The Swish of Vintage Silk

A most wonderful swap box arrived at my house this week:



(well, two wonderful swap boxes arrived, but I'm going tell you about this one in particular).

See that long flat package? I happened to open that last and do you know what it was? This!



Three 1929 fashion sewing booklets full of gorgeous pen-and-ink dress drawings ...... with the PATTERNS!!



My friend who sent the box - a most amazing designer and yarnie from NYC - was online while I opened it, and she told me that friends of hers brought these booklets back several years ago from a trip to Spain.  They are of course in Spanish, but the language of vintage fashion is universal isn't it? I love them immoderately and think she was so, so generous to pass them on to me! Here are a few gorgeous pictures for you to enjoy:





















I do plan to make some of these and the one I'm going to make first is this (I'm thinking grey mauve silk satin and/or midnight blue):



My last adventure into 1930's fashion sewing was HERE...

Wedding Dress part three - Finished!

It was with a sense of despair and the feeling that I would never complete this that I got up early and faced the front room as soon as it was light enough to see without the lamps. I had to make a decision about the back train and hadn't been able to get in touch with Jule yesterday to ask what she wanted.

When I went to bed last night, two decisions were rattling around like pinballs inside my brain: a big frothy train? A wide wrapping sash?

When I looked down at the dress spread out on the table, and laid out the folds of fabric that would cascade down beneath where the back sipper ends....it all came clear. I heard Michael Kors' voice on Project Runway saying "and what is that!? She looks like she's pooping fabric!" (he really did say this to a contestant once. Heidi said it first, but he said it most emphatically.).

I chose something sleeker, and much more flattering to the butt. Here is it pinned but not sewn or pressed:



The next task was to finish the straps and here I made the very first mistake that required unpicking the thread and re-doing.



You know how when you're knitting in the round and you do the first cast on and then "join, being careful not to twist"? and you check - and double check - to make sure that your join is not twisted? The same sort of thing happens when you are attaching shoulder straps. You have the front sewn in and you're slipping the edge of the back strap between the back edge and the narrow facing. You say to yourself "seam towards the shoulder. seam towards the shoulder." You double check and then sew it in and go over it three times - because there is a lot of stress on this point, since the dress hangs from the shoulders. And then you hold the dress up by the straps and you check that the strap seams are facing towards the shoulders and.........there it is. The dreaded twist. You can't exactly rip stitches out of silk. So you pick up an insanely thin silk needle and begin to un-pick the stitches one by one. Luckily on the re-do it looks fine. Love and care cover a multitude of careless sins (or inadvertent mistakes).

Hemming came next - all hand-rolled hems. I did get out my 1900s sewing machine that has a narrow rolled hem attachment, but when I experimented on a scrap of silk, the tight narrow hem was so stiff, like a cord, that it made what would be the hem edge stand out in a circle like a crinoline! So it was hand sewing for all the hems - the back edges, catching in the top of the zipper, the neckline edge, making a wide curve, and the yards and yards of skirt hem:



It took 6.5 hours solid of hemming just for the skirt alone. While I hemmed, I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the old version), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp version), Robin Hood (the Uma Thurman version), and a few assorted British sit-coms. Good stuff.

As for the sash, I'm going to wait. I'll make the waist part tomorrow, but bring all the rest of the silk with me, in case it's needed:



Now I am really and truly finished. All that remains is the fitting and the subsequent shaping and hemming of the arm-curves. That part has to fit exactly, or else make use of lots of double-sided tape!

FRONT:



BACK (showing hem):



Tomorrow I pack it all up and then board a plane for next week-end's wedding. I'm so excited! Jule, I hope you like this and I'll see you soon!

Wedding Dress, part two

WARNING - This post is VERY Picture-heavy! If you have a slow connection, it might take forever to load...

Day two on the sewing front... yesterday evening I stopped after basting the pieces together. I found out this morning that the bias cut had caused one of the godets to hang lower than the other. There was nothing wrong with the cut, I just needed to take the basting out, let both pieces hang naturally and baste them together again. They fit perfectly after that:



Now it was finally time to sew!



See the pretty silk thread winding on it's bobbin? I like to use silk thread with silk, although some people say to use cotton so the seams are sturdy. I like the lightness of the silk thread, especially with a bias gown.



Sometimes I just don't have the right tool for the job and have to improvise. Here I am using the spool-holder of a weaving shuttle to turn the tiny thin straps right side out:



Do you like mysteries? What's This????



Surprise! It's a zipper! An invisible zipper!



The godets are sewn in - what a lot of skirt!



Back downstairs now, to place and baste the bodice to the skirt and back upstairs to sew it:



Then...the really scary part!

Here I am with the center cut of the bodice. This is what will form that lovely wide shoulder-bone-to-shoulder-bone V neckline... I placed my handmade tissue pattern, with the cut marked, back over the bodice and basted the cut line with ling running stitches. Then, I gently pulled the tissue away, leaving the stitches in place on the silk...





(cue the theme music from JAWS)... here come the scissors! Oh noes!



The cut is made - 6.5 inched from the hollow of the throat. There's no turning back now!



The next step was to place the straps against the bodice to drape it and figure out how it would actually come together. It's starting to look more like a real gown now...

All of the hems must be hand rolled - the neckline, the arm and back edges, and the wide, wide, wide, wide hem. I couldn't get back far enough to take a picture of the entire hem at once, because with the front, the two back sides, the two godets, and the back train it is about six yards around...





I think I will hem this on the plane! (it's a long flight)

Tomorrow: finishing the bodice and neckline, designing and setting the train godet, and starting the drapey waist sash...

The 1930's Family

I'm in heaven at the moment! Why? Because the postman brought a package today - a vintage knitting book!

The 30's Family Knitting Book by Jane Waller. This is the same woman who wrote A Stitch in Time so I know her choices are so wonderful!



This book was published in 1981, so the cover shows a typical 80's family in retro-looking knits. But when you open the book, the patterns and photos are directly from 1930's British sources! What a find!

Here are some beauties:


The typical 30's blouse


A stylish 30's woman's underpinnings...


The most beautful sweater!! Imagine it in powder blue cashmere!


...and a useful sweater for the Army woman...

I have to make some of these this winter!

Now I must go and warm up. I've been outdoors in the snow and I can't stop shivering and shaking!