Me, if I were born 100 years earlier…
I have created this ensemble in celebration of Arizona’s 100th birthday. I originally made the wool/silk blend skirt four years ago (hence the imperfect hem) and refitted. The side placket is just like this one on Katherine’s website.
The skirt was my first wool garment, and I had not learned how to work with the wonderful fabric yet. Even so, I do like the finished shape, especially in profile.
I modeled my shirtwaist off of this one, found in a ladies’ magazine published in 1912. I used the Shirtwaist pattern from sensibility.com as a base, adding width to the shoulders before putting in the tucks and creating the ruffle. The front closes with hooks and eyes.
I modeled the pattern for the princess slip after this original, found on the Corsets and Crinolines website.
My mom wondered why I worked so hard on the openwork embroidery on a garment that no one will ever see when it’s worn. Well, since I have never done openwork or eyelets before, I though that I would rather practice on a real garment, even (perhaps especially?) if it won’t often be seen than on scraps of fabric that would be thrown away.
The back neckline dips into a low V with a button placket. I hand sewed the buttonholes – they are just so much nicer that way!
Underneath the slip is a ruffled camisole, known as a “bust enhancer”, that helps create the pigeon breasted poof of the shirtwaist that was the popular silhouette in 1912.
The camisole also dips to a V in the back, and closes with three hooks and eyes.
Inspiration for the ruffled camisole found on the Ohhh LuLu… blog (the above picture) and the Sears catalog images on American Duchess
By the way…I did all of this in about a month between new year’s day and the contest deadline the first week of February 🙂
Patterns:
Skirt – adjusted from this basic six-gore skirt from Simplicity
Shirtwaist – adjusted from a Sense and Sensibility pattern
Slip – draped on my dressform
Camisole/bust enhancer – draped on my dressform
PS
If you haven’t had enough 1912 eye candy, I have a pinterest board you might be interested in…
HP Gallery 