The Vintage Nerd Sews

Pincushions were a valuable tool in the 18th century, when most people made and repaired their own clothing. These little keepers of pins are prevalent in art of the time, often found hanging from aprons and waistbands. We see two main types: pin balls and pin pillows. They can be simple or elaborate, but they all serve the same purpose. Below are images of a few surviving examples. All of these happen to be embroidered, but not all were. Some pin balls had a silver band to join the two halves, and others had ribbon.   Pinball, 1750-1800, Winterthur Museum. This pinball is embroidered on both sides. Pincushion, 1770-1800, Manchester Art Gallery Embroidered pincushion, 1770-1780, Colonial Williamsburg I went to a couple of different sources for making this practical 18th century tool. The information and photos on Kozy Kitty's tutorial were really valuable in helping me visualize how the pin ball came together, even though I opted not to embroider mine. You can find the blog post he

Reenacting and historical costuming is marked by the growing, improving, and continuous learning you do. With my journey into the 18th century in particular, I've focused on balancing research and creating. It's easy for me to get "analysis paralysis" and stuck in a researching spiral without ever accomplishing. I'm proud of the fact that I've not allowed myself to do that as I've pursued this project. However, it means re-making things as I learn more about what an item should look like and as my own skills improve. Previously, it was my stays; now I've redone my cap.  I used the same pattern and the same fully hand-sewn construction techniques as before. My first cap was made of cotton organza, and there is nothing wrong with that. It looked nice, and from what I have been able to learn, would be appropriate for an upper-middle class impression. However, I'm focusing on a working class or lower-middle class impression, where a cap out of a simple

A slight diversion from my standard content. I wanted to share portions of these wonderful 1930s beauty magazines, and Instagram really doesn't do things justice. The simplest option seemed to me to upload the tutorials and images here, and provide a link via other social media platforms. This way everyone can see full-scale, quality image resolution versions of the photos, as well as download and pin! So without further ado: That's all of the inspiration and style images, as well as the tutorials! I found them very interesting, and am looking forward to trying some. I hope you enjoyed this!