Mid-century styles actually make it easier to “dress the baby” than other eras; the rounder, slightly-higher waistlines of the 60s, for instance, are very forgiving through early pregnancy, and easy to use later, too.

Most women tend to gain inches through the torso and bust, but relatively few experience dramatic changes through the shoulders, so work up a copy of your base pattern that fits easily (but is not baggy) in the shoulders, and quite generously over the bust, with some decent expansion in the waist (say, 10″ across the front).

One way to do this is to slice up your waist-to-bust dart, and then over to the armscye. Swing the outer/side section of the bodice out to create a 5″ gap along the waistline (the section will “hinge” at the armscye), and trace the new, exaggerated shape. Leave your back bodice as-is. It’s nice to have something that really fits, and a smooth back bodice helps with the end-of-gestation large-as-a barn feeling.

If you’d like to preserve a bit of “this is a real dress” feeling for the very end of pregnancy, do run a very little bit of gathering to mimic a gathered-to-fit bodice style.

Cut a strip of fabric (straight grain is great, bias if you need to) about 2-3″ wide, and of a length sufficient to span your newly-enlarged front bodice waists. This will be used to create an interior waistband or facing, through which three narrow tapes will be threaded in stitched channels, to adjust your dress bodice.

Press the short edges of the strip to the wrong side 1/4″, and position one short end just behind your desired bodice closure line, the other just in front of your side seams. Hem the upper edge of the facing strip flat to the inside of the dress, using a running stitch by hand. (Hand stitches show less on the outside, and are more flexible during use.)

Continue to stitch three 1/4″ channels along the facing, being sure to leave the exits on the short ends quite open.

(showing the finished interior casing when skirts are attached; click to embiggen.)

Narrow twill tape can be threaded through to use in your bodice adjustments. You can either choose to sew the tapes firmly into the side seams, or have them adjust individually by adding short, permanently stitched tapes to the side seams, with which each tape will be paired and secured. The tapes exit at center front, and are adjusted and tied inside the bodice before the bodice is fastened.

(from the outside, only a few running stitches show.)

Set your skirts to the expanded waistline, using gauging or whipped pleats.

In early pregnancy, or post-partum, the tapes can be snugged up comfortably, and the bodice will appear to be gathered-to-fit. There will be a slight bit of extra skirt bulk just in front, but it’s generally not noticed, and in any case, is normal for this particular mid-century dress technique. In later pregnancy, the tapes are loosened to accommodate The Bump; in late pregnancy, they may be left untied altogether. Bust measurement increases will pull the front of the bodice up just a bit, with a handy side-benefit of raising the waistline for the baby, as well!

Add gestational and nursing corsets, and you can comfortably wear this style through pregnancy and for months beyond. If you’ll be pregnant during the summer, utilize slightly V’d necklines, open sleeve styles, summer-weight fabrics, and half-high linings, to reduce the heat retention of your dress, as well.

And, just for something fun: if you’re in the Pacific Northwest this summer, stop by Oregon City and the End of the Oregon Trail Visitor’s Center, to see a great exhibit, “And Baby Makes Three: Motherhood and Maternity on the Oregon Trail” The exhibit is free to the public, and is open Thursdays through Mondays, 11-4.

Hosted by the Museum of the Rockies, The  Sewing Academy will present a series of workshops in Bozeman, Montana, 10-12 May, 2012. Phone and mail-in registration are now open!

You can view and print the Bozeman Montana Registration Form Here.

Registration will close 1 May, 2012, but seats are limited, so register and reserve yours soon!

So, do yourself a favor: pop over to her blog, read her most recent article, and then bookmark, like, or add her to your feed.

Taking a Closer Look, Part I

We hope you’ll join us Friday, 13 April 2012 and Saturday, 14 April 2012, for hands-on workshops that will inspire, instruct, and engage everyone from the newest newbie, to the moldiest oldie.

View and download the Missouri Registration Form Here.

