18th century costume – Fabric & Fiction

How to Sew: Historical Seam Finishes

There were many ways of sewing and finishing seams in the 18th and 19th centuries. This is by no means a comprehensive guide, and there are probably as many variations as there are people who have ever sewn a garment, but these are some that are relatively common, and which I have found useful.

Three of these seam types (Mantua Maker’s, English stitch, and the Stacked seam) exist to save time by allowing the stitcher to sew a seam and finish the raw edges all in one go. Before the sewing machine, techniques like these saved a ton of time over modern techniques like bag lining, because they allow the dressmaker to sew each seam only once, rather than twice (once for the fabric and once for the lining).

Flat Felled Seams

Best for seams with no linings

A flat felled seam is sewn along the seamline with running stitch or backstitch. One side of the seam allowance is then trimmed down; then the longer seam allowance is wrapped around the shorter seam allowance and hemmed to the fabric. This encases all the raw edges within the seam allowance, and keeps the allowances flat against the fabric. It gives the seam a nice, crisp appearance, but does leave a visible line of tiny stitches along the seamline on the outside. Flat-fells are particularly useful for trousers, breeches, shirts, and shifts, as they are strong and hard-wearing.

Sew your seam as normal by hand or machine and press open.

Trim one side of the seam allowance. (Where possible, trim the side that will be at the back of the garment.)

Press the untrimmed seam allowance over the trimmed one.

Fold the raw edge of the untrimmed seam allowance under.

Begin stitching so that your knot is inside the folded seam allowance.

Hem stitch the folded edge to the fabric, making sure to catch only one thread of the outer fabric in each stitch so that your stitches will be as invisible as possible on the outside.

Mantua Maker’s Seams

Best for seams with no linings

In a mantua-maker’s seam, the two fabric edges are folded over together twice, and the seam is sewn along the inner edge of the fold. It comes out looking like a hem on the inside, and an ordinary seam on the outside. Best for long skirt seams. It is best done by hand, but can be done on a machine in a pinch.

Place your fabric pieces right side to right side.

Working with both pieces of fabric as one, fold the edge a small amount.

Now fold the edge again, so that the raw edges are encased inside the second fold, as if you were preparing to hem.

Stitch the seam using small stitches. Be sure to catch both pieces of fabric, and the very edge of the fold. I have found that this can be done on the machine in a pinch as long as you pin and sew carefully and keep as close as possible to the edge of the folded seam allowance in order to mimic the line of the hand stitching.

Hem and Whip

Could be used with or without lining

This is a method by which the pieces are finished individually, and then joined together afterwards. I would recommend this method most for lightweight, lined pieces, but you could also use it in unlined areas, though the hemming would show as a very small row of stitching on the outside of the garment if you use it without a lining. It is especially good for dealing with fabrics that fray easily, as it allows you to eliminate the raw edges before assembling the garment.

Fun Fact: The bodice of my Chemise à la Reine is constructed this way.

Cut your fabric with seam allowance, and your lining without. The example on the left is ready to begin; the example on the right is already finished.

Trim the corners of your fabric, about halfway between the point of the fabric and the point of the lining.

Fold the trimmed corner in so that the fold hits right at the point of the lining.

Fold up the edge of the piece so that the raw edges of the fabric touch the raw edges of the lining.

Fold the edge up again so that the raw edges are encased. Pin in place.

Do the same on the other side of the corner.

Repeat the mitering process for all corners of your pattern piece, and fold in all of the long edges to match.

You should now have all corners mitered and a hem pinned in place all around your piece.

Begin stitching at one of the corners. Stitch the edges of your miter together a couple of times to hold it in place.

Hem stitch the folded edge to the lining all around, stitching each miter together as you reach it. Make sure that you do not catch the outer fabric as you stitch.

Your pieces are now ready to be assembled.

Place your pieces right side to right side and pin.

Whip stitch your pieces together along the hemmed edges.

Overcasting

Best for flat-lined areas

This technique is by far the most common to be seen in Victorian era bodices, which are generally flatlined, with the seams pressed open and overcast to the lining. It is not the most beautiful finish, as the raw edges are left visible, though protected. It’s best not to let this bother you–our ancestors were not nearly so bothered about raw edges as we seem to be, and folding the seam allowances over in order to encase the raw edges would create unnecessary bulk in a tightly fitted bodice. This finish also makes it very easy to go in and make small fit adjustments if necessary.

Place your lining on top of your fabric, wrong side to wrong side.

Baste your fabric and lining together just inside the seam allowances.

