The Poodle Collar

Poodle Style

Work on the poodle collar has progressed but first let me remind you what this is all about, the love of poodles. When you  get down to it, is there anything to compare with poodle style?

These are staunch dogs, trained to hunt, and clipped to protect their chests from attack, poodles are more than you may think.

So we went with the hounds-tooth tweed, loved the Chanel feel, and after all the poodle is quintessentially French.

Lined the collar with white silk taffeta, and found a retro black Bakelite buckle from my collection that seemed to suit.

The coloured threads turned out to be all wrong and so worked around the edges of the poodle with pearled seed beads.  So is it working?  The next problem is how to join the beaded poodle disc to the collar.  I am inspired by the remains of a chatelaine in the collection in the Brain Watkins House.

A beautiful piece of textile work, and something quite unusual don't you think.

Now I have looked a little more closely at it, I must say, I am intrigued, as I have no idea how this beautiful piece was made.  I will need to study it in closer depth, so wait for the big reveal, if you too are interested in how this chatelaine cord was made.

I like the raised satin stitch in this image, maybe a chain of rings made with this technique.  

What do you think? 

So it is Au Revoir ma cherie, et a la prochaine.

The Rayon Blouse from The Brain Watkins House

All images courtesy of Tauranga Historical Society

Hallo my textile loving darlings, today I have a special treat from the Brain Watkins House, the sweet little blouse you see above.  I believe it to be from the 1930's, and made by a skilled seamstress.  In this post I am going to walk you through its construction.  I would love to recreate it myself, and it would be fun to work through it with a group of others interested in learning some sewing skills from days gone by.

  

First lets take a look at the fabric the blouse is made of.  I think it is a rayon fabric.  Rayon was the first man made fabric, but not a synthetic as it was  made from regenerated and purified cellulose derived from plant sources, from soft woods, or the short fibres (linters) that adhere to cotton seeds.  First patented in 1894 in England, the first commercially produced rayon appeared around 1910, and was called artificial silk, and was a cheap replacement for silk. The fabric later became known as viscose rayon.  

Rayon was the miracle fabric of the 1930's, its versatility of production, as a continuous filament yarn, or as short filaments that could be twisted and spun into a yarn, meant that it could be used to recreate almost any fabric.  Silk, satin, crepes, crepe de chine, velvet, boucle, garbardine: rayon could do almost anything. 

The link below will take you to Tuppence Ha'penny Vintage, a great blog that has so much information on rayon, it is really not worth me trying to repeat it.  If you want to know more it is all there, thanks Charlotte for a great post.

http://tuppencehapennyvintage.blogspot.com/2011/02/history-of-synthetics-rayon.html

So my dear Watson, from all this, my deduction is that this blouse is made from a lightweight pale apricot rayon crepe.

From a museum perspective the acidic nature of cellulose means the rayon fabric like a cheap paper has a self destructive nature, and this along with the wear on the fabric from perspiration stains, is the cause of the dark staining seen under the arms, and the extensive foxing, (rust coloured spots).  These are a sign that the fabric is degenerating. 

So here is a complete description of the blouse, something you might see on a catalogue card or museum database.

Pale apricot pink rayon crepe blouse with short sleeves, and decorative smocking in triangular shapes on sleeves and both sides of the front of the blouse running from the shoulder seams.  

The shirt has a rounded collar, and front inset that have been worked in a technique similar to tape lace, but using tubes of the rayon, sewn by machine, in place of tape, and hand sewn with a twisted faggoting stitch and spider stitch. 

The collar is cut from a single layer of the rayon crepe fabric, 25mm wide, with rounded ends, and edged with the crepe tube lace, and machine sewn into the neck.  

This neck seam is finished like a French seam with a second row of machine stitching that forms a drawstring tube for the tube of fabric that forms the neck tie to run through, this is threaded through this seam and runs around the neck. The front opening closes at the throat with a bow which ties at the throat, and the lace panel around the opening has a rounded lower edge.  

The edge of the face fabric for this inset has first been finished with a running backstitch turning a 2mm wide raw edged seam, finished and held in place with the loops of the twisted faggot stitch as it has been worked into the front panel.  The work is finely and skilfully done, the stitches difficult to see with the naked eye.  

The smocking is worked with a twisted apricot/pink embroidery thread that has a glossy surface, this may be a rayon, silk or cotton thread.  

