Howdy and Happy New Year!
I’ve been sewing for a long time (25+ years!) but I’m still always looking for ways to build my skills – there are neverending things to learn in this fabulous field. For 2020 I decided to practice new techniques and share it with others if they want to join in.

While thinking about how to accomplish this, I was perusing my bookshelf and re-discovered a Butterick sewing manual from 1927, called Art of Dressmaking. Remember in my post about 1920s patterns where I said the user was expected to reference sewing manuals if they had questions? This is exactly one such sewing manual. It’s kind of dry material if you just try to sit down and read it, because it’s meant to be used more like a dictionary where you pull it out when you have a question. BUT! It has loads of detailed instructions on different sewing techniques, with the added bonus (from my perspective) that these were the techniques called for in sewing clothing in the 1920s.

I decided that for every month in 2020, I’ll publish a section of the book as a free PDF download, and try a couple of the techniques for myself. I’ll be sharing my sewing experiments on Instagram, and I invite you to join me! This is not meant to be anything time-consuming or expensive – in fact I encourage you to just use scraps and give it a couple hours a month. I plan to do research on each section and share the context of how some of the techniques were intended to be used in 1920s sewing. A lot of these techniques will vary in its success with different fabrics, so I’m really interested to see how one person’s experiments using taffeta will differ from another person’s use of chiffon or twill.

For January, I’ve decided to start with the chapter on Gathering. It opens with some fairly basic techniques, but also includes some unique trim ideas that I’ve not tried before! I’ll try to make sure that there is a range of options to try every month for all skill levels.

Please join me here and on Instagram for the #artofdressmaking !