Sewing Challenge No. 8: Edwardian Skirt for the 1912 Project

Welcome to our humble blog... this is part 8 of a series in which a total novice learns to sew.


The 1912 Project policy has changed: now participants can request patterns to test, instead of using whichever we've been sent.
I received #0020 before this change. It's lovely, certainly much nicer than anything in the stores, but since I don't love it to pieces, I shrank it by an arbitrary 80% and made it doll-sized, out of the lining of an old suit jacket. --the jacket my husband was wearing when we went to get our marriage license, actually.
I cut it out, not in accordance with good sewing sense, but using Shel Silverstein's method of testing whether a window is open: chuck a brick at it and see what happens.
That a total beginner chucking a brick at this pattern as the lining pinned to it slithers away results in a beautifully-aligned skirt, even in miniature, says a lot in favor of the pattern.
However, I forgot the scallops.
You what?


I am still trying to decide what my approach to sewing is.
"If we're going to do it, let's do it nice," echoes the voice of Rabbi St. Helens. And indeed my instinct is to sew twenty stitches to the inch.
"If all you want from this pattern is to find out how a skirt comes together, slap it up with basting while you're waiting in line at the greengrocer's and save your attention, time, and effort for greater things," urges - I am not sure whose voice, but it won. So somewhere between the onions and the bananas, I forgot the scallops.
Not sure if I should be embarrassed about this or not, but the doll it's sized for won't mind, and it did come out pretty.
I think I'll follow all the rules of Careful Seamstering next time, just for exercise.


Click here if you are a 1912er or other wandering seamstress who wants all the fiddly details on the pattern.

The 1912 Project, Titanic Fascination, Numenor, Murasaki, a Niggun and a Sigh.

One hundred years ago, 1,514 people drowned in the Atlantic, and many others were ruined financially.
In commemoration of this event, 400 dressmakers around the world are sewing themselves new outfits.

Does this strike anyone else as an odd memorial for the dead?

Titanic fascination is a very odd phenomenon, when you stop to think about it. It's not enough to say, "We love the glamour of the era." No -- you love the glamour of the era that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.
It is glamour, depth, and tragedy all at once - like an opera! The clashier Western version of, the next best thing to, the sweet pain of Númenor (Where now are the Dúnedain, Elessar, Elessar?), or Elvish mourning over the swiftness of time, or the Japanese mono no aware (defined here)- which are subtler.

I have been trying to work out whether there is any similar idea in Judaism - that there is something lovely, lyrical, about entropy, the falling of the leaves, the passing of the generations. Sorrow is obviously not the same thing as depression, but I haven't found that we celebrate it in any way, any more than we celebrate any other characteristic of our relationship with the Eternal, knowing that it will eventually be turned inside-out to reveal joy.

Galus, galus, vie lang bist du...
...
!

The Vintage Pattern Lending Library has recruited 400 volunteer dressmakers to test vintage 1912 patterns. And all we have to do is sew and blog.
Although I doubt that this post is what they had in mind.
Free Edwardian patterns? Really? SIGN ME UP!

Thank you to the VPLL for coordinating the project.