All posts tagged: Historical Sew-Fortnightly

Bathing beauties of 1906 from the Girls Own Paper

Are you thinking ahead to the ‘By the Sea’ challenge for the Historical Sew Fortnightly? I certainly am! I’d love to make a full, ridiculous, Edwardian or Victorian bathing costume, or a Regency chemise for sea bathing at Bath or Brighton, but I feel I ought to make something late ’20s or early ’30s, because it’s been on my to-do list for over a year (for two Art Deco Weekends), and (more importantly) I already have the fabric. So I should probably be good, and do that, and save the super silliness for later. But, oh, the temptation! My desire for silly turn-of-the-century bathers is further fueled by this delight from the collection of 1906 Girls Own Papers I just bought. Look at these bathing belles: Aren’t those bathing frocks fabulous? I’m particularly taken with the model who is bending over to adjust her hem. I love the petal sleeves, and the simpler, shaped rather than gathered, skirt. The spotty kerchief is pretty cute too. And the images are fantastically detailed. The lone maiden with …

Pet ruffles

Published by The Dreamstress

When I posted about the Little Bit of Ribbon hat I mentioned that it was my ‘easy’ entry for the HSF ‘Embellish‘ challenge, and that I was planning a much more elaborate embellishment. The more elaborate embellishment was ruffles for my pet-en-l’aire. Now, this sound pretty easy – just pleat up the fabric and sew it on, right? Except that first I had to cut the last teeny tiny pieces of my silk that were left over from making the pet into strips, and sew them together, and then I had to hand-hem all the edges of that silk with teeny-tiny rolled hems (yes, thanks to the extensive discussion we had on pet trim, I know a full rolled hem isn’t historical, but it was a necessity with this fabric). And remember how tricky that fabric was to work with in the first place? Yeah, it hasn’t gotten any easier with time. Plus, it takes a lot of metreage to pleat up into a fairly small amount of ruffle. How much? Well, I did 8.8 …

A little embellishment and some red lips

Published by The Dreamstress

After fixing up my Little Bit of Red dress in September, of course I had to actually wear it at Art Deco Weekend this year, despite a few moments of wailing “but I’ve already worn it….” To doll it up a little, I added a quick, fun, embellished accessory, which is my ‘easy’ entry for the HSF Embellish challenge: a trimmed 1930s hat (I’m working on a more elaborate Embellish item too). My hat started life as a woven fedora a bit like these. I damped my hat, reshaped the crown and brim, and pinned up the back of the brim so the hat could fit down snuggly over my hair pinned up in a chignon. Re-shaped, it looks like this: Even a minimalist like myself thought that was a bit plain, so embellishment time. I found some midnight blue and red velvet ribbon at an op shop, and had a bag of buttons on me. A bit of winding, pleating, and sewing later, I had a trimmed hat. Just what the hat and dress …