Wow! June! Hello Summer! In another day it will be mid-month, and I'll be writing my Mid-Month Review in my handwritten journal. The weather has been superb, at least up until this heatwave of the last few days. And that's okay, too. I've been getting plenty of early morning kayaking in, but this won't last forever since soon, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will be letting out the water for energy and conservation. The lake is already down two feet from last month. This is what I do in summer. Hike Brighton early in the morning, if it's nice on the lake, take my Swifty out. The rest of the day is spent being a homemaker, lover-reader of books and working on some project in my studio.
After I completed the 1840s Gardening ensemble, I took a break. I noticed that my last post was April 3rd and it was a shock. This is the longest project I've ever worked on. Nothing was easy. Everything was new, and yet I was determined as ever to create the Spectating 1920s ensemble.
I really hate the fashion on the cover of this book. Its just plain ugly. But inside are some of the loveliest and interesting historical outfits I've come across. I'm always saying that I love the fashions of the 1950s, but the 20s are right up there with them.
What inspired me to create this? Maybe it was the way the mannequin was displaying a sexy little knee. Or it could have been the Arctic Fox stole. Or maybe is was the opportunity to embroider the little tennis player on the dress. I think that was it. The embroidered tennis player intrigued me. I have never seen anything like this dress before and wondered if the wearer of this dress did that herself.
Only towards the end of this project did I thoroughly read the description and found out that these dresses were sold this way for the sole purpose of celebrating the event the woman was attending. I've included the description, so just give a click on
it and you should be able to read it.
It was probably a week or two into April that I began looking for fabrics and notions to create this outfit. Finding a silk this color was going to be difficult. I would have to dye my own fabric. Fabric stores don't want to pay the tariffs to stock good silks from India and China any longer. I did have a nice stash of whites and ivories, but if I blew it, I wasted the silk. As I'm sitting here writing, it all comes back to me. There was a lot of hesitation and doubt along the way, and often I would just stop what I was doing for a day or two to really think it through.
I'll share a sad and funny story. I spent about two weeks ordering and testing Dharma dyes to find the exact color I needed for this dress. I'd be dying the hat braid and possibly lace along with the silk to make them all the same color. I was snipping off little pieces of the silk I wanted to use to get the dye bath correct. Finally, I began mixing dyes. The coral had too much blue in it
so I began adding a daffodil yellow. These dye baths and tests take hours, but obviously, if you get it right, you're on your way.
So silly me got excited about the color I'd developed and dunked a nice piece of prime off-white silk taffeta in the bath. I swished and swirled the fabric for a nice even color, and whoops! It didn't work. Guess what? I'd forgotten to wet soak the silk first. NEVER put a dry piece of cloth in a dye bath. I was disheartened. So, I mixed some more and began again on the same piece to even the color. The washed silk looked okay, but while I was doing all of this, I'd kept looking online for the right color. And found it. Ordered the rest of what the seller had and when that arrived, I dyed the hat braid and a lace to match.
I've mentioned this before, but hat braid is getting harder to come by as well because of tariffs. When I first stated sewing back in 2011, it was easy to buy doll supplies. Monique Trading was still in business for wigs, silks were plenty in a wide range of colors,
and notions like hat flowers and braid were plenty, easy to buy both new and vintage. You really have to be patient and dig and look and look and dig to find notions now. This isn't a problem for contemporary costuming, but it is for vintage and historical costuming.
All that said, 32 degrees North is a great place for hat flowers if you need them. This is where I would find the ones I used for the Spectating hat.
I purchased a pair of olive-colored shoes from Facets Boutique and considered changing the color to a more yellow olive but didn't. It's something I've been thinking about all the way through this project and I still might do it so they look more like the pumps on the mannequin. For now, they will remain their original color.
So, what does this costume consist of? A coral-colored silk dress with a mixed pleat skirt, a stole, a hat, a pair of gloves and of course, shoes.
This long bodice took me four tries, four mock ups. I simply couldn't figure out what was going on in the photograph no matter how closely I looked. Why? Because I'd never done a dress like this before. It was not an easy pattern to construct. This photo on the right shows the V neck as it was made on the original. There is a row of insertion lace between the "collar" and the bodice. At first, I thought this "row" was just some kind of lace like mini eyelash lace. I dug in my stash and found some. Then realized that this was not what was going on with this dress and started the pattern all over again.
