All posts filed under: Sewing

Things I sew – historical and modern

The Anzac Day Wearing History 1916 skirt

April 25, Anzac Day, honouring anyone who has served in New Zealand’s armed forces, is probably New Zealand’s most widely commemorated holiday. Waitangi Day is just awkward and slightly anger or guilt inducing. Almost everyone does something for Christmas, but New Zealand is a mainly secular nation, and few people really celebrate or commemorate it. Boxing Day is an excuse for sales, Guy Fawkes an excuse for fireworks, and New Years an excuse to get drunk (or set off fireworks – hopefully not both!). Easter is just a really awesomely long weekend – with the benefit or drawback of closed shops, depending on your views. But Anzac Day is marked by almost everyone I know, regardless of their religion, politics, ethnicity, or age. Every news presenter, shop assistant, and person on the street wears a poppy, and almost everyone I know has, at least once, gotten up to go to the dawn service, if they don’t make an annual event of it. Sporting events in New Zealand and Australia have moments of silence before the …

Making ‘Dazzle’ leggings

Published by The Dreamstress

In my last post, I showed you my super-quick and easy and slightly ersatz ‘Dazzle’ inspired bathers (click here to learn about Dazzle and see period examples of Dazzle swimwear). Here is how I made them, in case you want your own Dazzle swimwear or patchwork leggings. It’s not quite historically accurate, but it is fun and easy. As my base, I used the Cake Espresso leggings pattern – I know it works, and I’ve got the fit personalised to be just right. I cut out the legs in my white fabric, because it would be the least likely to show under the playsuit. Then I used a rotary cutter and a ruler to cut each leg into a different pattern of random shapes: Then I went through, and decided which shapes I would have in each colour, and used the original (white) pieces as patterns to re-cut them in black or striped fabric: Since this is a trial pair, I didn’t think too much about how the placement would fit on my body in …

An ersatz Dazzle swimsuit

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve wanted to make a Dazzle swimsuit for ages, but it’s never fit into my sewing schedule. When I wrote the dazzle terminology post last week the old temptation rose again, but I quashed it firmly. I’ve got so much to do, and no reason to make one. And then, the very day I published the Dazzle post, I walked past an op-shop (I wasn’t even going to go in! I was being very good!) and there, hanging in the window, was an extremely dazzling black and white playsuit. In rayon crepe. With a double strap arrangement that you see on late 1910s frocks, and which I’ve also been obsessing over. For $4.50. By Glassons, of all people (Glassons does cheap, trendy teenager clothing). And, ummm, of course it came home with me! It’s an XS, which means it fits me like a 1920s swimsuit, not a 2015 playsuit. This also means I would never, ever, ever wear it in public just as it is. But…. There is a precedent for dazzle swimsuit stockings: So, …