Tumgik
#18th century sewing
bennyssewingblog · 8 months
Text
July Creations!
Tumblr media
I know I posted these stays before, but I'm just so in love with them lol
Tumblr media
Here we have a lil corset top in the same orange linen from the Pumpkin Spice stays. Tbh, I had enough of this fabric left to make a second pair of stays, but I went with a corset top instead and now I kind of regret it :/
Tumblr media
And now for my newest pattern!!! I've gained a bit of weight and haven't been able to model many of the items I've made lately. So I decided to draft a new pattern, and really wanted to try making strapless stays. Part of this was just so I could wear my work again, but also because I'd like to start offering custom work (maybe this year?) and I figured it would be easier to do strapless stays so I don't have to stress about accidentally making the straps too short/long.
Tumblr media
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out! Though I will be making a few changes to this pattern. Changes include making the bottom of the center front and the first 3 tabs just a little bit longer, making the curve on the underarm a little more dramatic, and shortening the last 3 tabs. These have been quite a challenge for me to make, so I welcome any constructive criticism!
All three of these items are for sale and you can check them out on my Etsy store. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and visiting my shop!
64 notes · View notes
lasura · 6 months
Text
Sewing an 18th Century Gown - Planning
The importance of properly planning a large project cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately, I don’t learn my own lessons and made some mistakes.
I knew exactly the type of gown I wanted to make, though I'm not sure where I had seen it.
It had to be a Robe à la Française (or Sack-back gown), recognisable by glorious pleats on the back.
So what do I do? Buy a pattern, of course! Without delay!
Big mistake - that pattern ended up being almost entirely useless to me. Acting on impulse is fun and all, but research and planning will result in a much smoother process. It’s important to pinpoint the exact time period, research extant gowns, fabrics, construction, find out what undergarments you will be required, find the appropriate pattern (or guidance on how to make your own), then, and only then, get to buying fabrics, patterns, anything.
In the end I settled to a 1770s Robe à la Française, though my persona was going to be rather nostalgic/ old fashioned. The undergarments I would need were a shift, stays, pocket hoops, stockings, under-petticoat, petticoat, and stomacher. I did use a pattern for the stays, but the rest of the patterns were mostly drafted using guidance by Marquise.de.
Leaving here links to some helpful free resources:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/18thcenturysewing/ Facebook group for 18th century sewing
18th Century Notebook (larsdatter.com) Collection of links to extant garments
La Couturière Parisienne: 1700s (marquise.de) A great website with free patterns and instructions, as well as research
Sharon Ann Burnston (sharonburnston.com) Another great website with great research, guidance, and patterns
https://www.facebook.com/groups/18thcenturystays/ Facebook group for 18th century stays
1700 to 1794 - 18th Century Archives - GBACG - the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild Pattern review website
I’ll leave you with my historic inspirations board:
Tumblr media
4 notes · View notes
lisamakesthings · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Finally! I have made a pair of stays that are wearable! 
I used McCalls pattern b4669 and I’m so happy with how this turned out! 
17 notes · View notes
themarisazimmerman · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
The fabric that I just brought for my next 18th century piece. The Amalia jacket by Scroop Patterns
2 notes · View notes
whennnow · 8 months
Text
A Pair of Pieced Pockets
February 11, 2021
Tumblr media
[Image ID: a photo of the pieces of the prepared pieces of the pockets. There are two quilted muslin shapes on top of two similar blue shapes, plus two bundles of white ribbon.]
One of my sewing goals for 2020 was stash-busting (yeah, I started this a few months ago). Making a pair of pieced 18th century pockets was a chance to use up some smaller scraps!
I started, of course, by raiding my fabric stash. I pulled out scraps of two different printed cottons for the pieced outer layers. For the lining I pulled out my first attempt at a Regency shift, which was made out of unbleached cotton muslin.
I drafted a simple pattern from the gridded pattern in "Put On Thy Beautiful Garments: Rural New England Clothing, 1783-1800," but there are also plenty of patterns and tutorials online.
I cut out four of that pattern from the muslin. Two pieces were cut along the side seams of the old shift, one of which required a bit of extra piecing in the corner, and two were cut from the front and back. For the piecing, I used a spool of brown thread and I used a combination of light blue cotton and navy polyester thread for the quilting and construction. The little machine sewing I did used white poly thread because it was already on my machine and wasn't going to show.
