July 2011 – April 2013
A 1905 – 1909 everyday Edwardian ensemble for picnics and outdoor costume gatherings. The black wool skirt and Folkwear blouse are accessorized with my dip-waist belt and hat. The skirt is worn with a number of blouses I’ve made over the years. Those are discussed below. Foundation layers consist of an Edwardian corset girdle and yoke petticoats, a modern bra, and my Victorian bum pad. It’s very comfortable for an all-day event. An S-bend corset would also be appropriate with this outfit. But I suspect there would be little point in building one. For better or for worse, I think my silhouette looks about as authentic as the clothing and hair. Everything is relative. I have justifications!
1900s Blouse (July – August 2011)
A blouse from Folkwear’s #205 Gibson Girl. The yoke is 100% cotton embroidered lawn, purchased a few years ago with this pattern in mind. The body is in a plain matching cotton lawn with shell buttons for the back closure. The blouse is finished with 3/16″ french seams, while the yoke and armscye have 1/4″ bindings. I left off the sleeve cuffs and used narrow bindings instead.
The pattern has a very wide shoulder line. After the first mockup a few years ago, it seemed to need adjusting. But now I see it looks appropriate for the 1900s.
I wanted my embroidery to look as though it were intentionally designed for the blouse. But my eyelet fabric has an asymmetrical pattern. I recut it twice before settling on a version I liked: lining up the clusters of flowers so they followed the curve of the yoke. It also took two tries to cut the collar. When I included eyelets, it was a mess. Now the collar has embroidered stems only and no eyelet holes.
Images such as these three Edwardian ladies inspired me to make a few alterations to the pattern. These included a taller collar – and I used my trusty Laughing Moon guimpe pattern for a closer fit. The sleeves were cut fuller and shorter so they poof out around elbow level. The hem was lengthened. The gathers at the back waist were too high for me, so I decided to skip them. But I did end up adding a waist tape to control the fullness.
Skirt (March – April 2013)
Folkwear’s #209, “Walking Skirt” pattern in a black sheer wool. It’s the fourth time I’ve used the pattern.
1905 – 1909 Hat with roses (June – July 2014)
This nicely woven vintage straw hat was blocked over a kitchen bowl to give it a slightly wider crown. Inside the crown, I added a lining with an adjustable drawstring. This allows the hat to sit high on the head (and it’s a common feature in Edwardian originals). The “silk” flowers from Michaels were made softer by removing the plastic spacers, then basting the petals back together by hand.
1900s – 1910s Eyelet Blouse (October – December 2014)
Despite my little collection of Edwardian blouses, I wanted something slightly different to wear under the 1906 wool bolero suit. There was just enough cotton eyelet left from my 1905 Everyday outfit’s blouse to make a simple guimpe. The pattern is Laughing Moon’s #104, which is meant to be worn under a dress and fits snugly. So I went up a size and lengthened it several inches.
The sleeves seemed to be restricting my range of motion so I initially finished this as a sleeveless blouse. But four years later I wanted sleeves after all. They were still in my stash, all sewn up, and I couldn’t find any real reason not to add them. Maybe I’m just less fussy now. In order to wear the blouse with the bolero, I whipped up a pair of separate half sleeves to extend the 3/4 length. The blouse closes up the back with pretty shell buttons.
1900s Blouse, March – April 2016
This blouse is a cotton dobby – sheer but heavily embroidered. It wasn’t going to work with a pattern that had a lot of gathering through the body, like Folkwear’s #205 blouse. I used the Laughing Moon guimpe pattern for the third time instead. It’s basically my eyelet blouse above, with corrected armscye. I definitely wanted puffy sleeves, so Folkwear’s blouse sleeves were revised and added. It’s a relatively simple blouse. But the shape seems about right, per the two ladies on the left, in the photo.
The fabric proved too bulky for french or flat-felled seams. So I tried something totally different. Each side of the seam allowance is finished separately into 3/16″ hand felled seams. The seam is flat and flexible, though at 3/8 inch, wider then you’d expect to see on a sheer blouse. The sleeves are gathered into 1/2″ bindings, using a wide stripe of the embroidery. The armscye bindings and collar lining are batiste. The blouse hem is overcast, a tip I picked up in Shaeffer’s Couture book. And I always splurge for the fancy buttons, despite the cost. In this case, they’re 3/8″ plain shell.