Children's Clothes from the Lynda Braid Collection

Children's Clothing in the Victorian Era

Hallo my darling smunchkims. Today I want to take you back to the "Victorian era, when young children were seen and not heard, and to show you another wonderful piece of children's clothing from the Lynda Braid Collection. The image you see above is the cover of a Victorian magazine from 1884, called The Family Friend.

At this time ready made clothing was not as readily available as it is today, and Mother's were expected to sew their children's clothes, if they were not wealthy enough to employ servants to sew for them. The family Friend Magazine offered free patterns for children's clothes for home sewers to use, and here is a pattern for a child's pinafore.

Half a yard of diaper, this must have been the fabric used for early nappies, and the reason for their American name.

The insertion, is the lace.

The 1880's was the time of the Aesthetic Movement, a movement that encouraged healthy comfortable clothing.

Here is another piece of children's clothing from my cousin Lynda's collection. At first glance it seems to be of little interest, it is in poor condition with extensive discolouration and heavily creased from storage.

It is difficult to make out the shape as it is so creased.

It is when you look closely at this little piece that it starts to shine, look at the handwork on the shoulder seam, and the lace around the armhole. This garment was made in an age when women were highly skilled needle workers, the lace is hand made, and the pinafore is completely sewn by hand.

The technique used on the shoulder seam is wonderful don't you think? I have never seen a seam sewn like this before. If you are a wonderfully clever darling, and know more about this technique, its name, or when it was popular, please let me know. I am not sure what era this little garment is from, it seems early 1800's maybe even 1700's to me, but I am woefully inadequate and lacking in expertise, so if you can add from a deeper fountain of knowledge, please let me know.

The Lynda Braid Collection and Lolita's

Hallo my gorgeous ones. Today I have a wonderful piece of children's clothing from the 19thC to show you, and a little look at a fashion sub-culture that draws much of its inspiration from Victorian children's fashions.

The garment is a child's apron or pinafore, and is made of cotton fabric, edged with broderie anglaise lace. Broderie Angalis became popular in the mid-19th century, as it was worked on heavier cotton fabric and could withstand constant washing and ironing. For this reason it was particularly popular for children's clothes.

The production of broderie anglaise was taken over by machines in the 1840's, putting many women employed in cottage industries out of work.

This piece is not machine done, even the amazing machines could not replicate the loop under the needle movement required for buttonhole stitch, the stitch that the scalloped edge on this pinafore is worked in.

This piece of clothing was well loved, and worn, as can be seen from the attempts to repair it, so that it could be worn again.

In this photograph we can see that nearly all the young girls are wearing aprons, or pinafores like the one shown above.

Children were highly sentimentalised in the Victorian era.

This was picked up by young Japanese girls in Tokyo, in a subculture or fashion movement that started in the 1980's, and they became known as the Gothic Lolitas.

The name Lolita came from a film of the same name made in 1962 film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. Sue Lyon played Lolita in the film, she was 14 years old at the time. The story follows the infatuation of an older man, for the young Lolita, and his eventual kidnapping of her, so that he could have his wicked way with her. The Lolita look is the full blown manifestation of youth culture really, a kind of sexualisation of childhood, that is seen in the Japanese subculture of the same name.

If you enjoyed this post, could you please leave a comment to let me know, or better yet, become a follower and come back and visit again. Until next time, stay young and beautiful, even if only in your hearts. xxx my darlings.

The W.H. Wyman 18th C Lawn Shirt

Pinned to this label were 3 children's garments, (you can see the pinholes in the paper), a linen shirt, a lawn shirt and a knitted shirt . The label is hand-drawn and the coloured letters painted by hand. It dates the 3 garments to 1702.

This is the lawn shirt, and it is 41cm from one sleeve end to the other, and 23cm long. It is for a younger child than the linen shirt I have previously blogged about, which measured 49 x 33cm. The lawn fabric is also softer than the linen, with a smooth hand almost like satin. It is a delicate, finely woven plain weave cotton. The shirt would fit a 6 month to one year old child.

The shoulder has a strip of insertion lace, edged with edging lace on each side. The insertion lace is so fine I cannot see how it is made. I was about to take some macro photos so that I could get a closer look at it, and my battery went flat. Damn that battery.

This is the best image I could get, I will have to blog about the lace in another post. This shirt is finer than anything I have ever seen, the skill of the woman who worked it, and the fineness of the tools she must have used, surpasses anything I have encountered in the heritage collections I have worked with. It is a treasure of great importance.

The shirt is completely hand-sewn and is so finely done, it is difficult to make out the individual stitches without the aid of a magnifying glass. The stitches running around the edge of the neckline are less than 1 mm long. I am not sure at this stage, but the lace around the neck edge appears to be hand made bobbin lace.

I love this little gusset under the sleeve, this shirt is made with similar techniques to an 18th century countryman's smock.

