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Rate the Dress: Sportswear, 1870s style

The last Rate the Dress was rather frilly and, well…pink. To balance it, this week’s Rate the Dress is significantly more restrained, both in colour and silhouette. However, it still has lots of interesting details for you to consider.

A warning in advance. I have absolutely zero brainpower this week. It’s all been diverted to the final push of preparation for Costume Showcase – the biggest event of the year for the Toi Whakaari Costume Construction course. I’ve solved last minute fitting and construction problems until all I do is come home and gibber in the bath until bedtime.

So please excuse any wild misidentifications of techniques. My brain has been doing marathons and is liable to trip over invisible stairs!

Last week: a pinked, pink, embroidered 1840s dress

Positive comments for last week’s dress, but not brilliant. Quite a few of you felt that the two halves of the dress didn’t quite match: the bodice was lovely, but needed an equally ruffly berthe to match the skirt.

The Total: 8.3 out of 10

Sweet and nice and perfectly acceptable.

This week: a braid trimmed 1870s sports dress.

This 1870s sports dress reflects the growing interest in athletic endeavours for women in the second half of the 19th century.

One-piece sports dress, c.1873 – 1880, linen Chertsey Museum

Sports like tennis, golf, and croquet all became increasingly popular in the later Victorian era. They required simpler, more practical garments: the beginnings of modern sportswear.

Simpler, is, of course, relative. Only very wealthy women could afford dresses designed for such specific activities. A sports dress was thus a status item in the same way a tea gown was. It showed that you had the money to spend on expensive garments that could be worn only as informal attire.

This unbleached linen of this sports dress is appropriately relaxed. The elaborate soutache (or braid) trim, and tiny pleating, which would have been quite a chore for the maid who had to press it, both speak of affluence.

The single triangular pocket is sometimes called a ‘parasol pocket’, and is a point of contention in the historical costuming world. Some historical costumers vehemently object to the name, and insist that the pockets are much too small for parasols. I’m not 100% pro parasol, but I’m not entirely convinced that they aren’t. I’ve worked with a couple of small folding parasols from the 1870s (the Katherine Mansfield House Museum has one), and they would be exactly the right size to fit into these pockets. If I ever find one at a reasonable price I’m going to have to test the idea out…

Pocket conundrums aside, what do you think of this dress? Would an 1870s lady have been perfectly tasteful and attractive in it whilst swinging a mallet or bowling towards the jack?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.

Banner reading: "How to Insert Raw-Edged Lace"

Tutorial: how to insert raw-edged insertion lace

Published by The Dreamstress

I love lace insertion. There are so many ways to do it, depending on the type of lace you’re working with, and the effect you want to achieve.

When I made the Ettie Petticoat pattern I wanted to include instructions on doing them all. But a 70 page pattern is not practical! So I restrained myself to three techniques that are suitable for all types of fabric, most types of lace, and allow you to insert lace by hand or machine.

The one type of lace the pattern doesn’t cover is insertion lace with raw edges.

Embroidered and cutwork lace with raw edges was widely used in the Edwardian era. Here’s what it looks like in View C of the Ettie Petticoat:

I knew there wasn’t space to include working with raw-edged lace in the Ettie Petticoat pattern, but I can give you a tutorial on how to work with it.

Here’s how to add your own raw-edged insertion lace

The most common machine method for inserting raw-edged lace in the Edwardian era (at least according to most technique manuals and the extant garments I’ve studied) was with teeny, tiny french seams.

Let’s learn how to do that!

You’ll need:

The Ettie Petticoat pattern, all cut out and the ruffles joined in circles, ready to add insertion lace.
Insertion lace with raw edges.
Sewing cat (optional).

Part 1: Prep & Marking

Steam press all the lace you intend to use to pre-shrink it, so it doesn’t shrink and warp once you insert it.

Mark the insertion lines for the lace:

Part 2: Measuring

Yes. Maths. Sorry.

Inserting raw-edged lace involves slashing your fabric open, and inserting the lace into it. This means that you need to make sure that you either take up the same amount of fabric in the french seams that join the insertion lace to the petticoat, OR cut away the extra width.

If you don’t check the measure and cut away extra width your ruffle (or whatever you’re inserting the lace into) will end up longer or wider than intended. In the ruffle that’s an easy fix: just add an extra tuck. Extra width in a bodice would be a problem though!

To calculate what you need to cut away, measure the width of your lace, and the width of the lace ‘seam allowances’. Ideally your lace will have 1/4” seam allowances. If they are narrower your french seams will be very small. If they are wider you can make wider french seams – or cut them down.

My lace is 1/2” wide, and my lace ‘seam allowances’ are 1/4” each, which makes it really easy. All I have to do is cut open on my marked lines, and I’m ready to go.

Part 3: Cutting

Cut your pattern piece (in this case the ruffle) along your insertion lines.

If your lace is WIDER than the amount you’re sewing into the french seams, you’ll need to cut that

For example, if your lace was 3/4” wide, you’d need to cut away a 1/4” strip along each insertion line, as your french seams only take up 1/4” of fabric.

