#historical sewing for fun

[trash-for-manhwa-and-manga]

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR MANHWA BABIES 🎄💙

[badassindistress]

Triumph!

[scribefindegil]

(Sorry if this had been asked/ answered before)

If the bits of paper get left in the finished quilt, won't they make it stiff and/or crinkly?

It depends! For my Hubris Quilting, I'm using card stock for my paper pieces, and that needs to be removed because it's very stiff. Pretty much all modern quilters remove their papers, whatever type they use. But historically (as you saw in that super cool quilt I reblogged!) it was more common to leave the papers in. You would use scraps of everyday paper, so they were lightweight and much more flexible than cardstock, and a lot of historical papers aren't as crinkly as modern ones; they tend to have a softer feel and not be as crisp. This comes down to the material the paper was made from, the papermaking process, whether the paper was "sized" during or after its formation, etc. But basically, while leaving the papers in would add a little bit of bulk and structure to the quilt, it wouldn't cause the same problems that modern papers would, and since quilts are very structured textiles anyway it wouldn't interfere with its use. It works almost more like modern interfacing. Plus, it would save you a lot of time to not need to remove hundreds and hundreds of papers!

[lebedame-wegelagerin]

Sewing is Magic.

— What? Oh no, not like Fantasy-Magic, where you do some Movements and Vocations and wonderful Things happen. I mean the Cthulhu-Mythos Kind of Magic, where you have to study barely comprehensible Scripts for Hours, draw arcane Graphics and then end up eroding your Mind trying to grasp what you've done.

[corduroy-leggings]

A coord idea that I really want to try

So I have these two pieces:

Noblesse Oblige by Kaneko and Antique Frames And Royal Jewelry by Baroque x Sakizo

And I've had them sitting in my closet for a bit because I just don't have enough in my wardrobe to style them with. I think my main issue is headgear. I have a gold filigree masquerade style mask that I could use for the Baroque JSK, but it seems too small for such a nice dress. And I don't have any black KCs or berets.

But!

I have an idea. I think that a Tudor era French hood could look really cool!

Something like these. I would probably want to make two separate hoods because of the difference in colours and styles between the two dresses (the Kaneko one being more like the one on the left, the Baroque one being more like the one on the right) but I think that a French hood would be the solution to my problem. I would obviously edit a couple things, like making the hood not cover my ears, and maybe add some less historical embellishments to make it fit more with lolita than having it be a completely historically accurate piece.

I found a website that shows how to make them and they seem like a relatively simple project, though I have very little experience making any sort of headwear outside of putting a bow on a headband. I would like to try making at least one for my Baroque dress when I have more time later this year.

Has anyone else tried using a French hood in lolita? I've seen a couple for sale from Taobao scaled up a bit and decorated for a more lolita style, but I've never seen anyone wear it.

[akatusk]

i wish i had the patience to render the million tiny details necessary to communicate how textured i think gelebors clothing is. i just KNOW its so full of embroidery both to patch and strengthen the fabric..

[allisonreader]

I've already started to rewatch The Artful Dodger and am back at episode 7 again already. I'm not starting that one yet, but I'm enjoying my second run through as much as my first. I am but a simple girl. Give my luscious hooped skirts/dresses, men in old timey clothes, a fun story sprinkled with a little bit of a love story and I'm hook. Also, seeing that I'm still two episodes from finishing, I do think it funny that I'm already thinking about how I am definitely going to watch it again.

You also have to realize that the only Dickens that I've read is Great Expectations while I was in high school on my own time and struggled through it, uncertain that I actually followed any of it. That being said, it's also funny that there are particular lines in the show that are just so steeped into pop culture that I could recognize that they have been included from books that are not Oliver Twist. (If the way I phrased that even makes sense.) To put it a different way, I'm enjoying the fact that their working some of Dickens most famous lines into the show whether they are related to Oliver Twist or not.

[spectre-ship]

considering followup projects; I have some different fabrics I wanna work with. currently thinking I'll start off making a work blouse with oatmeal linen, something like these examples from the Merchant Tailor Museum:

albeit one with a rectangular body and off-the-shoulder gathered sleeve, so that I don't have to worry about drafting a curve for the armscye (I've seen examples of work blouses with sleeves like that in ambrotypes and daguerreotypes.) so it will be a bit of a weird cross between features from different examples of the same kind of garment, but certainly still nothing beyond imagining.

