Spring For Cotton

Last year I participated in Lucky Lucille’s Sew For Victory sewalong, and made a green 1940s dress. I was hoping there would be another Sew For Victory this year, but there isn’t. However, Lucky Lucille is hosting another sewalong, Spring For Cotton, which involves sewing with 100% cotton. As it happens, the project(s) I was considering making for Sew For Victory involve cotton fabric, so I can make them for Spring For Cotton instead.

I will be making a red long-sleeved 1940s blouse using Vintage Simplicity pattern 1430, which I also used for my first 1940s blouse.

I had a seasonal colour analysis, as I believe it’s called in English, done recently, and found out I’m a deep winter type. That means cool colours suit me best, but moreover, the more intense cool colours (see colour palette on the right). I had this red fabric in my stash because I wanted some brighter coloured historical clothes, but after the analysis I assumed it was not a suitable colour for me. However, it turns out it’s rather a cool shade of red (yes, that is apparently possible – it means it’s not a yellowish red). So yay.

I’m tempted to make a second blouse for this sewalong as well, but I don’t really need more 1940s clothes at the moment because I made quite a few last year, so I should really give some other projects, for other eras, priority!

World War I VAD uniform

The Sew Monthly Challenge: February – Colour Challenge Blue: Make an item that features blue, in any shade from azure to zaffre.

Fabric: Blue 100% cotton chambray, 3.4 m white cotton for lining and 0.5 m for the sleeves, 50 x 56 cm white cotton lawn, thicker white fabric, red wool.

Pattern: Burda 125 Cassaque, heavily modified.

Year: 1914-1918 (the duration of WWI).*

Notions: Dress: 11 mother of pearl buttons, 0.65 m thin white cotton band. Cap: 70 cm twill tape, 80 cm thin white cotton band. Sleeves: two white buttons. Brassard (arm band): 9 sq. in. red wool, two safety pins. Apron cross: 20.25 sq. in. red wool.

How historically accurate is it? We certainly tried to make it as accurate as possible. Our research included period sewing instructions for this specific uniform, photographs of originals, and period photos of VADs wearing the uniform.

Hours to complete: Dress: I'd rather not say. Too many. Cap: unknown, I made it before. Sleeves: 3 h 15. Brassard: 1 hour. Apron cross: 6 minutes.**

First worn: Nurses and stretcher bearers training weekend on 7-8 March.

Total cost: €39.60. About €15 for the quilt cover, €10 for the lining fabric,€3 for the lawn, €3.60 for the buttons,and €8 for the leather belt. The rest of the materials I already had.

Last year I and the other nurses in my group made a World War I QAIMNS Reserve nurse’s uniform using a chambray quilt cover from H&M. Later we decided to make voluntary nurses’ (VAD) uniforms as well, mainly because besides the grey chambray, H&M had a light blue version as well, which was just perfect for a VAD dress.

QAIMNS nurses were professional military nurses who had had extensive training. VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachments, or Very Adorable Darlings, as they were also referred to by the troops), however, were volunteers, often from the middle and upper classes, who were often frowned upon by trained nurses and initially had to do non-medical tasks such as cooking and cleaning. A shortage of trained nurses resulted in VADs being allowed in overseas military hospitals though, and actually doing nursing work. As the VADs became more skilled, the trained nurses also became more accepting of their presence and work in the hospitals.

We’re going to do hospital displays this year, so it seemed nice to be able to portray both QAIMNS nurses and VADs.

This fabric is so pretty, a lovely sky blue or baby blue, and also nice to work with. I like it so much that I have bought an additional quilt cover to make a modern dress out of it, as well. The VAD dress itself is a bit less charming – it’s basically a sack! :P We used a simple Burda pattern which had a similar shape, but altered it to meet the original regulations we found, which said, for instance, that the dress should be 1 m wide (on both sides, so 2 m in total) at the bottom, and how much space the tucks required. So we really only used the arm hole and sleeve parts of the pattern, and even altered those.

There is an original VAD uniform in the collection of the Imperial WarMuseum. The close-up photographs of the dress show it’s quite hideously sewn – these dresses were clearly mass-produced at low cost. I didn’t attempt to match this ugliness, though it came in handy sometimes. I’m a perfectionist, but when I found myself considering doing a seam again because it was not quite as neat as I’d like, I’d think ‘still neater than the original!’ and just carry on =).

Besides the dress, the uniform consists of a brassard, black leather belt (worn when the apron is not), white fabric belt, cap, apron, collar and over sleeves; the latter four need to be starched. The apron is the same I wear as a QAIMNS(R), but with a red cross sewn onto it. The collar and white fabric belt are also the same.

We’ve got a training weekend coming up during which of one of our nurses’ boyfriend, who is a male nurse in real life, will be teaching us old-fashioned medical techniques and also some contemporary first aid. I’ll be wearing my uniform there, and will post pictures of the uniform in action, and detail photos, afterwards! I'll also have ironed the dress better by then... ETA: Photos added! I love the look of this uniform, it's so much cuter than the QAIMNS one. The cap is quite flattering, I think :).

This is what the dress looks like without the apron. It's basically a sack!

When off duty, the sack could also be worn with a black leather belt. As you can see, the front box pleat has an opening to accommodate the belt.

This is the cotton lawn Dora cap laid flat. Hasn’t it got a simple shape? Yet just starching it and tying the strings makes it into a cap.

We are also knitting bandages to use in our displays. You can see mine on my Ravelry page!

