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 - A Frock Trimmed with Self-Fabric Plaits

While this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s describes a plaited (pleated) trimming for a "young girl's frock", I think this excellent tip would also apply to a frock for any age!

In her usual marvelous style, Ruth guides her home sewists with clear illustrations and precise steps. And note her tip for the novel feature of flipping the hem to the outside and trimming it in place with the plaiting (pleating). So clever and so simple - I love it!

Ruth recommends a crisp fabric as most effective, and says the sketch is of "changeable pink taffeta". I can picture this frock in pink taffeta - can you?

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Smart Neck Finish for a School Frock

I rather like the finishing touch that Ruth Wyeth Spears describes in this tip for her 1920s home sewists. Look how the bands incorporate the facings, which become part of the revers collar. And then those cunning little snaps on an underlay to close it all. This would be fun to try!

Another helpful tip for adding smart style to your sewing projects!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Teen's Petal-Skirted Party Dress

If you need a 1920s-style party frock for a teen girl, this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears describes how to whip up a lovely petal-skirted dress.  Just get a few yards of crepe de chine in a lovely color and in no time you can have your girl looking chic for a summer party! The simplicity of the design amazes me - Ruth's techniques require no pattern and allow you to fit the dress to wearer. Don't be held back by the idea that this is a young girl's dress - I think it would work for any age!

As an interesting aside, girls remained girls much longer in the 1920s. Note how Ruth Wyeth Spears refers to "young girl" and "young daughter" in this sewing tip, but defines that as 16 to 18 years! Of course, back then sizes were defined in "years" as well. :)

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: Ribbon Accents for a Girl's Frock

So far the tips that I have posted from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s have been for women, but Ruth also wrote sewing tips for infants', children's, and men's clothing too! In this tip, a sunny summer frock for a girl is dressed up with some flower accents created with slim "baby" ribbon. Ruth describes the frock fabric as organdie, and the ribbon as two-toned or double-sided. I found several shops on Etsy that carry just this type of ribbon (for example, SewVictorianCrazy). I am sure that you could find more. It just depends on how true to Ruth's tip you want to be. :) Sweet tip!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s: The Popular New Jumper Dress!

Well this tip is an historical eye-opener! The jumper (as we know it in the USA) is a hot couture item, and I must admit that a drop-waist jumper is an intriguing fashion. Ruth provides a pattern for sewing your own jumper, along a suggestion that this fashion item provides splendid opportunities for "make overs" or re-fashions. I couldn't agree more!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - How to Make a Coat, Step-by-Step

This tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s must be her longest ever. If you feel that sewing a coat is a challenge, Ruth is here to walk you through it! The steps have not changed throughout the decades - the construction of a tailored coat is timeless. Well, except, perhaps, Ruth's suggestion that you take the coat to the tailor to make the button holes and give the coat its final pressing. :)

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - Testing Your Trimming Ideas

In this tip for her 1920s audience, Ruth Wyeth Spears illustrates the importance and the effects of horizontal vs. vertical trims. Do you want to look tall and slender or short and broad?

Don't forget to sketch your ideas first! :)

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - A Nifty Tip for Measuring Skirt Length

In this tip, Ruth Wyeth Spears gives her 1920s audience a rather clever technique for accurately measuring an even hemline for a frock or skirt when you have no one to help you. This is such a timeless and handy tip. Thanks, Ruth!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - Fitting the Frock for the Stout Figure

Okay, for any of you who have "bulges", Ruth explains how to ensure that your figure too can have long, loose lines. 1920s fashion may have favored the slender or "average" figure, but Ruth finds a way for those with less-than-ideal figures to "look inches taller and pounds thinner".  Sound familiar? It's the goal of many women throughout the decades!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - Sewing a Calot-Style Felt Hat

Are you ready for another cute hat? They are so fun to design and wear! The hat in this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears provides instructions for sewing a calot-style cloche. The brim is turned back and has a wonderful double "slip through the slot" wing accents. Delightful!

As usual, click the image with template and print it out to use as your template for sewing this hat, per Ruth's instructions. Happy sewing!

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - A Smart New Jabot

Looking at the drawing in this tip from Ruth Wyeth Spears and the 1920s, my first thought was, "That is a jabot?" So I rustled up a dictionary definition that would explain why Ruth used this term. Essentially, a jabot is an ornamental cascade of ruffles or frills that fall from the neckline. We more typically think of a froth of lacy tiers or lacy pleated tiers at the neckline, that sort of thing. But this ruffled cascade that Ruth evidently qualifies, and Ruth explains that jabots come in a variety of forms. ;)

Simple to make, "this season's jabot" is a great way to add a dramatic accent to a frock. Read on to learn all from dear Ruth!

For a look at different styles of jabots, check out these other posts I've made:

• A tip from Ruth for a quite different style of jabot.
• Another tip from Ruth for a different type of jabot.
• A jabot neckline from the early 1950s.