A Refashioned Edwardian Blouse for the Anne Picnic

 Well it has been a while now, hasn't it. This month has been something. A roller coaster really of ups and downs - high ups and low downs - and I still feel like I'm trying to catch my breath. The month started off fantastically with our Anne of Green Gables Picnic!

Photo by @samithefae

And that picnic was everything we envisioned it being! But before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you the story of my outfit. . .

Photo by @samithefae

As explained in my introductory post on the subject last month, the idea for this Edwardian picnic outfit of mine really began with this white cotton nightgown. It just begged to be turned into a frilly Edwardian blouse!

Thus, I procured the Black Snail Edwardian Blouse pattern for the project. 

Now, would this one summer nightgown yield enough material to make the blouse as the pattern was written, or would I have to supplement with additional fabric and/or make some major alterations to the pattern for my plan to work? There was only one way to find out!

I began by dismantling the night gown. In the interest of preserving every possible scrap of material, scissors never made an appearance in this dismantling process. Out came the seam ripper! 

First, I seam ripped the button placket off the pin-ticked yoke, but left it attached to the body of the nightgown - I intended to use the existing button placket down the back of my blouse, rather than making a new one. 

Next, I carefully removed all the cotton bias tape and "crocheted" lace trim from the neckline, armscyes, and hem. I made sure not to damage any of this trim so I could re-use it on my blouse.

Finally, I removed the pin-tucked yoke from the body of the nightgown. It would be re-used as the yoke of the blouse.

Disassembly thus completed, I carefully ironed all the pieces of material, then assembled the pattern. Once the pattern was all taped together and the pieces cut out in my size, I took stock of the pattern and decided that my best option was to combine elements of view 1 and view 2 - and maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to get this whole blouse cut out of the one nightgown's worth of material.

I decided to start with the smallest piece - the yoke. It took a bit of finagling to figure out the best way to piece together the nightgown yoke pieces to have a large enough piece of flat material to cut out the blouse yoke - but eventually it happened! Even better, where the piecing had to happen resembled a shoulder seam, rather than a "I didn't have enough fabric seam" - and I call that a win!

Finagling really was the name of the game when it came to figuring out the pattern layout for this project.

  It was easy enough to figure out where and how to layout the front and the back of the blouse - the center front of the blouse when on the center back of the nightgown, and the center back of the blouse went on the center front of the nightgown to utilize the existing button placket - but the sleeves. Oh the sleeves.

Those gave me trouble! I really wanted the view 1 ruffly sleeves, but that sleeve pattern piece was huge (along with the separate ruffle pattern piece. . .), and I just couldn't figure out a way to make it work. I contemplated making the sleeves out of a different white fabric, but nothing in my stash suited (and I did not want to cut up the second nightgown, though I did consider it.) I contemplated majorly piecing together the sleeves from alllllllll the tiny scraps of fabric, but that wouldn't really work either. I resigned myself to making the less full view 2 sleeves - but even that pattern piece didn't quite fit, and those were not the sleeves I wanted. I wanted ruffles!!

Two days. For two days the pattern was laid out on the dissected nightgown on my living room floor. Every time I came in the room I swapped out the sleeve pattern piece - view 1, view 2, view 1, view 2 - and I spent a lot of time on Pinterest considering Edwardian sleeve options.

 Finally, an idea struck. I would use the view 2 sleeve that mostly fit onto the fabric I had available. Out of the larger leftover scraps, I would cut ruffles to go at the bottom of the sleeves - similar to the view 1 ruffles, only less long and less full. Both the bottom of the sleeve and the top of the ruffle would be gathered into a narrow cuff cut from some of the smaller scraps. 

Photo by @samithefae

This solution worked beautifully! No, the sleeves weren't as floofy as the huge view 1 sleeves would have been - but they were still beautiful and gave the right impression.

Photo by @samithefae

And I believe, they had just enough "puff" that even Anne would have been satisfied to wear this blouse!

Once the sleeve conundrum was solved, it was pretty smooth sailing!

I pieced together the pin-tucked yoke, and trimmed it all around the edge with some of the lace harvested from the nightgown.

Then I sewed together the shoulder seams (using French Seams for a clean finish) of the body of the blouse.

The yoke then got pinned on top of the body, and topstitched in place.

