I guess it was fitting that I did most of the work on this garment on Halloween - putting this pattern together has been reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein, for sure.

Combination drawers have been on my “must make” list for a long time. There is simply something about all of the old advertisements that just make me want these things. They remind me of girls' nights, slumber parties, getting ready for the ball - all of which I have mostly enjoyed through literature, but hey, a girl can dream right?

The pattern I originally set out to use is from The American System of Dressmaking by Miss Pearl Merwin, published in 1912. The entire book is available for free here. It is a very long book so I will link to the specific pages I am referencing to making finding the information easier.

This (page 504) is the starting point for the discussion on combination drawers, Lesson 17, and as you will see the first thing we do is go back to Lesson 2 for instructions on how to draft the top portion of the drawers. The bodice draft will then be incorporated with a draft from a pair of plain drawers for a full-length combination.

In the past few years I have had a chance to draft quite a few patterns from different vintage instruction books. They are all very similar in their style and this system is no different. And for the most part they have all had, what would seem to my modern sensibilities, some portion of critical information missing. The first couple of patterns I tried I assumed that it was my skill or mathematical ability that was lacking but now that I have done well over a dozen different garments from half that many books I have run into missing pieces of information again and again. This leads me to believe it is something common to these specific writers rather than my own misunderstandings.

For the most part all of the different vintage systems I have used to draft basic bodice blocks have been pretty straightforward, easy to follow, and ultimately correct in their procedure. It is in moving to the next steps that the directions seem to fall apart. In this case the bodice draft was very similar to a method I have used previously. Because I was already familiar with the draft technique it came together pretty easy, but there were a couple of points on which this particular system was glitchy. But before I get into that I will go through the basic supply list and the measurements you will need to take.

 

Combination Drawers Supply List

• Drafting paper. On these types of drafts I tend to go through a lot so don’t use the expensive stuff. My favorite place to get inexpensive drafting paper is from my local hospital. I buy rolls of the paper that they use to cover the exam beds. It runs about $6/roll and there is quite a bit of paper on one roll. My friend is a nurse so I just order it through her.
• Pencil, eraser, marker.
• Measuring tape and rulers/straight edges.
• Test fabric 3-5 yards. These patterns definitely need mock-ups, at least one.
• Fashion fabric.
• Buttons, lace and trimmings.

Make sure you take a close look at the measurement directions. They are slightly different to some of the modern standards we are used to. This next excerpt is taken directly out of Lesson 2 (pg. 52) and these measurements are the basics you will need to start the bodice draft, or “waists” as they are referred to throughout this book. You will notice that the measurement list is referred to as the Waist Measures for example.

 

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After you understand (this lesson) thoroughly and have sent in the report and draft required, we advise that for practice you make at least 10 other waist drafts from many different sets of measurements. (This is not required, but we strongly recommend it.) One of the main secrets of the success of our graduates is that they know the system, because they learned it well with much practice.

Taking Measurements

Just a word of caution about taking measurements before entering upon the lesson proper. Strange as it may seem, there is nothing more important in dressmaking than the taking of correct measurements. It matters not how nicely you have drafted the pattern or how carefully you have put the different parts together, you cannot turn out a satisfactory piece of work unless the measuring was accurately done. This requires practice - much practice. Practice as much as possible until you have become perfectly familiar with every detail.

The Waist Measures

Neck: This measurement is taken around the base of the neck.

Bust: This measurement is taken around and over the fullest part of the bust, having the tape line up well under the arms, and bringing it to the center of the neck(? I think this should be bust - neck is scratched out with pencil). This may be taken as tight as waist is desired. It is well to stand directly behind the person in taking this measure.

Waist: Pass the tape around the waist line, drawing it very snug and tight.

Front Measure: Place the end of the tape line on the prominent bone at the back of the neck; pass the line over the shoulder near the base of the neck and down under the fullest part of the bust to the waistline, drawing it snug. This measure is taken from the back of the neck to get the length of the front from the shoulder down to the waistline. It might be taken from the shoulder, but there is no set or determined point from which to take the measure on the shoulder, we take it from the back of the neck.