The hem of the blouse has an inset of 6mm wide white elastic, set in like a drawstring, with a 17mm wide turn-over of the rayon crepe that would have been gathered by the elastic forming a frill.  

The side seams are set 650mm from into the back of the blouse, rather than running down the true side seam.  The side seams, and sleeve seams are sewn by machine and are French seams.  The elastic is sewn in with two rows of machine stitching. 

The shoulder seams, and sleeve armhole seams are sewn by machine and finished with a running hand stitch.  

The sleeves are only gathered along 70mm at the top of the armhole, (35mm on each side of the shoulder seam), and are 190mm long from the top to the edge of the lower edge. 

The hem of the sleeve is bound with a bias cut strip of the rayon crepe, that has been sewn onto the right side of the sleeve, turned to form a 4mm wide tube, and hand sewn  with a diagonal running stitch on the inside edge.

This blouse is skilfully made, by a professional dressmaker or talented home sewer.  It demonstrates many embroidery and couture techniques.  The style and fabric suggest it was made in the 1930’s the Sear’s Catalogue was showing smocked blouses like this in its 1936 edition.  It was in the 1930's that Dunlop scientists were able to transform latex into reliable elastic thread, and elastic fabrics began to change the form of underwear and clothing.

A little treasure don't you think, and also a reference or archive of sewing techniques, that are being lost because we are not teaching our children to sew, and probably do not know how to sew ourselves any longer either.  

Finally I have to leave you with this link, please go and have a quick look, watch the video, start to think about your clothes and crafts in a different way.

http://thetextileblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/future-opportunities-of-hand-production.html#comment-form

Buttons from the Brain Watkins Collection

 I am not sure what this wooden box held when it was first purchased, chocolates in a wooden box seems a little unusual, the design on the front of the box has an Art Nouveau feel, and if so would date the box to late 1800's to early 1900's.  When I first saw it, there were 442 buttons in it.  

Would you like to see some my curious darlings?

Keeping in the theme of the wooden box, lets start with these, not buttons, but wooden moulds for buttons.  I wish you could get these today, cos I hate the covered button kits that are are available now, plastic and junky.  Imagine the buttons you could make with these wonderful wooden moulds.  The wonderful thing about the wooden chocolate box, is that its contents reveal the whole construction process of how these moulds were used, to make beautiful hand crafted buttons.

On the left is a mould with a round of padding over the top, and a layer of cream fabric over this, (ignore the 3 stitches you see on the mould as these were sewn by me to hold the mould onto the display panel it has been mounted on).

The covering fabric was placed over the padding, gathered at the back and sewn in place. 

This button looks like an early attempt.

This one by someone with a little more experience, and is a technique I have not seen before. 

This one is quite beautiful don't you think?

What would these buttons have been sewn onto, can you imagine the dress?  

And these little pink balls, which are not based on wooden moulds, but filled with a soft textile inner balls, are also made from a similar technique, aren't they the cutest things?  If anyone can help me with any information about this technique, it has got me stumped, and I would love to know what it was called and how it was done.

Bead work piece from The Brain Watkins House

So here as promised, another textile delight from the Brain Watkins House, a bead work trim made by a skilled artisan, with a selection of fine glass beads used to create it.  

BWH 2004.0127.8 Image courtesy of the Tauranga Historical Society

Each square in the scale rule above the trim is 10mm long to give you an idea of the delicate detail. 

 

The trim has four diamantes running down the centre with an oval ring of copper rondelles, (flattened seed beads), and around this two rows of clear glass silver lined hex seed beads, with an outer row of gold seed beads.  On each side of this central oval, are three petals edged with gold seed beads, and filled with rows of iridescent grey/blue rondelles.  Running around the outside of each of these three petals is a rounded border with two rows of the clear glass silver lined hex seed beads with the outer edges finished with a row of gold coloured seed beads.
  

The backing fabric is an open weave canvas.  Note how the gold edging beads have been used to finish the edge of the fabric.

The backing stitches give us an idea as to how the beads were sewn on, in rows, rather that one at a time.

The questions I have are: who made this piece, was it a tailor / seamstress working in Tauranga, was it a textile trim purchased in Tauranga/Auckland, was it made overseas and imported into New Zealand, what era is it from, and what garment or accessory was it originally incorporated into?