* Note on year: after 1915 this uniform was worn with a veil instead of the Sister Dora cap, so next year we will change this. The same goes for the collar, which also changed at some point.

** Note on time to complete: these are rough estimates. I tried to track the time, but am apparently rather hopeless at that. First I tried writing it down, but that didn’t work. Then I installed a time-tracking app, but that still didn’t work all that well, since I kept forgetting to either switch it on or off! Once I was driving and realised the app was still running. Once I was in the theatre after dining out, and realised the app was still running and had thus tracked several hours too many. Also, there was no pause button, so things like making tea are included. So as I said, rough estimates :P.

World War I QAIMNS Reserve nurse uniform

Pattern: Wingeo #411 1910-1915 skirt pattern, heavily modified

Fabric: grey cotton chambray, ca. 4 m white ‘nurses cotton’, grey wool, red wool, white linen

Haberdasheries: Six mother-of-pearl buttons, seven wire hooks, four mother-of-pearl collar studs

Two years ago Welmode and I made a Boer war nurse uniform, using a chambray quilt cover from H&M (and a straw hat from H&M as well!). Now, for the WWI commemoration events, we, along with a few other ladies, decided to make a QAIMNS Reserve nurse uniform as well, and amazingly, the same quilt covers were still available, so we all ordered those again!

This single quilt cover, when cut open, gave me 4.5 metres of 1.4 m wide fabric, which is pretty and lovely to work with. I’d find it rather boring as a quilt cover so I can’t think why it’s apparently so popular, but I do think it makes a nice dress!

To make the dress, we used the Wingeo Titanic skirt pattern, but altered it to suit our purpose. The pattern is for a hobble skirt, but nurse dresses were quite a bit wider and longer than those worn by fashionable ladies. So we made it wider by cutting the two back pieces as one, making it 1.5 times as wide in total, and gathering it at the top (leaving out the pleats). We also added some more space at the bottom of each pattern piece.

The bodice is improvised. It’s got a blind closure with four mother-of-pearl buttons; the collar closes with two wire hooks and thread loops, and the waistband and skirt close with five more hooks and thread loops (in all, the finished skirt has remarkably little to do with the Wingeo pattern :P).

Because the chambray is very thin, I lined the dress with thick ‘verpleegsterskatoen’ (‘nurses’ cotton’), which I thought nicely appropriate, treating outer fabric and lining as one when sewing everything together. When I bought the fabric I wasn’t sure how much of it I needed, so I got something like 4 metres, which turned out to be enough to make an apron as well.

The apron goes over the dress, and over that, a starched waistband closing with two mother-of-pearl buttons, and a wool tippet, which I lined with leftover chambray. On top of that come a starched collar and cuffs closed with collar studs. On our head, we wear a starched veil. A silver medal, circular with the letter ‘R’ in the centre, is worn in the right lapel of the tippet. This is not because I portray a decorated nurse, but it is standard issue, worn by all QAIMNS nurses. The R stands for ‘reserve’.

Have a look at the different layers of the uniform (this way I can show off the dress a bit, which I think is really pretty, but which no one ever gets to see because it’s almost entirely covered):

 

And the back of the uniform:

On the back of the tippet is a red wool rose. This looks strangely pretty and dainty for a uniform, but apparently it had a use – it makes leaning back in a chair uncomfortable, so it prevented nurses from slouching and from falling asleep!

With some of the other nurses in our group, Tommy’s Sisters 1914-1918:

  (Photos taken at Archeon by Hans Splinter.)

My starching failed here! When making the mixture for starching, one should first mix the starch powder with a little cold water, and then add boiling water, which cooks the starch and turns the mixture to a semi-transparent liquid, but strangely, the instructions on my package of Crackfree said to use warm water instead. My mixture looked like milk and didn’t work as it was supposed to.

Should you want to know more about nurses in World War I, I can recommend the book ‘The Roses of No Man’s Land’ by Lyn MacDonald. Very interesting and utterly readable, unlike some history books ;).

Light blue 1940s blouse

Pattern: Vintage Simplicity 2277, size 16

Fabric: Light blue poly cotton

Haberdasheries: Three buttons, a snap fastener

This is the blouse I almost finished during Sew For Victory. I used leftover fabric from my mother’s stash, and also the matching Gütermann yarn she still had, which was made in West-Germany! There wasn’t enough of it though, and when I bought an additional bobbin it turned out the colour number was still the same.

Here are all the pieces cut according to the pattern:

Usually I always make a mock-up when using a pattern for the first time, but since the Simplicity patterns I used before all fitted well, I didn’t make one for this blouse. I added three centimetres at the bottom to make it the same length as my other 1940s blouse, which became untucked before I lengthened it. I did notice the back seemed quite a bit wider than that of my other 1940s blouse, but I thought that would somehow make sense once the blouse was sewn up. It didn’t! I thought the blouse much too wide, even when trying to look upon it with 1940s eyes, and considering the fact that tops tended to be much wider then than they are now. The shoulder seam was also going to hang down my arm if I put the sleeves in without altering the cut.

So I took the back in by 8 cm, leaving the front as it was, and also made the shoulders narrower. I cut the sleeves wider, and made them puffy by adding a band, because I thought the suggested straight sleeves would have made the blouse a bit masculine.

I found the instructions difficult to follow, even with the added illustrations, but managed together with my boyfriend after explaining the sewing terms to him. I had to ignore my own ideas about how to sew this in order to understand what I had to do. Other than that, the blouse wasn’t hard to sew.