Stitch Not In Time
March 4th, 2011
Alright, alright, I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t make hand-sewn undergarments out of plain muslin. It’s oh, so tempting at less than $2 a yard (actually, it might as well be free — I’m still sewing through a bolt of white cotton muslin that my mother bought for me a decade ago). But look what happened to the chemise I made last year. I’ve only worn it three or four times too.
I think it might have ripped while I was fitting my new stays, twisting around this way and that, trying to slide into them without unlacing. Drat!
Always one to look for the silver lining, I have decided to use this as an excuse to practice my mending. Many of the manuals that I used to learn 19th-century hand-sewing have extensive sections on mending, including this catechism from England’s Finchley School manual Plain Needle-Work, in All Its Branches, 1852:
PATCHING.
Q. You have told me how you would manage a sheet, or any large coarse article; but should the linen, cotton, or whatever the material may be requiring a patch, be of a finer description, or printed in colours, how would you proceed?
A. I would cut the piece with which I intended to repair, exactly to a thread, and place it on the decayed or worn part, to a thread also, and on the right side; taking care, should the article have any pattern, to fix the patch so as to make the parts of the pattern correspond.
Q. “What next?
A. I then tack the patch on slightly, to keep it ia its place, and sew it at the edges in the manner of a hem, taking care to manage the corners neatly.
Q. And then?
A. Having made the cloth very flat and smooth, I carefully cut out the old piece on the wrong side, leaving sufficient to form a hem, the same as in patching a sheet.
Q. How do you manage to make the hem sit neatly at the corners?
A. I nick it a little, at each of the four corners, carefully turning-in the raw edges, making allowance for turning them in, and then proceed with the hem.
And just in case I’m tempted to put speed ahead of quality (especially since I need to rip out the armhole facing and hem it back down again over the patch):
“Patches should always be well shaped, and basted on perfectly even; a round, angular, or slanting patch, is the sure sign of a slut.”
The Girl’s Own Book, by Lydia Maria Child, 1853
Anyone having a sale on Kona cotton broadcloth? Or should I finally break into that stash of cream linen for my next chemise?
Past Projects: Shift
February 13th, 2011
This garment, my first (and only, to date) 1850s shift, aka chemise*, is a bit of a jumble. It looks fine from a distance, but the fact is I alternated between 5 different sets of directions, which occasionally contradicted each other outright. There were also a few spots (mostly around the neckline) that every set of directions glossed over, so I simply guessed. I need to start visiting costume collections to look at extant garments to see all those little details!
The 1850s was a time of change for most female undergarments, many of which had remained stable in shape for decades previously. Last summer I made a shift from the 1838 Workwoman’s Guide. It was much more simply cut than this one, and ended up being enormous because I made it according to one of the larger sizes given. I gave it away to a photographer for use as a prop.
I do plan to experiment some more with the Workwoman’s Guide patterns (and will probably give away the results), until I get the sizing right. Even though the shape they take is old fashioned compared to illustrations in 1850s magazines, it’s still very much acceptable for the period. Makes sense, since many of the women who were sewing shifts in the 1850s had learned to make them a decade earlier.
As you’ve probably guessed by my previously stated predilections, this shift is entirely hand sewn. I embroidered the scalloped band, based on the simplest pattern I could find in Godey’s.
*Like the shape of the shift, the name also changed in the 1850s. By the end of the decade most people in America and England had adopted the French moniker Chemise.