So a beautiful little piece and I hope it inspires you to creativity, and to appreciate the skill of the person who made it.

The Poodle Collar

I have been inspired to create a piece of textile jewellery by a beautiful friend, who has ........ well it's kinda a wee, (obsession might be too strong a word), love of, passion for, attraction to, poodles.

This is a rough sketch of what I imagine the piece to look like when it is finished, although I think the scale of the circle is a little larger than I expect it to look when completed.  

 So this is what I have done so far.  The poodle is worked in antique seed beads on linen fabric.  The scale rule you can see down the side is 10cm long to give you an idea of the size of the finished piece, and the embroidery threads are the colours I was thinking of filling in the circle around the poodle.

The collar around the neck has two options, or more if you have another idea, cos this is all about you my poodle loving friend, and if you haven't got a Google account you need to get one so that you can become a follower, coz I am going for 30 followers, and that is the price you have to pay, (tee hee).  Anyway, I quite liked the houndstooth tweed shown in this image, for the collar, what do you think?

The other fabric we could use to cover the neck collar, is this beautiful Thai silk shown on the left of this image, it really is quite divine, but doesn't have the Co Co Chanel feel of the tweed, just a luxurious feel that is probably quite Parisian enough, n'est pas.  It's up to you my workoholic (oops did I say that out loud) darling, cos I would really appreciate your creative input on this one.  So let me know what you think, and I promise, not another stitch will be sewn until I hear back from you.  I am still waiting to lunch with you too, so push all those must do's aside and think of yourself and what you would like to do just for yourself, my creative, precious and wonderful friend.

Little girl's dresses and doilies

You may remember the beautiful Princess Isabella.  Here she is wearing a sweet little dress inspired by the wonderful work of handmade doilies and retro fabric, and buttons.

Using a simple white cotton singlet as a foundation made the construction of this dress a quick little project.  The really wonderful thing of course is that some of these beautifully made hand crafts can be brought out into the world and enjoyed again.  Don't you love the sweetness of the apricot pink fabric, a retro Japanese made synthetic.

It was so much fun I had to make another one or two, this one was for little Maddi.

So as you look through those old doilies and wonder what on earth would I do with them now?  Let them inspire you to create new delights from old, there are so many possibilities for renewal.

Until we meet again, much love Jo Jo.

The Butterick coat embroidery

Finally the embroidery of the coat is under way, it has been months since I started thinking about it,but I am sure my creative darlings,  that you understand about the flow of creativity, and how it is often about being in the right place, to work on the right piece, at the right time.  There are those sad pieces that end up tucked away in cupboards never to emerge again, lost in the desolation of a moment that was never quite found again.  However I am determined this coat is not going to be one of those.  

  

So this is the back, with the basic design off the tissue paper, basted through the tissue onto the coat fabric, and some of the trailing branches worked in stem stitch.  It was devilish hard getting the tissue off, but I have not got the luxury of a stand-alone embroidery table, or chalking paper.

Here is a great website if you want to see how to do a huge selection of embroidery stitches, it has clear easy to follow videos to show you how to work the stitches, a really great site, with heaps of information.

http://www.needlenthread.com/2006/10/embroidery-stitch-video-tutorial-stem.html

A detail of the basted outline of what will be the pink blossom, which I still have not quite decided how to do, a combination of ribbon, embroidery thread and beading I think.  I want to show you better images, but I do not have a camera, it has died and I have decided tomorrow I am going to bite the bullet and buy a new one.  So look forward to more posts as I will be up and running again.

The initial embroidery thread colours I have laid down as the trailing branches.

Possible ribbon colours I dug out of my stash.  I would like to do a technique with the ribbon I have used  before and tomorrow I will show you a little ribbon embroidery I have been working on, so that you can see what you think.  So I hope you like the colours, and I think I have decided on the lining too.  It is a printed Thai Silk I bought in Bangkok years ago, it has been sitting waiting patiently in its indolent glory for years, I will get it out and photograph it tomorrow.

So frustrated I will sign off in expectation of taking lots of photos tomorrow so I can show you some of the delights that I have found in the Brain Watkins House Collection, a chocolate box full of over 400 buttons, a wonderful piece of the finest bead work, and a rayon crepe blouse with some unusual and beautiful handwork.  So I will leave you with this thought until we find each other again:  

"We are here on earth to find our soul's joy".