Saturday, June 18, 2011

Cosmopolitan Fashion Company 655 - Men's Outing Shirt



1898 for certain, as this pattern is listed in Cosmopolitan's Spring and Summer Catalog for that year.  Patterns for utilitarian garments tend to stay in the backlist for a while, so this may have been offered a few years earlier and later.

Cosmopolitan Fashion Co. 

The earliest newspaper reference to Cosmopolitan I've found is 1895, when several stores advertised that they'd become agents for Cosmopolitan. Whatever the list price, Cosmopolitan patterns were frequently sold for 10 cents each - a pretty decent price.


Washington D.C. Evening Star, Saturday February 2, 1985

Cosmopolitan Fashion Co asked to be declared bankrupt in April 1901, but newspaper advertisements for their patterns seem to have continued until 1906.


The Outing Shirt

The Outing Shirt was intended for an active wearer, whether in sports or in occupations such as farming. Demorest offers an excellent description of the outing shirt in their 1898 advertisement. It's hard to overstate the impact that the bicycle riding craze in the 1890's had on both men's and women's clothing.

The Buffalo (NY) Times, Thursday, March 17, 1898

Butterick's Delineator magazine offered outing shirt patterns as early as 1890. In the artistic embroidery section of their October number they illustrated a pattern for embroidery that you could work on an outing shirt. They note that their outing shirt pattern number 2096 is made up in
"French flannel and the cuffs, collar, and pockets, and the lap at the closing are prettily decorated with embroidery, which may be done in South Kensington, satin, or outline stitch as preferred. Wash-cotton is best for embroidery and it may be white or colored, according to taste." (p. 296)




 
A hand-embroidered outing shirt might be a nice Christmas gift for a family member.

In 1898 you could buy an outing shirt on sale for 29 cents to 50 cents at Gusky's in Pittsburg (Pennsylvania.) Percale would be a good choice for summer. 
The Pittsburgh Post, Tuesday, June 7, 1898, p. 8

Making the Outing Shirt

I decided to approach this as a maker in 1898 would.  I assumed that the pattern was accurate and usable and that it wouldn't be necessary to make up a muslin to test the pattern.  But I also decided to take some measurements in order to forestall surprises and to use inexpensive fabric.

I removed the pattern pieces from their envelope for the first time since they'd been originally packaged 112 years earlier.  Both the envelope and the pattern pieces were in very fine condition.  Here is what the eleven pieces looked like immediately after I'd unfolded them.


I let the pattern pieces relax overnight before ironing them with a dry iron on very low heat.  This looks a little more promising:


The pieces are, from upper left and as described on the envelope:  Sleeve Lap, Sleeve, Cuff, Collar, Neck-band, Yoke, Back, Front, Lap for Front and Two Pockets.  And remember:


The reason for this is stated in the catalog:


The 19th century maker would have laid out the pattern pieces on the fabric and traced a solid line around them with tailor's chalk or a soft pencil.  She would then cut outside this line to add the seam allowances.  Because the actual stitching line has been traced in chalk, it's sufficient to cut the seam allowances by eye and trim them even during construction.  She could also have marked a measured seam allowance, usually a dashed line, and cut along this line. (However, by 1900 Cosmopolitan had added seam allowances to their pattern, probably to compete with other pattern companies.)

Adding your own seam allowances also allows you to use different seam allowances for different parts of the garment, and I'll come back to this idea a little later.

I never sew with patterns this old, so I rolled out my pattern paper and traced all of the pieces.


Note that the pattern pieces are placed under the pattern paper so that they're protected.  It's quite easy to feel the edges of the pieces with the tip of your pencil and be guided by them as you trace.  For speed, I use a ruler for drawing in any straight lines.  You can see that I've added a uniform half inch seam allowance.  In fact, a better plan would have been to add half inch seam allowances for the shirt's side, yoke, and sleeve seams and quarter inch seam allowances for most of the other seams, since this would save having to trim these seams during construction.

