1890s sports blouse

It’s been almost a month since my last post! August flew by, I was busy first with work and then with taking some time off. I did, however, finish a small(ish) project!

Shari from La Rose Passementarie has been hosting some sew-alongs, to get people motivated to start projects which might not have an event. This month, the theme was ‘1890s shirtwaists’. I didn’t have this on my direct project list, but I did have a pattern. And I sort of want to make a vest with the leftover fabric from my bicycle skirt, which means I also need a blouse to wear it with. That was enough motivation to get me started.

I used the Black Snail sport blouse pattern. I chose a simple off-white cotton for the blouse + collar. This will be a fairly functional blouse, and this way it’ll fit with almost anything.

 

 

It is a fairly straightforward blouse, with the tricky bits being the collar and sleeve split+cuffs. I definitely needed to read the pattern a couple of times, and it helped to see the collar construction in this blog. It’s technically a different Black snail blouse, but the collar pattern is the same. If you’ve made 2 piece collars before it might be easier, but those bits would make me hesitant to recommend the pattern to real beginners.

The only thing I changed was to hand-fell the seams, instead of doing that by machine.

 

I really like how this came out. For a next version, I might move the sleeves a little bit, as 1890s sleeves are fairly high up on the shoulder. But I am quite happy with the shape, it’s actually quite a flattering shape even if it’s not tucked into a skirt.

 

Shortly after I finished the blouse, we actually had our first event since January, a Victorian (distanced) picnic. I took that opportunity to wear the blouse with my 1890’s petticoat/skirt, and that combination worked quite well! These pictures are by Martijn van Huffelen:

 

 

Edwardian Skirt & Petticoat

It’s done! My high-waist Edwardian Skirt is done, and with it the petticoat to go underneath.

Both the petticoat and skirt were made with the 10-gore skirt pattern from Truly Victorian. I made the base of the petticoat first, to test the fit. After slightly correcting the fit at the top (it was a bit too wide, otherwise it fit very well), I cut off the top part to make the petticoat sit at the waist. I added a drawstring to close it, and moved this closure to the front.

After hemming, it was time to add some trim and ruffle. I chose to add a broad strip of bobbin lace and one row of ruffles. There’s 2 meters of fabric in the ruffle alone, cut in 4 parts and sewn together, so 8 meters to gather and hem. I used a small rolled hem at the top and bottom, and gathered and sewed the ruffle to the underside of the lace.

The finished petticoat:

 

The hem of the ruffle.

 

The lace:

 

The cord and closure

 

In the mean time, I also started working on the skirt! Cutting the fabric was quite scary. I bought the wool in Edinburgh, so no possibility of getting more, and tartan wool isn’t the cheapest of fabrics. I used black cotton for the lining.

 

From cutting the wool I now know my living room is 5 meters long, it fit exactly… I spent quite some time laying out the pattern pieces, trying to get the plaid to match at the waistline.

 

I didn’t take a lot of progress pictures, so a quick walk through. The first step was to flat-line the lining to the wool. After that, I made the placket for the closure and sew on all the hooks and eyes.

Then it was time to sew all the panels together. Always the most fun, because it’s quickest and it now actually looked like a skirt!

Next up was making boning channels and inserting the bones and sewing the whole result to the seam allowances. Less fun, and loads of hand sewing. I used plastic boning, mainly because I’ll be wearing this over a corset anyway and it’s a lot cheaper than steel.

Next up, finishing! The top was finished with bias binding. Stitched to the right side by machine and turned over and hand-stitched down.

The last step was the hem. After trying on the length with the petticoat, I sewed hem stiffener to the bottom. Then I cut a broad bias strip from black cotton and sewed it to the hem as facing. Finally, I hand-stitched the hem-facing down. And we’re done! Technically, I finished the last hand-sewing on the 2nd of January, but as I did all the other work last year, I’ll count it as a 2015 project.

So, some more pictures!

First a comparison of with and without petticoat. I hadn’t finished the hem yet on these pictures, but you can see the difference the petticoat makes!

 

The closure:

 

One of the bones and the facing at the top:

And at the hem. The hem-stiffener is underneath.

 

The whole thing! I quickly put my blouse on top for the effect. (I was lazy and didn’t do any underpinnings for the blouse, sorry!)

 

My only regret on the skirt is that the center-back doesn’t line up. I matched up the pattern pieces, but made the mistake on doing it on one side of folded fabric. Turned out the fabric wasn’t lying completely straight. The other panels are fine, but one of the back panels was off. Ah well, better next time.

 

It’s still very pretty though…