Your pieces are now flatlined, from here on out you will treat the fabric and lining as one.

Place your pieces right sides together and sew your seam as normal, by hand or machine, through all four layers.

Press seam open. Trim the lining seam allowance so that it is even with the fabric seam allowance.

Start your thread so the knot is underneath the seam allowance. Stitch around the raw edges, catching the lining as you go, but not the outer fabric, so that the seam allowances are held flat against the lining.

“English” Stitch

Sews and finishes fabric and lining concurrently

I use quotes here because this stitch does not have a name that we know from the period as far as I have seen. It has come to be known as the English stitch in much of the historical costuming community. It is best known from this description in the Workwoman’s Guide from 1840:

The mode of sewing these four thicknesses so as to make them lie flatly when opened, is rather peculiar. Take up with your needle, three of the thicknesses, leaving the fourth unsewed. The next stitch, take again three folds, leaving the other outside one unsewed: continue alternately taking up one side and omitting the other, letting the stitches lie close together: when completed, open the seam, and flatten it with the finger and thumb.”
The Workwoman’s Guide, by a Lady, 1840

The edges of each piece (fabrics and linings) are turned under, and stitched in a way that sews all four together with raw edges between the layers. It is a very efficient way to sew fabric and lining, and is very useful for 18th and early 19th century gowns.

Press the seam allowances of both your fabric and lining to the wrong sides.

Place your fabric pieces right sides together (folded edges out).

Place each lining piece right side out against its corresponding fabric piece. Folded lining edges should be against folded fabric edges.

Make your first stitch from the outside in through one lining and both fabrics. Do not including the final lining in this stitch.

Make your second stitch from the other side, through the lining you didn’t sew last time, and again through both fabrics. Leave the lining you sewed in the first stitch out of the second stitch.

Continue stitching in the same manner; through three folds, leaving out one lining each stitch. Keep your stitches close together so that you will have a strong, tight seam.

“Stacked” Seam

Sews and finishes fabric and lining concurrently

This one is in quotes because I have no idea whether this technique has a name. It is another one that is useful for lined 18th and early 19th century garments. I also use it for a lot of my cosplays and modern sewing. It again sews the seam at the same time as encasing the raw edges, with the extra advantage that (unlike the English stitch) it can be done by machine as well as by hand. It does leave all four seam allowances running in the same direction, rather than opened out, so consider that when choosing between it and the English stitch. All four fabric thicknesses are stacked in such a way that the seam can be sewn all in one, and the lining and fabric will open out, covering the raw edges and leaving a nice, finished seam. It’s amazing how fast a lined bodice or dress can go together when using this technique.

Fun fact: most of the seams in my Dragonstone Landing dress are sewn this way.

Place your fabric pieces right sides together. In order to save confusion here, the top fabric in this picture is pattern piece A; the bottom is pattern piece B. When the seam is finished, all your seam allowances will point towards the piece in the ‘B’ position. Consider that when you decide what order to stack them in (I generally try to face them towards the back, or if it is a curved seam, towards the outside of the curve so that they can be clipped and not create as much bulk.

Place the wrong side of lining piece A against the wrong side of fabric piece A.

Finally, place the right side of lining B against the right side of lining A. All four of the pieces involved in the seam should now be in your stack: B fabric on bottom, then A fabric, then A lining, then B lining. This can also be achieved by putting your two fabrics right sides together, and then your two linings right sides together, and then placing the lining stack on top of the fabric stack.

Sew your seam as normal, by hand or machine, through all four thicknesses of fabric.

Pull the B lining out to one side and press all four seam allowances towards it.

There you have it: six different historical methods of sewing and finishing seams.

Repurposing Wine Corks for Stuffing

As all of us who study historical fashion know, our foremothers had all sorts of ways of changing the shapes of their bodies in keeping with the current trends. Of course, we all know about stays and corsets, and hoopskirts are all but notorious, but we can’t forget about all the ways that women have shaped their backsides over time! Bum rolls, false rumps, bustle pads and other forms of hip and rear padding have been coming in and out of fashion for centuries. Sometimes we forget that, if you’re looking for a small waist, padding out your hips goes a long way towards achieving that goal. The contrast of large hips makes the waist look even smaller.

There are many kinds of stuffing you can use in your padding, but I have a definite preference.

Fiberfill is always available, but it’s hot, gets lumpy and flat easily, and it’s basically a million pieces of microplastic, which I try to avoid putting into the environment whenever possible, especially for my hobby.

Wool roving is also a choice but has the same problem of eventual flattening. You’ll also have to buy either Fiberfill or roving (unless you have sheep), while my other options are free!