The pattern pieces show a reasonably comprehensive set of notches and perforations.


I made up the shirt in an inexpensive chambray, one of the many fabrics recommended for outing shirts.   My chambray was 54" wide, which I pre-washed in hot water.  The instructions on the pattern envelope suggest that 3 3/8 yard of 36" fabric would be needed for this size 40 shirt.

Here's the layout.  Can you spot the mistake I've made?


Look carefully and you'll see that I've laid out the front of the shirt along the selvedge. It should be laid out on the fold.

It's my usual practice to cut my notches as short snips and to thread mark all other markings, so I did the same here.  I use two strands of darning cotton and a millinery needle to make my thread markings.


The instructions on the envelope (separate instructions sheets won't start showing up until the 1920's) describe how the pieces are put together, but the maker is expected to know what constitutes good shirt-making technique.  For men's shirts the collar, neck-band and cuffs are almost aways interlined for body and sturdiness.  One of my Women's Institute books recommends using the shirt fabric itself for this interlining.  There is something to this.  When the collar wears thin it can be discretely darned to the interlining. (When this is no longer possible the collar can removed, turned over, and re-attached. Ask your grandmother how much fun turning the gentleman's collars was back in the old days.) However, I felt that the chambray was a little too heavy to work well for this, so  I interlined the collar, neck-band and cuffs with a fairly lightweight unbleached muslin.  I have a cheat for doing this.  I pin the cut pieces to the muslin rather than the paper pattern pieces.  This means that as soon as I cut the pieces out, I'm ready to do the basting.  Here I'm ready to pin the collar to the muslin.


And here is the completed basting.  I don't use a special basting thread.  I just examine my thread board for the ugliest color I can find and use that.  Honestly, I don't know how I ended up with a spool of bright yellow thread.  Using a basting needle makes this a very quick job to do.


And now I'm ready to start sewing.  As much as possible, I tried to construct the shirt in exactly the order specified in the original instructions.  I also wanted to do as much of the sewing on the machine as possible, for both speed and sturdiness.  Because the outing shirt was athletic wear in its time, it needed to hold up to strenuous activity, such as tennis, which you can just make out being played in the background of the illustration.



So here we go.
"Open the front from neck edge as far as single notch and sew the front lap to the left front by notches with the seam on outside, then fold lap over front on line of perforations.  Sew a facing or underlap to the right side of the slash and close the front with button holes.  Stitch the pockets to position, placing the large pocket on the left front and the small on right side."
There is no pattern piece for the underlap; you're expected to know how to take measurements of the shirt and the neck-band and cut a rectangle of the right size to allow the shirt to close correctly.  To give you a sense of proportions, one of my sewing books of about the same period indicates that the front opening should be waist-depth.

There were no indications on the pattern pieces as to the placement of the pockets, so I guessed (incorrectly, as it turned out.)


Next:
"Slightly gather the upper edge of back between the notches, sew to lower edge of yoke by notches and join the side seams as far as single notches, finishing the seams with small gussets."
A gathered back is a common feature in outing shirts, providing some additional ease.

In the matter of the yoke I did deviate from the original instructions.  I cut a facing for the yoke, both for strength and for neatness of finish on the inside of the shirt.  This meant that the shirt back was sewn first to the facing.  My approach to sewing on the yokes was to turn up on the seam allowances and top stitch to the shirt back.  Here is the back sewn to the yoke facing.  Unfortunately, I removed the hand-basting stitches before I took the photograph.


And here is a close up.  The top two rows of stitching are the machined gathering stitches.


For both yokes, I machined along the seam line, notched to the line of stitching, and then pressed the seam allowance up.



Thus prepared, the yoke was then carefully basted to the shirt before being machine stitched. (Once again, I don't seem to have taken any pictures showing the basting.  With the exception of the side seams, every seam on the shirt was hand basted before machining.)  Here is a close up of the right side of the shirt, showing the yoke edge-stitched to the shirt back.  I'm currently using a 1945 Singer treadle machine for all of my sewing.  I used a short stitch length throughout the shirt.


