All posts filed under: 20th Century

The 1913 paisley skirt

All last week Miss Felicity was helping me with my sewing: making a 1913 skirt for the HSF Paisley & Plaid challenge. We finished it last week Saturday, but my blouse wasn’t done and I couldn’t schedule time for a photoshoot. I took some quick documentary shots on Isabella: For the Paisley & Plaid challenge I’d wanted to use an amazing paisley silk jacquard that I found at Fabric-a-brac a few months back, but I just couldn’t get my ideas to come together into the perfect design, and none of my wilder plaids were speaking to me either. Then, a few weeks before the challenge, I found an amazing paisley twill at The Fabric Warehouse in Wellington. I loved the scattered woodblock inspired design, rather than the more common crowded, swirling Victorian paisley, and while orange isn’t usually a colour I gravitate towards, the dark blood-orange shade is really growing on me. For the pattern I used the little diagram of the ‘Side fastening skirt’ from Thornton’s International System, 1913 which is reproduced in Janet …

Rate the Dress: 1940s stripes

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I showed a Regency dress that was radical in its simplicity, and use of luxurious fabric. What you really noticed though, was how radically low the neckline was! This week’s Rate the Dress features a more covered-up plunging neckline. It aims for sexy and sophisticated, without a lot of skin. Striped frocks have a surprisingly rocky record on Rate the Dress, frequently coming under fire for the placement or mis-alignment of stripes. How will this one do? Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10. Cheers, Leimomi

The sorta-maybe-kinda ’20s cardigan

Published by The Dreamstress

Back during the Historical Sew Fortnightly ‘Black & White’ challenge in addition to a white item, I also whipped up a black item. This: It’s a sort-of, maybe, ’20s inspired cardigan. Granted, it looks a lot more 1920s if I pair it with a ’20s skirt and thick stockings and ’20s shoes! Confession time: this cardigan did not, at all, start out as an intentionally even remotely historical piece. It started out because I noticed that there was a new cardigan pattern out: McCall’s M6803. I love cardigans, and have been on the hunt for the perfect cardigan pattern (though the goal of my search has gradually downgraded from ‘perfect’, to ‘good’, to ‘reasonable’, to ‘not completely awful’ as I work through the options). Obviously I had to try this one. Let me tell you, M6803 is not perfect. It’s not even good. Or reasonable. In fact, it’s completely awful. (in fact, they are all so awful I’ve sucked it up and drafted my own – but more about that later) The big ‘Unisex’ sticker …