2025 recap part 1 - a year of 1930s and yarn

 2025 took a strange turn for my costuming and crafting. Before going into this year the 1930s was a decade that I considered had a lot of elegant clothes, but not a style that would suit my body type. I also was still firm in my opinion that I really disliked working with yarn. Now looking back this is the year when I started bying yarn and most of my projects were 1930s related. I will split this recap into three parts, everday wear, cosplay projects and historical costuming. Since as usual it felt like I didn't do much, but when starting to summarize the post turned out to be too long.

My costume plans for 2025 were 

• more cuff warmers
• one or two tops or blouses for everyday wear
• Toadette from Supermario
• A lengberg bra/supportive kirtle
• Female tusken raider
• and for my husband a 16th century shaube

I also went into 2025 with a challenge to myself to see if I could go a year without buying any new clothes, with the exception for clothes that I can't make myself. I didn't really make this public, since I didn't want to make it into a big thing, and also to not be too disappointed if I didn't succeed. Now I can say though that the only pieces of clothings that I bought this year were a pair of jeans (I can't make them) and sports wear. I did make quite a few pieces or my self to wear for everyday wear, and that is definitely a new category of sewing for me.

I started out the year with a gothrough of my stash and UFO pile. Before my weight started to fluctuate I had cut out the pattern pieces for this dress. Today it would probably not have been a fabric that I had chosen and the pattern included very large ruffled sleeves. I used the sleeves to cut out some narrower sleeve and a waistband to make it longer in the bodice, and this turned out to be one of my favorite pieces of clothing of the whole year. - The post about the dress

When summer came along I really wanted a new summer dress, so I made this. I still think it's very cute, but the fabric was a bit too prone to wrinkling and wasn't as comfy as I thought, so this became more of a special occasion dress than the carefree summer dress that I had planned. I am still happy with the result. The post about the dress.

I wanted to find an easy, but still a bit special, top/blouse pattern that I could make a lot of variations from, and still look more unique than if I had bought. The Ngaio blouse pattern from Scroop Patterns turned out to be like that and in the end I made four different tops, that I used a lot the whole year from it. the favorite being the long sleeved version. I made a post about the first blouse, but not the others.

The pattern also led me into 1930s fashion, and I also added a 1930s black skirt, that turned out to be the year I used all summer long at work. The post about the skirt.

I finished the year with a festive 1930s blouse from a vintage pattern. The post about the blouse

As for the cuff warmers that were also on my list, well I did make a pair of cuff warmers, but not the embroidered ones that I had planned, but rather a pair using sprang technique.

I can also add this sprang cap/hat to the list of items that I did for everyday wear. The post about the hat

As I sad I would never have thought that I would do this much 1930s clothing and then add some pieces in sprang, meaning that I who have always hated knitting and crocheting all of a sudden found myself enjoying working with yarn.

The HSM 2025 recap

This year I didn't think I would finish many challenges for the Historical Sew Monthly challenge, but with my end of year projects I realised that I had actually made 8 out of 13 challenges, so here they are in one post. IT definitely helped that I got interested in 1930s fashion, which just made them eligible for the cut off year of 1938.

The theme for this year were challenges from the past that had been the most popular challenges with the most entries.

January: Tops and Toes (2014, 12th most popular): Create an accessory that goes on your head or on your feet. - link to my post about my Christmas hat

 February: Under It All (2013 & 2014, 11th and 3rd most popular respectively): Make something that goes under your outer garments, to protect them from sweat/grime or provide the right shape/support. - link to post about my 16th century kirtle

March: Black and White (2014, 10th most popular): Draw on the opposite ends of the shade spectrum to create something in black, white, or both. Link to post about my 1930s skirt

 April: Procrastination (2016, 9th most popular): Complete a garment you have been putting off finishing. Or make something you have been avoiding starting. Link to my post about my 17th century headwear.

 May: Pink (2014, 8th most popular): Make something in the colour pink. Or make a garment that involves pinking/slashing as an ornamental feature. 

June: Accessorize (2013, 7th most popular): Accessories add polish to your outfits, helping to create the perfect historical look. Create the perfect period accessory for yourself. - link to post about my 16th century hairnet

 July: Stashbusting (2015, 6th most popular): Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims and notions that you already have in stash.

August: Make Do and Mend (2014, 5th most popular): Get your historical wardrobe in order by fixing/mending something that has worn out or gone wrong. Alternatively, you could focus on the historical precedent of making-do by re-making an old garment or remaking something into a historical garment (ex: a chemise from old bedsheets). Link to post about mending my favorite shift

September: Blue (2015, 4rd most popular): Make an item that features blue, in any shade from azure to zaffre. 

October: UFO (2013, 2nd most popular): We all have an UnFinished Object or two (or ten!) Now’s the time to complete one of your unfinished historical costuming projects. 

