Alfred Augustus Glendening 1861-1903

Summer Flowers, 1903

Country Cousins

Spring Morning

Reverie By the River



Alfred Glendenning was an English artist who is considered today as a Victorian Master. He loved to paint English landscapes, and the women in their gardens. One of his pupils was his son, Alfred Glendenning, Jr.





Heart shaped buttons reflect the heart flocked print on this "Keepsake Quilters" print, which comes in many different colors. Don't let the words "quilters" bother you when looking for dress fabric. All quilters fabrics are suitable for dresses, and many of them are reproductions of fabrics used for dresses in the 18th and 19th centuries. You can click on this picture for a detailed view. The buttons come in a cellophane package with other shapes, in white, including doves and roses, on the button rack at the store.







Sleeve trim from old cotton lace sent by a friend. You can also click on this for a larger view to see the antique cotton lace.

This dress is made from the New Look pattern, shown below, which has only two main pieces. I used sleeves from another pattern, and added the lace trim, which a "sweet friend" sent me when I won one of her giveaways online. The old cotton lace was exactly enough for the sleeve trims, with a little left for the neckline. The ruffle was cut off the bias edge, so that it did not have to be hemmed. You can get a ruffler quite inexpensively if you watch the sales at the fabric store and use your half price or 40% off coupon. It will ruffle in several different styles. This is the loose ruffle, barely there.

The under-dress or petticoat/slip was made from the short sleeved view of the New Look pattern, pictured below. You have to cut the neckline wider if you want to make a slip, so that it will fit below the dress. A slip with sleeves keeps the white dress from staining. I eliminated the facing and just stitched 1/2 inch around the necline, turned it under, firmly pressed it with an iron, stitched again, then repeated the process until it was low enough in the front and around the shoulders, for a slip. The sleeves can be serged or zig-zagged instead of turned under. It is non- iron , 45 " muslin. I made the sides of this slip more narrow and closer to the body than the dress.

You can use the wide satin ribbon and make a big bow in the back, to make the dress look more formal. I wanted everything to be cotton, so I didnt use any synthetic laces or bows. Here you see the twistie thing for the hair, that matches.
I would suggest experimenting with muslin first, and cutting the dress larger than your size. Cut it in a smaller size at the shoulders and neckline if you have narrow shoulders. Cut it wider at the bustline if you need to, smaller at the waist, or wider at the hips, depending on your needs. That is what those multi-sized printed patterns are good for.

New Look 6352

This cotton dress makes a great "anniversary dresss" and can be dyed later to another color and worn every day. White cotton feels good in hot weather.Qilters Keepsake was on sale for $2.79 a yard. I bought 4 yards for this dress. The cost totally was $12 when the thread and buttons were taken into account

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Norwegian Artist Hans Gude, 1825-1903

Brudeferden





To see a slide show of Hans Gude paintings,
go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36xdJKKjxbo

(please view all sites first, before showing young children)
To view more beautiful paintings of Hans Gude, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hans_Gude_paintings

A biography of the life of Hans Gude can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Gude

Many, if not most, of these wonderful painters were sent scurrying into privacy by the trolls and critics of the time, who were bent on and getting rid of realistic painting.

I am certainly glad this artist resisted the attempt to change his style in compliance with the elitist view of the times.

These paintings from the 18th and 19th century are surfacing in auctions. I find it sad that, in many cases, they were not available to the public for a hundred years, so I want to be sure and show them on this blog.

Hans Gude (not to be confused with Hans Dahl, whose paintings I showed at the beginning of this painting-inspired-clothing series) "painted Norwegian scenery in a distinctive and truthful manner."

In our heat wave across the northern hemisphere, these paintings bring a cool feeling. I was particularly noticing the women in the paintings. Some were doing hard, outdoor work, but you could from a distance, still see that they were female.

The Colorful Garments Painted by Eugene de Blaas (1815-1894)

This artist enjoyed depicting scenes of fisher women in their vibrant clothing.You can see them mending nets, in the above picture. Being a fisherman's daughter, I am quite familiar with putting out nets, picking nets and mending nets, and these paintings seem so full of life. In all his paintings, including once called "The Catch of the Day," Eugene de Blaas created scenes of action.

A Helping Hand

Eugene de Blaas had Austrian parents. His father , Karl, was also a painter and a teacher at the Academy in Rome and the Academy at Venice. Eugene often used his wife, Paola, as a model for women in the scenes.

The New Suitor

I love this picture, showing the shoes and stockings, and the aprons and different swaths of cloth draped about the women's skirts, as well as the scarves around the bodices of the dresses. The clutter in the house gives a glimpse of life in that era.

The Farewell

In this painting, t looks like the vest or cumber band they wore as a bodice outside the peasant blouse, was of tapestry or a colorful print. This collar is like the one I made for the yellow dress in a previous post in this series. The little shoes you see on the woman are similar to ones on sale right now in various shoe stores. (Wal Mart $5.00-$7.00)

This is the same fabric in a different print, as the black and pink dress on the post before last.This is pattern Its So Easy Simplicity 2901, no zip. I used a longer sleeve. I cut this a bigger size to make it very loose, and I use a length of wide black satin ribbon by Offray from WalMart (9 ft, and it has matching bows and roses),for a tie.

This fabric had matching grosgrain ribbon, so I bought a roll of it and just tied it in my hair over an elastic band. Grosgrain ribbon is a thicker ribbon which is woven with ridges in it. It does not wrinkle and it is great for ties on dresses. I plan to get a narrow grosgrain ribbon of this type and make ties for this dress. You can put ties on, even after you have sewn the dress, and I will try to show you how sometime. You can see the black piping trim on the neckline of the dress, which is 100% cotton. No, I do not streak my hair with chemicals. The lighter color is what we fondly call "farmers streaks," similar to a farmer's tan, where you get sun up to the sleeves and necklines of your clothes.I wanted to show the drape of the skirt here and how much fabric is in it, although, standing, the skirt is quite slimming. The casual flats are on sale now for 5 to 7 dollars at WalMart, and these matched the almost salmon-pink shade of the fabric. This will be worn for best for awhile and then, as it wears out, for every day house work.

