Pin your patterns to prevent them from moving and cut even with [the patterns ] edge, because the drawing includes the seams.

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1 1908 #26 Summer Dress [With Cape] -- Costume d Ete This pretty dress is made in linen and it is trimmed with fine binding. You will select the combination to your taste, either blue linen with white or red binding, or white linen with the same bindings. The cutting, without being very complicated, calls for, however, some attention. You do not need more than the ten patterns that we give you, here, the right size wanted for Bleuette. If you intend it for a larger or smaller doll, you are now well advanced in the art of fitting for you to do it credit. I only remind you that, when one decreases or increases a pattern, it must be proportional. If you add, for example, one quarter in the length, it will be necessary, similarly, to add one quarter to the width. To help you understand, I will quote figures. If your height is 30 centimeters and you will reduce it to 25 centimeters, you have diminished it by one sixth (5 times 6 = 30). If your width is 12 centimeters, you will take away one sixth from the twelve, or 2 centimeters. This understood, let us have our patterns. Empiecement [Yoke]. Devant du corsage, cote droit [Bodice front, right side]. Devant du corsage, cote gauche [Bodice front, left side]. Moitie du dos [Half of the back]. Ceinture du dessous [Waistband]. Ceinture du dessus [Sash]. Manche poignet [Cuff]. Moitie de la jupe en forme [Half of the shaped skirt]. Moitie de la pelerine [Half of the cape]. [Editor: Also the Manche or sleeve] All these patterns must be carefully cut while observing the straight threads. For this, it is necessary to place your patterns on the fabric exactly as the drawings are on the gray background. They occupy, compared to the four edges on the straight threads of your fabric, the same position as the aforementioned drawings, compared to the four black lines which form the framework. Pin your patterns to prevent them from moving and cut even with [the patterns ] edge, because the drawing includes the seams. The dress cut out, bring together all the parts by connecting the letters. Take, for example, the yoke and the back (fig. 2 and 3). The letter M, which indicates the middle of the back, should be placed on the letter M of the yoke; the letter F on the letter F. The half-patterns, back, skirt, waistband and cape, must be cut on the fabric folded double. One will do well to line with calico or muslin, the yoke, cuffs and waistband to provide some rigidity. Moreover this lining will hide the seams on the inside. The linings are cut exactly on the same pattern as their top. The bodice is buttoned on the left by crossing; its slit is hidden by the cape which reveals, in front, the rounded neckline of the yoke (see the drawing of the outfit fig. 1). The bodice should be, at the top, gathered onto the yoke and, at the bottom, onto the waistband.

2 The skirt (fig. 5) is mounted on this same waistband. All the necessary directions are written on the drawing. Suffice it to say that while making the large pleats at the places indicated, you have to connect the same letters quite precisely, X with X, etc. At the bottom of this skirt cut completely in shape, a round hem would not go well and would be very difficult to make. One will replace it with a faux hem [i.e. facing] cut in shape, like the skirt, that-is-to-say that, for this false hem, a piece of fabric having the same height and the same width as that of the skirt is necessary. On this strip, 26 centimeters high and 12 wide, one will place the pattern pinned well and one will begin by cutting even [with the pattern s edge]. Then, turning it over, so that the pattern is underneath, one will draw a pencil line on the fabric, three centimeters from the edge, and one will cut along this line. Thus prepared, the false hem will be placed on the wrong side of the skirt on which it will be applied without pulling [distorting]. You will baste it flat and turn under the edge of the skirt with a hemstitch which will not go through. On the other side you will make a small turn under and will hem. The sash (fig.4) [on the left of the pattern page, and which widens at center front] can be; as you wish, in fabric such as the costume or in leather. In the latter case, we cut it from old gloves. The pelerine [cape] is lined with a lightweight muslin this which gives it more firmness and stability. If the fabric is stiff enough to do without a lining, one will edge the cape by folding back the fabric all around onto the right side, and placing on this folded back a braid which will hide the edge. [Editor: To do this you would have to add a hem allowance all around the cape and sew the straps onto the cape. It seems more logical to bind the edge as you have done on the rest of the outfit.] The cape is held on the bodice by a button concealed at the neck under the cape, and the long straps are held, at the lower part of the waist by two buttons placed on the bodice and on the skirt, at the top and at the bottom of the waistband. The position is moreover, indicated by the two buttonholes of the cape (fig. 10) The sleeve (fig. 9) is cut in only one piece. It closes by sewing K N and mounts gathered at the armhole while placing this seam at the small arrow of the armhole (fig. 8). On the left side of the front (fig. 11), this seam, naturally, is placed at the same point as on the right side. Let us conclude with a necessary recommendation. Although these patterns have been carefully cut on the measurements of Bleuette, one must nevertheless try the basted costume before sewing it. This is a habit to be adopted in sewing. You think that everyone is not basting like for a doll, that if this is a little larger that it [basting] is not necessary for life-sized patterns, and that, if it is too small and so on. All the patterns that you will, subsequently, use to dress yourselves, will be cut by stores or magazines which

3 will sell you them based on fit with mannequin, that-is-to-say with exact proportions. You will quite probably want to alter them. It is for this reason that one always tries a garment before sewing. Translation copyright Deirdre Gawne Not for sale.

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