Hi!
Um, there is a lot of stuff happening in the world right now
My country is on fire Let's just say we all might use some chill
historical stuff right now.
So this is what i'm gonna deliver Let's talk Edwardian sportswear, why not
I love historical women's sportswear because it's so often
Oh my god honestly it's the same fly that was here the last time
it was like three weeks ago or something I love historical women's sportswear because
it's so often inspired by menswear from the time
And I think it's such a cool combination where you get you know those elegant Victorian Edwardian
ladies but they're also wearing like smart men-like
suits and bow ties and high collared shirts And I'm all for it like you go girl
I do love some good old Victorian sports wear or Edwardian in this case
So it all started when my mom met my dad "It all started when my mom met my dad and
they fell in love and they had me" It all started when I went to a fabric shop
with my friend who is currently sick with what might be covid so so
hope she feels better soon But anyway we went to a fabric shop and I
saw this wool and I was like "That's very Edwardian to me"
So I did get it I did get seven meters of it
It actually turned out to be enough I think I have like a meter left *meteor*
So the fabric felt very um autumn early Edwardian to me
Like I was aiming for something like 1905 But I didn't have a particular fashion plate
or an original dress in mind Like I had some vague idea of what I wanted
to make but I was looking for inspiration And at first I thought it's a really cool
opportunity to try out a more loose jacket from the early Edwardian era
Because you know, we all know about the wasp-waisted silhouette but actually at the same time
a lot of women wore loose jackets where the waist was non-existent
And you know, judging by the photographs it was just as popular
So I thought maybe I could try it out but eventually the wasp-waisted silhouette won
And I eventually settled on this golf outfit from what I think is V&A Museum
I think, because the website...
I think it was V&A, I'm pretty sure it was V&A
What I love about this outfit is not only that it's so fancy and the silhouette is amazing
But also that it draws inspiration even heavier than other sport outfits
Like it literally is a copy of a men's jacket Because it's basically a Norfolk jacket
A Norfolk jacket was worn by men in like late Victorian/early Edwardian era up to 1930s
It was basically a sports jacket more or less, made of wool predominantly I think
With two vertical strips of fabric on the sides and the belt going through those strips
of fabric...
I think So what I loved about this outfit is not only
that it's cool as hell but also that it's basically a Norfolk jacket
but for women So i decided to go for it, I thought if it
gets really complicated I might go back to the loose jacket idea somewhere
around the mock-up stage But it turned out that my mock-up of a loose
jacket was actually so complicated and so odd looking that I ended up focusing on this
one anyway So for patterns, the skirt seemed pretty straightforward
and I just used an original No you need to go honestly what the ff
And I just used an original pattern from the era which I found on the marquise.de website
and that's pretty much the website I go to when I need an Edwardian skirt pattern
because they have a lot of stuff and I've already tried out most of it
So I know more or less what kind of adjustments do I need to make
For example my butt featuring a bum pad is too wide for the damn pattern
so I need to widen up this bit every single time
So I pretty much knew that that's gonna happen but the rest, and obviously the length I need
to adjust as well But the rest works pretty well so
I can't remember exactly which pattern I went for, if I do find it on a website I'm just
gonna insert the link or something but basically it's a three-piece skirt where
there's a front panel and the side/back panels and it's pretty straight forward
What I decided to do this time is actually pay attention to the historical methods and
the ways this would be done So first of all I decided to flatline the
skirt and it made such a huge difference I have not done it before, I admit it,
when making Edwardian or Victorian skirts I just assumed that all the petticoats
will do the job for me like, that's what they're for, right?
And it really did make a lot of difference because even starched petticoats are just
cotton and they're pretty soft and this just gave the skirt so much more
structure and I did see that wool that I bought was
pretty soft and kind of um... *switches to Polish* LEJĄCE SIĘ
So I did suspect that without any kind of other layer supporting it
it could get like really floppy but I did not expect it to go that well
So I flatlined the whole thing, the way I did it was I followed the Historical Sewing
blog post on it You basically have to cut out two layers of
fabric, one is the right fabric, the fashion fabric that you're gonna use,
the other is what's gonna be under the skirt, so sort of like an underlining sort of part
of the skirt I used a really sturdy brown cotton for this
and then it depends whether you want to go all the way down, or let's say like knee length
Because some of the skirts you don't need the support for the lower part,
it depends what your what shape you're looking for
So I cut out the fashion fabric and then following the same pattern I cut out the under layer
and I basted them together all the way around the edges which was a step I skipped in one
panel and I really regretted that later, I had to
unpick the whole thing and actually baste it together
because it smoothed out everything and you make sure it's not gonna get all wrinkly once
you sew it together So you baste the two layers together, then
you treat it as one layer, and then you join all the pieces together
So it's pretty straightforward, the basting took kind of a long time but it was so worth
it and it just stiffened the skirt so much better,
than let's say, some stiff lining because it's like one piece and the seams
are reinforced as well.
So then I did hem lining, I'm not sure if that's how you call it?