After doing a few more casual dresses, I may move on to wedding dresses, childrens clothes, costumes, kitchen decor, home accessories, which you can make from cotton.

For your own freedom and protection, please post anonymously.

Sensibility Regency Pattern

Summer Loveby Eduard Niczky, German, 1850-1919

(order this poster from Lovely Whatevers)

On the Balcony

by Australian artist, Abbey Altson 1866-1949

Picking Flowers for a Posy

by Charles Haigh-Wood 1856-1927

(order this poster from Lovely Whatevers)

This pattern is available to order here

This gown was made from Jenny Chancey's Sensibility pattern a few years ago, of raw silk and is fully lined with white cotton muslin. It is a more formal dress, worn to re-enactments and historical events.

The clothes displayed in this sewing series were not all made in one year. I made about 4 garments per year. If a person just sewed four dresses a year, they could build up a collection. Naturally, the first year's clothes would wear more, but eventually it could built up to a substantial collection of good clothing.

This field of daisies cotton fabric is something I am looking at for a future sewing project. I even found some daisy shaped buttons on sale for 50c. They are not all the same size, but it does not matter, as I will use them anyway. When you are sewing for yourself, you can do what you want. The piece of co-ordinating green fabric might be a sash or a border on the hem, border on the sleeves, or some other detail.

Paintings With Multi-Generations of Women

Peasant Women Chatting

by Wencelas de Broczic

Generations

By Loren Entz

Albertino Palau



Butterick costume pattern

Pink piping matches the pink in the fabric on this dress, made from Its So Easy Its Simplicity number 2901. This dress works well with cotton and has no zipper, and the neckline does not need adjustment.

Jacket made with the above Butterick costume pattern. If you try this, you need to know it runs smaller than normal and so it should be cut in a larger size. I cut it in a 10 but when I do it again I will cut it in a 12 or 14. It is lined in matching pink muslin, but any lightweight cotton will work. I did add sleeves to the dress, from another pattern, so that I could wear the dress without the jacket. The fabric is all cotton and does not need ironing.

Here it is trimmed in matching pink rick-rack.

Hanging dresses with the matching hair bow or belt , makes it much easier to locate these accessories.

I made a very long elastic hair band for this outfit. Satin sash is called "My Moments" by Offray, from the WalMart craft section , with matching satin bows and roses, will wrap around twice like an obi-belt and still have enough to make a big bow in the front. You will have to put loops on the sides of the dress if you want to secure the sash, as satin is slippery. This color matched the pink in the print of the dress. These come in all colors and I hope to get one of each in the colors I like.

Without the satin sash, this garment is nice and loose but still has some shape. I think it would look good on a lot of body types. This is the dress I made to wear to the airport when I went on a trip last year. The sleeves came from an older pattern. Also, the little flats can be purchased at WalMart at the end of the seasons, for as little as $5.00. If your dress only cost you $10-15 to sew, you are more likely to afford the matching shoes.

If you learn to cut costs, such as choosing patterns when they are only 99c, and finding ones that do not require zippers or lots of buttons, you can often squeeze quite a few extra things out of a twenty-dollar bill, such as a hat, or the satin ribbon, and maybe a cute pair of five dollar flats that you just wear to church or a tea party.
Regarding clothing for different age groups, I included the 18th and 19th century paintings to see if there was much difference. I found that although there was a difference in what the little girls wore, the adult women of all ages had similar clothes. The younger women perhaps wore more light colors like white and pink, while it appears that the older women in the paintings had darker clothes. If you look at 19th century photographs of women, you may be able to detect if there was any difference in the clothing between young and old.

For beginner sewing, go here http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Sew./


http://www.wikihow.com/Sew-Using-Patterns



I wanted to show you one of the latest Martha Pullen Sewing magazines, which is worth buying if you can afford it (they are 10 percent less at Joanns)



http://www.marthapullen.com/ This issue shows novelty prints for little girls dresses, as well as using fabric yo-yo's and fabric leaves to decorate a dress. I've done this with a quilt but had not thought of doing it to a dress. The little girls dress inside is made with the sparkly cupcake fabric. I'll take a picture of the piece I have and show you. I hope to go on to little girls dresses and pantaloons and then to sewing for the home. I still have a few more dresses I plan to make, and with autumn coming, some very vibrant colors in fabrics. Not all colors look good on everyone, so I would strongly suggest you get ahold of a book called "Color Me Beautiful" by Carole Jackson. It showed a method of taking the bolt of fabric to a mirror in the store and pulling a large piece across your neckline to see if the color brightened or sallowed your skin. You learn this just by practice. What it means is that your skin tone is either blue or yellow, and it does not matter what the skin color is, or your race. Colors of fabrics will brighten your skin or yellow it. Carole had the colors defined into 4 color families: spring, summer, winter and fall. The summers were usually people who looked good in clear colors, on the pastel side, and the winters were clear but brighter and darker. The autumns and springs tended to look better in the colors with more yellows and oranges in them.
I just got this to make a girls dress like the one in the Martha Pullen magazine. This has a glitter on it. It comes with a light purple background, a light green background, and another color.

Multi-generational Clothing

Peasant Women Chatting

by Wencelas de Broczic (1800's)

Generations

by Loren Entz

artist: Albertina Palau (1800's)