vincentbriggs
Vince's needlework and occasional drawings
Vincent, Canada, he/him, I have an FAQ for historical sewing questions!! Side blog for the stuff I make, which is mostly 18th century menswear but I do sew some other things, and sometimes I draw things. My main blog is vinceaddams. Banner photo by Hailley Fayle.
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Hello! I'm trying to draw something for a friend. Both of our characters live in the late 1720s. They both have regular outfits, but I want to draw them wearing something fancy. My friend has described his character as having a very bad sense of fashion. I can't really picture what a bad outfit back then would look like. Do you?
Hello!
Well I haven't got all that much of a feel for what might have been considered a bad outfit back then, but there is one image that immediately comes to mind of someone who's very definitely badly dressed, and it's this guy. From the 4th panel of Hogarth's Marriage A la Mode (1743-45).
His individual garments look fine to me, but they're horribly mismatched! (And a bit old fashioned for the mid 40's.)
You'll note that the coat cuffs are made of a large brocade that contrasts with the main body of the coat, which was very popular in the first half of the century, but that style was meant to be worn with a matching waistcoat in the same brocade. Instead he's got a completely plain waistcoat that doesn't match at all.
And the breeches should match the main coat fabric, but his don't! The black and brown and beige clash awfully.
He's also got a lot more rings and a much bigger & sparklier earring than I've seen on any other guy from the era, which I speculate might have been tack and/or un-masculine, but I have no sources so don't quote me on that.
I just know that when 18th century guys are wearing rings in a portrait it's usually just one, and I've only ever seen simple little hoop earrings in a very few portraits. But again, emphasis on the "speculate" part of that sentence.
(And I've just noticed that the guy next to him has curling papers in his hair, which I think is probably also meant to make him look silly and not properly dressed. No idea what the opinion would have been about the folding fan dangling from the wrist of the next guy over, but it is intriguing. The very large beauty spot on his lip is probably meant to look bad though.)
That painting is a bit later than what you're asking about, but the style of matching cuffs & waistcoat was popular in the 20's too, so here are some examples of what it's supposed to look like.
A lot of them are very elaborate brocades paired with a solid dark coloured velvet, but sometimes it's a contrasting plain fabric with a ton of metal embroidery.
(1725)
(1723)
And an extant c. 1730's example from the NMS collection.
You might also look at 1710's images, because being a decade behind the current fashions would certainly make you badly dressed for the era.
(c. 1715-20)
So, I guess just put them in clashing parts of 2 or 3 different matched suits? (I am assuming you're asking about suits, since this ask was sent to me and I do not know very many things about dresses. Mostly only what I absorb from other costumers who post about it, and barely anyone does early 18th century.)
Please note that this does not apply to the 1780's-90's, fashion plates from those decades are incredibly full of clashing and mismatched suits. (Though it would probably still be bad to wear those ones on a very formal occasion.)
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I did some metallic buttonhole samples a few years ago and have wanted to put them on a garment ever since, and am finally getting around to it!
These ones are made of little strips of metallic leather stitched down with fairly widely spaced buttonhole stitches, using doubled metallic thread. I'm using one thread for each side of the buttonhole, so it doesn't get the chance to wear out where the needle eye rubs against it, and doing a bar tack at each end as usual. Under that there's a cut and overcast hole (just like I did in my buttonhole tutorial) and I'll piece the lining in around them.
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I usually make thread buttons for my shirts, but when I made this cotton print one last year I used some neat eye shaped plastic buttons from my stash. I guess they didn't like being washed repeatedly in hot water, because now they've got cracks all over them, and the shank of one has crumbled right off.
I made excessively large Dorset wheels to replace them, which I know will hold up much better.
This is at least the 3rd or 4th time I've had old plastic buttons get all crumbly, but it's easy enough to replace them.
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Yay! What a lovely little guy, I'm so happy my post has caused another caterpillar to happen!!
I made a little wooly bear caterpillar.
I was inspired by The Closet Historian's moth brooch video to learn turkey stitch, and I tried brushing it with a wire brush, which really fluffed it up a lot more. I had to trim it a little bit more after the brushing.
