All posts filed under: 19th Century

Rate the dress: 1850s rainbow striped fringe

Last week I showed you Liotard’s mid-18th century ‘up-market shop girl’ as Lynne aptly identified her. La Belle ChocolatiÃ¨re’s rust and grey-blue outfit was deemed equally beautiful – of only she hadn’t tried to pair it with a pink hat. This dropped the rating from a perfect 10 down to a round 9 – still exceptional. I feel that I’ve shown too many muted, colourless dresses lately. To remedy that, rather than showing you something black and white and stripey for the HSF Stripes challenge, here is something colourful and rainbow-stripey, with horizontal stripes and vertical striped fringing. What do you think? Too much? Does it look a little too much like a cupcake, or is it a fun twist on the usual floral, lacey 1850s evening gown? Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

The ‘brown’ linen shift

Published by The Dreamstress

After many, many hours of hand-sewing, and a stupid mistake and far too much angst, my 5th proper Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge: Peasants & Pioneers, is done. I was inspired to make an 18th century brown linen (brown indicating unbleached, rather than dyed brown) shift when I scored a 1.3m length of enzyme washed linen in the $5 end-of-roll bin at Fabric Warehouse. At first I was disappointed that it wasn’t white, and then a helpful blog follower reminded me that brown linen was used to make lower-class shifts throughout the 18th century. I did a bunch more research on brown linen (which I will be sharing with you on Thursday), and made up my shift: I didn’t have enough fabric to make up a mid-18th century style shift, so I went for late 18th century, when shifts became narrower. While they are still slightly puffed, late 18th century sleeves also become narrower, with widths the same as their length. Since I had such lovely fabric to work with, I decided to go the whole …

Bathing beauties of 1906 from the Girls Own Paper

Published by The Dreamstress

Are you thinking ahead to the ‘By the Sea’ challenge for the Historical Sew Fortnightly? I certainly am! I’d love to make a full, ridiculous, Edwardian or Victorian bathing costume, or a Regency chemise for sea bathing at Bath or Brighton, but I feel I ought to make something late ’20s or early ’30s, because it’s been on my to-do list for over a year (for two Art Deco Weekends), and (more importantly) I already have the fabric. So I should probably be good, and do that, and save the super silliness for later. But, oh, the temptation! My desire for silly turn-of-the-century bathers is further fueled by this delight from the collection of 1906 Girls Own Papers I just bought. Look at these bathing belles: Aren’t those bathing frocks fabulous? I’m particularly taken with the model who is bending over to adjust her hem. I love the petal sleeves, and the simpler, shaped rather than gathered, skirt. The spotty kerchief is pretty cute too. And the images are fantastically detailed. The lone maiden with …