(registration form on the first page, workshop details on the second)

Registration will close 15 March 2012, so don’t delay. When you register, we’ll process $20 of your total workshop fees and hold your seats. The balance will be processed at the close of registration. We’ll have on-line registration coded and open next week; for now, feel free to call in or mail your registration!

Here are some top-notch resources for accurately-made hoods, suited for all cool-weather living history endeavors:

• Overview article on observing correct historic shapes from the delightful Anna Worden Bauersmith
• Anna’s new hood pattern (which includes youth sizes!) (She also sells ready-made hoods through her Etsy shop…)
• Hood options from Lynette Miller at Miller’s Millinery.
• Discussions of hoods in The Sewing Academy @ Home Forum.

You can download our 2012 Sewing Academy series planner now, and have Elizabeth come to you for a full weekend of fun and hands-on education.

Download the 2012 Sewing Academy series planner here.

New Year, New Us living history resolutions

The Sewing Academy @ Home forum is not just for clothing tech support; you’ll also find a vibrant and civil community of living history enthusiasts. It’s a great place to help you make your 2012 historic (and not in a Mayan sort of way.)

Borrowers

There is a certain class of persons who seem to be inveterate foes of decency, as far as the returning of borrowed articles is concerned. Have you ever, gentle reader, been blessed with one of these “borrowers” for a neighbor? If you have, you doubtless know what it is to measure out homeopathic doses of tea, starch, sugar, and all the et ceteras of housekeeping. If “trials bring strength,” your patience charity, and other Christian graces are undoubtedly largely developed. Exercise has probably not been neglected, as you have daily to “just step across the way” after your washtub, smoothing iron, or most vexatious of all, your newspaper. Sometimes one is tempted to exclaim “blessed be nothing,” for then at least one is free from all importunities to lend.

It seems to be an established rule with these borrowers, that book and papers are purchased by their friends “pro bono publico,” instead of their individual, gratification. Perhaps from this misapprehension arises all those inconveniences wherewith they so annoy the reading part of the community. And it certainly is an annoyance, just as you have settled yourself for a quiet evening’s looking over the paper, to have your neighbor step in with his stereotyped “Good evening, Mrs White–thought I’d just run over and look at your last paper a few moments.”

Well, there is no use in crying, so you hand him the paper, inwardly hoping that his few minutes may be few indeed. But no, he sits immovable, until hastily glancing at the clock, he perceives it is rather an unseasonable hour. Then comes the crowning trial for you as he coolly says: –”I beg your pardon for staying so late, but really this story was so interesting I didn’t mind how fast the evening was slipping away; guess I’d better take it home and finish it.”

Away he goes, paper in hand, and after it has been read and re-read by the whole Smith family, after the news is old, the jokes stale, and the recipes cut out, your paper comes home, if you choose to bring it.

This is about a fair specimen of newspaper lending; and if my experience is any criterion to judge by, lending books is not much better. Now and then one is returned uninjured, but the majority come home with broken back and leaves that suggest at once the use of Spalding’s glue. Others, like the Dutchman’s hens, “come home missing.” But it will not answer to be too severe upon this army of borrowers. We must give, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little,” and wait patiently for that “good time coming,” when every man shall be the possessor of his own Bible, his own tooth-brush, and his own newspaper.

If you, like the Cousin S from Vermont, are plagued by Borrowers, consider giving either them or yourself the gift of a new copy of The Dressmaker’s Guide, Second Edition, for Christmas!

How To Wear Trousers Properly

I count eight.

All four cloth dolls were made using our Great Auntie Maude’s Favorite Cloth Doll Pattern, available in the Marketplace. It’s so much fun to see the individuality each girl’s doll has!

A simple cloth doll can be a great Christmas gift, and definitely works well in the toy basket for living history events. These girls are all set to do some high quality historic interpretation, just by sitting under a tree and playing together. They can also undertake their own doll sewing and gain useful historic stitching skills (to the delight of mothers everywhere!)

Thanks, girls, for sharing your dolls with us!