Spring For Cotton – project finished!

Pattern: vintage Simplicity 1430, size 16 (bust 34”).

Fabric: bright red cotton.

Haberdasheries: four cover buttons, five snap fasteners.

Yes, I know, if the deadline for a sewalong is 30 April, that doesn’t mean you can’t post the project before 30 April! :P I actually had this blouse nearly finished at the beginning of this month, but then other things got in the way. It’s finished now, though!

This wasn’t my most inspired bit of sewing ever; I would have liked it to turn out more neat. The fabric was a bit strange – it changes colour when I iron it! Luckily it does change back when it cools. Also, the weft and warp don’t seem to run perpendicularly, which made it impossible to cut the pattern pieces on the straight grain in both directions. Meh.

It was a nice, relatively quick project though, because I’d already used the pattern before. I didn’t need to make a toile, and already knew I had to lengthen the blouse by 6 cm and add a snap fastener below the bottommost button :). I really should use patterns twice, more often! I did do one thing differently from the first time I used this, for some variety: I made long sleeves. But that didn’t make things very difficult.

I’ll post another photo once I’ve worn this!

1915 hat

Pattern: none, I improvised.

Fabric: a strip of buckram, natural coloured linen for lining, black cotton velvet.

Haberdasheries: six turkey feathers, 35 cm of black lace.

Finally, a post I can tag ‘millinery’! =) I’ve made quite a few hats, but I find it really difficult to decorate them in a nice way, so they tend not to reach the ‘finished’ state and I don’t post them. I really like how this one’s turned out, though.

I’m making a 1915 suit, and wanted a modern hat to wear with it, not one of those large Edwardian ones. Lots of images of 1915 fashion had cylinder-shaped hats like these:

So I decided to make a simple cylinder out of buckram, line it and cover it with black velvet in pleats. Then I’d add some turkey feathers I already had, in a fan shape on the side.

Searching for 1915 hats, I also found several which had crazy feathers!

Hm, these ladies don’t all look equally happy with their hats… I certainly wasn’t planning to make anything like this, I just saved the images for fun. But somehow the upright feather stuck, and I ended up making this:

I wore it to the event at Passchendaele Memorial Museum last weekend. It is NOT handy when getting in and out of a tent! Or when walking through the dugout part of the museum, for that matter. Of course I didn’t think of that, but holding my hat in my hand worked well enough.