Once the yoke was sewn on, the excess material behind it got trimmed away and the seam allowance was finished with a narrow zig-zag stitch.

I made the collar out of a scrap of fabric - adding a few pintucks for fun and finishing the top edge with more of the harvested lace.

The collar was sewn on to the neckline, and that seam allowance was finished by encasing it in some of the bias tape harvested from the nightgown. (Thanks to my seam-ripping at the beginning, the only "new" notion required for this blouse was the thread to sew it together - buttons, lace, and bias tape were all there for the taking!)

Once the collar was on, the button placket could be attached to the yoke and collar - effectively finishing the closure for this blouse!

The pattern actually recommended only having buttons up to the bottom of the yoke, then using hooks and eyes and snaps to close the yoke and the collar, but it was very satisfactory to be able to re-use the button placket from the original nightgown!

Photo by @samithefae

And I like the look of buttons all the way up the back - even though it does appear to gape slightly at the top.

Button placket on, the side seams were sewn up (French Seams again), and the body of the blouse was gathered into the peplum (view 2 option).

The peplum was, admittedly, not cut out of the nightgown material, but rather a lightweight cotton harvested from a bed skirt in my stash. The material didn't exactly match, being a looser weave and a less white white than the nightgown material, but, as the peplum would be tucked into my skirt and never seen when the blouse was worn, it didn't have to be perfect!

Photo by @samithefae

The peplum was sewn on with a French Seam. Then the sleeves were assembled, the ruffles finished at the bottom with more of the harvested lace, and set. That seam allowance was then finished with the harvested bias tape.

Photo by @samithefae

And the blouse was done!!

Photo by @samithefae

Delicate and floofy - everything an Edwardian blouse should be!! 

And everything I dreamed that nightgown could be turned into!

Speaking of, since this was a re-fashion project, it fits the HSM #5 theme for this year - New Clothes from Old:

Make something new out of a worn-out garment or accessory. Or make something using recycled materials.

What the item is: An Edwardian Blouse

The Challenge: New Clothes from Old - this blouse is almost entirely made from a thrifted nightgown, the only new materiel in it is thread!

Material: Lightweight embroidered cotton, harvested from the aforementioned nightgown, and a bit of lightweight cotton harvest from a bed skirt for the peplum

Pattern: Black Snail Edwardian Blouse, with slight alterations

Year: 1904-1906ish

Notions: Buttons, cotton lace trim, and cotton bias tape, all harvested from the nightgown - and thread (fresh off a spool, since re-using the night gown's thread would have been tricky)

How historically accurate is it? Pretty good, it certainly resembles blouses of the era. Its all machine sewn, but by the early 1900's that's not unheard of. I'll give it atleast an 85%.

Hours to complete: I didn't keep track, but it wasn't bad. Maybe 6-8 hours total.

First worn: 6/1/24 for an Anne of Green Gables themed Picnic!

Total cost: Less than $1! The nightgown was picked up at a "by the pound" place, and it weighed less than a pound. Being just a blouse, this didn't require a ton of thread, and the bed skirt I used a bit of was also thrifted cheap - plus I've got plenty of that left for future projects.

Photo by @samithefae

Thanks for reading! Now hopefully I can get around to telling you about the rest of the outfit before another month goes by!

Raspberry Cordial and Other Treats for the Anne Picnic

 Yesterday's picnic was absolutely delightful!

 Lovely weather, beautiful setting, awesome people, yummy food!

Now, I'm going to hold off on telling you all about the picnic until we get the pictures back from our wonderful photographer (@samithefae), but I will tell you about the food!

" And I want you to come over early Saturday Morning to help me prepare lunch. I'm going to have the daintiest things possible. . . things that will match the spring you understand. . ."

~Anne to Diana in Anne of Avonlea

There were two options for food: 

1) order a yummy boxed lunch from the caterer we secured for the event

2) make and bring your own picnic lunch

I picked the later option. I wanted to try my hand at making myself a picnic lunch similar to those described in the Anne books (which I'd been listening to in audio book form all month to get myself in the mood for this picnic). Now there was always a chance that I'd be sewing up to the last minute and not have time to make my food, in which case I'd just have to see if there were any catered box lunches still available. . . but I was really, really hopeful that I'd have time to make my own food! 

