Category Archives: General

#0319 Empire Spencer and Redingote about 1815 – Tutorial

Recently I was asked about a tutorial regarding to my sewing pattern #0319, the Empire Spencer or Redingote. So far there have only been instructions for the muff, the cap and the soutache embroidery. I found lot´s of pictures I took during the sewing process I want to share with you, follwing the instructions step by step.

Perhaps you´ll be missing some of the details that can be found in the instructions, because this tutorial is just intended to supplement my sewing pattern, available through my Etsy shop, with additional pictures.

First step always should be a mock-up, fitted to be worn over a dress, made of a fabric similar to your fashion fabric.

Cut all pieces from fashion fabric, interfacing and lining as shown on the cutting diagram. Mark all darts and notches. A seam allowance of 5/8” (1,5cm) is included in my patterns.

Step (1) – How to prepare the fronts, sewing the darts, basting the interfacing and the cotton tape. Important, never reject the help of your pets!

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1840s Morning Dress Sewing Tutorial Part 4 – The sleeves

The sleeves were the most interesting part when sewing the dress, cut on the bias, gathered at the hem and forming a cuff with that gathering. By the way, I love over-sleeves! Of course, the sleeves are not easy to sew, only hand stitching will do the job. It took me two tries to get a nice result.

First, mark the rows for the piped gathering and fold the sleeve along the first row. Insert a cord and sew with a running stitch, after securing the cord with the thread at the start, leave loos at the ends. Repeat with the other rows.

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1840s Morning Dress Sewing Tutorial Part 3 – The skirt

The bodice (except the sleeves) is finished, so it´s time to sew the skirt. Maybe this step seems a bit complicated to you, as it did to me when sewing my replica.

At the back portion of the skirt a wide seam is turned in and this double layer is gathered into cartridge pleats, while the front portion is sewn on plain to the front from the fashion fabric, with a turn point at mark (2). Another pitfall are the seam allowances at the front portion, wide on the skirt, narrower on the front piece. I hope the pictures are supplementing the sewing instructions.

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1890´s Skirted Jacket Part 1 – The Cut

Hi everyone!

In this tutorial I´ll show you how I made View B of my pattern #0520. The jacket is a pretty old project from the beginning of my historical sewing journey when I needed a coat or jacket for cold winter days. I browsed extant fashion plates, dresses and sewing patterns, decided to make View A of the jacket for my purposes. I developed the View B with the thought of a perfect winter jacket for history bounding.

First, some words about the pattern and how to cut all the pieces from the fabric. The maximum for my patterns are three sheets of the A0 format, sometimes difficult to realize for historical patterns. For this reason I can´t offer extra pattern pieces for all the pieces needed, sewing a historical dress or jacket, just trying to keep the pattern clear and easy to follow. Ever seen an extant pattern sheet from a fashion journal?

There´s just one pattern piece for the large leg-o-mutton sleeve of View A, with the smaller View B sleeves (or lining sleeves) integrated to the large one.

All my patterns come with a seam allowance of 5/8” (1,5cm), just where you can see the arrows (the back sleeve seam) you´ll have to add when cutting from the fabric.

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1890´s Skirted Jacket Part 2 – Sewing the bodice

Part 1 – The Cut

When sewing the jacket, I tried to document the sewing process as accurate as possible, paying special attention on all the tailoring techniques coming up throughout the instructions. I´m sorry for the coat fabric being absolutely not photogenic, and the threads merging with the background. I had to use all material from stash due to the Covid Pandemic. Some steps are deviating from the instructions of the pattern, because many things can be made in different ways with the same result. In the first post I showed you how to use the pattern and cutting the pieces from the fabric, now it´s time to sew!

A very important step is to mark essential lines on the bodice, like the center front, darts and waistline. Best serves a contrasting basting thread, visible on both sides and which can be removed without residues.  I recommend hand-basting the bodice for the first fitting, as well as basting the darts before stitching with the sewing machine.

Hand-basting allows more control over the fabric, without the risk of shifting the layers while machine stitching. This is important as well, when basting the lining to the backs and flatlining some selected pieces.

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