Victorian Slippers ~ Making a Wearable Mockup

One thing that has been difficult for me over the years is finding period appropriate footwear. I bought a pair of Fugawee Victoria boots about 10 years ago and have been wearing them ever since. They have needed regular maintenance and have been resoled by a shoe repairmen many times. It's just part of the upkeep required. I've had to sew on new buttons when the old ones have fallen off. They've done incredibly good service but over the last few seasons it has become really evident that they are getting too shabby and stretched out to be good for anything requiring a nice impression. Saddle soap and boot blacking work wonders but in the end can only do so much. I've fixed them up as best I can to save for active wear (and in the summer I usually go without shoes altogether) but I had absolutely nothing to wear for nicer or indoor events. In the past I've used "good enough" modern shoes in a passable shape but I don't feel comfortable making compromises like that anymore.

There are a few good places to get amazing reproduction shoes but even the most affordable ones are still out of my budget. With six kids and real life, plunking down over a hundred dollars on a pair of shoes just isn't happening! But I had some scraps and bits and bobs left over from other projects and with guidance from The Workwoman's Guide and several blog posts, like this one from The Pragmatic Costumer, I decided to try to make soft shoes of my own that could be used for gentle wear outdoors or normal indoor wear. 

What I ended up with are slippers that are definitely not perfect, but they are a good start and I know what to change to make the next pair better. These are still certainly wearable, though and I am happy to have them as an alternative to my shabby, sad looking boots. 

I made these over the course of a week or so during a period of dark, rainy days. So I apologize for the poor lighting in most of the photos. It's been a damp November so far!

The hardest part was coming up with a pattern shape that conformed to period shapes and still fit my foot without falling off. I have an average size foot (about a modern size 7) but a really high arch. I started by tracing my foot and drawing out pattern shapes based on my foot tracing. I went through five mock ups before finding a shape that worked with enough tightness to stay on my foot. 

I had some bits of black silk left over from making a belt earlier this year. I had to piece it so there is a seam at the toe but oh well, it is what it is. I was originally just going to line the slippers with some scrap silk but the layers seemed too light. Having never handled an original slipper I don't know if this flimsy-ness and lightness was usual but to me I felt like I wanted some more stability and shape. So I cut another layer in canvas, and then, at the end, another layer in light cotton batting. This made a still soft shoe but one that held its shape on its own much better. 

To make the shoes I sewed the outer silk and the canvas together as one layer, and the lining and batting together as the other. Then I put the two layers together, wrong sides together, and basted them all around. 

To finish the opening I cut bias strips of black cotton sateen, also from the scrap drawer, and bound the edges. 

Then I cut out two soles of the thickest leather I had on hand (this is what I usually use for cap brims or the ends of suspenders/braces) and pierced holes all around the edges. 

After sewing the uppers to the soles I turned the shoes and it looked. . .terrible. The uppers pulled weirdly and it seemed the soles had stretched so the shoe was much too large. 

The next day I went back to them and removed the uppers from the soles. I cut new soles out of several thicknesses of wool and sewed them on instead. The fit was once again good. I wanted leather soles so I could wear the shoes outdoors so I took the soles I had first tried, cut off about 1/4" all around (enough to shave off the holes I had pierced) and glued, yes, glued, the leather soles to the wool soles. I had no idea if this would work or not and is almost certainly NOT a period correct thing to do, but I figured it was worth a try so I could salvage the slippers so they could be worn. I used rubber cement to glue them on and left them under a few large heavy books for the glue to dry. After a few hours the leather was firmly adhered to the wool and I tried them on. They fit nicely. 

To decorate the toes I sewed on some beads I got at a local discount shop. I could have left them plain but oh well, I like beads. :) I also added a sole lining to the inside made of silk and a layer of batting. 

I had the chance to wear the slippers last week. I wore them all day outdoors, on pavement, grass and dirt. At the end of the day the soles were still firmly attached. So, I am cautiously optimistic that these will hold up to gentle wearing!

Next time I want to get thicker leather and make properly sewn and turned soles, but first I need to adjust my sole pattern to be a little tighter for leather. 

In the meantime, I'm happy to have these! 

Altering Regency Stays for a Smaller Bust

This is another of my recent makeover projects. I found myself wanting to make a new 1810's dress lately and although it will probably be a while before I make the dress, I need to get the undergarments in order. I knew I'd probably have to either redo my current regency undergarments or make new. For many months they've been buried beneath my 1860's things in the big wall trunk and I've put off getting them out and seeing what needs to be done.

I made my stays last summer and since then have adopted a ketogenic lifestyle (just passed the 1 year mark!) and lost the last bit of baby weight that stubbornly clung like a soggy donut to my mid section. During the past 11 years I've pretty much been in a constant state of pregnancy or breastfeeding and that changed my figure significantly. Now, my two and a half year old toddler is mostly weaned (she does still nurse, but infrequently and only for a few minutes before bed/napping) and I feel fairly confident this is the body size and shape I'll be dealing with for the foreseeable future. So the stays I made last summer were now 2 cup sizes too large and did not give the hoisted high and separated look that was so desirable in the early 19th century.

