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.

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