All the materials were from my stash, and I didn't time it but it took quite a few hours. I wish I'd used a thinner fabric because this felted coat wool was a bit tough to sew through, and didn't want to bend into a rounded caterpillar shape.
I'm quite happy with it, it turned out so cute! It's a bit bigger than a real one.
#replies#caterpillar#brooches#embroidery#I need to make more bug brooches sometime...#also the moth video I was inspired by used felt for the belly too!
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hi uh, i really enjoy your art and your sewing, I'm even subbed over on youtube, but I jsut wanna say thanks for being you. It's really cool to learn you're trans, and it's revitalizing my desire to get back into historic sewing. I didn't know if or how big the trans communityw as in the recreation sewing, but knowing we're out there in this community too is really assuring. I'm super excited to start working on patterns and styles I haven't been able to do before. Thank you for all you do!
Hello, thank you!!
There are quite a lot of trans people who are into historical sewing!
I can't think of very many here on tumblr - there's @rowzien who does lovely early 19th century stuff, and I'm sure plenty of trans costuming people will say "same hat!" in the comments of this post.
There are a lot more that I know of on instagram, so I'll just list a bunch off. (I pretty much never look at my instagram feed and don't remember the names of most of the people I follow, let alone their genders, so I likely missed some but ah well.)
Some of these are more cosplay, larp, or vintage focused accounts, but there's some sort of sewing and/or costuming on all of them.
jonesyollie (friend who made the timesheet from the previous post!), bequeermakestuff, evilqueenbeecosplays (sadly there aren't many ladies in this post, but I'm sure there are more out there!), ora_lin (they sell patterns!), noodle.stitch, ashlgcostumes (they have a lot of youtube videos and a nice speaking voice), rose_prince_lee, qtcostumer, enby.vintage, kiyoteacups, transcending_time_costuming, slightly_teddy (he's also on tumblr but hasn't posted in ages), angryhistoryguy (he once said in a facebook comment that he has so many transmasc reenactor friends that they could make a Monstrous Regiment), woodsmokeandwords, and marlowelune (SUCH good historical/fantasy everyday clothes, agh! love their wardrobe and illustrations!).
Honourable mention to matthewpcarlsen and dario_princiotta, who haven't put pronouns in their bios and I don't want to speculate on anyone's gender, but it's some good gender juice either way.
Matthew pairs a bushy moustache with perfectly fitted Victorian gowns and looks amazing in them, and Dario is really into tightlacing and weird sculptural corsetry.
This is, alas, not a particularly diverse list of people. Like the costuming community at large, it skews towards white and afab, but that does seem to be gradually improving over the years - I certainly see a lot more people of colour doing historical costuming now than I did a decade ago. (I've been into historical sewing since approximately 2010).
As your ask demonstrates, when people don't see themselves represented in a space they're more likely to avoid it/assume it's not for them, which is the entire reason I occasionally mention being trans in my posts!
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Hello! I'm wondering how you track the hours you put into your projects? I'm not sure I want to know how long my current knitting project has taken but I'm intrigued
Hello!
I used to just write down the start and stop times on a sheet of paper every time I worked on the project, and then when I was done I'd spend a very long time adding it all up, but (as I mention in my patchwork dressing gown video) my friend Ollie made a magical spreadsheet that does the math for you!
Here's a link - you can make a copy of it anytime you need one and then use that copy for your project. It works if you write down the time BUT you can also get it to automatically put in the exact time by selecting the empty space and pressing command+shift+colon!
It puts it in using the 24 hour clock and it only knows the UK timezone where Ollie lives, so you have to be careful not to let it go past midnight in that timezone or else it gets confused. For me that means I need to stop and take a break slightly before 8 pm.
And once the hour counter gets past 24 it starts adding days, as you can see, so you'll have to multiply that number by 24 if your time is that long and you want a number of hours.
Edit: Oh it turns out you can go to file>settings and change the timezone! That makes it much easier to not do it past midnight.
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#where did the pattern come from??
I drafted it myself! I have a video on the whole process:
youtube
I took a photo of my newer pattern and it turned out rather bad and blurry, so here's what the pattern pieces for a slightly different pair look like, alongside the sewn up glove.
