My husband's aunt had a difficult job quite recently. Her very elderly and terminally ill mother- in -law, resident in Detroit, Michigan, USA made her promise, not to dispose of any of household goods by a garage sale, estate sale, or anything similar. My aunt and her husband (an only child) were to ship the entire contents of the house back to Australia on her demise, and to distribute the goods amongst family members. This lady had been living in the house since she was married, some 60 years previously, and whilst working at department store Hudsons, had collected an amazingly large assortment of everything one could think of- much of it still in original wrappings. It is fortunate that my uncle in law (this is getting confusing!) runs a business involving importing things from the United States, or this exacting job would have been even more complicated.
This is how my daughters obtained, between them, 5 sets of beautiful quality, 50's cotton sheets, and several sets of thick, fluffy, vintage printed and tiny (by today's standards) towels for their shared flat. They had to decline further items, or would have a flat full of vintage china, bric a brac and soft furnishings and no room for anything else. They like vintage, but not as a 100% decorating theme.(They also scored a few items of beautiful vintage clothing)
I don't need any more sheets, but after rashly commenting in the hearing of my aunt-in-law, on the appeal of some really wide floral border printing and tiny rosebuds, ended up with several sheets with which I was to make something to wear.
This dress was inspired by a 19th century petticoat my daughter and I saw at the"Undressed"
Undercover exhibition at the Queensland Museum. The original garment was gathered with fine rouleux cords, acting as drawstrings in the approximate spacing I have reproduced on the dress. What particularly appealed to us was the negative spacing between the pairs of narrow gathering cords, with a clear difference between the front and back. Shirred sundresses are ubiquitous at the moment, but these details make the dress subtly different and more flattering.
I prepared the sheet by holding it up to my daughter to get feedback on the desired neckline depth , waist placement and finished length, then snipped and tore across to have a straight grain, placing the most densely printed part of the border print at the hem. Fortunately for me, the fold over finish of the sheet was on the grain. The dress is a single width of 1950"s standard "twin" or double bed. This is a little less wide than standard double bed width today.
I used a rolled hem foot for the top edge, which worked very nicely, and I was suitably appreciative of the industrial revolution as I did this, thinking of how tedious several metres of hand rolling must have been when this was the only option.
I then applied shirring elastic in pairs, using the bridging stitch as
shown in this earlier post.
I placed the shirring so that the wide spacing allowed for the bust, and closer spacing for the lower ribs, to just above the waist. At the back, the spacing is even throughout, although the pairs, then negative space pattern is maintained.
The shirring was adjusted to have more gathers at the front and back than at the sides, then the single seam was sewn as a french seam under the arm. I then added 3 narrow straps, made from the plain white part of the sheet,attached about 5mm apart at the bodice, then joined at the shoulder,before being fitted on my daughter before cutting to length and attaching at the back.
The dress was very simple to make, and I think using the different spacing and a shoulder strap variation distinguishes it from the mass market shirred dresses owned by nearly every teenage girl in our district.
The hem is the original top folded edge of the sheet.
My daughter is quite happy with this dress, and whilst hoping that her distant relative would have been pleased with the use of this pretty sheet, I am personally planning not to leave disposal of my personal collections to be a burden to someone else. Sewing from stash is my continuing mantra...if only I can stick to it.