Here is the wrong side, where the effect is of edge stitching, which attaches the yoke facing to the shirt, and top stitching, which attaches the yoke to the shirt.  I was pleased with how well this came out, which I owe to the hand basting.


Although I didn't take any pictures of this, I basted the yoke and yoke facing together.  This functioned as stay stitching to prevent the neck and sleeve curves from getting stretched.

The maker is expected to decide on a seam finish for the side seams.  I used a flat felled seam.


The maker is also left to decide what kind of gussets she wants to use (and how large or small to make them.)  My preferred way of handling hip gussets is to cut triangles.  The edges are all turned under, and the base of the triangle is sewn to the inside of the shirt...


 ...then the tip is turned over to the right side and sewn down.


Next:
"Sew the lap to slash in sleeve by notches with the seams on the outside, then fold the lap over on line of perforations, stitch to position as indicated by corresponding perforations and narrowly hem the unnotched edge of slash."
And here is a fairly uninspiring shot of the newly placketed sleeves.  The bits of tape are to indicate the right sides, as I have a real genius for unintentionally making two left sleeves or two right sleeves.


Next:
"Gather the sleeve on lower edge between the notches and stitch the cuff to lower edge of sleeve."
Unfortunately, I took only one picture of this operation.  Here you see two rows of pink hand-gathering threads and one row of red thread basting the sleeve to the cuff.  You can't see the cuff because at this point it's on the inside of the sleeve.  After I sewed it down, I turned it over to the outside on its fold line and edge stitched the cuff to the right side.


Next:
"Sew the arm's eye to sleeve, three-fourths of an inch from the edge of sleeve, placing the seam in sleeve at side body seams (the single perforation indicating the front), and stitch the upper edge of sleeve to position."
The 3/4" offset from the edge was a real head scratcher, and I basted in the first sleeve a couple of times before I thought I had it right.  What that 3/4" gets you is sufficient material to make a very sturdy felled seam.  Again, remember that this shirt is athletic wear, and the sleeve seam can be expected to take a lot of stress.  A shirt is ruined if the sleeves pull out, since there is seldom enough sound fabric left to make a repair.  One test of a well-made pattern is the accuracy of the sleeve fit, and this pattern passed the test with flying colors.  It was at this point I realized that I'd sewn the pockets in far too high, so I reset them a bit lower.

And finally:
"Stitch the collar between the neck-band by notches and the neck-band to neck by notch."
It's important to get the collar set correctly because it frames the face and thus gets a lot of visual attention.  The band must be centered correctly on the shirt, and the collar must be centered correctly on the band.  The collar points should spread symmetrically and be the same length.  

Collars are not trivial to do well.  You're working with relatively small, narrow pieces of fabric that have just enough curvature to make accidental stretching a concern.  Once you're ready to attach the collar to the band, you'll be working with multiple layers of fabric and narrow seam allowances.  Given the very brief instructions, it was up to the maker to have solid shirt-making skills to guide her to a happy result. 

The pattern was accurately notched, but I failed to notice a very odd thing until I'd sewn the collar to the band:  the collar is the same length as the band.   Because the band overlaps when buttoned, this means that the collar fronts overlap as well.  I don't think I've ever seen this in photographs of the period - to the contrary, the gap between the collar fronts can be quite substantial.  This gap is necessary to accommodate the knot of the neck tie, and the 19th century being what it was, a gentleman might choose to wear a tie with his outing shirt. (Our model wears what is probably a soft silk neckerchief.)

On examining the original pattern pieces, I discovered that the neck band extends beyond the collar by 1/2 inch on either side, so at some point I managed to introduce an error, either in inadvertently stretching the collar or in mismanaging my seam allowances.  Now that I know that overlap is an error, the solution is to rip out the collar, restitch the front edges and re-apply the collar to the band.  In fact, a thrifty, thoughtful maker would have made an extra collar at the same time she did the original construction and stored it away against the day the original collar could no longer be darned or turned.

