Reading List Part Three: So You Want to Learn to Sew Historically

You, too, could embroider napkins
with your four identical friends.

Step one: acquire a historical sewing manual!  I'm lucky enough to have access to a university library of some size, with a large textile arts section, so I've found most of my favorites by just browsing the TT 500's.  I've also tracked down some gems by requesting an inter-library loan at my local public library, so that's an option if you know what you're looking for.

Here are a couple of my discoveries:

Authentic Victorian Dressmaking Techniques--more accurately titled Authentic Edwardian Dressmaking Techniques--is a reprint of a Butterick pamphlet from 1905, and oh how times have not changed.  Sleeve cap ease?  Check.  FBAs?  Check.  There are even pictures of a pleasant-looking woman with very big hair having her measurements taken, from which we modern readers may learn that the 'bust' measure at that time was actually what we'd call 'high bust' or 'chest'--good to know, if you're sewing from a very old pattern.

Reading List Part Two: So You Want to Learn Some History

Tiny babies with giant bread!

These are the sources I turn to in my quest to learn more about domestic history.  This is an incredibly incomplete list and contains no truly academic writings, journals, theoretical texts, etc.  There are even some TV shows.  I know, I know, they should take my grad student card away.


Blogs:

Susannah at CargoCultCraft spent a year on her Fashion on the Ration project, buying and making clothes within the constraints that British families faced in 1941.  She's collected both the original government restrictions and information on how home seamstresses managed, from paring down patterns to take up less fabric to remaking worn-out men's clothes into women's.  This is one of those things that I was terribly curious about and elated to find out that someone else had already done the research (literally!)!

Shelley at New Vintage Lady makes vintage garments with a focus on drafting or altering plus-size patterns!  Her blog has lots of tutorials, and the 'foundation garments' and 'sleepwear' sections of her website contain some very useful information on making these overlooked items (not to mention her blog, which is a veritable wealth of inspiration for the "stout" figure).

Reading List Part One: So You Want to Learn to Sew

Oh, Natalie, my Russian taskmistress.

Here are some books to get you started.  (Note: these books will skew toward the pattern drafting side of things, since that's my primary interest, and also not terribly easy to just pick up on your own.)  We'll start useful and move on to the more "historical" texts in Part Three.  Most everything here is in the intermediate range; I sewed amateurishly for almost six years before finally getting serious about it, so it's been quite a while since I looked at the books for absolute beginners--though The Sew Everything Workshop looks like a good all-around start, if you're at the what-is-this-dial-on-my-sewing-machine stage of things.  If you're a bit farther along, try these books:

Modern Sewing Texts:

Dressmaking Texts of the 20th Century, Part I: Those Merry Togs

Fundamentals of Dress is primarily a style guide--and, implicitly, a guide to life as an adult woman in 1941--but it includes a few tips on building a wardrobe, including sewing and mending your own clothes. The tone is oddly cheery, given that it was written on the eve of global war; the book's readership is assumed to be pink-cheeked young co-eds, always running off to take beach vacations and dash about in saddle shoes. The most interesting parts are the advice on garment care and appropriate dress for various occasions, both of which have changed immeasurably in the past seventy years (we no longer iron our clothes on the train, for one, nor do we maintain separate wardrobes for afternoon and evening).

Culturally, Fundamentals of Dress is a hangover from the thirties; it gets awfully worked up about the young career girl's first smart interview suit for her exciting, modern new job in a busy downtown office. It winks and nudges about its readers skipping class to go driving or take in a picture, but it expects them to take their studies seriously--no M.r.S. degrees here.

Some highlights:

Socks are appropriate with sport clothes, but hardly suitable for street wear.

Men are not likely to be favorably impressed by a girl who appears too masculine in her attire.

A conservative monthly average for a city girl who is forced to live moderately, but wishes to live well, allows approximately $45 a month for board and room alone.

Take on that nautical air when you hie to the beaches! Join the other merry-makers in merry beach togs.

If you do not wish to make use of the pressing service on some trains, hang your suit with your topcoat; it will look quite restored, should you wish to reappear in it on reaching your destination.

It may be a Ferris waist, or a two-way stretch, step in girdle; it may be a corset cover or a brassiere; or it may be umbrella drawers, bloomers, or scanties. What is worn today will be worn next year, and the next, with variations in style and with new names.

- excerpted from Fundamentals of Dress, by Marietta Kettunen. McGraw Hill, NYC, 1941.