Fabric scraps are always around in any costumer’s studio. My first rump was stuffed with these, but it was very heavy, because you have to pack A LOT of fabric scraps in to get enough volume. It also, inevitably, will eventually deflate.

That leaves my favorite option: cork! Cork is lightweight for the amount of volume you get, and is much less prone to being slowly crushed by the weight of gowns and petticoats. Cork is also a very historically accurate material for this kind of padding. In the 18th and 19th century, the cork was generally carved into blocks of the right shape and size before being covered in fabric and attached to a waistband. Today, though this may still be possible, it’s a lot easier to repurpose the corks that many of us already have lying around!

Of course, whole wine corks would make for a very lumpy and uneven stuffing, so it’s necessary to process them down into something a bit more effective. You will need:

Lots of corks
A large pot
Water
A serrated knife
A cutting board

Before you start, you’ll want to go through your corks and make sure that none of them are synthetic. It’s usually pretty easy to tell the difference. The synthetic ones are generally very smooth around the outside, and spongy on the ends. In these images, the two top corks are both real, the bottom one is fake. You can also see that the two real corks have cracks where the corkscrew went in, while the synthetic one has a clean, round hole.

Put your corks into a large pot. You will probably need to work in batches in order to get enough. You don’t want to do too many at once or they will cool before you have a chance to cut them all up. You will also probably get tired of this after a while, so give yourself a break before you get too tired and start to rush and cut yourself!

Add enough water to cover the corks by an inch or so (they will float, but add enough water that they would be covered if they weren’t).

Cover the corks with something that will weight them down and hold them in the water (or at least hold in the steam). I used a smaller pot lid, but you could also use a plate or smaller pot. Make sure that whatever you use, you will have a way to lift it easily while it is very hot!

Bring the water to a rolling boil and let boil for 20 minutes.

When you remove the lid, the corks should look swollen. Remove a cork carefully with tongs or a slotted spoon. Replace the lid so that the rest stay nice and warm.

Your cork should be larger than an un-boiled cork, and be squishy and pliable. In these photos, the cork on the left has been boiled. The one on the right has not.

Cut your cork in half lengthwise with a serrated knife. I found it was easier to cut it part way and then just tear it the rest of the way. You want to work pretty quickly, as the cork will become harder quickly once out of the hot water and steam. Don’t try to work so fast that you cut yourself!

I have read about people grinding whole corks in the food processor, but that didn’t work for me at all. There was always one cork that got caught on the blade, effectively capping it and rendering the whole thing useless. Go ahead and try that if you want, and I wish you better luck than I had!

Cut each half in half lengthwise again.

Chop each piece into 4 equal pieces, 16 pieces total.

At this point, if you need smaller pieces, you might try the food processor again. For my purposes, these 16ths were just fine. (Remember, the smaller your pieces, the more cork you will need to stuff something, and therefore the heavier it will get. I would only go smaller than this to stuff quite a small pad.)

Leave your pieces to air dry, or pop in a warm oven for a while.

You can now use your cork pieces as stuffing!

I used mine to stuff a 1780s split rump made using the pattern from the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking.

Now, go use up those boxes and jars and bags of wine corks you’ve been stowing away forever!

Daisies and Bluebells: A New 18th Century Jacket

Since I started building 18th century wigs using period techniques at work, I’ve been doing more and more 18th century events. And you know what that means: I need more 18th century clothes!

In preparation for 18th Century Market Fair at Locust Grove this year, I set other projects aside to give myself time to build a new jacket and petticoat so that I wouldn’t have to wear the same outfit both days. When I bought this jacket fabric, I had hoped to get enough for a gown, but sadly by the time I bought it there were only two yards left, so I could only make a jacket. But I do love a smart 18th century jacket, so no real harm done!

This was a quick project, and I didn’t take as many photos as usual, so this will be a bit of a short post for me, but I love the way my new outfit turned out!

I was loosely inspired by this plate from Galerie des Modes 1778.

I started with the petticoat while at a cabin getaway with some friends. It is made from a lovely dark red wool from 96 District Fabrics.

Making an 18th century petticoat is incredibly simple: just sew the side seams, leaving them open at the top for pocket slits. Hem the bottom (which I didn’t take a photo of).

Pleat the top so that both the front and the back measure a few inches longer than half your waist measurement. Pleat the front away from the middle, the back towards the middle.

Bind the pleats at front and back with tape long enough to tie around your waist. You put the petticoat on by tying the back waistband in front, and the front waistband in back. You can also wrap the back waistband all the way around and tie it in back as well if your tape is long enough.