Button placement was not indicated on the pattern pieces, leaving this to the maker.   Having a large stash of old mother of pearl buttons, I could afford to be generous with the buttons.  I worked the buttonholes by hand.  My normal method of working button holes is to work a one-stitch wide box of double running stitch, slash inside the box, and then button hole stitch all around the box, bringing up the thread for each button hole stitch just outside the double running stitches.  

However, a plain sewing manual of about the same period as the shirt recommended simply overcasting the cut edge and then working the buttonhole stitch, so I decided to give this a try. This approach is probably fine for a more firmly woven fabric than chambray, but my results were somewhat uneven.  This wasn't helped by the fact that I simply used a doubled sewing cotton (and a fair amount of beeswax) for my stitching, as the only button hole thread I had on hand at the time is part polyester, which I don't care for.

Here is the finished product, overlapped collar, wonky button holes and all:


For a stated size of 40" chest, here are some measurements:

Circumference under the arm = 50 1/2"
Neck from center of button hole to center of button = 17 1/8"
Sleeve from center bottom of neck band at back, to edge of cuff = 32 1/2"
Circumference of cuff = 10"
Front length from bottom of neck band = 29 1/4"
Back length from bottom of neck band = 34 1/4"
Length of front placket = 19 3/4"

And what about that little pocket?  My guess is that it's a watch pocket.  I can tell you from personal experience that it's impossible to get your watch out of a watch pocket set into your waistband when you're seated, so putting this small pocket in the shirt would make the watch accessible while the wearer was seated riding (either a bicycle or a horse are possible for 1898) or in a canoe, for example.


And here the shirt is again, styled with my favorite red spotted handkerchief, and showing how the small pocket might have been used as a watch pocket:



Originally posted in 2009, entirely re-written in 2011, following construction of the shirt. Additional details about outing shirts and Cosmopolitan added in December 2024.





Friday, May 20, 2011

Pictorial Review 3701 - Boys' Overalls


After 1907, but probably before the first World War.

Pictorial Review offered this pattern in sizes from 4 through 16 years.   This one is a size 8 years.  Boys older than 16 would be able to wear smaller men's sizes.

These overalls are the right thing to wear when helping to put in the vegetable garden.  It would seem that transplanting flowers, as this young gentleman appears to be doing, is perhaps a more formal activity, requiring a beautiful spotted blouse and a tie.

Pictorial Review patterns were advertised through the Pictorial Review magazine, and like all fashion magazines, the publishers advertised the fashionableness of their offerings.  But clearly somebody felt that a highly functional overalls pattern would find an audience.

A separate layout sheet is included.  The patent date of 1907 is for the layout, not the style.

But the instructions are still given on the front of the envelope.

This pattern was closed with a pin, something I find now and again, most commonly with patterns before the 1920s.

Although the back of the envelope is unprinted, the back of the layout sheet offers some advertising.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

McCall 8696 - Misses' and Girls' Middy Blouse

After 1908, probably before 1920.

Civilian clothing has borrowed from military design since at least the eighteenth century, and by the late nineteenth century the middy blouse (sometimes as part of a "sailor suit,") was a popular garment for children for the same reason it was useful for sailers (middy is a shortened term for midshipman;) it's relatively easy to make, can be made from stout materials, and provides good freedom of movement.

The idea that strenuous physical activity for females might be both enjoyable and healthy had only taken hold in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and suitable clothing had to be found. (1)  Extending the use of play clothing worn in childhood is a logical solution.

In 1916 the American artist Helen Simpkins painted this thoughtful young lady in her middy blouse.  Imagine how different this portrait would be if the sitter was wearing tailor mades or a ball gown.

http://www.carolinaarts.com/902simkins.html
1916 is also the year of this wonderful group photo, found on Shorpy, of young folks on a camping expedition.  See if you can count the number of middy blouses, primarily on the girls, but in at least one case, worn by a young man.


