Friday, September 20, 2019

Making a c.1923 Butterick Dress: The Reveal

  And here it is!  After two and a half weeks of work I finished Butterick 6962 circa 1923 open front dress with slip.

View of the front with all the accessories(including a matching band for my hat with a buckle).

View of the back - the belt slipped a bit so the spot where I tacked the pleats is visible.  I was so worried the pleats would just disappear when I took out the basting stitches, but was pleasantly surprised to see they still mostly hold their shape.

Color details.

Back collar detail.

Sleeve and front detail.

Front of slip neckline detail with brooch.

The things I've learned:
1) Tailor's tacks are both good and bad - they mark both pieces of fabric without needing to be washed out or risking staining the fabric, and using multiple colors instantly tells me what mark means what, but they are somewhat time consuming to put in and have the potential to fall out which can be annoying.
2) Pleats are only good in small doses - I used to prefer pleats to gathers, but these dress-length pleats were the devil to get even and to stay in place, hence all the basting.
3) Perforated patterns aren't nearly as hard as they seem - I'm sure in a pattern that comes with minimal instructions it would be difficult to translate what all the holes mean, so I'm glad my first attempt had a Deltor to hold my hand through the process, but I feel that the next vintage pattern I work on will not seem so scary now that I know a bit more about the use of perforations.

  Would I undertake a vintage pattern again?  Absolutely, and I hope I can find some more, perhaps 1930s, patterns to make in the future.



Shoes: American Duchess 'Mae'
Gloves/parasol: Amazon
Purse: not vintage, but from an antique store
Hat: Target
Buckle on hat: vintage
Brooch: vintage, circa 1920s-1930s
Sunglasses: Zenni, prescription

Friday, September 6, 2019

Flipping Through: The Woman's Weekly, November 1904

Today's 'Flipping Through' is The Woman's Weekly from November 1904.



 Beautiful Art Nouveau detailing on the table of contents.


Ladies sporting fur scarves and stoles.



Sears & Roebuck Co. sewing machine in cabinet - if only they were $5 now!



Advertisement to send in your hair, then receive a real hair piece that matches your own.




A time when anything could be ordered from a catalog.






About tapeworms - during the late Victorian and Edwardian era there was a rumor that women used tapeworms to lose weight, taken in 'tapeworm pills' which housed the worm's eggs.  Once the weight was lost, the woman would want to shed her tapeworm, since there are nasty side effects to having one living in the body.  I have found no conclusive evidence to this diet trend, but I couldn't help but be reminded of it when seeing these advertisements to remove tapeworms. 

I thought there was some irony to the juxtaposition of these two advertisements.  (note the name Kellogg - not the same Kellogg of cereal fame it seems)




Copyrighted October, 1901,
By the Lewis Publishing Co.,
St. Louis, MO.