November: Foundations (2015, most popular challenge ever!): Make something that is the foundation of a period outfit. This can be a literal foundation (ex: a shirt, stockings or stays) or an item that is a “foundation piece” in your wardrobe (ex: a garment or accessory that can be styled in many different ways). Get creative with your interpretation! 

December: The Final Touch: Make an accessory or garment that is the finishing touch to an outfit.  - Link to my post about a 1930s belt

**Bonus Challenge** Since the HSM is celebrating thirteen years, we have an optional thirteenth challenge for 2025. Let’s show some love to the “Worst of All Time”, the challenge with the fewest ever entries—a mere five! The WOAT: As Seen on Screen (2022): Make something inspired by something you’ve seen on screen, whether it’s film, television, or YouTube. - link to post about my 1930s Christmas blouse

Looking back I think it's strange that I didn't do anything for the "pink" or "stashbusting" challenges, since my stash is quite full of small pieces of pink fabric. Well still 8 out of 13 challenges in a year when I didn't think I would finish almost any isn't too bad.

HSM 25 - The final touch - a belt

 As a final post about the historical sew monthly challenges it's quite fitting to have the "final touch" challenge

The Final Touch: Make an accessory or garment that is the finishing touch to an outfit.

The Christmas blouse that I made had a pattern piece for a belt, and belt were important in the 1930s, both for evening wear and everyday wear. I hadn't bought enough fabric to be able to get the belt out, and I was also out of time to find a belt buckle for it, so I skipped the belt when I cut out the blouse. After having finished the blouse, and realised that it was big enough that I could pull it over the head I really felt that it needed a belt to not feel too baggy. I took out the scraps of fabrics left and realised that I could get half the belt out, it just wasn't wide enough to double up. But I had a thick poly satin in my stash so I cut out half the belt in the green viscose satin and half of it in the in the poly satin. I added a fusible interfacing to the viscose satin, sewed the fabrics into a tube and turned them right. I added topstitching, a belt buckle that I found in my stash and added some eyelets to be able to adjust the width of the belt.

And here I am wearing it on Christmas Eve, with my mother beside me. To bling it up I added a small festive brooch to it, but that's hardly visible in the photo.

What the item is: An evening belt to go with a 1930s blouse
How it fits the challenge: The belt is needed to give the final silhouette of the blouse
Material: 10 x 150 cm of green viscose satin and 10x150 cm of heavy poly satin
Pattern: Lady Marlowe 8380
Year: 1930s
Notions: a belt buckle, eyelets with washers, fusible interfacing
How historically accurate is it? Pattern is correct, hard to say about the rest of the materials, so 50%
Hours to complete: 1 hour
First worn: On Christmas eve
Total cost: $20

And with that I have finished up posting about all the HSM challenges and projects for the year, so it's time to summarize the project year 2025 and look forward to 2026.

A quick hairpiece under the hainet

 When trying out my 16th century hairnet I realised that my own hair wouldn't be enough to fill it out. I have quite long and thick hair, but each hairstrand is so thin that when I braid it the braids ends up as tiny stumps. Good when you are wearing a full wig, bad when you want to a hairnet without just a lot of air inside it. I decided to make a hairpiece that I can easily put on and wear under the hair net. Since this is a piece that's supposed to go under the net I also felt that I didn't have to be too picky about it, loose strands and uneveness would be hidden anyway. This is also good because since I switch haircolour from time to time, even if it's within the red spectra, I didn't have to worry about an exact colour match, this is just for volume.

Back in 2016, for Star Wars Celebration in London, I made this Tudor version of princess Leia, and I still had those red hairpieces that I had used for the buns.

For the hairpiece I used the two old hairpieces and a long piece of cotton tape.

I combined the two hairpieces into one and braided them together with the cotton tape. I started in the middle and braided outwards from that.

Then it was just playing around with the shape of the braids until had a bun that I was happy with.

The bun was sewn into shape with some thick thread. I also found a some extra hair tuffs that I twisted together and added to the middle of the bun.

The finished piece was dosed with a generous amound of hairspray. When wearing it I tie the tape around my hair, and then I do my usual braiding of my own hair, which is also braided with some tape, and then my own braids are laid around the fake bun. 

This is a quick test of the bun, when wearing it properly I will make sure that I use black tape for my own hair as well. I'm also thinking that if I want to make the bun wider I can add the hairpiece and then use my own hair to make two buns on the side of the hairpiece. All in all it took me around 30 minutes to make this hairpiece, it's not the most tidy and perfect, but for volume under a hairnet it will do.

HSM25 challenge "tops and toes" - a Christmas hat

 After having made my cute sprang mittens I wanted a cap that would match them, and my sprang book had a pattern for a cap with an interesting pattern made from switching from s to z twists, crearting diamonds and diagonal shapes. Should be easy peasy, or so I thought.

