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.

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

HSM25 bonus challenge - "as seen on screen"

 This was a bonus challenge, picked up because it was the worst challenge of all time, with just five entries. 

Make something inspired by something you’ve seen on screen, whether it’s film, television, or YouTube.

This is really an inspired by, rather than an exact copy of something. This year I saw the wonderful series "Outrageous", about the fascinating Mitford sisters.

 The sisters moved around in the highest society and the whole series is filled with wonderufl 1930s costumes. Up until this year I hadn't really  been into the 1930s, I always felt that it was a decade that didn't suit my body type, since to me 1930s was a lot about slinky, bias cut dress that really only fit slim figures. Now I realised that all the draping  and crazy sleeves, I don't think I've ever seen a decade with such a variety of sleeve shapes, would definitely be something that I could make. Now Diana Mitford was a terrible person, but beautiful and her dresses and outfits were the most interesting. Unfortunately my ost faorite outfit of her was the one she wore when she got married to Oswald Mosley, the British fascist leader, and with Adolf Hitler as a witness. I really didn't want to make her wedding outfit.

I tried to take a screencap of it, and to me the destinguishin features were the huge sleves and the draping on the bodice, together with a tight fit over the waist and hips.

I found this pattern by Lady Marlowe, both available as a download pattern and going up to XL in size, it't not easy finding patterns larger than M when you want vintage patterns.

I used 3 m of a green viscose satin, making it a nice Christmas blouse. Now figuring out my size according to to the measurements wasn't easy. The size chart had my hips being too large for the largest size, but just, so I went with that size and cut some extra large seam allowances in order to have more margins to work with. The instructions for the pattern were quite bare, but easy to follow. If you have sewn garments before it shouldn't be a problem following them, but it's maybe not something for a beginner, especially since slinky, satin fabrics can be tricky in themselves.

In the end I probably picked it a size too large. I found that I could pull it over my head without a problem, which on the other hand meant that I didn't have to fiddle with a tricky and visible size closure. I felt that there was a bit too much fabric ove the bust though. For the sleeves to stay up it's necessary to have the lower part be really tight, and I had to take that in a few times on one side. Overall I should probably have shortened the upper sleeve a bit, but still the sleeves are my favorite part of the pattern. For a pattern like this the right underwear is also important. When I worked on it and fitted it I wore my normal underwear, and then I had to take in the waist but use a tiny seam allowance to make the hip area bigger. When I wore the blouse on Christmas I wore it together with some shapewear, and then it was obvious that I could have kept the regular seam allowance. I have cut out the pattern in another fabric as well, so I need to remember these alterations when I sew it up.

The finished blouse

Me wearing the blouse together with the skirt I made for the "black & white" challenge earlier this year, and my Irregular Choice Christmas shoes.

What the item is: A 1930s blouse
How it fits the challenge: Inspired by the costumes from the 1930s set tv series "Outrageous"
Material: 3 m green viscose satin
Pattern: Lady Marlowe 8380
Year: 1936-1938
Notions: sewing thread, poly satin binding
How historically accurate is it? Pretty accurate, it should have been proper silk satin, but that's too expensive, the pattern and the methods are correct though, so 90%
Hours to complete: 2 days
First worn: On Christmas Eve
Total cost: $40 for the fabric

HSM 2025: March - black and white

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.

If there ever was a decade I didn't think I would wear it would probably be the 1930s. All I am thinking about with the 1930s are glamourous silk and slinky gowns, and a tall columnar shape, something I definitely don't have. Then I made the Ngaio blouse from Scroop patterns, and decided that I wanted to make a 1930s skirt.

I bought the 1930s day or evening skirt from Wearing History. It seemed simple enough, and I also liked that the period instructions called for a zipper. The pattern is from the later 1930s, when the skirts had started to get wider and less column like. Now the Wearing History patterns are cleaned up version of the originals and you need to know how to sew to use them. I wasn't too happy about this pattern, but I don't know if it's me or the pattern. First off I didn't measure my waist, but used my jeans size, and when I held up cut out paper pattern there were quite a lot of cm lacking for me to get it round my waist. I lengthened that pattern piece, and I also added to the skirt pieces, since I had also cut out them according to my jeans size. In the end the skirt pieces ended up too large, I had to gather them a bit to get them into the waistband. That is probably the reason why the skirt isn't quite as figure hugging over the hips as I would have liked it to be. 

Another thing with the pattern is the length of the skirt. I have short legs so I am used to having to shorten skirts, but for this I had to shorten it a lot. I cut out 12 cm from the paper pattern, before even laying it out on the fabric, and then i cut another 8 cm from the skirt before hemming it as well. All in all I cut out almost 20 cm to get the length I liked. It is a bit on the shorter side for the 1930s, but it is well below the knees. I maybe should have been a bit more conservative when cutting off the fabric before the hemming.

A belt and beret from a second hand store and my new 1930's shoes and I could pretend that I was out at a seaside resort.

