A couple of weeks ago I went with a group to the Christmas markets in Strasbourg and Colmar. Both were delightful, Strasbourg being a larger cityhas a lot to offer when there is no Christmas market because of its many interesting stores, restaurants and cafes.
Colmar is smaller and quaint. It has a nice covered market much like the one in my city. It also has a cobble stone old town. The Christmas market can be visited in in just a couple hours. Again, when cold, there are many fun shops. Walking past a book store that sells old books, I saw that there was a book in the window about fashion written in the mid to late 1800s. I have visited many book stores like this and have always come away empty handed but due to the book in the window I went in.
In the store was the owner and a middle aged french couple that were in the final stages of buying a book and a couple of old postcards. They had interrupted his lunch. On a old wood table pushed up against the wall under a shelf of books was the uneaten parts of his lunch on a hand thrown dark blue pottery plate. The knife and fork left in a position as to say "I am coming back". Next to the plate was a half of glass of red wine. I am always pleased to see this type of thing since it is so, well, French.
I said Bonjour and then listened in to the conversation the three were having about the postcards. Besides greeting me back there was no move to help me. You always say hello to the shop keeper when you enter any small shop. This is very French. This is just how it is done, greet, then start looking around or in my case take my time and wait and listen to the conversation. After a couple minutes the man of the couple turned to me and told the shop keeper that he should really help me. The shop keeper turned to me and asked me in French which language I would like to use, French, German or English. This was way too fun so I answered him in all three languages but then in German told him that my best language was English.
I then inquired in English if he had any La Mode Illustrée books. He thought about it and then said he had three books I might be interested in. The first was the book in the window. In pencil on the front inner cover was the price and how many fashion plates were contained within. I paged through it was he went to find the other two. Fashion plates and the descriptions of the dresses in french was not what I was interested in but it was a beautiful book with a breath taking price. The plates were beautiful and still had the thin sheet of tissue that separates the color page from the print on the previous page.
The second book was sort of the same, only smaller. the plates were not as nice but it was a sewing book. Again interesting to look at but not what I was searching for. The descriptions of how to construct things assumed that you were an expert seamstress.
While paging through that book, the shop keeper was on a step ladder next to the table with his forgotten lunch reaching a book off of the very top shelf. As he brought it down he exclaimed that he was sure he had one of these up there somewhere.
He actually had one of the books I was searching for from 1903!
The conversation with the french couple started up anew as I was allowed to look at the three books at my leisure at the table next to his cold and neglected lunch.
La mode Illustrée started publication in 1859. What years they published the books of the entire year I have not been able to determine. The books do not include the much sought after patterns but come in a nice bound book cut down just a little from the original magazine size. Starting mid year in 1897 the cover drawing for each weeks issue turned to color. I own a 1897 book which is why I know this.
The French couple finished picking out postcards, their book was placed in a plastic bag, several hundred euros changed hands, they bid me adieu and were gone. The owner of the shop then turned his complete attention to me. We negotiated the price down from what the inside cover said. He gave me a brochure on the upcoming antique book sale happening in town early next year and let me know he is in my town several times a year selling his books. There is a big antique market shamefully I have never been to once a month at the nearby convention center. Next year I will need to go.
So while you are here, I thought I would share with you several pages from the book.
Notice the fold line. None of my other books have this so I wonder if they were bound by individuals and not the publisher. I would think that if they were different, but all of mine have the same outside cover with letters spelling out the magazine name and year on the spine and are the same size. The fold is interesting.
Continuing on:
Darn we all missed this Monday, 30 March exposition of new fashion of the season by over 100 years. Seeing the price of the jacket made me wonder how much would that accordion pressed taffeta jacket cost in today's dollars?
Searching on the web I found that in 1901 dollars 150 Fr would be approximately 572 Euros or about $652 USD in today's dollars. OK, a little pricey but you are in Paris and it is made out of yards of accordion taffeta. Not to mention the height of fashion.
I suppose we could buy the hat but hair styles and age must be taken into account:
Old ladies get boring hats. Some of these hats one needs to watch the door as you enter a room.
Continuing through the book, the wedding dress was really something:
Love those sleeves! There are variations to those and here they are:
Elsewhere there are drawings dissecting the sleeves so you at home can draft them.
Continuing on I have decided I want that shoulder shawl thing:
I would wear that with blue jeans.
Now the reason I buy this particular magazine is not for the fashion. Instead, I learn a lot of things about items I find at flea markets. Take this piece:
Notice how this can be wrapped around for say, a sleeve, maybe at the wrist and tacked so it looks like one continuous piece of lace. I have found these and thought they were lace bits when in fact if I had 2 of them I could put them on a blouse at the wrist.
People are beginning to have this belief that I am an expert at dating lace. Here is a good example of something I might find bits of and now I can date it if I actually found a piece. Don't laugh, it is not that uncommon that I do.
Then there is the other items one might find. It is nice to know how these items were used:
How about a book cover?