The Eaton's Department Store advertisement in the Toronto World for April 6 1916 raved about the popularity and practicality of the middy.  You could buy a highly functional middy for $1.95, or you could go for a stylish silk version for $2.95.  Note that sizes were available up to 44 inch bust, so this was a garment that women as well as girls were wearing.

The middy blouse was considered so fundamental a garment that extensive instructions for making a middy are given in Clothing for Women, originally published in 1916 and republished as late as 1921.  The author recommends making up the middy blouse in drill, galatea, Indian Head muslin, poplin, khaki cloth, linen, serge, or flannel.

 In 1920, the Bush Magazine devoted an entire enthusiastic (but not necessarily trustworthy) article on the middy:



There isn't anything unusual about McCall's middy blouse offering, but included in the envelope is a piece cut out of a German language newspaper, possibly from the Chicago area.  I've tried to match this up against both the pieces for the collar and for the front yoke but I don't see a clear relationship to either of them, so possibly this got put in the wrong envelope entirely.





(1) It's worth remembering that at the same time that middle class girls and women were beginning to be more physically active, their working class sisters were working in some pretty grueling physical conditions and didn't have time, money, or opportunity for outdoor activities.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Pictorial Review 9051 - Boys' and Men's Windbreaker


Late 1930s.

This seems like an appropriate pattern to feature now that we move into blustery March weather.  Pictorial's patterns descriptions are always cheerfully breezy sales pitches:

BOYS' AND MEN'S WINDBREAKER. A sure way to any man's or boy's heart is by making this windbreaker. He'll like either the one- or two-piece back and slide fastener closing. Elastic webbing at wrists and waist and welt pockets feature View 1. View 2 has buttoned tabs at wrists and patch pockets.
This is a later incarnation of the 1920's windbreaker we saw in Butterick 7031.  By the '30s the waistline has returned to its natural position - in fact, by this time it's probably a little higher than natural.  The economies of the tail end of the Great Depression that led Butterick to believe that makers might knit their own banding have given way to purchased banding and those nifty new slide fasteners.

Illustrations for men's patterns frequently show the men doing manly things.  I'm not exactly sure what Mr. 1 is doing - checking his watch, or possibly a compass.  Master 2, throwing a stick for his fox tarrier, illustrates a suitably rugged activity. (There was a very famous fox tarrier at this time in Asta, who shared billing with William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man movies, the first of which came out in 1934.)  Smoking is one of the more popular manly activities illustrated, here seen on the back of the pattern envelope.


And in case you didn't quite get the drift from both the front and back illustrations, the illustrators take a moment on the instruction sheet to show you that this windbreaker is also suitable for fishing.



Tuesday, February 15, 2011

New Idea 8607 - Ladies' Bungalow Apron


One of the pattern pieces on this one has been stamped with a date of February 15, 1918, during a period when every middle-class family aspired to own a bungalow - perhaps one of those packaged by Sears, so the term Bungalow Apron is a bit of a marketing job.



For a stated bust measurement of 40", the actual flat measurement at the bottom of the arm scyes is about 50".

Yes, it looks like a dress, and by the 1920's, the Women's Institute book Aprons and Caps acknowledges that on particularly hot days a woman may choose not to wear a dress underneath her voluminous cover-all apron (She'll still be wearing the full set of the undergarments of the day, and possibly a petticoat in the same material as the apron.)  A cousin to the bungalow apron, the "porch dress" seems to show up in the 1920s.  Since the one porch dress pattern I've seen called for a large amount of beautiful embroidery, I tend to think of it as slightly more dressy (informal afternoon wear) than the bungalow apron (worn when doing the morning's housework.)

