Centennial Dress Project: The Patternmaster Cometh

I set myself a goal that by the end of August I would have a pattern picked out and purchased. Well, we all see how that worked out -- August has come and been, and I have no pattern. I've subscribed to a lot more sewing blogs, done a lot more research, have made more plans to do even more research, and instead of putting me farther in front of the beast, I felt like all this prep work was putting me further behind the beast instead.  There are a lot of really talented bloggers out there, and they have some really beautiful work. 

To put it nicely, I was feeling that I wasn't talented enough, smart enough, or well read enough to complete a project and show it off to people. And if I was going to show it off to people, I was going to get my ass chewed out for not doing something historically appropriate.

Then I went in to volunteer at my living history farm the other day -- I wore my new skirt (sewn entirely by myself) and the apron that I made as my first sewing project at the Farm. I wanted to make sure my outfit looked okay (I wore a button-up blouse from my closet, just something white with a low collar that I'd bought because it looked vaguely historical and I needed white button-up shirts for work) and the first thing my supervisor said was "Wow, you look really good today!"

And that made me feel really, really good, because I needed a win in the costuming department.

I then proceeded to give three really stellar tours that day, collect 22 eggs from our chickens, and bake an entire apple pie, handmade crust to handmade crust, all by myself in a wood burning stove. I was a historical superwoman. It was awesome.

I decided after that that the dress really does have to happen, and I have to bite the bullet and take whatever flak the internet and my fellow alums and the theatre department and the history department  and whoever else decides to join throws at me.

But I still need a pattern first. 

Here's my shortlist:

1. Sense and Sensibility's 1914 Afternoon Dress Pattern

http://sensibility.com/blog/patterns/1914-afternoon-dress/

Some of the iterations of this dress have a different colored skirt, and the pattern itself seems to have a lot of options with it. Plus I hear good things about this company. (I don't like the pattern envelope image; I don't think it does the dress justice. Click through the link to see more pictures!)

2. Hint of History's 1912 Shawl Collar Dress Pattern

http://www.hintofhistory.com/2009/03/1910s-fashion-collection.html

Apparently it's only 'inspired by' a historical pattern, but I like the look.

3. Skirt and waist patterns from Saundra Ros Altman's Past Patterns.

Both patterns from http://www.pastpatterns.com/1900.html

These are reproductions of actual historical patterns; they come with little or no instruction, but they'll be accurate in terms of cutting. (Construction will be another matter, but hey, sewing machines are period in 1913.) They will be a heck of a lot harder, but possibly more rewarding as well.

Anyone have a pattern supplier they really like in terms of 1910s garb? Any suggestions, comments, tidbits to add? Which pattern do you think I should go for?

Hittin' the Books -- Back to School with the Centennial Dress Project

The little yellow signs are out at all the crosswalks in my neighborhood and traffic slows to a crawl just around 9 o'clock -- which means that school must be back in session. Unfortunately, I am not among the lucky little duckies going back to their classrooms for lots of learning and making new friends and breaking in your new box of crayons and whatever else back to school means. But I am not going to let that get me down, no sir! I am trying to get ready for my back to school as well, next June!

I'll be honest with you -- the dress project stalled out a few months ago. The reason? I decided, after lugging a folding table in and out of my room for about a week so I could finish my walking skirt, that I needed a sewing table, or at the very least a sewing cabinet that once housed a sewing machine. You know, one of these numbers where the machine flips down inside?

I already have a machine, so all I really needed was an empty cabinet that I can set it on top of. I went to all my local secondhand shops (at least twice) and the local ReStore, a shopping outlet run by Habitat for Humanity that, in addition to taking used or left-over building supplies, also sells reused furniture. (If you have one in your area, GO! It supports a good cause and they have all kinds of odds and ends.) They had a lot of sewing cabinets...in a corner of the sales floor where I couldn't go and look at them. So that trip was a  bit of a bust too.

I spent a weekend on vacation in the city with some of my school friends, and when I called to check-in with my family on Saturday night, my mother told me that she and her sister and found (and purchased for me) a sewing table they thought I was really going to like. So, when I arrived home on Sunday night, I found this little beauty waiting for me:

Helloooo, gorgeous!

It's a Sears, Roebuck, and Company cabinet with a matching stool, and after checking all the sites on the internet I could find, I still have no idea when it was manufactured or what kind of machine was originally inside. I also did not find a single picture of a table that looks a thing like this one -- it's in a sort of Japanoiserie/ Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie style, which makes me love it even more. Given the model number inside, I think it was manufactured in the late 1930s.

And they told me it was my birthday present. Thanks, Mom and Sis!

