Silly Millie Blogs

After what seems like a solid month of sewing and 8 yards of 60" cotton lawn, 1 yard of cotton coutil, 10 yards of coiled steel boning, 6 yards of lace beading, 6 yards of lace edging, 17 yards of cotton eyelet border, 2 yards of insertion lace, 1 yard of vintage lace, 14 yards of cotton eyelet beading, 10 yards of 1/8" ribbon and 3 patterns - I am finally the proud owner of a full set of Edwardian undergarments: a chemise, corset, drawers, petticoat and corset cover.  Truth be told, the petticoat and the corset cover are each awaiting the arrival of one more piece of lace, and then they'll be complete.  Whew!  I really had moments - days - when I thought I would not get all of this done in time to begin work on the dress itself. As I've been sewing this mountain of undergarments, I've been pondering how to make the dress that I want from the information and patterns that I have.  Several of the books I found have scaled patterns of dresses from var...

My husband is always very supportive of all of my new endeavors.  I have to say, though, that his enthusiasm for and offers of assistance with this new project reached new heights as soon as he heard "corset."  I purchased Truly Victorian's 1913 Late Edwardian Corset Pattern which listed all of the various bits and pieces needed to build it, size 00 grommets among them. We have a grommet setter that we bought from a retiring seamstress and costume designer last summer, and we didn't have the cutter and setter for size 00.  My husband become even more keen about this project as soon as he learned there was a tool needed that he didn't yet own!  From Corsetmaking.com (who knew?) I procured all of the other parts: 2 busks (I was unsure which size would work best), a roll of coiled steel boning, bone casing, coutil, boning tips, corset lacing and 8" garters. The pattern instructions direct one to take certain measurements - bust, waist, hips - of o...

It looks like my reticule will be the first item finished.  You may wonder why?  Well, let me just say that this is not what my pert chart showed. intended dress pattern From the strategic planning perspective, from the moment I decided on my dress I have had to make a lot of alterations to my pattern to end up with a dress that looks like the one I'm copying (right) rather than the one on the pattern cover (left).  Considering this process further, one must appreciate that the entire idea of corsets has always been to shape bodies into a specific shape.  This being the case, in order to make the alterations to the pattern and then check the fit of the resulting muslin prototypes, I'd either have to put the corset on every time I need to check the fit or I need a dress form shaped like me in my late Edwardian corset.   After pondering this dilemma I decided to make a dress form of my corseted self.  There are tons of videos on ...

While continuing to research images of Edwardian afternoon dresses specifically from the years 1910-1912, I realized I also needed to research what fabrics, colors, trims and decorations were popular at that time.  This activity included researching the fabrics themselves because honestly, without being able to see and touch them I had no idea what the differences are between one type of silk and another.  Or what serge actually is.  Or any number of other fabrics that I had never heard of:  Shepherds plaid?  Mousseline?  Marquisette?  Pongee?  You get the idea.   I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time selecting a look  - so I just kept researching. I understood I needed to develop a mental data base of period looks, I just didn't know how many images it would take for my brain to do this.  I also had to know what fabrics were out there in order to select a look, as well as what patterns exist.  So whil...

Several months ago, a friend invited me to join her at a tea April 14 to commemorate the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.  The catch was that everyone will be wearing 1912 garb.  In my continuing effort to stop overthinking everything, I said yes!  This friend of mine is an avid historical sewer and reenactor, and I asked her where one would find patterns.  And this is when I learned that there are two ways to approach dressing in the apparel of a different era.  One is to buy 21c patterns that are made to be worn over 21c undergarments, and the other is to use period patterns and wear them over period undergarments. Still basking in the rosy afterglow of making such a quick and bold decision, I chose the latter. This is the story of my subsequent descent into madness. I began looking online for patterns and was amazed by the wealth of historical sewing resources readily available.  I mean, really, who knew t...