Dart Measure: This measure is taken exactly like the front measure therefore when taking the front measure glance at the tape line to see just where the fullest part of bust comes on the tape. (See intersection of Lines 2 and 4 in Fig. 56.)

Chest Measure: This measure is taken across the chest, from armhole to armhole midway between the base of the in front and the bustline.

Length of Back: Measure from the prominent bone at the base of the neck to the bottom of waist cord. Allow plenty of room as too short a measure gives a low neck in the back.

Depth of Back Measure: Pass a tape across the back directly under the arms and have the patron hold it securely there by holding her arms close to her body. With another tape, measure from the prominent bone at the back of the neck down to the tape that extends across the back.

Width of Back Measure: This measure is taken across the back, from armhole to armhole, between base of neck and the bust line.

Underarm Measure: Place the end of the tape line close up under the arm and measure straight down to the bottom of the waist cord.

Armhole Measure: Pass the tape around under the arm and bring it up to the shoulder rather easy.

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Now I am not going to rewrite all of the instructions for drafting the waist. You have the same access to the directions as I did, so I am simply going to link you directly to the pages I am referencing and you can work through the draft the same way I did. I will include notes regarding the areas that I found discrepancies in, however. That being said, this is the starting point for the drafting instructions of the waists (pg. 59).

The one thing that is slightly confusing about these instructions is that apparently the American System of Dressmaking had developed their own special ruler that was supposed to make the drafting process quicker and easier. I think it basically eliminated the need to think through the process of using fractions. So you will see directions like “using the scale of sixths” - this is where they would use their special ruler. This just means you need to use 1/6th of the number they are referring to or divide that number by 6, whatever makes more sense in your head. If you really want to go crazy and make your own, there is a diagram of the ruler earlier in the book.

 

If you are like me you will find the diagrams very necessary and helpful in orienting yourself to the instructions. I used my own measurements which, you will discover, may cause you to need to follow a different set of instructions if you have a bust measurement over 40, which I do. You can look at the instructions for over 40 busts here. (pg.71) The primary difference being that they create a three panel back rather than a two panel back.

 

Before you get too far into the draft, please note that for the combination drawers we only need the draft as far as the waist. You don’t have to continue past that point to draft the hips because we will be using the basic drawers draft for the lower portion of our combination suit. By all means feel free to draft out the whole waist body. It is very useful to have the full draft on hand for any of the other projects you may want to tackle from this book, and there are a ton of great garments to choose from - not just undergarments, either.

Drafting through the point of the armhole went pretty well but after that I ran into some issues. Instead of my center front line taking a wide angle away from the waist/body, my line was angling in toward the waist. I went through the instructions several times and kept coming up with the same result. At first I thought it was because I had been using the under 40” instructions, but no. I did have to alter some of my line placements to accommodate the over 40” version but my front line was still sloping the wrong direction. I came to the conclusion that somehow the numbers as written or as measured were making my shoulder measurements too large. Poor shoulder measures could have been my own doing, since it can be difficult to measure yourself.

Those of you who are more proficient in math than I am might be able to niggle out the precise problem with the draft, but this is the solution I came up with, not having anyone available to help me remeasure. I knew where I wanted to go and what the final draft needed to look like, so I started playing with my ruler and my measurements.

My point Q was obviously in the wrong place, too far out in front of my point G which was the origination of the slope problem. I also knew that in order be able to draft adequate darts I needed Line 8 to be at least 42” away from Line 1 at the level of the waist. So I redrafted my Line 8 to reflect these changes and I ended up with a waist that was pretty close. I should have kicked Line 8 out just a little more but for the purposes of this project it will work fine.

This was the first time since I have ventured into vintage drafting that I felt comfortable enough to deviate from the written directions. In the past I have worried that I just wasn’t understanding the instructions and that if I went off on my own I would just make everything worse. For some reason I had it in my head that these vintage writers worked at a higher level of perfection than our modern pattern writers and designers. Don’t ask me why I thought that. It wasn’t like anyone was going to jump on Facebook in 1912 and lament about how poor the pattern drafting directions were, so writers could get away with a greater amount of technical inaccuracy. Editing was much more labor intensive and expensive as well. Many of these systems of dressmaking were mail order textbooks, or they were actual textbooks that would have been used in conjunction with teaching in classroom.