So, with my table problem solved, I went to the library, checked out a number of books on 1910s fashion, and continued with my research. One of the books I really wanted (and eventually found) was Dover Publications "Everyday Fashions, 1909-1920, as Pictured in Sears Catalogs". The other books I've found are nice, but not very helpful. My turn-of-the-century Bennie is not buying a Parisian couture dress by Lucille or Poiret.  She's probably getting a ready made dress from the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog, a significant investment for school that will set her parents back anywhere between $5.90 and $6.95. A hefty sum, considering the average salary of a US Postal worker was about $1124 dollars a year, and that of a teacher was a meager $547 yearly.  For hourly workers, wages could range from 21 cents an hour in manufacturing to 55 cents an hour in construction trades. (Statistics from The National Bureau of Economic Research)

And, as today's parents can commiserate, new clothes for school come after paying for school, which is also not cheap. In 1916, one semester at Saint Ben's would cost this Bennie's parents a whopping $172, not including boarding at school over Christmas and Easter vacations, which would have been twelve dollars more.
So, what does a six dollar, off-the-rack dress look like in 1913?

All of the dresses in this illustration, with the exception of the second from the left, fit the price range.

 Sears and Roebuck also state very nicely at the bottom of the catalog page that "All dresses will be furnished in skirt length ordered, but with open hem so that length can be adjusted to suit customer." Even if we buy a ready-made dress, we're still going to at least hem it so it fits. How interesting.

Sears also has a page of dresses for 'Misses' (I think this may be the 1910s term for a 'young adult') and 'Junior Dresses for 13 to 17 year old Girls.' Have we really been calling it the Juniors department since the 1910s? I never knew.

This is what the Plastics looked like in 1912. Big perfect hair and tiny ankles.

These dresses are being made up in fabrics like velveteen, mohair, whipcord serge, and broadcloth. Norah Waugh's 1968 book "The Cut of Women's Clothes, 1600-1930" reports that fabrics like voile or muslin were in use, as were materials like linen, cotton, and shantung for something called a tub frock, which I think might be another name for a washdress.

Next step -- Buying a pattern, and a trip to the fabric store!

So You Think You Can Sew: The Centennial Dress Project

In the last episode of "So You Think You Can Sew" I attempted (and finished!) one Starfleet shirt for my Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. I'm happy to say the dinner went very well, all the volunteers felt appreciated, and I was one of the only people there with a costume. I was rather proud of that fact, since mine had not come out of a box and still managed to look pretty good!

Beam me up, Scotty!

So with my ego suitably inflated with my burgeoning sewing skills, I tackled the next project in my queue -- a  1900s style walking skirt for one of my historical interpreter positions. I don't have many pictures of that project, since it is still technically ongoing (damn you, waist measurements that seem to change from fitting to fitting) but it is almost nearly finished and I have learned several important lessons that I am going to apply to my next project. 

Because this next project is a big one. Oh yes, it is.

Next year, my college is celebrating one hundred years of education, and in honor of this accomplishment, the school is publishing a book on the school's history, and a group of students and faculty is putting together a volume of art and poetry commemorating the centennial. And after seeing a picture in my alumni magazine, I lit upon an idea.

The picture in question.

I wanted to make a dress, very similar to the ones on display in the photo. These women are the first class of 1913, and they're sitting on the steps of the main building (Saint Theresa Hall, I believe) with some school swag and a lot of Edwardian attitude. How very, very different from my own freshman class photo. Not a knee, ankle, or shoulder in sight -- and this is Minnesota in August, presumably. It's hot. They're all wearing white -- and in a lot of variations, too!

So began what I am calling the Centennial Dress project, or the 1913 dress project. Over the next eleven months (The Centennial will be celebrated en masse in June of 2013) I will research, find a pattern for, cut, and sew a dress similar to the ones worn by those original college girls, and wear it to the Centennial celebrations.

The first steps in my research have already been completed -- First I emailed the college archivist for pictures similar to the one above, and asked for any other resources she could put me in touch with. While I was waiting for her reply, I checked our digital archives online and found the 1916 College Catalog, a listing of the requirements for graduation in 1916, as well as a listing for what every girl had to bring to school with her in 1916. (I imagine the requirements didn't change much in three years.)

REGULATIONS FOR WARDROBE 

No uniform is required. For school wear, dress of any color, material to suit the season. A better dress for Sundays. An inexpensive white dress for special occasions. Dresses must not be low in the neck; sleeves must reach to the wrists or lace sleevelets may be worn with short sleeved gowns. Shoes must have rubber heels. 

