A great way to use up all those spare petticoats you’ve got lying around the house. Enjoy!

• Download: Re-Make Wrinkles (PDF, 1.14 MB)

Here a model gamely demonstrates several ways of wearing a headscarf:

[Link]

This film shows how to make one dress do duty all week long by adding collars, waistcoats, false bodices and other embellishments:

[Link]

I showed that video to James, who wasn’t convinced. “‘Lancelot’s coming over — put on a pinny!’ That’s the best you can do for a Knight of the Round Table?“

Here are several ways to wear the ubiquitous turban — some more successful than others:

[Link]

Here’s her method for making your own handbag (assuming you could obtain a hide, which was a pretty big assumption at the time):

[Link]

And here’s her advice for making women’s hats from hubby’s. The amount of millinery skill she assumes is pretty impressive — how many women do you suppose actually owned a hat block?

[Link]

I like how some of these fashion ideas are so dubious even the models betray visible uncertainty. Still, it’s a great insight into how much innovation was required to stay smart in wartime.

And now for the giveaway!

Up for grabs is one copy of Complete Dressmaking in Pictures, a postwar British dressmaking guide edited by Constance Howard and published by Odhams Press. Those of you accustomed to freewheeling American vintage sewing books may be amused by the comparatively prim illustrations.

Others overwhelmed by the proliferation of sewing advice available in books and on the internet may enjoy how blessedly simple it makes sewing look by reducing the options to an acceptable few techniques.

The book also includes instructions for how to draft basic pattern blocks and adapt them to make the illustrated designs.

The Complete Dressmaking in Pictures giveaway is open to readers everywhere — just leave a comment below about your favorite wartime fashion tip! I’ll be picking a winner at noon (London time) on Monday, April 19.

In this episode: crochet your own accessories, cut down a man’s suit to make a woman’s, and remake men’s shirts and old dresses into clothes for women and children. Plus basic sewing and pressing tips.

Enjoy!

• Download: Make & Mend for Victory, part 1 of 2 (PDF,  21.7 MB)
• Download: Make & Mend for Victory, part 2 of 2 (PDF, 22.9 MB)

Part 1 covers a lot of ground — from equipping your sewing basket to repairing and restyling clothes to whipping up accessories grown women can no longer get away with (jabots? dickeys? vestees?). Multitalented types can even take advantage of its instructions on how to crochet their own hats and collars.

The PDF is only available for 7 days or 100 downloads, so get ‘em while they’re hot. And stay tuned for the second installment!

• Download: Make & Mend for Victory, part 1 of 2 (PDF, 21.7 MB)

Sometimes it’s enough for me just to look at a pattern or fabric to conceive a clear vision in my mind of what I want the finished product to look like. This, I think, is the first time I’ve ever managed to realize that vision completely. I wanted a pale blue blouse with red accents… and I got it!

I’ve been taken with the color scheme of sky blue and bright red ever since I inherited this Threadless shirt. The design is called “99 Luftballons“, so I decided to name my wartime take on it the 99 Barrage Balloons blouse.

Don't ask tall people to take your photo or you will end up weirdly foreshortened.

I made up the blouse in blue cotton sateen I bought ages ago from MacCulloch & Wallis and added red topstitching and red buttons from the Cloth House, Berwick Street. The buttons are my favorite. They’re bright, shiny and cheerful — as vintage dressmaking manuals would put it, gay.

I made a few minor modifications to the bodice pattern — I raised the side darts a little and increased the bust measurement by an inch or so — but my biggest breakthrough was in the sleeves. Readers, I am proud to report that this is the first set-in-sleeved garment I’ve ever sewn without tears 0r swearing!

How did I do it? First, I reduced the amount of ease in the sleeve cap, because I’d read from various authorities that most home sewing patterns include too much, especially for a fabric like cotton that doesn’t ease well. I measured the length of the armhole against the length of the armscye, as detailed in Adele Margolis’s invaluable book Make Your Own Dress Patterns. Sure enough, the original pattern allowed more than 2″ of ease, so I reduced the amount to about 1″ by redrawing the sleeve cap to look more like my personal sleeve block. After that, the sleeve went in pretty painlessly.

I also modified the lower (wrist) edge of the sleeve to “hang more attractively”, as recommended in Claire Shaeffer’s Couture Sewing Techniques. This just involved redrawing the curve. I can’t say I notice a massive difference, but I’m telling myself it looks better than it otherwise would.

I eliminated final hair-tearing by getting DM Buttons in Soho to put in all the buttonholes. It took £3 and 5 minutes, and I walked out with perfect buttonholes on blouse front and cuffs.

On one of my sick days, I also partially repaired the shoddy-ass job I did on the sabotage skirt. I raised the hemline 1.5″ and re-stitched. I find it weird that despite how minutely dictated hemlines used to be — the boy in Pattern for Smartness mentions reading about them in the paper — it’s nigh on impossible to find out what the actual hemline was in any given year. Thanks to this National Archives podcast, I discovered that austerity regulations set hemlines at 19″ from the ground, which at least gave me a ballpark figure. The skirt does look more period now, and I’m pleased with how the outfit as a whole went together.