Well, I had my outfit completely finished the afternoon before the picnic!!!! 100% finished, hat trimmed and everything with like 20 hours to spare! (Considering last time I made myself a new outfit for an event I "finished" it at the event, having this outfit done nearly a whole day in advance felt like a HUGE accomplishment.) Thus, cooking could commence!

After toying with different ideas in the back of my head for a week or two, this is the menu I came up with for myself:

Chicken Salad Sandwiches - These are not specifically mentioned in any of the Anne books that I can recall, but sandwiches are mentioned in the books and chicken salad just sounded good to me! Plus, I had some left over chicken in my fridge that needed to be used up so it was a practical choice too. 

Fresh Baked Bread (for the sandwiches) - all spring I've been making my own bread, and it felt like a very Green Gables-y thing to do.

Lemon Meringue Pie - In Anne of Avonlea she makes lemon pie for her (ill-fated) dinner for Miss Morgan. After listening to that chapter, I was craving lemon pie and just had to make myself one for the picnic! Anne's pies were topped with whipped cream, but I decided to do meringue for mine, just because.

Blueberries - Ok, these have no real Anne significance (though the Meredith children allegedly eating blueberries in the Methodist cemetery is mentioned in Rainbow Valley. . .)  I just happened to have blueberries and they sounded good.

Now I would have loved to also make some cakes and cookies and donuts like those mentioned throughout the books, but I knew I wouldn't have time to make everything, so I'd better call the above list of foods "good enough". Besides, there was one more thing I needed to make for the picnic, and I needed to make a lot of it so we could share it with all the attendees - Raspberry Cordial!

When my friend and I began planning the picnic we decided we just had to have raspberry cordial for everyone to drink. And as this isn't something you can just buy, I volunteered to make a gallon or so for people to try. (Don't worry, it was truly just raspberry cordial, not red currant wine!) After a few internet searches, I decided to give this recipe a try (despite the author rather mis-telling the red currant wine fiasco. . .) as it looked easy enough.

I began my cooking Friday night by mixing up the chicken salad. I used a recipe my mom gave me - the same one she used for our Easter picnic earlier this spring. Then I lost all motivation and decided to go to bed early - I could get up early and do the rest of the cooking first thing in the morning.

And that is how I found myself stirring a pot of frozen raspberries and sugar on my stove at 6 a.m. on Saturday. While the raspberries were cooking, I was mixing up the crust for my lemon pie.

Once the raspberries and sugar were cooked together into a syrup the concoction was strained through a wire sieve to remove all the seeds (and a lot of the pulp) It took a while for all the syrup to come through the sieve, so while it was drip-drip-dripping, I mixed up my bread.

I've been using this this gluten-free bread recipe lately as it's easy, and tastes good - not an easy combination to find when it comes to gluten-free bread! 

While the bread rose I ran outside to milk the goat - and came back in the house to find the raspberry syrup still dripping. While I waited, I pulled out the two half gallon glass jugs I intended to put the cordial in and made labels. Very fancy labels with crayons and scotch tape because that's what I had on hand.

Hey, it works!

Finally I decided enough of the syrup had dripped through for me to finish up this cordial. I poured about 3.5 cups of raspberry syrup into each jug, then filled the jugs up the rest of the way with hot water, put the lids on, and shook them up!

It was the most delightful bright red drink! I let the cordial cool on the counter while I made the filling for my lemon pie.

I used the lemon meringue pie recipe from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - because every recipe I've tried from that cookbook has turned out well - and this pie was no exception! I made my crust and filling stretch to make 2 pies - one little one and one normal size one. The little one would come with me to the picnic. The big one would stay home to be shared with the company we had coming for dinner that evening.

Isn't it the cutest little pie??

Once the pies were in the oven, I stuck the cordial in the fridge. After a bit, I decided it wasn't getting cold fast enough in there - so I moved it to the deep freeze. This cordial had better be cold by the time I need to leave for the picnic!

I rolled up to the picnic in style in my horseless wagon with a cooler full of raspberry cordial and yummy food in the back. Was the cordial cold yet? And what would it taste like?

It was! And it was delicious! Such a fun on-theme treat to share with all the picnic goers!

It was a lot of fun planning and making the food for the picnic - and the results were worth it. We plan on hosting more themed picnics in the future. . . hopefully those themes also have iconic food and beverages to be made!