All posts filed under: Textiles & Costume

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

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 …

Spring Styles for Blouses & Skirts, Feb 1928

Published by The Dreamstress

Spring is almost over here in the Southern Hemisphere, and winter is well on the way for you in the Northern Hemisphere, but I’m still in love with these spring styles from the February 1928 issue of The Women’s Magazine. This is really the moment when vintage fashions become totally wearable in a modern sense. You could wear any one of these skirts or blouses to the office in NZ today, and no one would blink an eye. I’m particularly loving 5007, and 9898, because I have a little obsession with 1910s and 20s waistcoat-blouses. Also of interest is the fabrics they recommend. Both ‘Rigosil’ and ‘Delysia’ were early rayon fabrics.

A lucky sixpence hussif (and what are hussuf or housewives)

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I stopped by one of my favourite op-shops between errands, and had a rummage in their $3 fill-a-bag fabric bin. I didn’t find any fabric, but I did find something even better. This: This is a hussif, hussuf, hussy, huswif, hussive or housewife (so, basically any way you can spell a contraction of housewife). A hussuf is a fabric case for carrying all your sewing implements. The most common form is a long rectangle of padded fabric that rolls up into a small packet, so that you can easily take all your sewing bits with you everywhere. A 1910s dictionary describes it as: Husszf, that is, house-wife; a roll of flannel with a pin-cushion attached, used for the purpose of holding pins, needles, and thread The term housewife (and its derivatives) for a sewing kit dates back to the mid-18th century. The many variants of housewife are theorised to have originated in the regional dialect of Lancashire: during the 18th and 19th century the port of Lancaster was one of the busiest in …