Month: May 2013

A literary treat – Good Wives, 1910s edition (and the HSF Literature challenge)

UPDATE: As a bonus, this post is going to serve as the page for the Literature challenge, so leave your comments about your Literature-themed garments here! Just in time for the Literature themed Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge, I found this beautiful ca. 1910 edition of Good Wives to add to my bookshelf: Isn’t it gorgeous? And it has the most glorious record of who it first belonged to: Awwww… Second prize for attendance is a bit sad though… Look at the inside illustrations: I would happily make pretty much every-single one of these dresses! The fashions are impressively accurate, as long as you don’t mind that they are more 1882 than 1872: a decade later in style than the books chronology would support. They are particularly impressive when compared with the illustration in my previous edition of Good Wives, which dates to the ’40s. Tee hee! Isn’t it hilarious? It does make me froth at the mouth that they would pick the wimpiest scene in the whole book to illustrate though. The cover isn’t as …

The faille skirt of fail

Published by The Dreamstress

So this fortnight’s theme on the Historical Sew Fortnightly is Literature, and, of course, I’m using it as an excuse to finish (finally) my Polly/Oliver outfit (inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment). It’s been so long since I worked on the outfit, or thought about it, and my skills have improved since then, and my image of the details has shifted somewhat, though I’m still going with the basic concept of 1880s Victorian does Georgian riding habit/military. I bounced out of bed on Tuesday and thought “Right! I’m going to make massive progress on this today!” I had a rummage through my fabric stash, found a big bolt of blue rayon faille, and thought…”Oooh…what a great shade of military blue…and so practical and late Victorian.” Sure, rayon isn’t entirely accurate, but it the fabric does a reasonable approximation of silk, and the hand is perfect. So I unrolled a length of the faille, spread it out on the floor, went at it with chalk and measuring tapes and scissors and quickly drafted and cut out …

The HSF Challenge #16: Separates

Published by The Dreamstress

Working in museums, one of the things we often talk about is the disparity in what ends up in a museum costume collection compared to what people actually wear. Collections are full of wedding gowns and ballgowns: memories of the grandest moments of our lives. On a day to day basis though, people wear much simpler clothes: practical, interchangeable items. Today this is jeans and t-shirts, but throughout history even the wealthiest have worn simple separates for the less momentous occasions. The Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #16 is all about Separates: items that can be paired with other pieces in your wardrobe to extend a look. My favourite anecdote about separates involves Queen Victoria and her future daughter-in-law Alexandra. On being introduced the Alexandra, the Queen noticed that she wore a skirt with one jacket one day, and the same skirt, with a different jacket, the next day. Victoria was delighted. To her, this indicated a frugal and practical nature: just the thing to balance the son that she and Albert had viewed as overly …