1908 Linen Travelling Suit

For the 1909 Suffrage event last summer, I decided to make a summer traveling suit. For inspiration, I trawled magazines c.1906-1910, and decided to base mine on this 1908 illustration from Harper's.

"Gray Linen Travelling Suit with bands of old green linen and scarf and tassels of the green." --Harper's Bazaar, June 1908

For the pattern, I opted to draft a single-breasted coat and 9-gored skirt from The "Standard" Work on Cutting Ladies' Tailor-made Garments: A Complete Treatise on the Art and Science of Delineating All Garments for Women Made by Tailors by S. Gordon (1908). While the whole suit is not easily visible in the illustration, the placement of the stripes indicate that we're seeing a 7 or 9 gore skirt, which I interpreted as a 9-gore so that I would have two plain panels rather than striped panels meeting in the center back.

Early steps in the drafting process.

Unfortunately, things got a bit rushed, so I didn't have time to put the stripes on the sleeves, which I do intend to add later. I intentionally omitted the tassels, since I wouldn't be able to perfectly match them to the green linen used on the stripes and buttons. Both the green and grey fabrics are medium-weight linen from fabrics-store.com, with cotton grosgrain for the waistband, and the skirt fully flat-lined in tarlatan. I used cotton coutil for the interlining of the collar, which did give a nice crisp form, but also makes the actual fold of the turn-back a little bulky. The coat lining is light-weight scrap linen from my stash.

It looks a bit better when the dress form isn't stuck on a too-small setting.
That's why the shoulders are falling back at that angle.

All told, this was a really comfortable outfit to wear. It also relatively easy to fit. Despite the book describing it as "front slightly shaped, back moderately shaped at waist", my first mock-up was much too large through the waist. However, the bust, shoulder, and upper chest all fit well from start, so it was a relatively easy revision (taking in the back seams a little near the waist and the front seams a bit more).If I was re-making this ensemble, I'd move the stripes slightly closer together and position them lower on the panels, in order to more closely follow the original. However, I don't mind the placement enough to re-make the whole ensemble (the green bands were applied to the panels before I joined them, which finished the edges neatly, but makes alterations to the trim more difficult). I still intend to add the sleeve trim, but only after I actually finish the hat and make a better stock/chemisette to go with it.

2024 Costuming Resolutions

My big goal for this year is not to be rushing projects at the last minute before an event. I either need to finish any new projects well in advance, or else I need to wear things I already have. For this purpose, I am going to plan that any new items are finished a month before the event I want it for, but will consider it a victory if nothing is finished less than a week before it is needed. 

Fortunately, I believe I'm starting the year with a pretty good supply of basics, except that I still need to make/repair my 19th century cotton stockings and finish those chemises. Unfortunately, I have a Twelfth Night event this week for which I really want to make a new Tudor partlet and sleeves.

My other big goal is to finish up items in my WIP pile, especially the ones that are already draped, cut, or under construction:

• Summer-weight 1850s dress (green plaid)
• Two 1850s chemises
• Another pair of 1850s drawers
• Dotted Swiss undersleeves
  
• 1912 wrap cape
• Wool and linen skirts/dresses for modern wear
  
• Maybe the Tudor wool gown
  

In the same vein, let's see if I can whittle down the drafts folder here (maybe 80 is a more attainable goal?), and finish up the reviews I intended to write for books acquired in 2023.

Original: Wiener Werkstätte Blouse, c.1917-18

 Happy New Year!

Blouse, 1917-18 by Wiener Werkstätte. LACMA.

I went looking for a 1924 dress to ring in the new year, but got distracted by how comfortable this WWI-era print blouse looks.  I had pegged it for a much later design before realizing it was a Wiener Werkstätte piece. And the longer I look at it, the more I like the drape of the garment. Late 1910s styles may be the next era I need to experiment with.

2023 Resolution Review

Looking back over the last year's costuming goals, it's time to see how they went.

• 1570s: kirtle [post forthcoming], gown, 3 shifts, pair of comfortable garters
• 18th century: cloak [post forthcoming], short gown
• Regency: No goals, and none completed.
• 1850s: new chemises and drawers. Also lots of corset mending.
• 1873 ensemble: corset, bustle, petticoat, and dress
• 1908/9 "Suffragette" ensemble: corset [post forthcoming], petticoat, suit, and hat.
• 20th century: wool skirts, split skirt for the summer.
• I made a few things on the knitting machine: stockings, muffatees, a rose.
• I did not experiment with shoe making as much as I had hoped.
  