I followed the pattern, and there were 128 loops, and I could just barely fit that many loops on my frame. Going from z to s twists shouldn't be too hard, but I found it hard to do the edges. I also didn't have enough of the yarn that I used for the mittens, so in the end I used four different yarns, all with different stretch on them. In the end I kept dropping threads all the time, I really wasn't happy with the result. While I was working I couldn't really see any pattern forming either. Well I finished it, cut it off from the frame and realised that it was huuuuuge. I didn't want to waste all the yarn and time though and wanted to turn it into something I could wear.

I had looked around at quite a lot of 1930s fashion, preparing to make the Christmas blouse, and just with all the wonderful sleeves the 1930s also had quite a huge variety of fun hats. I didn't have a specific hat or pattern, but by folding the too lare bottom of the cap up to create a brim and adding some gathering threads in the back I could create a hat instead.

The final touch was to add a big yarn ball on top.

What the item is: a soft 1930s hat
How it fits the challenge: A hat to go on top of everything else
Material: Yarns in mostly wool, but probably some cotton as well
Pattern: The basic cap from Tine Abrahamsson's book "Språngning", but the shape was free handed by me
Year: 1930s
Notions: none
How historically accurate is it? It is inspred by the shape and style of hats in the 1930s, but I have never seen or heard about a hat made in sprang in that time period. Since it's inspired by I would set it around 20%
Hours to complete: Several weeks
First worn: On Christmas.
Total cost: All yarns were raided from my mother's yarn stash

HSM challenge "accessorize" - a 16th century hairnet

 The reason I started sprang is that I really want to have a hairnet similar to the one worn in the portrait of Katarina on Bora, wife of Martin Luther, in her portrait by Cranach.

I set out to try and make my own hairnet, after having failed on the male nets. I made mine in black wook, and it was quite a lot harder to work black compared to yarn in brighter colours. I got a net done, with just one row of mistakes. I still consider this as a proof of concept and that I can continue working on it, most importantly I want to make it in a finer yarn.

For the ribbon at the edge I decided to learn a new skill and that is tablet weaving. I had gotten a set of tablets in Christmas craft calender so I felt that I was a sign to actually try making my own ribbon.

Warping took longer than actually making the ribbon. It's definitely wonky, but it is a first try so if I want to I can make a tablet woven band in the future. I also liked that I found this pattern with squares in stade of the more normal v-shapes that are common in tablet weaving.

The band was sewn on to the sprang net for 2/3 of the way around, and for the final third I added a fingerlop braid that I weaved through the loops of the sprang, so that I could tie it in the back and adjust the size.

 

Just slapping the net on to my head made me really happy, even if it's just a text piece it actually gave me the shape I wanted and I could definitely see me wearing this at a 16th century event. I need to wear something under it to fill out the hairnet, my own hair is not enough.

Here is what it looks like on my tiny styrofoam head.

What the item is: a 16th century hairnet
How it fits the challenge: It is an accessory
Material: 2 ply wool yarn
Pattern: My own, but very much from the instructions by Carol James' paper on 16th century hairnets
Year: 1530s
Notions: Just the yarn
How historically accurate is it? I think it's mostly a matter of me lacking the skills so far that really make it into something that would fit in the 16th century, but the materials and techniques are all accurate, so 85%?
Hours to complete: 3 days
First worn: Not yet, this is more a proof of concept until I dare doing this in finer and more expensive materials.
Total cost:

Further adventures in sprang

 I really haven't updated my further sprang works. Well after the last post about it I felt that I was ready to make proper 16th century hairnets, and I started with making male ones, since I figured it would be easier to work with bases that were smaller than what is needed for a female net, where I need to have space for a wulst under it. I also wanted to explore different stripes.

Here I have the male nets that I made, and they are all too small for my husband, I felt like tried to make them bigger and bigger, but as soon as I started to sew them together and add some of the shaping, they shrank too much. I simply think that I have reached the end of what I can make with my small sprang frame. Also the yarn, a pure 2ply wool, is a bit too thick.

I also tried to make another set of fingerless mittens, and I got really happy with them. It's obvious that the bottom half of the sprang weave is a lot looser though, because that mitten ended up a lot larger than the one made on the top half.

With me being restricted by my sprang frame, I also felt that I needed to simply learn more about techniques and simply being able to make different thing than a basic net. So I bought a pdf-book "Sprang Unsprung" by Carol James and for Christmas I bought some reflective yarn so that I could make smaller reflectors, them being text pieces but still being useful.

These are all made in different sprang weaves, and I felt that I am more happy with making holes than working with s and z twists to create fabric patterns. It was definitely good for me to do these.

And with that I do have made some pieces that I will post about in further posts. I still feel that I need to get myself a larger sprang loom though to be able to fully explore and continue working on larger projects.