I had to cut down existing insertion lace that I had just to get that tiny row. I call it peep lace, as you can see her skin through the tiny ladders. The doubled-over V collar has the insertion zigzag stitched to it on the machine, then that was hand-stitched to the faced bodice. Working with that tiny strip of insertion took delicate, patient hand stitching.
The sleeves are very full with long cuffs. I must remember that shoulders on these patterns need to be very narrow. With the addition of the separate collar, it was part of the shoulder. That took some fiddling and rework as well. Getting the V deep enough to resemble the original took some effort.
I spent a great deal of time on this dress. Just judging the length of the bodice and the length of the skirt with complicated pleating took a week. Once that V neck had been done, I couldn't make a mistake. I had to account for the row of cluny lace that flows around the embroidered tennis player, the exact height of the tennis player, and the space between the bottom edge of the lace and the nine rows of green stitching.
What was interesting and super fun, was that after I'd done the embroidery, hand stitched the cluny lace on, cutting it around the tennis player and securing it so it didn't unravel!, and sewing the nine rows of green, I realized what I was looking at! And I
laughed. That lace was supposed to resemble the net on the tennis court! Most likely the green rows were to resemble the color of the court itself.
Finding a close matching cluny lace took some time, but I did. It was vintage lace from the 1920s, so even if it wasn't a perfect match, I felt good about it. Knowing now that it was to resemble a tennis net, I might have looked a bit more. Bottom line, a lace that small doesn't exist. I did learn that some people have actually learned lace making just do things like this. No. Not going there.
I took of photo of the dress before sewing up the back so you could see the pleating and how the decoration was done. On the original, there were many more of the tinier pleats, but this is a doll's dress, and I just wasn't going to get that many. The constant ironing and pressing to get the silk taffeta to pleat was done throughout the finishing of the dress. I did run a gathering stitch to keep them in place, only to be taken out at the very end. I could have taken the dress off the doll and pressed them one more time but didn't. The gathering stitch holes will relax over time.
The tennis player was fun to embroider as I knew she would be. I used the same process as I did embroidering the Grinch on the pinafore at Christmastime. Again, you can click on these photos to see them close up.
The next three photos were taken right before I began writing this post. Here is Lacie posing similarly to the mannequin.
Elegance.
Here's a view of the back of the dress. Six tiny matching Barbie buttons with thread loops close the back. One is on the top section of the V collar. A hook would have been too clunky.
A side view showing the pretty bow tied sash.
There is also a bow at the shoulder on the other side. Both sash/bows were done in the same silk. Because of the stiffening that occurs with stitching, these bows have been gently tacked down to "drape" correctly. Using a silk satin bow of the same color would have been nice, I could have dyed it, but there were none to dyed this exact size.
And now that hat. There is a name for these hats. It's called a petal hat. While I was trying to figure out how to make the look of the crown, I discovered the name.
As mentioned earlier, this hat braid went in the good dye bath I'd made. It came out beautifully.
I made my own hat mold and the first whack at it had to be taken down to the brim and reworked. It was too big. I don't usually make that kind of mistake, but I think the task of decorating the hat had me at odds.
The flowers I purchased would work along with the velvet leaves I'd chosen, but I dyed the pink and white flowers with a yellow-gold alcohol marker to get the right colors. I removed the flowers from their stems and hand stitched each one on, and closely, interspersing leaves and tiny dark purple velvet flowers for depth.
The flat bow band is from a piece of silk taffeta that I've had for ages. It was the perfect color. Kind of a gray plum with orange threads. Sounds weird but if you've ever worked with some of these silks, the colors can be like this.
After I'd sewn the flowers on, I crushed them to the crown.
Lastly, without a bit of wire, the hat brim would have been flat like a saucer sitting on her head. So I cut a length of very fine cotton wrapped floral wire and dyed it a plum color with alcohol markers and stitched it to the edge of the brim. This allowed me to shape it like a flounce.
In this photo, you can see the tiny button at the collar of the neckline.
Just for fun. This was a photo I took on my cellphone to share with my friend Betsy while we were visiting. She lives in Cincinnati and we visit as often by phone as we can. She was bugging me to see the dress and didn't want to wait for this posting. I was happy to oblige.
