All posts filed under: 18th Century

Pet ruffles

When I posted about the Little Bit of Ribbon hat I mentioned that it was my ‘easy’ entry for the HSF ‘Embellish‘ challenge, and that I was planning a much more elaborate embellishment. The more elaborate embellishment was ruffles for my pet-en-l’aire. Now, this sound pretty easy – just pleat up the fabric and sew it on, right? Except that first I had to cut the last teeny tiny pieces of my silk that were left over from making the pet into strips, and sew them together, and then I had to hand-hem all the edges of that silk with teeny-tiny rolled hems (yes, thanks to the extensive discussion we had on pet trim, I know a full rolled hem isn’t historical, but it was a necessity with this fabric). And remember how tricky that fabric was to work with in the first place? Yeah, it hasn’t gotten any easier with time. Plus, it takes a lot of metreage to pleat up into a fairly small amount of ruffle. How much? Well, I did 8.8 …

The 1770’s linen paniers – done!

Published by The Dreamstress

Yay! The Panier-Along is done! (or at least all the instructions are up, feel free to keep making them and leave a comment on the page with a link to your finished paniers). My paniers are done too. I won’t have time to do a proper photoshoot with them over a chemise and with stays for a few weeks yet – too busy teaching classes, running off on road trips with friends to the South Island and Art Deco weekend and doing my own sewing to get dressed up. So here is a quick holder photoshoot with my super-historically-accurate tank top and denim skirt, just to show that they do work: The Challenge: Under It All (undergarments) Fabric: Brick-red linen ($2 at an op shop some years ago) Pattern: self-drafted, based on the pattern in Corsets and Crinolines and other historical examples Year: 1760-1780 Notions: Cane hooping ($6), heavy twill tape (less than 20 cents at an op shop), twill tape ($1), linen thread (inherited from Nana) How historically accurate is it? Very – all …

Panier Along #6: Pleating & Finishing

Published by The Dreamstress

Update: I’m so sorry! I finished my paniers on Wednesday, wrote the final posts on how to make them, scheduled all the posts, and headed off for a much-need relaxing long weekend with friends. And then stupid WordPress didn’t publish my posts! So, to those of you who were counting on the end of the tutorial, I apologise! And to those of you who were just deprived of your daily entertainment, well, I apologise too! On the bright side, now I have pretty pictures and a fun trip to tell you about on Wed! ~~~~~~~~~~~ Right, back to the Panier-Along! Let’s get these done! Yay! Final steps! Today we’ll be pleating the top of your panier bags, and sewing them to the channels that your waist ties will go through. First, hem the short edges of both of your 3″ x 7″ waist pieces. I’ve done mine by hand, but machine is fine too. When you are done it will measure about 6-6.5″ long Now you’ll be pleating the top of your panier-bags so that …