And there we have it. The list of requirements goes on (a sufficient supply of 'plainly made underclothes', three changes of underwear for the winter season, four napkins and a place setting including a napkin ring with your initials on it, et cetera) and truly, you could make some kind of very interesting museum exhibit with a trunk filled with the average 1913 girl's possessions on one side of the room and a suitcase filled with her 2013 equivalent possessions on the other.

So the next steps become more difficult. Explore period sources for other dresses in the same style that would have been available to the average college girl in Minnesota (Probably out of the Sears Roebuck Catalog or a similar company in the Twin Cities.) Find a pattern similar to those garments. Find appropriate fabric, and cut, piece, and sew the dress. Find appropriate shoes, hat, and gloves. Continue research on average student experience at college in the 1910s in order to arrive at school in June in Edwardian style ready to talk about what I'm wearing and what life would be like for me in it.

Oh, and maintain my nerve. I do at some point actually have to create a wearable garment.

So You Think You Can Sew: My First Adventure in Costuming.

One day I'll have a real costume blog, where I talk about real costume projects.

One day. Unfortunately, it's not today, and it's certainly not this blog post. Today I want to share my much-less-than-legit excuse for a costume project, a project that required not so much skill as creative thinking on how to make a costume I'll probably only wear once but not make break the bank and not make it look totally lame, either.

There's a dictum in manufacturing that you can have quick, cheap, or good-looking, but you can't necessarily have all of them at once -- we'll see how I did here.

The Assignment: For volunteer appreciation at one of my museums this year, their theme is "Out Of This World" and the volunteer coordinators invited everyone to come in the 'space-themed' costume of their choice. Since no one but the Browncoat, conventioneering crowd would recognize my Mal Reynolds costume from last   Halloween, and making a Jedi costume on a budget became next to impossible outside of Halloween season, I decided to make that tried and true staple of the space adventure canon -- The Starfleet Uniform.

Instantly recognizable even by people who don't call themselves sci-fi fans, comfortable enough to sit through dinner in, and low-budget enough for, well, the first season of a groundbreaking TV show, this was something even I could do. Let's face it -- I'm an English major, Jim, not a seamstress! (At least not yet. But we'll get there. Yes, we will.)

Step 1 -- Acquire shirt. Remind myself while watching several episodes of Star Trek who wears blue, yellow, and red. Went to Goodwill. Found them having a sale on red turtlenecks from Target. Make executive decision not to be a redshirt. Find really nice blue cowl-necked shirt that reminds me of Dr. Dehner from Episode 1.1 "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Step Two -- Acquire gold braid for rank insignia on the sleeves, and something with which to make the Enterprise Insignia to cover up the logo on this shirt. Find gold metallic thread in Mom's sewing box. Score one for budget conscious projects and using what you have in the house! 

My desk. It is messy.

The fabric itself is a stretchy sports fabric, and I want to be able to roll up my sleeves. Solution -- pin braid on while fabric is stretched out over empty wine bottle.  I can keep the braid straight this way, too.

Step 2.5 -- Decide which rank to assign Starfleet-self. Since Captains can't wear blue, I go for Lieutenant. Proceed to think about Master and Commander for the rest of the braid-sewing exercise and remain amused by the British pronunciation of Lef-ten-ant.

Lots of pins gave their lives for this uniform....

Six episodes of Star Trek and two feet of braid later, Progress! But wait. We appear to be missing something, Captain!

 Ah, yes, one of those.

Step Three: Find Gold fabric, gold paper, black puffy paint, and several copies of the starfleet insignia. Have momentary debate over whether it needs to be the Command insignia or the Sciences department insignia. Father reminds me no besides me will probably notice this, and Command insignia is the one everyone recognizes. Now, which size to use?

The one on the right is the smaller (2.5 inches tall) version, made with a gold plastic paper from my scrapbooking box -- I think it was used as a gift bag filler at some time. The  larger one on the right is wide gold ribbon glued over a cardboard backing (3.5 inches tall). Both models will have the insignia done in the black fabric paint using a stencil. It's also been drawn onto the cardboard backing of the fabric one.

Voila! Semi- finished uniform shirt! (That's one of my paper copies of the insignia there.)

So, for less than ten dollars -- five for the shirt, two for the spool of gold braid, two for the puffy paint and an extra dollar to factor in the things I found around the house -- I created a costume that doesn't look half-bad. We'll factor in another  ten to fifteen dollars for some black boots I have yet to find, and for less than twenty dollars, I've created something I wouldn't mind wearing.

Not a bad week's work. 

On next week's episode of "So You Think You Can Sew?" Mercury attempts to make a six-gored skirt out of corduroy...