Normally I'd just make new stays but I put so much work and love into these that I wanted to fix them if I could. I found that I needed to take in each "cup" about an inch so I picked off the front binding, removed the gussets and cut them a little narrower. I sewed them back in, put the binding back on and evaluated. It still looked pretty bad and didn't give much lift.

I went a little crazy and got super frustrated with various attempts at fixing this problem. In the end, it was the simplest solution that worked best! I put a drawstring through the front binding as is sometimes seen in extant examples of stays, like these:

1820's Corset from V&A

Before I tried this I thought it would give a bumpy look to the bustline but I find the opposite is true! The drawstrings pull in the top of the gussets just enough to create a supportive cup for the lower part of the bosom to rest and my shift (which thankfully still fits and works without alterations!) contains the top of the bosom, which is just how it should be.

The gussets are maybe a teeny bit long for true early 19th century
fashion, but still give a passable shape and will work well
for 1820's and 30's too.

I still didn't get a lot of lift but eventually realized that I needed to shorten my straps to pull the bust up to the right height. I just took in a tuck at the back of each strap to shorten them. Another solution would have been to cut the straps off to the right length and rebind and rework eyelets in them but a tuck was way less work. :D

The stitching joining the bust gussets to the stays looked horrible after so many attempts at redo, so I covered up the stitching line with decorative embroidered chain stitch. Not perfect, but it looks a lot better.

My petticoat required taking in at the underarm to take in the bust but that was a quick and easy fix. Now I am ready to make a dress whenever I find decent fabric, time (always the hardest thing!) and get struck with inspiration.

1860's Green Plaid Work Dress

This has definitely been a year for 1860's dresses. This is my most recent one and maybe my last for the year. Of course, I still have silk for a ball gown and material for a fancy sheer skirt and white waist folded up on a shelf in the sewing room but I don't think I will have need of outfits like those for quite some time. I really really want to get into the 18th century after this! Especially as I begin the process of documenting my ancestor for the DAR. (squeeee!!!!)

This dress ties in with a lot of the sewing I did over the summer that I have yet to blog about. Back in the spring I made a new set of over the hoop petticoats out of some sheets. I loved, and still love my new pettis! But the old ones were still in pretty good condition and I thought I may be able to remake them and give them a second life. I've been through many pregnancies since making them so the waistbands were the wrong size and the balance of the skirts very off. Still, very fixable.

Back when I made the old petticoats I still had a really bad habit of doing gathers on the machine for undergarments. By remaking them I was able to put on a proper waistband with proper stroked gathers. The new-old petticoats ended up pretty short. To balance them properly, I sewed on new bands of fabric at the top and balanced them from the waist. I made the length to go to right above my ankle bones. I find that at a lot of events my skirt hems get wet and heavy if there is any dampness and it's easy to see why hems for laboring women were sometimes made quite a bit shorter than usual!

Anyway, I ended up with two very serviceable, properly fitted and short petticoats. Around this same time I also made a bum pad to help give more lift to the skirts and create a better silhouette for this period. With my new awesome bum pad and pettis I needed a short-skirted dress!

I found a large flat queen size sheet at Goodwill for a few dollars and figured it was enough to make a plain work dress. I intended to have it done so I could wear it to an event in late September but that event ended up being cancelled a month before it was supposed to happen. (I wasn't too happy!) so I shelved the project for a while.

It did get finished though, just in time for several Halloween activities. The dress went together well although I had a little difficulty with the high thread count fabric and the fit of the armscyes. I hate armscye problems! It seems the fabric stretched a little so there was too much width across the upper chest. I had to take out the sleeves and recut the armscyes in a little smaller. There was enough fabric in the sheet to make the skirt about 140" in width at the hem. I had to piece one of the bias lower sleeves but the piecing is at the back and matched as well as I could manage. All in all, this is a great little work dress! It's comfortable and easy to wear and I think will be my go-to dress for any impression requiring a lot of activity. I made the bodice with just piping at the edge instead of my usual waistband. It gives a slightly different look but I like it as it's different from what I normally do. The waist is also a little bit higher to help balance out the shorter length of the skirts.

Accessorized for active wear, suitable for this time of year. 

It's been drizzly and cold, so I am wearing my (new!) big pinner apron,

scarf tied at the back waist, plaid neckerchief and quilted hood.

Accessorized for "better" indoor use with a silk belt and silver buckle,sheer fichu, white collar, mourning brooch, lightweight shawl and pink bead

earrings. This look is a little iffy since I am not wearing a hoop and most proper ladies of

the era would try to wear at least a modest hoop. This dress just won't do hoops. Nope. 

Thank  you to my oldest son for the pictures he took yesterday. It was fun creating different looks with different accessories!