[raepritewrites]

not me over here wanting to create a Thumbelina cosplay inspired by 1840s party dresses that Hans Christian Anderson would have seen, nah jk... unless? 👀

[threadbareturnbacks]

I love you fusible interfacing I love you seam ripper I love you fray check I love you spray starch I love you zigzag scissors I love you magnetic pin cushion I love you extension cord I love you heat pens I love you tracing paper I love you cutting pad I love you hot glue I love you liquid stitch

[throwing-roses-into-the-abyss]

Went mostly offline this weekend for mental health reasons (spoiler: it didn't work). Made most of a waistcoat though. Sure I made it *badly* but better than nothing, right?

It still needs a lot of work, but also, considering I did all this today, by hand, I'm really happy with the amount of work I got done.

[ocpdzim]

This is an outfit from when Filonyn was very young, but they do still have it. Since it was before they were living among humans, they didn’t have to wear a big hat with it.

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

Advertisement for Dr. Scott's Electrical Hairbrush, from The Illustrated London News, Oct. 13th, 1883

Please tell me the Holmes-Watson household possessed one of these at some point! Of course, scientifically speaking, this is nonsense, but it helps you to ✨️IMMEDIATELY SOOTHE THE WEARY BRAIN✨️ and it prevents your hair from falling out and makes it glossy. Definitely a must-have!

Also, there is a scientific explanation about how this works (well, sort of. Sort of scientific. And sort of working. But that doctor from Leeds said an anonymous client of his tested it and it worked, so it must be true. It's in the papers)! Also, please just look at the striking design. It's so electric! Thrilling.

[A Study in Scarlet was first published in 1887, so some years after this advertising appeared, but it's set in 1881 and I couldn't find out (yet) how long this product was sold. I'm currently working with the 1883/84 issues, but I think I will ask to get some later ones from the archives just for fun *cough* I mean science. :D]

[hotniatheron]

putting Henry Purcell in an animated series is crazy

[tsukuyomiland]

I'm so so tired and I have been able to attach only one (1) sleeve, let's hope I can finish the other tomorrow, and then I only have to make the skiiiirt go go Pal go do it for your hometown ✨

[headspace-hotel]

i'm discovering the sublime joys of natural plant fibers. literally don't know how to knit or crochet or anything and barely know how to sew but extracting and spinning fibers is apparently like the golden ratio of physical and mental activities for me. It's so much fun I will lose hours at a time just HONED in on my yarn and stuff.

Milkweed is so awesome as a plant oh my god. It produces ultra-soft seed fluffs that apparently can be spun if you're careful, the fibers are so smooth they can easily pull apart but making three strands and spinning them into a three-ply yarn seems promising, seems like it would be strong enough to work with. The seed fluffs were historically used widely as stuffing for jackets and pillows and the like, which they are amazing for. Milkweed fluff is way warmer than wool apparently? And on top of it, it has this gorgeous silky sheen. It's SO pretty and it's SO soft.

But the milkweed stems also have bast fiber which is very strong and is obtained by taking the dead stems and beating the crap out of them until the woody stuff is all broken and the fibers separate. This stuff is strong and soft and also has a nice sheen to it and I'm excited to see what could be made from it

Altogether it's a shit ton of usable material per plant, all of which is harvested after the plant dies back for the winter, not affecting its ability to regrow the next spring. With common milkweed, the stems can be greater than 6ft tall and the seed pods are big and each containing a lot of fluff. I filled a whole plastic grocery bag with seed pods, easy, just by walking through a field with lots of milkweed.

Apparently an old common name for milkweed is "wild cotton" which strongly suggests that the seed fluffs have been used for textile purposes

I've also learned from browsing foraging sites, the Myaamia ethnobotanical database and various books that Milkweed has an insane amount of culinary uses. It must be cooked because of the poisons in it that discourage munching by predators, but you can eat the leaves, the flowers, the underdeveloped seed pods (apparently they are compared to cheese?! And the flowers color drinks pink??)

like whoa! so much benefit from one single plant!

I'm working with Dogbane (Apocynonum cannabinum) bast fibers right now and they're sooooo great. Not only is beating the fibers a ton of fun, the fibers are a really beautiful shiny chestnut-blonde sort of color and very strong and fine and soft.

Dogbane fibers also have this lovely fragrance that is like a blend of cedar and forest soil and old books. Milkweed has its own distinct fragrance, very subtle, that I struggle to describe and don't like as much, but it's cool to notice that it has a smell.