(And here's a link to a feather stitch tutorial, which I should have included in the original post.)
Finished another pair of gloves last week, this time in dark brown leather from ItalianSkins and sewn up with some olive green silk thread that was a very lucky thrift store find. (It was in a mixed baggie and I didn't know it was silk until I got home!)
In my glove video I mentioned wanting to re-draw my pattern so the fingers are angled in more tightly, and so the thumb piece is longer, and I did that for these. The thumb fits much better, and the bases of the fingers are no longer too loose.
I also tried the straighter style of fourchettes, but didn't like them as much as the V shaped ones. I think the curved edges put a bit too much material onto the backs of the fingers and made them wrinklier. (Though this particular leather is not the stretchiest, so it may be better with a stretchier one.)
I did 3 rows of feather stitch on the back of the hand, since I'd seen that on an extant pair and thought it looked nice. I used a regular needle for that part because I was worried a leather needle would damage the thread.
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Finished another pair of gloves last week, this time in dark brown leather from ItalianSkins and sewn up with some olive green silk thread that was a very lucky thrift store find. (It was in a mixed baggie and I didn't know it was silk until I got home!)
In my glove video I mentioned wanting to re-draw my pattern so the fingers are angled in more tightly, and so the thumb piece is longer, and I did that for these. The thumb fits much better, and the bases of the fingers are no longer too loose.
I also tried the straighter style of fourchettes, but didn't like them as much as the V shaped ones. I think the curved edges put a bit too much material onto the backs of the fingers and made them wrinklier. (Though this particular leather is not the stretchiest, so it may be better with a stretchier one.)
I did 3 rows of feather stitch on the back of the hand, since I'd seen that on an extant pair and thought it looked nice. I used a regular needle for that part because I was worried a leather needle would damage the thread.
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Good idea, yes, ask a doctor who knows muscle stuff!
Heya! I'm about half a year post top-surgery and I'm still very hunched over. I had hoped that my posture would straighten up a bit on its own post-op but so far the going is slow. Did you do any stretches or exercises to help you straighten up? Or do you do have any stretches in general to recommend for us people who have crafty hobbies that aren't the best for your posture? ^^' Love your videos~ Have a nice day :-)
Oh dear, no I didn't, it just happened on its own. I'm sorry to hear that yours isn't!
After surgery I spent the better part of a week lying on the couch doing nothing because the painkillers made me so so so sleepy, and then I guess I just started standing up straighter when I started moving around again? It was 5 and a half years ago, so I don't really remember. I'm pretty sure there was a big change fairly quickly, and also that it continued to improve gradually after that.
I'm afraid I don't know much about stretches, alas! Maybe try stretching your head and arms way back and puffing out your chest like a majestic pigeon occasionally?
I still hunch a lot when working on Projects, and need to get better about that, but it doesn't happen when I'm standing up.
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Heya! I'm about half a year post top-surgery and I'm still very hunched over. I had hoped that my posture would straighten up a bit on its own post-op but so far the going is slow. Did you do any stretches or exercises to help you straighten up? Or do you do have any stretches in general to recommend for us people who have crafty hobbies that aren't the best for your posture? ^^' Love your videos~ Have a nice day :-)
Oh dear, no I didn't, it just happened on its own. I'm sorry to hear that yours isn't!
After surgery I spent the better part of a week lying on the couch doing nothing because the painkillers made me so so so sleepy, and then I guess I just started standing up straighter when I started moving around again? It was 5 and a half years ago, so I don't really remember. I'm pretty sure there was a big change fairly quickly, and also that it continued to improve gradually after that.
I'm afraid I don't know much about stretches, alas! Maybe try stretching your head and arms way back and puffing out your chest like a majestic pigeon occasionally?
I still hunch a lot when working on Projects, and need to get better about that, but it doesn't happen when I'm standing up.
#I know the Edwardians had 'posture corrector' harness thingies but I don't know if they worked#ask#transgender#transition
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@karadin replied to your post “Wait are you saying your ribcage got bigger just...”:
can you let out side or back seams to make waistcoats fit? stripes in these areas might look cool.