But I basically used long strips of stiff cotton to stiffen the hem
and that was also a very good decision because the hem is something I'm always struggling
with
It's always the first thing to collapse in my skirts and because I'm quite tall my skirts,
they have to be really wide to get the silhouette actually correct
I'm always struggling with that bit and it took me literally like, I think at least a
day and a half to actually hand sew the cotton to the hem
but it was worth it, again, it works So for the waistband I used a cotton tape
because I took out an Edwardian skirt that I own and I had a look at how it's done there
and basically I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of Victorian and Edwardian
historical clothes but nobody cared about finishing anything,
like, they didn't If no one's seeing it they're not gonna pay
attention to that So I had to look at original skirts and basically
what they did is they sewed on the cotton waistband and then they just pressed the excess
Like the raw edge of the skirt inside And they just didn't care about it
Because I was like "oh my God how am I gonna finish that, what do you want me to do about
it if the cotton tape is only one layer"- Nobody cares
So that's what I did I just pressed the raw edge down and maybe that's not the best option
when it comes to wool because it's not necessarily staying down
Maybe I could just stitch it to the underlining at some point who knows and then the whole
thing is closed with hooks and eyes And my battery is running low so I need to
stop and change it So anyway, um, the jacket
I didn't have a pattern that I could use for the jacket and none of the original patterns
that I found seemed to match the idea of the jacket that
I had in my head So I didn't use any pattern, I actually drafted
it by pinning the fabric to my sewing form and just cutting it whenever I felt it was
sufficient?
I don't know It was an improvisation
But what I did do is I did make an a-line jacket hoping that when I cinched it with
a belt it would more or less have the shape of the
jacket that I intended Now what was a bit tricky for me was the hip
part, like Whenever I cinched the fabric, and because
the lining was quite stiff it would just go like that instead of a really
nice round shape that the original jacket had
And I couldn't quite figure out how the original jacket was formed
Because for me it was obvious that it had to be loose in the waist
because otherwise there wouldn't be all those folds and gathers
that I thought were not sewed in place, and I don't think they were
because I found another picture where it's quite loose, the pigeon breast is showing
and basically you can see that Oh my God you can see my phone
...pigeon breast is forming and it's quite loose so I'm assuming
all of the cinching and tailoring was done kind of by the belt
Honestly it didn't work that bad, I had to take out some of the volume because the jacket
was too wide originally I think the worst part for me is the back
because when it was still loose, it looked okay
but when I started cinching it with a belt the sides of the back are doing some really
strange wrinkling and i'm pretty sure it's easy to fix by ripping out the sleeves
and ripping the seams open but do I feel like doing it right now?
I don't think so Just gonna stay wrinkly for a while
Another thing is I'm gonna have to redo the straps because while I was sewing them on,
they seem to have stretched a little Like you can't really see that once I pressed
it properly but I'm probably just gonna redo it and stitch
it on by hand Even though I thought the original jacket
had quite a lot of visible machine stitching going on
So in the museum photo that I was basing this whole look off
the belt is put over the vertical straps of fabric
but from what I've seen, Norfolk jackets don't work like that
You just put the belt under the straps so that's what I did with my jacket
And the thing that cost me like three days of work and it's still rubbish was the collar.
That was the first collar of this type that I've ever made,
even with the striped jacket that Miss Tatternickle wore
I only did like the flaps and not the actual collar on the neck
because I felt like that was too much for me
And it was, like it cost me three days of swearing and watching youtube tutorials
I just spat on the camera and it's still rubbish, so I'm probably gonna
redo it as well But you know, it will, it will do for now
I sewed the pockets onto the jacket and I basically
They're kind of like fake pockets, like the flap is just decoration
and the actual pocket is behind the flap I'm pretty happy with the sleeves because
it only took me two mock-ups to get them right I think
I used an original sleeve pattern but I, like, had to adjust it to the point
that it didn't even resemble the original one so I'm quite pleased with how close they
are to the original sleeves And then the last thingI had to do when the
skirt was finished and the jacket was finished was the cap
And the cap is not fantastic and it needs a lot of work and it's more difficult than
I thought I think the biggest issue I have with it that
it's...
It's basically based on an original Edwardian flat caps that were worn both by men and women
in that time And as the name tells you it should be a flat
cap whereas mine seems to go like... looking like a giant mushroom at some point
So I'm not happy with that, I'm gonna have to redo it
Stiffen the seam probably, I don't know yet I'm just gonna have to work on that cap
And also apparently the original suit had a flat cap as well so...
You can find it on one of the pictures from V&A
Sadly I don't own an original edwardian golf club so I had to improvise
and pretend that I'm just on a walk in my beautiful golf Edwardian suit
Maybe one day I'll get a golf club and have a proper golf course photo shoot
You know, I'm not suggesting anything but if you have a spare Edwardian golf club
Send it my way So that's about it, it was a fun outfit to
make It was a bit more work-heavy than my other
projects but I feel like that's what you get when you
try to meddle with menswear inspired clothing Have a look at how it's working out in the,
you know, autumn landscape and, and yellow leaves
And um, hope you don't mind my mask because we're in the red zone right now in my country
soo Okay, well, um, stay safe you guys, have fun,
use your time wisely and don't be afraid to, you know, start new sewing projects