And now, the fun bit: my new jacket! This is made from white linen with a woven yellow stripe from Renaissance Fabrics.

I was a dingus, and completely forgot to take photos of cutting and putting the main pieces together. Luckily, the body is basically the same as this jacket, except that I modified the back to a swallowtail, and sewed it all by hand.

My first photo is of the sleeves, all sewn together with their lining, and ready to be set. Since my other striped jacket has vertical stripes on the sleeves, I went with horizontal on these ones just to shake things up.

Setting 18th century sleeves is a fascinating process, in which you sew the bottom of the sleeve to the body, and then sandwich the top of the sleeve between the fabric and lining of the shoulder straps. This lets you really play with the pleats on the shoulder until you get a look you really like.

Brandon helped me drape the shoulder straps for this, and you can see his sense of humor in the notes to tell me which strap is for which side.

The edges are finished by pressing the fabric and lining towards each other and topstitching.

I pleated some lovely blue ribbon from Wm. Booth Draper to trim the neckline and sleeves, accented with bows.

And here’s the finished product in action at Market Fair!

Wig by Custom Wig Company. Photo by Wayne Tuckson.

Columbine Pierrot Jacket and Petticoat, 1780

My first foray into the wonderful world of the 18th century has already made its appearance all over my social media, but here it is officially!

You may have already seen my new 18th century stays, but in case you missed it, you can read all about them here.

It’s kind of amazing, considering the amount of Revolutionary War reenacting that goes on, that it’s taken me four solid years to jump into this particular century, but once I was ready to get started, I had lots of decisions to make. With a large time-span at most of the events I am likely to attend, I first of all had to pick a smaller span in which to focus my research. I ended up focusing on the early 1780s, since it is it is a silhouette I particularly like.

In the 18th century, I will be primarily demonstrating as a wig-maker: so a trades-person, but one who works in a highly valued and fashion-related trade. Therefore I was aiming for something not overly fancy or ornate, but definitely fashionable and neat. I started by looking through paintings and fashion plates, looking for women with similar ideas. I was particularly inspired by the two plates below. The first is from 1778, and is described as a cook from the provinces, who has just begun to take on the elegant airs of Paris. The second is of a governess in 1780.

I fell in love with that cook as soon as I saw her. There’s just something about her little bows and peplum. “Pert” is the first word that comes to mind, but in the best possible way! I found the governess when I decided I wanted to do a short jacket and petticoat combo, and started narrowing my research even more. I love that the two employ basically the same shapes. but show how much variety you can get out of simple garment forms.

I settled on a Pierrot jacket and petticoat, and since I found a fun red and white stripe cotton for cheap on Fashion Fabrics Club, I decided to base the details of my first outfit on the governess plate.

By the time I got my stays done, I had one week left to make the actual outfit, which was a bit nerve-wracking. I knew I could get the petticoat done in very little time during the week, so I used the weekend to blaze through as much of the jacket as possible. I wanted to drape the jacket, but I obviously can’t drape on my own body, so I hemmed and hawed a bit until my friend Meredith made a genius suggestion. She and I are very similar sizes, and crucially, are both 5′ tall with very short waists. In my stays, padded out in a few strategic places, Meredith made an excellent body double! We spent Saturday afternoon draping and putting together the jacket.

By some stroke of luck that hadn’t attended me in the build up to making this outfit, this process was incredibly fast. I had help from a couple of extant pieces in order to see what the pattern shapes should be, and ended up with a simple pattern of center back piece, side back piece, front piece, and shoulder strap. I’ve got to say, I love the 18th century shoulder strap. It makes draping and construction so easy!

ci1998.253.1.R.jpg — Jacket from the Met.

I am an idiot, and managed not to get any pictures of Meredith in the stays for the entire several hours that she was in them, except on my Instagram story, so those are gone forever…

We draped with the lining fabric (white linen left over from a pair of Brandon’s trousers). Here I am cutting out the second center back piece from the original draped piece:

I also cut and sewed the jacket together as we went. I had to sew it by machine to save time, but it is constructed using the ingenious method I learned at a Burnley and Trowbridge workshop, wherein the lining and fabric are both sewn at the same time. Why we stopped doing this, I will never truly understand. Bag lining is the worst. But I digress.

And the front pieces:

With the main body of the jacket together, we decided it was high time for me to give it a try. I ended up making a slight alteration to the side seams, but other than that we were good to forge ahead! Meredith had a go at placing the shoulder straps:

And then of course, I remembered that I had wanted a zone front, so I tore the fronts back off again, but it was all ok. We had all the shapes we needed, and (most of) the difficult part was over.