What the item is: A late 1930s skirt
How it fits the challenge: Made in black, but with a white zipper
Material: 2,5 m of poly/viscose blend
Pattern: Wearing history 1930s day or evening skirt
Year: 1938
Notions: zipper, hook and eye, thread, interfacing for the waistband
How historically accurate is it? 75% the materials (fabric and interfacing) take it down
Hours to complete: 2 evenings
First worn: For a photo shoot Aprild 26th
Total cost: $40

And as a bonus - here is my original entry for the 2014 black and white challenge

A 1930's blouse for everyday wear

 This year I am trying to go a year without buying new casual clothes. It's not a promise or aim that is set in stone, I just want to see if I can size down my clothing consumption, due to a lot of reasons. Now I haven't been a huge shopper for clothes, but some new dresses for summer and winter and it adds up. I will buy outdoor and sports wear if I need it and underwear and stuff like that though. The idea came in the autumn when I made the Tara skirts, but I then realized that if I want to make more of my own clothes, then I need to step up from dresses and skirts and actually start making tops and things to wear on the upper body. I haven't done much of that kind of sewing , I don't think it's fun to make something that I could just as easily buy cheaper and that wouldn't look so homesewn. I started to look out for pattern that I could use and bought the Ngaio pattern from Scroop Patterns.

I liked that there are no closures, you just pull it over your head, the gathered front adds some interest to it that make it stand out from what you can buy in a store, and it had sleeves. It is inspired by the 1930s, which isn't my fashion decade at all, but I bought it to make clothes for everyday wear.

I had the pattern and then at our cosplay meet on Tuesday there was a box of fabric that said "take home and reuse". Most of the fabric pieces were too small to be able to use for any clothes but I found three larger pieces that I liked. Today I decided to make the Ngaio and discovered that there wasn't enough fabric. One of the fabrics was big enough to get everything but the sleeves, so I started with cutting out that, and then with some piecing I could also make two sleeve pieces.

When I had all the pieces cut out in the grey/floral I used them to start puzzling out on the other fabric, which I actually like even better and was more excited about. I realised I couldn't get the whole blouse out if, so I will have to make the back in another fabric, but that might be in another post.

I spent the rest of the day sewing up the grey/floral. As usual with Scroop Patterns the pattern went together so well, and the instructions were really clear. The sizing is also spot on, I am a size 42 with them, and I didn't do any adjustment for the fit. I made one small mistake in that I have actually cut out two right sleeves instead of one right and one left, but I don't think it's really visible.

The final result is a really comfy and casual blouse and now I feel the need for a nice 1930s skirt to go with it and the other blouse that I have cut out and only need to sew up.

HSF challenge 24: All that glitters

I really wanted to finish the last HSF challenge of the year. In a way it would feel good to have done at least the first and the last of the challenges, and when I counted my finished challenges I realised that I had made 11, meaning that if I did the last one that would mean that I had finished half of the challenges.

The theme was "All that glitters", which in an ordinary time of the year would feel interesting and fun. Now with Christmas I realised that I had hardly any time, and I wanted to concentrate on other projects instead. I did ask for inspiration from the members of the HSF group and they suggested a lot of beaded things like reticules and headbands. They definitely put me on the path of making some kind of accessory. Then it was time to look in the stash to see what I could use. I had some beads, but I also found a really nasty gold fabric. I think I've bought it more than 10 years ago, it's stiff and definitely some kind of plastic, but it was gold and really shiny at that. That fabric meant that I didn't feel like making something old historical, since I would never wear it with my 18th century wardrobe for example, but something vintage might work. I went off on a search for 1920's and 1930's accessories and sewing patterns to see what I could make. I very soon realised that on all the 1930's patterns and pictures they were wearing some kind of narrow belt at the waist. I gathered some pictures on my pinterest board. Most were wearing some kind of big clasp at the front, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to find a clasp, but a few examples had bows instead of a clasp. Then it was decided I would make a belt with a bow.

The construction was fairly simple. I cut out a long 10 cm wide band of the gold fabric, a cotton lining and fusible interfacing, half as wide as the lining. I fused the interfacing to the lining and flatlined it to the gold fabric. I folded it all in half, sewed it together and turned the right side out. For the bow I made the same thing, but with only the gold fabric, no lining. I added a hook and bar to close the belt. Then I made the bow by simply folding the fabric together and handsewed it on. The bow was sewn on on the over the hook. I had to add a snap to make the bow lie flat against the bar side of the belt. I didn't have any metallic snaps, so I used clear plastic ones, something that also takes away from the accuracy of it all.

Finished belt

Close up of the bow

The closure and snap.

 I wore the belt for Christmas. I don't have any 1930's garments, but I felt that it worked well on its own. I did wear a 1950's inspired skirt and top, and then I just added bling, and the belt was definitely blingy.

Me and my sister on Christmas

The Challenge: 24 - All that glitters

Fabric: 20 cm of some kind of synthetic gold fabric, 150 cm wide

Pattern: None
Year: 1930's
Notions: Thread, hook and bar, plastic snap

How historically accurate is it? Style yes, material no, and I didn't have time to research period techniques, so I would say 20%

Hours to complete: 30 minutes

First worn: On Christmas Eve, with the family

Total cost: This was a total stashbusting project, and the fabric is so old that I can't remember what it cost, but since there were so little material in the project it ends up under $10