To test the bungalow apron pattern, I made it up in an inexpensive cotton print fabric.   The only instructions given are on the back of the envelope:


You get a total of seven sentences of guidance on construction.  You're expected to know how to cut and apply your own facings, decide where to place your button holes, and, if you want to emulate the model on the left, know how to apply piping.

The original center back length would have been about 55" before hemming.  Notice that you're offered the option of facing the bottom of the apron.  You could either cut facing from the apron fabric or use some other fabric that you'd thriftily pulled from your scrap bag. Given the curvature of the bottom, I'd probably cut a fairly narrow facing on the bias. I cut my apron 6 inches shorter than the original and finished it with a 2" turned up hem, for a finished center back length of 47".

The layout doesn't indicate that the yoke is faced, so I didn't face mine, although if I were to make this up again I probably would.  A yoke facing makes for a slightly heavier garment, but I think it's also stronger, and of course, the inside finish is nicer.  Note that the layout does show you that piecing will be required.  My fabric was 45" wide, and I had to piece both the front and the back.  This is how the front looked once I pieced in the side gore.  I flat felled this seam for strength.


Here you can see the yoke and the front laid out, preparatory to the front being gathered and sewn to the yoke.

I decided to make the short sleeved version.  I thought the cuffs seemed to need a little embellishment, so I decided to finish both the cuffs and the neckline with piping, rickrack, and a bias band for the neckline, following an approach recommended by the Women's Institute in their book, Aprons and Caps.

This is a good technique. It can be done entirely by machine (except for the basting, which is really necessary) and gives a clean finish to the inside of the garment.  I seem to have missed the detail that the mitered corners of the bias band are actually cut and sewn.  I just left mine folded.  I suppose I could slip stitch them now.  I had a little trouble getting the piping as narrow as I wanted it, I think because I didn't trim it down - it was just a bit too wide to behave correctly, even though I basted it in place first.

The rickrack is from a box of trims that a neighbor of mine bought at an auction in southern Oregon.  Most of the materials were in their original packages, but a few unpicked lengths were wrapped around old postcards dating to the 19-teens, so the rick-rack and the pattern are about the same age.  All machine sewing is done on a model 201-K Singer treadle machine built in Scotland around June 5, 1945.


Here's the edge of the cuff:


The pattern offers no guidance on button placement.  I ended up with a rather idiosyncratic placement.  If  I were to make this up again, I'd probably leave off that second button hole in the middle of the yoke.  The buttons are vintage.  I use a fairly large size button for these back-fastening aprons so that I can actually do them up.  The button holes are worked by hand.


As it happens, it's entirely possible to slip into this apron without having to undo the buttons.  If I make this up again, I may simply sew up the back seam and save myself the work of making the facing and the  button holes.

Here you can see the piecing on both the front (the larger gore) and the back (the smaller gore.)  The side and sleeve seems were flat felled for strength.


A feature that should be remembered about aprons and house dresses is that they are easy to launder; there are no fiddly bits to get torn in the washing and they lay flat for fast ironing. In a world before wash-and-wear fabrics, this is not a trivial thing.

This bungalow apron has no pockets, which doesn't seem to be uncommon for these coverall/dress aprons.  Here's a pocket-less kimono "apron" (no sleeve seam) from Aprons and Caps that's very similar to the New Idea bungalow apron.


My mother has observed that her mother always wore an apron (with pockets) over her house dress.

If you're completely taken with this design, you can get your very own copy through Past Patterns. This is a tracing of an original, so comes only in that one size, but the beauty of these is that they're easy to re-size.

The pattern went together accurately, any misalignments you observe are generally the result of my getting lazy about basting.

Wrapper from the rick rack that I used
Part of the original concept for Unsung Sewing Patterns was that garments would eventually be released into the wild so that they can gain the experience (and hard knocks) that we observe on vintage clothing. This will probably be the year that I'll start doing this, so it seemed like a good idea to get some labels made up:

Originally posted on July 27, 2008.  Re-posted on February 15, 2011 with revised and new content.