I cut the zone front so that the stripes matched those on the front. I briefly considered changing the front to have horizontal stripes as in the extant jacket above, but after looking at it for a bit I decided I just didn’t care for it.

The edge is then turned under and stitched in place with a minuscule running stitch.

When I got the jacket put back together, and the shoulder strap linings attached, I spent ages staring at 18th century sleeves. It’s always scary jumping into a sleeve design you’ve never worked with before. Luckily, I found that Janet Arnold had patterned the perfect sleeve on one of the gowns in Patterns of Fashion 1, or I might have been stalled by indecision forever. It even had a similar gathered cuff detail to the one I wanted!

The grid underneath is the original from Patterns of Fashion, the one on top is my final altered piece. It looks crazy, but it makes a nice shape! The scoop on the bottom right comes up over the top of your forearm, while the v on the right gets sewn together so that it cups your elbow.

I really liked the way 18th century sleeves are set, but I won’t tell you all about it myself, because Koshka the Cat has a wonderful post dedicated solely to that, which you can read here. Long story short, the bottom of the sleeve is sewn to the body of the jacket as per usual, then the top is pleated to the shoulder strap lining seperately, making it really easy to adjust the pleats to your liking.

Top-stitching the shoulder strap in place on top of the sleeve.

At this point, it’s just a matter of finishing off edges. The lining and fabric edges are folded up towards each other, with the lining just slightly shorter than the fabric, then the whole thing is top stitched in place.

Technically finished! There were still details to add, but those would have to wait until I had something to wear on my bottom half!

Once again, Koshka the Cat has a fantastic tutorial for putting together an 18th century petticoat. Mine is made to go over a split false rump, and pleated smoothly in the front half, and gathered in the back for extra floof to help achieve that 1780s silhouette.

Finishing off the twill tape waistband. The twill is a bit thicker than I would like but I realized too late that I was out of nice thin linen tape in the right width.

I was cutting it very close on time at this point, so of course I had to have one major disaster. I had pressed up the hem, all ready to stitch, and decided to try the petticoat on to check the length. It wasn’t until this point that I realized that I had gathered the (shorter) front half of the petticoat, and pleated the back, which resulted in a bizarre and unflattering silhouette… So off came the waistband and all that work had to be done again.

After wasting all that time, I was down to just a few hours before I really needed to go to bed so that I would be conscious for Market Fair, so I prioritized my details: Hat trimmings and breast knot, peplum ruffle, sleeve ruffles, hem ruffle. The hem was last because it was big enough that I could either get just the hem ruffle done, or everything else.

On Friday night, I trimmed out my straw hat with peach ribbons and white flowers, and made a lovely little bow for the center of my neckline from the leftover ribbon. That would at least give me a bit of fun even if nothing else got done.

After that, I started on my first ruffle. Time was getting very short now, and I had to hope that I could do it quickly, because once it was part way on, I would be stuck doing the rest, no matter now late I had to stay up.

The peplum ruffle has a narrow hem, the top edge is pressed to the back, and a gathering stitch run through both layers.

I had to stop here for Friday night, but after the event on Saturday, I managed to move one more step forward. The sleeve cuffs are made by pressing under both edges of a tube of fabric, gathering both edges, and then stitching each edge to the sleeve. I really like the way these turned out!

I got started hemming the hem ruffle, but quickly realized that hemming, gathering, and attaching a ten yard ruffle was just not going to happen that night.

I took some photos at the event with no hem ruffle. I still love the way this outfit turned out! Market Fair was freezing cold, so I spent most of the time wrapped up in shawl and gloves, but I can’t wait to wear this next spring!

My wig is the one documented in this blog post. If you’re interested in acquiring your own handmade, human hair, and endlessly customizable beauty (or you’re just interested in seeing more of what we do), check out Custom Wig Company!

I enjoyed wearing this so much. I already have many more 18th century ideas bouncing around, and there will be more outfits coming next year!

PS: The Hem Ruffle!

It turned out to be a good thing I waited on this, because it took me aaaaaages to get it together.

Here’s what 10 yards of 12″ wide ruffle looks like waiting to be hemmed…

Like the peplum ruffle, the hem ruffle has a narrow hem, and is then pressed under at the top. This one has two rows of gathering: one 1/2″ below the folded edge, and one another 1 1/2″ below that, creating a ruched band between the two rows of stitches when the ruffle is attached.