Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: A Buckle Accent To Trim Blouse, Hat, or Pumps

In the quest for "newer, smarter, easier", Ruth Wyeth Spears provides a clever tip for creating a
cute buckle accent made from folded grosgrain ribbon. With her usual excellent illustrations, Ruth make these accessories very easy to make indeed!

Enjoy!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Preventing Saggy Hemlines

In this tip from 1920s, Ruth Wyeth Spears provides smart and practical advice when hemming garments that are sewn together on the bias.  Due to their stretchiness, bias-cut garments are at risk of sagging after being sewn. To prevent this, Ruth has a nifty tip for pre-stretching the seams before hemming. If you don't have a darning ball or egg with a handle, substitute with whatever you have on hand that would weigh approximately 2 ounces (what my wooden darning egg with a handle weighs). For example, a serving spoon or a couple of teaspoons from your kitchen would weigh about the same.

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Smart Treatments for Pleats

In this tip from the 1920s for home sewists, Ruth Wyeth Spears provides some tips for adding smart details to box pleats. As usual, she provides wonderful illustrations that leave no doubt as to how to implement the tips.

 I especially like the second tip on creating extended points of the box pleats. Do you have a favorite? Would you ever use these tips?

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: A Curly Chrysanthemum Corsage for Thanksgiving

It's not too late! Here is a marvelous tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s for a curly "mum" that you can wear on Thanksgiving Day. All it requires is some picot-edged ribbon, which you may already have in your stash. It's a snap to make! Enjoy this tip as you prepare to celebrate with family and friends. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, from my home to yours. I am very thankful for all my readers!

And if you don't have time to make one today, have a bunch of ribbon on hand at Thanksgiving, and invite all those interested to make one to wear. Sounds like fun!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Sew a Lovely Negligee

You have almost no cutting and only a few seams to sew with this pattern for a graceful negligee from the 1920s , courtesy of Ruth Wyeth Spears. Ruth recommends that you use a soft fabric for this dressing gown. The negligee would make a great and quick gift. If it is intended as a gift, Ruth recommends that you try to harmonize with the colors in the wearer's bedroom. Delightful!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Make a Yoke and Add a Dress To It!

In this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears, she tells her 1920s home sewists that dresses as sketched here "are new in the Parisian mode". And who wouldn't want the latest dress styles from Paris? This tip illustrates just how easy it is to sew a very fashionable 1920s frock. Happy sewing!

Let me know if you sew a dress using this tip!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: A Fresh Taffeta Flower for Your Shoulder

Here is another lovely corsage from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s. This one features fringed petals of taffeta. As Ruth says, "Flowers like this are so easy to make that you can easily have a fresh one whenever you want it."

Create several, one for every outfit, for every season!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: A Smart Little Hat of Silk and Straw

Need a new hat? Want to try something that requires some serious millinery supplies? Then use this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s to create your own "smart little hat" of silk and straw.

This pattern requires the following material:

• 1/2 yard of tailor's canvas or willow (a millinery fabric, also called esparterie)
• 1/2 yard of silk fabric
• 2-1/2 yards of millinery straw braid
• millinery wire
• buckram for the flowers, as well as ribbon or silk scraps

I do believe that the extra effort required by this pattern will result in a very stylish cloche!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: A Chrysanthemum Corsage

Here is the perfect small project for autumn. With her typically simple illustrations and instructions, Ruth Wyeth Spears steps you and her home sewists in the 1920s through the creation of a lovely chrysanthemum corsage from scraps of silk. Are you ready to craft this lovely accent that you can wear on a coat, jacket, or dress?

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Elastic Shoulder Straps Make a Quick Gift

Here is an intriguing tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears for her 1920s home sewists. Detachable shoulder straps of ribbon and elastic is a gift you might not think of! Designed for use with undergarments (such as a camisole or slip), the shoulder straps are attached with tiny safety pins. Ruth suggests tiny rosettes of ribbon if you want to make them fancier.

This idea is very simple, and certainly useful for 1920s undergarments. Rather than making the shoulder straps detachable, I think it would be great to use them in place of regular straps in slips, camisoles, and such.

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - Lace-Trimmed Frocks for Evening Wear

While the title indicates this topic is directed at a bride, when you read this very interesting tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears for her 1920s audience, it seems directed at anyone with an interest in the right frock for evening wear. And according to Ruth, the right type of frock depends on your age and body type. If you have a youthful, slim figure, the dress on the right is perfect. Otherwise, choose the dress on the left. ;) Read on for enlightenment!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920: Shoe Buckle Bling!