You can see the paper towel covered in color where I dyed the wire. That's the table I work on in my studio, and Maisie keeps me company at all times. She's my muse.
Full view before the rest of the outfit was made.
And here it comes. The emotionally difficult part of the project. Yes, we love the look of fur stoles, but they were once little animals. You know how I feel about this, but you also know what a stickler I am to accuracy when creating a costume.
What the mannequin is wearing is a fur pelt stole similar to this vintage one that was sold on Etsy. These fur pelt stoles were symbols of wealth to the wearer. Some were made with the front legs, some without. For the purpose of this project and since the front legs couldn't be detected on the mannequin's stole, I left them off.
I'd originally wanted to make this from real fur. This seller of doll coats in Canada would sell me scraps and I had a good sized white scrap to use. However, even after I made the pattern and cut
it out of the pelt, the fur was too long. I tried to trim it, but it wouldn't lay flat. So, I went for Plan B and used white plush teddy bear fur. MUCH easier to work with.
In this photo you see a similar stole that was made of real fur for a large French Fashion doll, and sold on Ruby Lane. The odd thing is that I believe the doll must have been really big becasue this was the pelt of a whole animal. It had the head.
Look, this is tough enough for me to talk about, but this is it, the facts laid out and if you want to do things correctly, you study, learn and do the best you can to achieve your goal in doll costuming.
The stole out of teddy bear fur is soft and cute and was easy to trim around the head for a more
accurate look. It could have been a little longer, but I did not wish to make it one more time. The head is separate and sewn to the body for the reason of shape. I really had a hard time making this pattern. Perhaps for no other reason than that I'd never made one before. This is very tiny work when it comes to heads and faces. I could not add ears because the knit backing of the faux fur fell apart. So I trimmed close to the head to give a look of "ear hole"
It came out the way I expected, except for the length, and is a nice representation of a vintage pelt stole for a fashion doll. I may trim down the leg fur a bit, still, but for the purpose of this post, its done.
Here is what it looks like draped over her arm.
I was tired. Tired of working on this incredibly difficult and long project, and I did NOT want to make another pair of gloves. I did not. Nope. No way. So, I made them.
I went to bed that night and slept on it. Got up and knew that the outfit would not be complete without them. I also knew that they were cotton gloves, not leather, so would need to be made differently.
I went upstairs, found this white t-shirt top and cut it up. This was interesting. I sewed the edges with a blanket stitch as I do leather gloves but really didn't like the way it looked, so before I stitched past the thumb, I tried to turn it inside out. It worked. Smoothly too.
The gloves have this lovely sheer cuff to them and the tops are decorated with points. This was also something new I learned. The term "points". Points are the decorative stitching lines often
found on the backs of vintage gloves. I read in one description that when gloves were handmade like these were, the point stitching was the glovemaker's signature, and those that wore these special gloves were often well-to-do. Another sign of wealth.
I'd made line stitching on the backs of leather gloves for dolls before but never ventured into finding out their history or what they were called. I have a lot to research and ponder on while making these costumes, and this is what fascinates me.
Lastly, I considered making white stockings to go with this ensemble then researched this as well. Apparently, skin-tone stockings were most popular in the early 1920s, as well as pastels such as light pink. The mannequin is white. This often confuses me as I attempt to replicate a costume. Is she wearing white stockings or is it just the composition of the mannequin? Is that lace on the V or is it the mannequin's white body showing through?
I learned a lot on this creative journey. There were many doubtful moments as well as many mockups and do-overs. Its one-of-a-kind and won't be made again. It is the fifth costume I've recreated from the Sporting Fashion book and there are still several I would like to do. I won't say it's fun. I'm still not sure I even like sewing. But these projects challenge me to try new things and keep learning the history of costuming as well as new ways of doing things and terms I didn't know previously. If I could buy it in a store, I would. When I have a vision and want something, I can be quite determined to make it happen. The fun for me is making it happen. Knowing I did it, figured it out. It also drives me to make another, and this is often why the projects become more complicated as time goes on.
I like the way it turned out and purchased an old version of the Lacie doll to wear it permanently. This wigged Lacie is wearing the Sunny Days Anne Fitzpatrick wig. It makes a great 1920s bob. Enjoy the summer and make the most of every day! Keep playing dolls.