There is a nice issue on the Catholic first communion:
Girls and the dresses is pretty normal to see. But what about the boys?
Several years ago I saw something odd at a flea market and inquired into what it had been used for. It was a band with a bow on it made of satin and just a touch of lace across the bottom. Here it is, this is what the boys wore for first communion from the magazine:
I can and will be pouring over this book for hours but I thought you might enjoy this little peak.
Sometimes I don't sound my own horn. It is a bad habit I have had since, well forever.
Lets start by going back to last year. If you have read this blog you know that from August through December, for the past three years, I have been back in France. It is the best time of the year starting with warm sunny long days and ending with the threat of snow while drinking mulled wine at various Christmas markets in both France and Germany.
Last year I had lots of time while there to be creative. France truly does bring out the creativity in me. At the end of the four months here I sent several items off to Classic Sewing magazine for consideration. They published me! In the fall 2018 issue there was an article about embellishing shirts with lace bits, one of my specialties, as well as an article about a jacket, an article called Autumn Adornment.
Its about Autumn Adornment that I want to focus on.
Several years ago I found three old yearly review books of the weekly magazine "La Mode Illustree from the years 1893, 1897 and 1905. In the one from 1897, during the months of May though August there were a series of four filet patterns depicting people in court clothing. I immediately saw jacket. As I don't "do" filet, I thought it would be nice to convert the pattern to "red work". First off it is a fast form of embroidery and best, it is not too hard to do.
I took the original from the magazine:
And redrew the design so that all of the extra was removed and it was just a simple line drawing:
Transferred the design with a water soluble pen on to my fabric and embroidered it:
Finally I made a jacket using the four designs.
Here are my pictures of before I sent it off
Front:
Back
Far better than any picture I can take, you can see part of the article using the link for Autumn Adornment from Classic Sewing Magazine.
That was sew much fun to make and I should gets lots of wear out of it as well.
Where has the time gone? It's December!
It has been a good 4 months here in France. At my patchwork club we worked on several projects. The one you are about to read about has been my favorite this year. One of the ladies started with a picture of a purse she liked in a store window or catalog.
We could all make this, she thought.
She thought right.
The bag is basically two round plastic like woven place mats for the table. The leather handles are a bit problematic but there was a work around for it which made a bag just as nice.
The seam allowance throughout was 1 cm. Each place mat is lined with a light weight interfacing backed round cut of fabric. The interfacing is cut scant to the round size of the place mat and is ironed onto the wrong side of a square of fabric which is at least 1/2 inch (1 cm) larger than the the place mat. The square of fabric is then cut round with a 1/2 inch seam allowance. The fabric is then folded in at the interfacing to the interfacing side of the fabric. It is placed on the wrong side of the place mat and is clipped in place.
Here you can see the inside of my bag. I added a pocket to the center of one side of the inside of the bag. You can't see it in the picture, but across the top of the doily where the button is there is a strip of ribbon sewn so that the top of the pocket will not sag or stretch.
Critical measurements for the bag are from my notes:
Handles for us were the heavy webbing you can buy for bags. I only had a thinner cotton web in my stash so I backed the web with the same fabric used on the bag side to strengthen it. I backed the fabric with interfacing and cut it wide enough so that it had a seam allowance that folded so that the fabric just peeked underneath the cotton web.
What is critical no matter the size, the handle placement is 15 cm apart. I had to take into account the pocket so that it was straight up on the inside of the bag.
The ~80 cm finished handle includes the length needed for the ends in the seam allowance of the body of the bag between the place mat and the lining fabric. Just a word of advice (how do I know this?), make sure that the end of the outside of the handles fall inside the edge seam. Also important is that the handles be straight up at an angle to the curve as the drawing shows.
Sew the lining to the place mat and handles. An edge foot makes this really easy.
The second measurement that is important is the 10 cm down from the other side of the handle on both sides. Mark those places with a pin. With a ruler, measure around the bottom of the place mat from one pin to the other.
The place mats come in different sizes so the side band measurement was different for everyone.
Mine measured 82-1/2 cm just as a reference. Add seam allowance to both ends so it was 84-1/2 cm for me. Cut two 12 cm wide strips to that length. I had to piece mine as the fabric was directional.
Line the strips with interfacing, place them right sides together and sew all the way around the edge leaving open, somewhere in the middle, a 10 cm opening. Trim the corners and turn right side out. Press making sure that the 10 cm opening is neatly pressed in.
Clamp the side fabric to one of the place mat starting at the pin ending at the other pin. Sew starting at one pin ending at the other. Back stitch at both ends. Sew the other place mat to the other side of the side fabric. Its a good idea to check and make sure that the handles line up before sewing this part.
Add a snap at the top center and you are done.
So what did ours look like? Here are some examples of what our group made:
And this is what mine looked like:
Not as fancy as some of the others but I like it and it was fun and fast to make.
