Thinking about this old book I read, "How to make over old dresses" by Augusta Prescott, 1892. In it she tells us how to take apart, wash, possibly re-dye and then make a new dress out of an old one... And past the whole of "a good housewife simply must properly clothe her legion of children" it's fascinating. How much effort went into it, because if you weren't rich, that was good fabric and you had to make do!
https://archive.org/details/how-to-make-over-old-dresses/mode/2up
Keystone Cutter my beloved, you always have me 😭
Leafing through a Victorian tailoring manual. I love how they're usually very correct and pretty brutal about it: "Loose in back and tight in the front. Diagram 119. Plate 44.
This is a defect frequently met with by cutters who take insufficient measures, &c. Every one will at once agree upon the wide difference there may be in the form of ladies' figures of the same size chest. One lady of say 34 breast will have a well developed chest, and prominent bust ; the other will have no figure at all ; hence it is evident that to cut the same shape garment for both must end in failure."
Am browsing Art In Needlework from 1900, and the foreword is talking about the uses of embroidery, and holy shit, this might be the nicest thing an Edwardian writer has said about anyone 'foreign' in anything I've read:
"In the case of a material in itself unsightly, the one course is to cover it entirely with stitching, as did the Persian and other untireable people of the East."
Untireable people of the East. Wow. That's almost pretty alright! 😂
I was looking for a specific bit of mending technique and misremembered which book it was in, but look at this! Mending, darning and patching instructions straight from the 1920s. There's a couple I haven't much seen anywhere else, especially stoting.
https://archive.org/details/newdressmakerwit00butt/page/146/mode/2up?view=theater
Third edition.
Oh, and just in case you're curious, I'm trying out the shirt waist sleeve on this page, the book is from 1909 and only slightly a hassle to interpret. The two part sleeve worked out pretty well, it's what I used for the Cinnamon Linen Jacket and would have been quite good if I hadn't messed up the back of it a little bit!
https://archive.org/details/americansystemof00merw/page/56/mode/2up
Today, in #OldManuals and #Millinery:
"There was a time in the millinery business when the trimmer was expected to construct as well as trim each individual frame, they being held, when sold at all, at exorbitant prices and at that only the most common ones being obtainable. That time has passed, as they can now be purchased in any desirable shape at but little in advance of the price of making and this with a vast saving of time and patience.
It is necessary, however, that the woman be familiar with at least the making of the most common frame or what is known as the flat frame, in order that she may alter or repair a hat in an intelligent manner."
https://archive.org/details/homemillinerycou00nati/page/22/mode/2up?view=theater
Me checking one of the tomes (an old Victorian tailoring manual) to see which directions the pad stitching on the collar should go and why, and once again gazing at diagrams like this.
Damn. 😂 I am definitely not going to do it as dense as that...
Doing a bit of rest and relaxing in what comes naturally to me, which is messing around with drafting patterns.
Having drafted yet another different sleeve to maybe make a mock-up of another day, I've also come across a very fun word: Bunglesome!
Meanwhile. There's a bunch of embroidery stitches and plenty of designs I've never seen in this book I'm now browsing. Here's a pretty conventional but absolutely lovely satin & crewel stitch sampler to entice you. "Art in needlework", 1900.
https://archive.org/details/artinneedleworkb00dayliala/artinneedleworkb00dayliala/mode/2up?view=theater
Sini Tuulia
