Oh dear. It’s February already. I’ve done a decent amount of sewing this month, and I’ve actually been getting better about taking photos regularly, but I haven’t found a blogging rhythm for it yet. I’ll keep trying. 🙂

I’ve been hunting to find examples of the sewing techniques from the Art of Dressmaking “in the wild”, and I was supposed to post these for the challenge for January. Oops? (The great thing about doing historical fashion is that it’s already all out of style, so being a little behind doesn’t make much difference. 😉 )

This first example comes from the January 1928 edition of the Women’s Institute Fashion Service, and shows how to add a shirred flounce to a coat dress. I haven’t been able to find an image of the original pattern (Pictorial Review 3758, in case anyone wants to help me track it down), but I suspect it just has the double pointed ends at the buttonholes, and the magazine is suggesting a “hack” to spiff it up by adding a shirred drape. (OMG my nerdery is *really* coming out right now…)

I’ve done plenty of gathering and shirring in my time, so I decided to try this little drape piece to see how it would look, in case it might be something I want to add to a project in the future. Because the magazine “hack” suggested rayon, I used some rayon satin that was leftover from my Vogue cape, and I ran the stitching by hand. According to what I’ve been reading, doing finishing details like this by hand still seems to to be considered the “standard” method in the 1920s, and using a machine is suggested almost as an afterthought.

I learned a new little trick for securing the gathering threads! The book suggests wrapping the thread around a pin in a figure 8 motion to hold them.

The completed practice sample. Do I love it? eh, not really, but I think I have a better idea of how to make something like this work if/when I do ever want to apply it to a project.