40 Search Results for: 1916 fortnight

1916 Megrims

Day 10 of the Fortnight in 1916, and I have woken up blue and glum and over it. I don’t want to be in 1916 anymore! I did not want to get up this morning and spend 45(!) minutes dressing: brushing my hair and putting it up and putting on all the layers of required clothes. I don’t want to have to wait for the kettle to boil*, and be in the kitchen while I make breakfast because I can’t just stick toast in the toaster and just walk away. I definitely DON’T want to do today’s chore, which is laundry. Last week’s was the trial one: this is the real thing. I have a full week’s worth of clothes, and sheets, and I’ve decided to really give it a proper and have gone through Mr D’s closet and fetched out every business shirt I thought would benefit from a bit of Sunlight Soap and a good scrub, so there is a large basket. And it’s cold, and grey, and windy, and hanging laundry will …

A sewing machine for 1916: meet my new (very old) Singer 27 series, VS-3

Published by The Dreamstress

Among the many questions I’ve been asked about the Fortnight in 1916 project is ‘Are you going to be sewing like you would in 1916’? Why yes, yes I am! My goal is to make a blouse entirely as it would have been made at home in 1916, and to cut and start one of my outfits for Costume College (obviously, one that is 1916 themed!) To do this, I need an era-correct sewing machine. Meet my new, very old, hand-crank Singer Model 27: She dates from 1893, and is version 3 of the 27 model. Singer launched the 27 series in the mid 1880s, as the first of their machines to use the new vibrating shuttle technology. A vibrating shuttle is a different kind of bobbin which swings back and forth inside the machine, instead of having the threads carried around the machine, like a modern bobbin. So the inside of the machine looks like this: That point silver bullet looking thing is the bobbin, and the arm that is carrying it swings back …

Introducing the 1916 project

Published by The Dreamstress

In April of 2015 I made a full mid-1910s outfit. I found it so comfortable to wear for the Anzac Day photoshoot that I left it on for the rest of the day, and quite spontaneously, did a bit of living history research by cleaning my house while wearing it. The mid-1910s outfit was just as comfortable for housecleaning as it was for the photoshoot, and I gained some really interesting insights into what it’s like to live in a longline corset and stockings and a full skirt and blouse, plus heels. Based on that day, I began thinking about the idea of doing a longer, more involved mid-1910s living history research project. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that there is a huge gap in non-combat focused WWI living history, especially from a female perspective. There are WWI reenactment groups, mainly based around men as soldiers, but some of which include women as nurses etc., but almost no-one has done WWI home-front living history. There are people living in the …