Sort of, but it would take a lot more work than that to have it not look weird. The fronts are so much narrower on the old patterns that the armholes would be scooped out really far forwards if I added that much onto the side seam.
I do have an old embroidered waistcoat from 2017 that I want to pick apart and remake someday, and I'm going to have to piece extra material back into the armhole and re-cut that whole side edge in order for it to look decent again.
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i also want to say ty for posting for tdov like others have because seriously you’re so cool/goals in many areas, make such incredible work, and I really admire you! it’s awesome to know we have this other thing in common too!
Thank you! I've gotten a few messages like this from other trans people over the years, which is why it's important that I mention it occasionally!
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Wait are you saying your ribcage got bigger just from top surgery?? So someone not on t who gets it should also wait ~a year for fitting purposes? Asking for me (hopefully 🤞🏻)
I'd been on T for 2 years before top surgery without much change to how my waistcoats fit, so yeah!
I'd been stooping forwards without even realizing it, and hunching my shoulders in to try and hide my chest, so after surgery my back straightened up a lot and my shoulders sit further back. My pre-2018 waistcoats are now several cm too narrow at the front and will not button closed.
I have also had a cis friend say her ribcage has grown a lot since her 20's, so it's probably not entirely due to surgery, but it definitely un-scrunched along with my back.
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YOU'RE TRANS ????????
sorry mate you're just. you're so cool & as a little baby history autist i really look up to you as one of the only men i see in the. is scene the right word. and i've been following you since 2021? 22? and i love your work and i had no idea and i'm trans too and idk it feels hard to see a future sometimes but here you are ?? doing with your life exactly what i hope to do with mine ?? and idk i may have cried a bit anyways happy tdov <3
Sure am!! Started transitioning in late 2016! Hello and happy TDOV! and thank you!!
Here's a picture I posted last year of just how very much that jacket in the post I reblogged today does not fit me any more. (Age 18 vs 28)
I can't even get both shoulders into it, and that's after having chest material removed.
None of my older waistcoats fit either, because my posture straightened up a ridiculous amount, and my ribcage definitely got bigger.
(Which gradually happened over more than a year, so to anyone reading this who's planning on top surgery - don't make any super elaborate heavily embroidered waistcoats until at least a year after, or it will probably get too narrow in front! I've donated nearly all my pre-2018 waistcoats and coats to a local theatre!)
I ought to mention being trans more often so more people can go "same hat!", and I should also try to remember to make sure my pin cushion is visible in my sewing videos sometimes.
Also! I think having a rounder face and wider hips makes me better suited to early 18th century looks.
And late 17th if I get around to sewing some stuff from then. And the 1820's-40's, the men in fashion plates around that time were VERY hourglass shaped.
And probably other periods too, the modern ideal of broad shouldered square jawed dudebros looks rather strange in a lot of historical eras!
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Video
Reblogging again because a few people commented on the coat buttons in the previous post, and the first video shows how to make them!
(It was my first time recording voiceover and of course I made the music too loud, so the audio isn't the best, but I always type out the subtitles.)
youtube
I have finished my button video! It is 35 minutes long and I do 4 different buttons. Here’s a link to the accompanying blog post with more photos & links.
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Photo
It's been a while since I got any proper historical photos of me, since I'm running so low on hair and don't have any wigs yet, and a lot of my older stuff is too small across the chest and needs altering, but here's one from 2021.
(Photo by Hailley Fayle.)
Oh crumbs, I meant to post this on Trans Day of Visibility and completely forgot! Anyways, here I am in 2013 vs 2019, and going for a late 1780′s look both times. That first costume has so much wrong with the construction and materials, but I’m still surprised by how good it looks in photos, especially considering how bad I was about doing research back then. The little brown jacket doesn’t fit me anymore!
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I looked at some of the tutorials last night and holy shit I'm so impressed! They're SO thorough!
Not only do they have written and video instructions, but there are photo and illustration options for each image AND a "flip view" button so that left handed people can see all the images in reverse!
Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!
Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.
And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition
I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch
The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!
rsnstitchbank.org
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