February 12th 2011

30s sweetheart

If you saw last week’s post of 20s lingerie illustrations, there was a super-secret, hidden purpose behind it! I’d been contemplating sewing vintage-inspired lingerie since late last year, and it all started with a slim 1970s volume called “The Undies Book”. It’s one of those delightful DIY books that includes techniques and scaled, graphed patterns for a variety of underthings from demure “peasant” half slips, to barely there panties. I don’t remember whose blog it was I discovered the title of this book, but I was completely smitten when I received my copy (I found one on Ebay for about $5 with shipping). I immediately honed in on the 70s-does-30s cami-knickers, and started scheming about making my own. I splurged with some Christmas funds while we were up in Virginia on a yard of silk charmuese at G Street Fabrics (seriously the most expensive, per yard piece of fabric I’ve ever bought… but oh so luscious!) with the idea of making these cami-knickers for myself. To embellish the garment, I found a length of 3 1/2″ wide, vintage lace on Etsy that went well with the peachy-tone of the silk (sadly, my lace stash didn’t have anything wide enough–as much as I wanted to “shop my stash”!).

The original design had a lace bra portion and the bottom half was opaque. However, I really wanted something that not only looked pretty (because what girl doesn’t like lovely underthings?!) but could be layered under a semi-sheer blouse and act as a camisole. So I opted to line the upper portion of the pattern, while still keeping the lace as an overlay (I wrote a lot more about construction details below the “read more” tag). The resulting garment is a bit flirty in that charmingly 30s way, but still useful. Oh, and silk as underwear material? I’m totally addicted. I told my mom that it was a bad, bad thing I did buying a yard of this high-quality charmuese. This was a one-time purchase and my budget won’t support it. But oh is it lovely!!!

Please excuse the dressform photos, but as I’m a bit shy about posing in my underthings and posting it online, I hope these will still give an idea of how the finished garment looks. For being a graphed pattern that I scaled up (just by scanning into Photoshop and enlarging–super easy!), the fit is very nice. I might cut a size smaller through the torso/hips next time, but a little extra room to move around never hurt anyone! (Click the “read more” link to read the nitty-gritty construction details if you’re interested.)

Lingerie sewing is something completely new to me (unless you count my brief stab at a 40s bra last year; although I still intend to revisit that project!), and I don’t own any books (outside of the 70s book) to refer to. So as to whether my lingerie-making techniques are 100% “textbook correct” is up for debate. However I do have a decent handle on couture sewing as well as what I could cull from several references I found online, so I was able to piece things together and construct the piece according to what made sense to me.

A few things about constructing lingerie–in particular with fine lace and light silk–that I found helpful. Use fine pins and pin in the seam allowances if at all possible to avoid marring the surface of the silk. Make sure your iron is set at the correct temperature for silk, press on the wrong side or use a press cloth to protect the right side of the silk. Also make pressing your friend! I don’t know how many times I stitched something, it looked slightly off, but just needed a simple pressing.

I also experimented a bit with stabilizers, which I found especially helpful when stitching the lace to the edge of the silk before cutting away the silk behind. I experimented with a water-soluble stabilizer but found that after immersing the silk in cold water the dissolved stabilizer left the fabric feeling a bit stiff and gummy. So instead I used my favorite method of stabilizing fabric for sewing: using pieces of lightweight paper (in this case the medical table paper I use for tracing patterns, but I have used tissue paper as well) between the fabric and the feed dogs. It worked like a charm!

Stitch length and needle-size is super important when stitching with fine, lightweight fabrics. Claire Schaeffer recommends a size 60/8 or 70/10 needle in her Fabric Sewing Guide, and I went with a 65/9. When straight stitching I kept the stitch length small (1.5 on my machine) and for a zig-zag stitch I went with a length of 1.5 and width of 2.5. Finally: baste, baste, baste! It’s tempting to just power through a project this small, but taking the time to do things correctly and ensure that the fabric and lace are handled with care (to avoid snags and such) is worth it. I spent a lot of time hand basting (using silk thread since it doesn’t leave an impression in the fabric when pressed), especially when positioning lace.

The bust section was the most time consuming because of course I had to make it more complicated than the original design was (note the tinge of sarcasm… lol.) Originally the bust area was just pieced lace, meaning the finished garment would be completely transparent with my lace (which was not dense at all). As I had decided to make this something I could layer under a semi-sheer blouse if I wanted, I had to re-engineer things a bit. First the lace upper bust cup was basted to the matching silk piece, alinging edges and such. I used a zig-zag stitch to stitch along the top, scalloped edge of the lace and then trimmed the silk down to match the curves. The silk lower bust cup sections were then stitched to the bottom edge of the top piece. I chose to use a combination of a straight stitch 1/4″ from the edge and then a zig-zag in the seam allowance to finish the edges (a french or felled seam would have been too bulky with the lace sandwhiched in between). I then cut the bottom cup pieces out of lace and laid those over top the silk pieces, overlapping at the horizontal seam between the top and bottom pieces. They were basted in place and then I zig-zagged over the scalloped edges of the lace to affix these to the top bust cup section. The dart was then closed and stitched in a similar fashion to the horizontal seam.

As I said, all this was a bit time-consuming, but well worth it because the finished bust cup sections looked lovely when I finished them!

The body was the easiest portion by far, with just the center and side seams being narrowly seamed and then zig-zagged to finish. I thought about doing a French or standing flat fell seam, but they seemed a bit too bulky and cumbersome for this project after I did a little test swatch. The original instructions said to split a length of the wide lace in half to sew to the bottom of the legs, but I opted to pull inspiration from this photo and use the lace as-is. I seamed it to the edge of the legs, overlapping the top edge of the lace with the bottom edge of the silk by about 3/8″ and zig-zagging along the lace. I then cut away the excess fabric and was left with a scalloped edge and wide lace at the leg. Such a pretty look!

The final touches were adding the spaghetti straps and closures at the bottom. The straps were easy to make, although I could have used ribbon instead if I was so inclined. This is one of those instances I am so glad I bought a loop-turner last year; this funny-looking little tool (basically a long, thin piece of heavy wire with a latch-hook on one end to grab fabric and pull it right-side-out) has been immensely handy. A definite must for any sewing toolbox! For the bottom closure I just hemmed the short edges of the crotch seams under and then attached a series of snaps along each edge. This not only aids in getting in and out of the cami-knickers, but make it convenient for the more *ahem* “practical” moments in life.

I learned a lot during the couple weeks I was working on this piece. For one: lingerie sewing is somewhat addicting. I’d love to explore more is making my own slips (using one of my vintage patterns perhaps?) or knickers. I have a large stash of vintage slips, but some of them don’t fit quite perfectly (either in length or they tend to be a bit too big), and the thought of making custom to my requirements is tempting. Maybe I could use some of this pretty china silk? A girl can dream…

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