Who doesn't love a bit of bling? This lovely tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s features beads of glass or metal on satin-covered self-made pins. So pretty, and perfect for gifts as well as for yourself. Be inspired!

Spring Fashion from 1929

Spring into the new season with this lovely ensemble from 1929. So chic!

From the cover of Fashion Service, Woman's Institute Magazine, March 1929.

Happy Easter, Happy Spring: 1926 Style Show Contest

Happy spring to all, and here is a peek at fashion from 1926 that I hope will help you forget about any unseasonal spring weather you may be experiencing.

This wonderful find, a "Style Show" catalog from the Sharood Company, a mail order house located in Minneapolis, features spring and summer fashion for 1926. The cover is graced with a lovely frock with ribbon ties at the neckline, cuffs, and hips.

Check out the new spring fabrics and colors for 1926!

Here are the prize winners in the style show contest! First prize of $500 is quite a generous prize for that time period. Well it would be a decent prize today! I find the number of prize winners very interesting - and generous. Imagine all those happy customers who won a prize.

And here is the grand prize winner - with her winning letter, and the response from Sharood's. 

To make it easier, here is an enlarged view of her letter. I love the details of the ensemble she chooses and her rationale for her choices of coat, dress, hat, hose, and shoes.

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And here is "her prize winning costume". Totally lovely! I think the coat and the hat are my favorites. And the colors - "pencil blue" and gray - I really like the color combination. What do you like about the winner's ensemble? And any guesses on what color "pencil blue" actually is? ;)

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Dress Up Your Frocks with Lace Medallions

It's "blond on blond" in this inspiring tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s. The tip is perfect for making a special holiday frock. The insertion of medallions of filet lace adds an elegant touch. The thin bands that trim the front bodice and dropped waistline are of filet lace as well. All the trimmings are placed on the fabric itself, rather than being see-through. Don't forget to add the satin ribbon bow & streamers of "deep strawberry tone"!

Dreamy fashion for the 1920s home sewist!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Make a Simple Frock with Lacy Flounces

Need a fabulous party frock for a Great Gatsby party that is also easy to make? Use this great tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s! This lacy frock is adorable, and with Ruth's instructions and illustration, I can easily visualize sewing it for a summer party. If you tackle this project with its embroidered eyelet trimmed with a footing of net, send me a picture!

And aren't those cute shoes she's wearing? Yum.

The Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge 2015: Update on Project 1

My first project for the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge 2015 has begun! This past weekend I cut a muslin version of the dress and I have to admit - really, is a muslin necessary? But even a long straight waist-less dress deserves a proper fitting. :). Here are the pattern pieces cut from muslin, laid out on my living room floor. (To refresh your memory on what I am sewing, look at this earlier post.)

Notice all the printing on this early 1920s pattern from McCall Patterns. What makes it fascinating to me is that all the instructional information (how to lay the pieces on the fabric in preparation before cutting, how to sew the pattern, and other helpful information) are ALL on the printed patterns. Here are some close-ups.

Here are the guideline diagrams for laying the pattern pieces on the fabric.

Here are the actual sewing instructions - just four simple steps and a single diagram!

And also illustrated are inspiring possible combinations of fabric and ornamentation for the dress. I would love to try the dress on the far left, which is accented with hand embroidery or beads. The other combinations are equally interesting, though. Note how the embroidery pattern number used in the illustration is provided below each dress. Now if only I could order those! One thing that strikes me is just how versatile this basic dress pattern is - it looks perfect for dressing up or dressing down. :)

The other main pattern piece illustrates "how to" tips on binding a slash opening, finishing a plain hem, finishing a hem with seam binding, general seam finishing tips, how to make a bias binding, how to make a bias underfacing, and how to make tailor's tacks. You will notice that the pattern includes no facings (typical), so I will be using those skills to face the neckline and sleeves with bias binding. I'm not sure yet if I'll make the binding or buy it.

The pattern pieces have a skinny 3/8 inch seam allowance throughout, with the exception of a widening to a full inch through the hips, in case more room is needed there. So thoughtful. :) And the dress provides a generous 3-inch hem.

I'll keep you posted on the fitting!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - A Hand-Made Medallion Trim

I am way overdue for another post from Ruth Wyeth Spears and her wonderful tips for home sewists in the 1920s! So here is one for adding a home-made yet dramatic accent that is perfect for blouses and frocks. As described by Ruth, this is designed as an open-work motif. Whether you make it open-work or add a contrast fabric as a background, you'll have an eye-catching accent!

Have fun with this one!