I give this photo an A for effort but D for deportment. I stand like a farmhand — unsurprising for someone who’s been wearing jeans all her life. Just another one of those casualties of feminism they warned the world about, I guess.

Never fear, though — I’ve been spending a lot more time these days thinking about my hair than plotting the overthrow of the patriarchy. Here’s what my vintage haircut looks like when I style it at home. A bit more wearable than what the salon gave me, but 1940s-influenced nonetheless:

This style was set dry on hot sticks and the front styled with a bit of teasing and a short sharp shock of TreSemme Freeze Hold. That stuff is amazing.

I am very pleased with the blouse, despite the fact that it’s agony to iron (all those tucks! ruffles! gathers!). It’s probably no coincidence that the first garment I’ve sewn in ages without being emotionally overinvested is also the only one that hasn’t gone horribly awry.

Lessons Learned:

• Study the design details and choose your fabric accordingly. The sateen is nice but just a bit too crisp for the blousy sleeves and tie bow. Something limper would have draped better.
• Use fusible interfacing with caution. I fused the cuffs and center fronts and wish I’d used sew-in — the interfacing has given the fabric a slightly bubbled texture. Also, I couldn’t find any resources to tell me which side of a doubled piece like a collar or cuff to fuse and had to learn the hard way. Fuse the half that faces inside, kids!
• On cuffs, like shirt fronts, there is a right way and wrong way to place buttons. Men’s and women’s shirts button up the front on opposite sides, but everyone’s cuffs button the same way to make it easier to do them up. Try sewing them the opposite way and you’ll see what I mean. Whoops!
• Relax, for pete’s sake.

Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food, no flavoured crisps, no lager, no microwaves, no dishwashers, no Formica, no vinyl, no CDs, no computers, no mobiles, no duvets, no Pill, no trainers, no hoodies, no Starbucks. Four Indian restaurants. Shops on every corner, pubs on every corner, cinemas in every high street, red telephone boxes, Lyons Corner Houses, trams, trolley-buses, steam trains. Woodbines, Craven ‘A’, Senior Service, smoke, smog, Vapex inhalant. No launderettes, no automatic washing machines, wash day every Monday, clothes boiled in a tub, scrubbed on the draining board, rinsed in the sink, put through a mangle, hung out to dry. Central heating rare, coke boilers, water geysers, the coal fire, the hearth, the home, chilblains common. Abortion illegal, homosexual relationships illegal, suicide illegal, capital punishment legal. White faces everywhere. Back-to-backs, narrow cobbled streets, Victorian terraces, no high-rises. Arterial roads, suburban semis, the march of the pylon. Austin Sevens, Ford Eights, no seat belts, Triumph motorcycles with sidecars. A Bakelite wireless in the home, Housewives’ Choice or Workers’ Playtime or ITMA on the air, televisions almost unknown, no programmes to watch, the family eating together. Milk of Magnesia, Vicks Vapour Rub,  Friar’s Balsam, Fynnon Salts, Eno’s, Germolene. Suits and hats, dresses and hats, cloth caps and mufflers, no leisurewear, no ‘teenagers’. Heavy coins, heavy shoes, heavy suitcases, heavy tweed coats, heavy leather footballs, no unbearable lightness of being. Meat rationed, butter rationed, lard rationed, margarine rationed, sugar rationed, tea rationed, cheese rationed, jam rationed, eggs rationed, sweets rationed, soap rationed, clothes rationed. Make do and mend.

– David Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 1945-51

Cover

The tone is altogether more pumped than that of similar British publications from the war. The first page includes a “consumer’s victory pledge”, which implies voluntary rather than enforced austerity.

The booklet includes detailed instructions on how to alter, mend, maintain and refashion women’s clothes, as well as patterns and instructions for hats, collars and other accessories to brighten up an old outfit. Best of all, it shows in detail how to cut down men’s clothes to make garments for women and children, and suggests which patterns to use for the job. But more about this in a minute.

The illustrations are darling and beautifully depict the style lines of the time. Love that sunburst suit and snood in view A!

The booklet also features a spunky model I’ve dubbed Dolores. That’s her with the dark hair:

I bet Dolores’s phone never stops ringing. Check out that saucy smile!

I imagine Dolores to have a boyfriend in the Navy. God knows what he’s up to out in the Pacific, but meanwhile, Dolores is getting her own back by cutting down his suits to make chic little numbers for herself.

The pamphlet gives layout and cutting instructions for making women’s suits from men’s. Patterns used include Advance 2997, Hollywood 682, Simplicity 3652 and others still available online! I am strongly tempted to have a crack at it, although I’d have to steal a suit off a strapping GI — the booklet stresses that it’s no good attempting the project if your boyfriend isn’t considerably bigger than you, and James is a compact European model.

Here’s a sample layout for Vogue 9137 and Vogue 9001:

There’s also instructions for making women’s blouses and children’s suits, underwear and pajamas from men’s shirts:

And here are the layouts:

I’m happy to upload more scans for anyone who wants to attempt one of these projects. Enjoy!

Tagged: 1940s, books, history, how to, make & mend, refashion ]]> http://cargocultcraft.com/2010/03/01/make-mend-for-victory-1942/feed/ 17 Susannah