Other projects:

• 1956 Stripe Dress
  
• 1903 evening dress (not posted since I want to tweak it a bit before calling it done)
  
• Finally finished that 1858 Soft-Crown Straw Bonnet which had been lingering for years.
• 1934 dress. 1928 dress. 1890s dress and corset. 
• Modern bathrobe.
• Research projects posted: wool aprons, flounced petticoats, petticoat quantities. Background reading for the 1873 and 1909 outfits (later to be posted this week).
  
• I also wrote up a few book reviews, though the to-write pile has actually grown this year.
  
• I did get at least a little mending done each month, and sometimes even wrote it up!
• I have 109 drafts in the folder; my overly optimistic goal was getting this down to 50.

All told, I completed more than half of my planned projects, and a comparable amount of unplanned ones. The numbers improve when I reflect that I did, for instance, have a wearable 1909 ensemble for the event that needed one, even if it involved a petticoat from a different era, and didn't include a hat. The main hold-up with posting this year really came down to the actual photography and writing, which usually is the easiest part of the operation.

December Mending

This has been the month of finishing projects, but it started it with a fair amount of mending for my 1850s Christmas events. I tore out the sleeves of my blue plaid (again!) at candlelight, so this time I took them off entirely, reattached the piping by hand, and then reset the sleeves (skipping the epaulets for want of time, on the assumption that I could re-cut them the next time I repair the sleeves). In an unexpected turn, the dress made it through both events with the sleeves intact. So now it just doesn't have sleeve caps. I also re-gauged half the skirt on that dress back in November (which also didn't get a write-up), and removed the watch-pocket at that time, since it had been hanging oddly.

My linen chemise got a new shoulder seam after I tore it out at the first event. 

Corset, 1870s

Another from the summer railroad events: the corset for my 1873 ensemble. I used the same material and hardware as on the corset for an 1890s ensemble. The pattern is one that was custom-made for me by Marie of The Fitting Room, right before everything shut down back in 2020. It's based on the corset design on page of Corsets and Crinolines.

Shaped-seam corset.

The material is a double layer of cotton coutil, with self-fabric binding, and 1/4" spring steels throughout. Busk and steels from Wawak; I forget whether this piece of coutil was from Renaissance Fabrics, Lacis, or somewhere else, which is unfortunate, as I'd prefer not to order it again.  It's a decently stout twill, but heavier and not quite as stiff as my favorite coutil.

On this garment I really tried to improve my ironing technique. Each seam was pressed closed and open,on both sides, with the clapper to help set them. For the more pronounced curves, I steamed and ironed the fabric over a dressmaker's ham to help set the shape. So far it seems to have paid off with a smooth finish and a garment that can't lie flat 

Striped Dress, 1956

This project was drafted from the first design in the Haslam Book of Full Figure Draftings No. 3 (1956). 

The Goal.

I used a striped cotton seersucker (white and pale lavender); the three flower-shaped purple plastic buttons (recycled off a pair of pajamas my mom made me c.2001). As usual with the Haslam drafts, making/finishing instructions are sparse, so the sewing was up to my own interpretation. The main issues here was in the closure, which runs down the center front of the bodice, where the skirt is a solid panel. I took this as an offset closure, and made it with half of the front panel attached to a hidden waistband of white grosgrain. The bodice closes with three functional buttons, as shown in the drawing; I worked the buttonholes by hand, because I think they look nicer than my machine buttonholes.

Still need to fix the mannequin. The dress looks much better on a person.

Other than the waistband interpretation, my intentional change to the garment was adding a pocket in one of the right side seams. My unintentional change was not lining the lower bodice, which I was tempted to correct after-the-fact. However, I've found the dress comfortable and sufficiently opaque without it, though I wonder if the extra body would help the center front lie flatter. 

I was concerned that this dress's closures are all below the bust, though I've found that the fabric does stay put and provide decent coverage. Where it's giving me problems is actually lower down, as the fabric tends to gape between the buttons. I think I can solve this with the addition of some carefully-placed hooks and eyes. To get a fit more like the model, I'd need to bone the lower center front of the bodice, and possibly add shape-wear beneath it. Instead, I'm leaning towards keeping this dress unstructured, and easy to wash & wear.