Part 1: Piecing
I didn't have large enough pieces of the blue cottons to cut full pocket pieces, but I was able to get a few halves - I got two halves from the darker blue atlas-print cotton and three from the lighter blue floral cotton. I paired up one half from each fabric to get one full piece, then repeated that for a second full piece. (That was a confusing sentence to write, and I'm sure even worse to read, so check out the photo below to see what that looked like in the end.) Those two half-and-half pieces became the backs of the pockets.
I pieced together a third half of the dark blue fabric using two wider strips. That and the remaining half piece of the light blue fabric each became half of the front of one of the pockets.
Then the piecing encroached onto quilting territory.
I had decided on using 2" squares, and I grided it out on my pattern and realized I would need at least 42 squares. I cut two templates from a cereal box - a 2" square to mark sewing lines and a 2.5" square to give each piece a quarter inch seam allowance.
I got 38 squares from my scraps, with roughly twice as many dark blue squares as light blue. Which meant I was four squares short.
I decided to try triangles, which could be pieced into squares. I cut out two templates again, this time a 2" right triangle and a 3" right triangle (because seam allowance math is weird with triangles I guess). I managed to get four triangles out of each fabric, which meant four squares total, so I was set!
With everything cut out, I got to sewing. The triangles went first, pairing one triangle of each fabric into a square. Once all four of those were done, I backstitched four 'columns' of eight squares each (because that's what fit my pocket pattern height) and two 'columns' of five squares each.
Those columns, in turn, were seamed together, doing my best to match up the seam lines between squares. As I was making two separate halves, I made two pieces each consisting of two eight-square columns and one five-square column.
Once those were done, I switched my attention back to the un-pieced front halves. I used a pen to draw a seam line along the straight center edge and made a mark roughly halfway from the top to indicate where the opening will start/stop. Then I brought the heavily pieced and less pieced halves together and lined them up along the center front seam. The seams were backstitched below the marker for the opening and basted above to hold everything in place for ironing.
I ironed all the seams, paying special attention to the seam allowances of all those squares. There were empty spots on my heavily pieced halves, as I expected, but I filled those in using pieces I trimmed away from other places.
With that last bit of piecing done and ironed, I could turn my mind to other prep work.
Part 2: Preparation
I was a bit worried about how all that piecing would hold up, so I decided to 'quilt' the inner and outer layers together for strength and stability (and to use up some blue thread). I decided to use a running stitch like I did on my housewife, except the pattern was more square this time.
It was at this point that I started thinking about what I would need to actually construct the pockets. I had some 1" cotton twill tape from Burnley & Trowbridge for the waist ties, but I didn't have enough to bind the opening or edges of the pockets. So back to the stash I went. I didn't have enough bias tape either, so I decided to cut strips (not on the bias) from scraps of the white cotton fabric I had used for my Regency petticoat and to line my white Regency dress bodice. Those strips were ironed to resemble double-fold bias tape, and then I could finally put everything together!
Part 3: Construction
I carefully pinned some of my cotton strips around the pocket slits (right sides together) and machine stitched them into place. Then I stacked the front and back of each pocket wrong sides together and pinned the binding into place with the right side of the binding facing the right side of the front piece. Once those were machine sewn, I was able to fold the biding around the pocket and slit edges and whip the back side of the binding into place.
(As a side note, I had originally intended to hand sew the pockets completely. I started them in September after finishing my white Regency dress and wanted a simple little hand sewing project to work on. Piecing was a lot more work than I thought it would be and I put the project down for long periods of time. I didn't get to the actual construction until January and was just ready for the project to be done, so I gave myself permission to machine sew the binding and speed up the process a little.)
With the binding done, all I had left to do was to attach the pockets to a waist tape! I pinned the pockets to the twill tape and checked the position by tying it around my waist. One edge of the twill tape was back stitched to the back of the pocket (though the stitching went through all the layers) and the other edge was whipped to the front. As a final touch, I folded and stitched the ends of the twill tape to keep it from unraveling.
And then they were finally done!
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but frustrated with how long they took me to make. I'm also baffled about why I started the project in the first place - I don't do 18th century! I've only done Regency so far and I'm getting into the 1890s, and while I'd like to do some 1700s stuff, it's all pretty far down the line. They're done though, and I did some stash busting, and that's all that I really care about right now.
Stay warm. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Tumblr media
[Image ID: a waist-to-knees photo of a person dressed in black with blue 18th century pockets tied around their waist.]
