All posts filed under: Textiles & Costume

The 1910 Little Miss Muffet at the Village Fête frock

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember when Felicity was extremely helpful with my sewing?  What she was mainly helping me with was this dress, which I am calling the ‘Little Miss Muffet at the Village Fete’ frock. First, the name of the dress.  I’m sure you’re wondering.  I have an elaborate and complicated mind, but this one isn’t too odd once I explain.  I first fell in love with the lace for this dress, because each little circle reminded me of a spiders web.  I like spiders!  The obvious person to wear a dress covered in sweet spider-web lace would be Little Miss Muffet, all grown up and over her fears.  I first sewed the lace as a straight line, but it was boring and lacked dimensionality, so I cut it in dags, which remind me of the bunting you see at summer fêtes.  So it’s a dress for Miss Muffet to wear to the fair! The dress was inspired by ca. 1910s ‘lingerie’ frocks and linen dresses such as this one from FIDM, and this one and this one …

A slightly weird attempt at a 1920s slip

Published by The Dreamstress

This weekend seems to be the time to write not-super-exciting catch-up posts that no-one is going to comment on, but that might be useful to someone later. As you can see, not-super-exciting, and kinda weird: This is a silk slip to go under the Summer of 1921 yellow dress.  It’s the product of desperation and curiosity.  Desperation, because my attempts to find a suitable yellow silk (or cotton, or viscose) for a proper ’20s slip  in Wellington had proved fruitless, and curiosity, because I wondered if I could make one out of kimono silk. So this is made from lengths of 34cm wide vintage blonde silk habotai, originally intended for kimono linings, seamed together to be wide enough. In my first attempt I used one length just long enough to wrap around my bust and give it a bit of compression support, and four lengths sewn together to form a wide tube: I sewed big box pleats into the side seams, to shape the tube to my body, but give it enough volume to walk …

The Daisies & the Devil’s Handiwork, Summer of 1921, this-did-not-take-one-hour dress

Published by The Dreamstress

I made three new dresses for the Katherine Mansfield Garden Party at Hamilton Gardens, and was very happy with them all, but the one that makes me happiest is definitely this one: This dress started with the parasol.  I found the parasol for $6 (!) at a Dunedin op-shop during my visit.  It is just gorgeous: beautifully made, real silk, hand embroidered.  It’s definitely early-mid 20th century Chinese export-ware, and it’s the oldest and most beautiful parasol I’ve ever found at an op-shop. Knowing that the Mansfield Garden Party was coming up, I immediately thought of making a dress to go with  it.  I first tried for fabrics in the aqua-blue, but they were too matchy-matchy, and wouldn’t show up well in the greens of a garden.  My yellow stash yielded this palest yellow muslin gauze (which I’ve seen sold as mull in modern fabric stores in NZ, though it’s not the same as a technical or historical mull), and the wise Nina of SmashTheStash advised that when in doubt, I should always go with …