If your lace is 1” wide you’d need to cut away 1/2” etc, etc.

Part 4: French Seams (aka, the inserting)

Important: Figure out the right side and wrong side of your lace! This can be surprisingly tricky with some laces. You may even want to mark the wrong side with removable marks at intervals.

We’re going to be working with really small seam allowances, so if your machine has a foot plate with a tiny needle hole, use it. It will help keep the machine from sucking your fabric in to the needle hole.

Seams 1: Wrong sides together

WRONG sides together, sew lace to pattern pieces with a scant 1/8” seam allowance.

When you get back around to your starting point, cut the lace so it overlaps your starting point by 1 1/4”/3cm, and fold under the final 1/2”’/1cm. Lap it over your start point, and sew it down.

Joining the first edge of lace to the pattern will be easy. The second is a little tricker: the lace can stretch as you sew it, so you’ll need to mark quarter (and maybe even eighth) points, and match them as you sew. Otherwise your pieces will be misaligned, and may not fit together.

This is what your pieces should look like when you’ve joined all your panels with the first set of seams:

Now you’re ready to sew your second, final, seams, making pretty teeny-tiny french seams.

Seams 2: Right sides together

Before you sew your second seam you may need to trim off any stray bits of thread from your first seams, so they don’t stick out of the second seam.

Press your sewn fabric and insertion lace RIGHT sides together, enclosing the raw seam allowances from Seams 1. Roll the pressed fold outwards, to form a crisp edge.

Sew with a 1/8” seam allowance.

Here’s what it look’s like with one complete French seam, and one with only seam 1 sewn:

Fold, press and sew the other edge of your insertion lace:

And you’re done!

From the right side:

From the wrong side:

So pretty!

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! I’d love to see photos if you use the method.

Image shows a piece of carnation pink silk embroidered with flowers

Rate the Dress: pink 1840s ruffles & embroidery

Published by The Dreamstress

Quite a number of commentators of last week’s dress felt that it was the perfect garment for an evil queen – or perhaps a particularly splendid and imposing fairy godmother. This week I’ve picked a pink silk frock for her victim/godchild (or perhaps this is a Discworld-esque Witches Abroad situation, where the ingenue is both?).

It’s pink, it’s frilly, it’s got a big skirt. Is it the perfect dress for feeling like a pretty pretty princess, ca. 1845, in?

Last week: a historically inspired 1890s reception gown

My goal with Rate the Dress is always to be interesting and informative – and I definitely succeeded with at least one of those last week! If there’s one thing last week’s dress was not, it was boring. Not every dress can inspired “Oh. Oh dear. No.” as one comment, and “Oh my word, YES.” as the very next one.

The Total: 8.7 out of 10

A phenomenally good rating for a dress that rated only 1 with at least one rater! The ratings might have been all over the place, but the wearer of last week’s can at least be sure that she was memorable!

This week: an pinked, pink, embroidered 1840s dress

This 1840s dress is made up in vivid carnation pink silk. This bright hue was achievable with plant based dyes, and was fashionable from at least as far back as the Middle Ages. Carnations (members of the dianthus family, also known as pinks) are actually where the colour gets its name: it’s first used as a colour name in the early 17th century.

Image shows an 1840s evening dress in carnation pink with a full skirt.

Evening dress, 1840s, Historic Deerfield Museum

The dress also features decorations based on another form of ‘pink’. Zig-zagged and scalloped cutwork is called pinking. It combines a Medieval word meaning to punch or prick, with ‘pink’: just like the frilled petals of the dianthus family which also named the colour. These days we use the word in this form in ‘pinking shears’.

The elaborately cutwork edges of the embroidered flounces of this dress were almost certainly inspired by ‘pinked’ 18th century trimmings. Late 1840s historicism may be more subtle than its late Victorian counterpart, but it influenced fashion all the same!

The frills on these dress could be left raw, or might have been finished with satin-stitch edging.

Evening dress, 1840s, Historic Deerfield Museum

The whole dress is lavishly decorated with satin stitch flowers. They wind around the waist, frame the top of the upper flounce, and are scattered along both flounces. I’d love to see the back side of the embroidery. Is it hand done, or does it take advantage of new advances in embroidery machines? 1920s dresses certainly feature similar embroidery done by machine, but I’m not sure if it was possible this early.

Evening dress, 1840s, Historic Deerfield Museum

I’d also like to see the dress displayed on a slightly taller mannequin. 1840s evening dresses weren’t often trained, and this one should sit just off the floor, with a delicate pair of flat-toed slippers peeping out from under the hem.

Although it’s always hard to tell, the proportions of this dress suggest a rather tall wearer. It makes me think of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was 5’8″ or 5’9″, and only a few years to0 young to have worn this.

What do you think? Is this pink frock perfect for a young heroine? Pretty and youthful without being too sweet and fussy? Or does she need a knight in shining sartorial armour to sweep in and rescue her from a dress disaster?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.