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

A Dress of Autumn Roses for Rose

It has been a beautiful fall so far! The heat lifted last week and we are having cool nights and warm days. Perfect weather. We are outside as much as we can be, soaking up the sunshine and fresh air. I finally got my sewing room situated and this dress is the first project to be completed.

Rose got tall over the summer (she is still a peanut, though!) and a lot of her favorite dresses are too short. She is opinionated about her attire and prefers to wear dresses right now so I want to make her a couple of sturdy ones she can wear over and over throughout the fall and that don't require any special care.

For this dress I turned to my go-to pattern for little girls dresses, the Sense and Sensibility Regency Girls dress, and used up some rose printed cotton and repurposed a pink linen pencil skirt from my closet. I bought the fabric early in the spring of 2015, intending to make a dress for my baby girl before she was born but she arrived 5 weeks early and the dress never got made. I think it's more fun to sew for a toddler than for a baby, though (I love receiving her constructive criticism and seeing her enthusiasm as a garment takes shape!) and I'm glad I waited to use up this fabric.

I didn't have quite enough to make a whole dress so that's where an old linen skirt of mine came in. I used the linen for the bodice and an attached apron skirt. I think it's better this way since the linen washes up well and will help keep the lighter cotton clean! Rose isn't an extraordinarily messy child but she's a typical toddler and spills and stains are part of daily life. The rose printed cotton is really lightweight so the skirt is lined with part of an old cotton sheet that also serves as a built in petticoat.

It's warm enough to still go out without shoes or coats and Rose likes to pick up sticks and leaves from the backyard to throw into the fire pit. She and Benjamin frequently argue over who finds the biggest stick or the prettiest leaf.

And yes, she got a hair cut. I admit I'm not a fan of the look but she and Benjamin cut each others hair a few weeks ago with a smuggled set of Anne's safety kindergarten scissors and both of them had to get haircuts as a result. It will grow. It's just hair. But for now she's got a 1920's flapperish look going on. I think it will work well with the Halloween costume we have planned for her!

I really enjoyed making this dress and am so happy to have a nice space to sew in once more. It's good to feel settled in at last.

Happy October!

An 1860's Day Cap

The end of summer swept by last week and autumn fell immediately in a swirl of gold and crimson leaves. The boys are back in school and this year my little Anne joined them, trotting off to get on the bus as a wide eyed kindergartener. Thus, the number of babes at home has dwindled down to two. Another year gone. And as Rosie likes to tell me "I am NOT a baby, mommy. I'm a tod'lr." Benjamin also puts in his two cents. "I'm a t-rex."

Unpacking the trunk

It has been a really full, busy summer. I didn't get a lot of sewing accomplished but I'm glad I didn't try to. The fall will see a big pick up in projects since I always feel more productive then and it's good to get back in the sewing room! I wasn't totally idle, though - I did make some small projects using up some bits and bobs I had left from other things. Most of these projects were either little ones I had planned for a rainy day or redoing older garments. I'll try to post about them all, eventually, but for today I have some pictures of a new 1860's cap. I really like this one!

The cap pictured with our newest 1860's material culture addition - an 1862 Bible!

Earlier this spring when I made my organdy fichu from a thrifted organdy dress, I had some scraps left that I thought I could turn into a cap whenever I had a little spare time. Late this summer when I had packed up my sewing things for a much-anticipated move I was going a little crazy not having something to work on. I had kept out a little box of thread, needles and pins and I still had my scrap box unpacked! So I finally made this cap and every bit of organdy has been put to good use.

Organdy scraps laid out and cut to shape. The bit of lace isfrom the sleeve of the
organdy bodice.

I also used this silk lace-trimmed hankie for the lace. I bought this hankie years ago from the
big antique mall in Peoria, IL before it closed its doors.

The cap with the band attached, and the lower edge gathered and whipped to the lace.

The cap is based on several illustrations of morning or breakfast caps from the early 1860's. It's not an exact copy of any of them, but has the general silhouette and frivolity. It's based on a U shape and trimmed with lace and a ruffle and the last bit of satin ribbon I had left from a big roll I bought years ago. I soaked the ribbon in a diluted bleach solution for about a half hour to make it more green than blue.

Attaching lace to the band.

Construction before the ruffle!

Attaching the ruffle was a pain and the pins kept slipping out. 

I haven't had a chance to wear it at an event yet but did try it on at home to see how it would look. I think it looks kind of silly but it will be a nice accessory for a more modest middle-class look. I feel like a Cranford lady. ;)

Finished except for ribbons!

Isaiah 41:10 will always be my favorite verse; the first one I ever recited at my
mothers knee. It reads just as beautifully in this 1862 version.

Happiness Is. . .

. . .a yellow silk bonnet! I've been working on this hand sewing project lately and it seems all of a sudden my project is done, and it is September and this autumn promises to be cool enough to wear it.

This material started out as a sleeveless top I bought at the thrift store for $1 earlier this year. Silk tops and toddlers don't go together that well, so it became a bonnet. I had just enough and used up lots of scraps for the lining and wadding. I'm so happy with it. It's such a cheerful little bonnet to look at!