0 notes
vincentbriggs · 1 month
Text
I forgot to make a short video with bits from my long youtube video like I usually do, so here is one, two entire weeks late. (I mostly do this because the facebook and instagram algorithms love videos but hate links, but may as well post it here too.)
For anyone who missed it, I draft a glove pattern, paint stripes and a dragon on a pair of late 18th century gloves, then sew up a pair of plain 1760's ones with a facing because I was worried the stripes would give people eye strain. It's a lot of stuff to cover, so the video is just about exactly one hour long.
Thank you so much to everyone who left nice comments! I really was not expecting such high praise on my dry informative sewing video, especially not from people who don't sew!!
(Music is Stepping Stones by Megan Wofford, from epidemicsound.)
827 notes · View notes
cy-lindric · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Entering my sans-culotte era babes
4K notes · View notes
vinceaddams · 5 months
Text
17th century gloves are. very good.
889 notes · View notes
natalisadesigns · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
Made this 18th century stays recently, and my friend offered to photograph me in it))
342 notes · View notes
fashion-from-the-past · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
153 notes · View notes
camille-therinde · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media
And I am done with the quote! Yet feet that wandering have gone/ Turn at last to home afar. This might be my favourite two verses in my favourite Tolkien poem and I’m so happy to have it embroidered on my pocket.
The letters are a bit wonky but this is a surprisingly hard to draw on fabric and I took a lot of pain meds this week so… yeah, I didn’t have the surest hand.
Also, listening on repeat at the song while I embroidered gave me other ideas for the top portion of the pocket. I think I’ll make a paved road surrounded by flowers, maybe little footprints, linking the Smial to the the outline of a mountain in the background. Also, there will be flowers and a few paved steps in front of the door.
231 notes · View notes
bennyssewingblog · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
These are just so stinkin’ pretty! The brocade was an absolute horror to work with though. The backside of the fabric was just a mess of loose/uneven threads. I had a few times where I thought I would have to scrap the project altogether, but I made it through!
I didn’t make any changes to the pattern here, I think I’m pretty happy with my pattern and fit.
Probably the most challenging part of these stays was the boning. The backside of the brocade would make little “pockets” that the the reed boning would get caught on. Usually with the boning, since it comes rolled up, you have to alternate the curve direction of the boning when you insert it. Well, if the tip of the boning was curved toward the brocade side of the stays, it would get caught. So I could only insert it in one direction. Which turned out fine, it just needed some extra ironing.
HOWEVER, I never want to work with this fabric again lol
Like what you see? Good news! They’re for sale and you can check out more pictures and video here.
65 notes · View notes
intergalacticfop · 18 days
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
This jacket is the result of more than 2 and a half years of work, entirely handsewn! It represents the interest in equestrian and equestrian-inspired clothing as fashionable attire in Europe during the late 17th and into the 18th centuries.
I copied it from a jacket held by the Met Costume Institute, accession number 1981.314.2. When I emailed out to them for more information about the jacket, one of the collections people was even kind enough to pull it out of storage and take some detailed shots of the exterior AND interior (thanks Marci!!!)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
The Met dates it to the 2nd quarter of the 18th century which could be true--but there are several features of this jacket that could easily be dated earlier to the late 17th century, like the button size and layout. I plan to mull over this more in a later post. At least, I would definitely place it in the earlier end of that 1725-1750 range. However, I chose to style it for the 1730s/1740s because it's Fun For Me 🙂!
Tumblr media
One of the most fun parts was gathering accessories to go with the jacket! I steamed a wool hat blank into the tricorn shape and applied the silver trim, made some detachable undersleeves based on paintings by Pietro Longhi, and threw together a matching neck ribbon as if I was some kind of ornamental poodle
77 notes · View notes
comfortabletextiles · 6 months
Text
Almost done with the shirt I work on since... July...
Now I only need to make 6 bottoms, sew them on. Sew the button holes and then I am actually done!!!!
Tumblr media
190 notes · View notes
themarisazimmerman · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
This is the mock up of my husbands 18th century waist coat. The pattern is by JP Ryan. This was a pretty simple pattern to follow and it worked up rather quickly. I haven't gotten the buttons in yet, that's why the front looks puckered because I only have three pins in it to close the front. I also didn't add the pockets, but for the final version I may just do the pocket flap, we shall see. But I am pleased with the fit and how it looks! I love making wearable mock ups!
3 notes · View notes
rainy-academia · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
A few days after finishing this 18th century pocket my boss got me book themed pride socks and said, “be gay, read books, then do crime”
117 notes · View notes