This image shows the seams, and hems of the sleeve. The photo does not do this shirt justice as their is no scale rule to show how tiny these stitches are. I will have to do another post with better photos, so enjoy what I have posted and look forward to more to come

18th C. Child's Shirt from Wyman Collection

A child's shirt

Firstly I would like to apologise for this photo. It has no scale or visual reference to its size. So let me explain, this shirt would have been for a very small child, perhaps the size of a one or two year old today. It is 33cm from the top of the shoulder to the bottom of the hem, and 49 cm form one end of the sleeve to the other. When I first received this shirt, from the descendant of Mrs. W.H. Wyman, it was sewn together with 2 other garments, to a paper label which read: "Hand-made lawn shirts, and knitted shirt - 1702. Exhibited by Mrs. W.H. Wyman. Olvondale or Orondale S.." I could not quite make out the spelling, does any of the family know which it is? Unfortunately the label does not state when or where the items were exhibited, but the family may know when Mrs. Wyman lived at Olvondale.

The shirt had been stored for many years sewn to the label, and has some heavy creases in it, and this would be the first time for many a time, that it would have been seen lying flat like this.

The label states that the two shirts are lawn, but I have my doubts about that. The fabric this shirt is made from has a rough hand, that feels more like linen than cotton. It may be a very worn, fine linen, that has the weight of a cotton lawn.

The shirt is very finely sewn, completely by hand. The shirt pattern pieces are rectangles, cut like an English countryman's smock, or a Japanese kimono, from a length of fabric without any waste. This was a time when fabric was valuable, and often still woven on hand looms.

Both sleeves are delicately pleated, with the pleats sewn in place on both the armhole and the narrow cuff. I want to make a shirt for myself with sleeves like this, I think it would be wonderful. The cuff has two buttonholes, rather than a button and buttonhole. Do any of my academic darlings know how this cuff would have been fastened?

The shirt is skillfully made, there are no raw edges, all the seams are finished beautifully. The collar is a single layer of fabric, illustrating to us again, that his shirt was made in a time when fabric was extremely valuable and expensive.

Did you notice the leaf green top stitching around the neckline and cuffs? At first I thought it was a simple row of running stitches. However as I looked more closely, I saw it was a couched thread. This garment is sewn differently to anything I have seen before, it is an absolute delight, and I think it is possible that it could be dated to the early 1700's.

The Underside of the Shirt

The Mrs. W. H. Wyman Collection

The Bodice of a 19th Century Christening Gown

Lynda this is for you.

Here is a little treat for those who love heritage textiles, the remains of a Christening Gown. The bodice of the gown, is part of a collection of baby clothes belonging to the late Mrs. W.H. Wyman.

The bodice, is made from white cotton lawn, embroidered with white cotton thread.

This photo shows where the once long skirt was cut off, by someone who understood what a treasure it was, and the days and days of work, that would have gone into making it.

The bodice has been repaired many times, here under the arm you can see where it has been darned, to hold the worn fabric, and strengthen it, so that it could be worn by one more descendant of the family, to one more Christening.

There is a repair under the other arm too.

Look at those divine little sleeves, with their delicate hand embroidered frills of cotton lawn. All the embroidery on this bodice was done by hand, the frills are made of strips of the cotton lawn, the holes formed with a stiletto, and then sewn around with buttonhole stitch, the scalloped edges embroidered with the scalloped pattern, and then cut to the scalloped shape. I would love to iron this garment and then photograph it again, as it would look so much better if it had been ironed. However for something this old, I would advise talking to a textile conservator before putting an iron anywhere near it, as it is approximately 150 years old.

Look at that detail. The front of the bodice is worked with rows of piping cord sewn into folds of fabric, and rows of embroidery running down the front panel.

I think the embroidery is Mountmellick work, popular from the 1850's through to the 1880's. The style was started in surprise, surprise, my cherished darlings, Mountmellick, a small town in Ireland. In the 18th century it was a thriving industrial town, with cotton thread and fabric manufacturers. The cotton industry was huge in Britain at this time, and used imported cotton to weave fabric and make thread.

The style of Mountmellick embroidery was started in the 1820's by Mrs. Johanna Carter, a member of the Quaker movement, who decided to help local people through their difficult times by providing work for local distressed gentlewomen. It became a cottage industry, as the stitches were easy to learn, and the textile working tools needed, accessible to most women. Mountmellick work is always worked in white cotton thread on white cotton fabric, with large simple stitches, and is quick and easy to do. This is a wonderful example of it, and was worked by a skilled needlewoman.

The back of the bodice.

It closes simply at the back, with two tiny covered buttons, and two drawstring cords, one on the neck and one on the waist. The gown is completely hand stitched, and finely done.

Look how beautifully the ends of the drawstring housing are finished, with a delicate blanket stitch.

There is so much wonderful detail in this little remnant, even the drawstring cords were made by hand, especially for the gown. Aren't they wonderful?

There are repairs on the back of the bodice, more areas of darning.

The darning repairs are little works of art in their own right, really aren't they.

Just had to show another shot of the sleeves, this is from the back.

You can see how tiny these buttonholes are beside my fingertips, and the delicate little buttonhole stitches used to finish them.

This is a little treasure, an absolute delight. And a wonderful family record, wouldn't it be nice to have an accompanying list of the name and date of every baby that was christened in it.