look for a suitable lace to put on top of i at all, I rather like the look of it.

Last but not least, a picture of it being worn over the corset!