 

So I gave myself much more freedom on this project to stray from the written instructions. I’m very glad I did too. Once I managed to get a reasonable bodice draft I moved on to the actual directions for the combinations drawers here (pg. 504). The next step of which is to now draft a basic pair of drawers for which we have to backtrack a few pages to these instructions (pg.496).

It looked simple enough - except the only instructions they give are for a 24” waist. *sigh* Really?! And draw a parallelogram. Why can’t they just say rectangle? I probably could have figured out the scaling I would need to adjust for my waist measurement but I was too irritated by this point, so I pulled out my Complete Course in Dressmaking written by Ms. Conover. I have used her books many, many times and have had relatively little to no trouble with her directions, but unfortunately she doesn’t have a pattern for combination drawers. Her bloomer diagram was almost identical to the diagram in the American System of Dressmaking, though, so I went with it. You can see her directions here. Most likely you will only get a blank PDF screen, you have to click on the download button in the upper right hand corner of the page. The bloomer pattern directions start on page 69.

 

Drafting out the bloomers literally took 10 minutes. Love it!

 

So from this point the idea is to attach the bodice to the drawers, fit, and then you can either transfer your fit notes to your paper pattern or cut apart your fit garment and use that as your pattern. I work best in 3D so I opted to do a mock-up with fabric to turn into an eventual pattern. I also wanted to test how I would proceed with the front closure, so when I cut out my pieces I added a 2 inch lap at center front on both the bodice and drawer portion. Reading ahead in the instructions revealed little in the way of guidance on how to finish the front. I also decided I wanted these to be combination drawers without a waist seam, here (pg.509).

My first mock-up actually turned out better than I expected. The shoulders were a little wide set, as I suspected they would be, and I was a little too generous in my crotch measurement necessitating taking things up at the waist quite a bit. The armholes also need to be cut down a bit, but otherwise, all fitted well. The actual sewing was super simple, which is very exciting for me! That means this is the type of garment that can structurally come together in a matter of minutes and then you can spend all of your effort and energy on EMBELLISHMENT! Lace, inserts, pin-tucking... oh the possibilities are endless!!

These are the two different options given for combination drawers. The first one is given on page 506 and the second is on page 509.

 

You can see that Figure 335 has a seamed waist line while Figure 338 does not. Well I ended up not doing either one. I liked the fact that there was no side seam on the drawers portion of 335 but I also liked the idea of no waist seam. So this is what I did. I cut apart my mock up and you can see where I marked out the excess that I was going to need to take out at the waist, neckline, and armhole.

 

This is what it looked like with all of the excess cut away.

 

This is where I decided to go my own way and make one big pattern piece like this.

 

From the fit of the mock-up I was happy with the amount of ease through the waist. There was just enough to allow for ease of pulling on the drawers over my hips, but not so much that I felt it would create too much bulk at the waist if it were gathered. I was also happy with the size and fit of the actual leg of the garment. Again, enough fullness, but not too much. And really, how much simpler can you get? I planned to add a casing for a draw string waist but other than that, no other pattern pieces.

My first construction step was to sew up the center front as far as the lap and the center back. I used French seams as is common for undergarments.

Next I sewed up the leg seams. If you chose to make these open drawers I would sew the legs first and then the front and back seams, creating a facing for your opening.

Shoulder seams next, and then on to finishing the lap front. Having left myself 2” on both front edges I had plenty of fabric to play with.

I decide a lot of things on the fly if you haven’t noticed. If you asked me to make all of these construction detail decisions up front, I couldn’t do it. I need to be in motion to make decisions. Many times I feel like the project creates itself. I am sure that style of working drives some of you more intentional designers crazy but we each have to find the way that works for us.

That being said, I folded and pressed my laps over in a way that looked nice and appropriate. Not sure of the exact measurements as I didn’t take any. I just eyeballed it. And on to buttonholes, buttons, and TRIM.

I will say that if I make another set of these, and I probably will because they are kind of cool, I may go with snaps for the front opening rather than buttons. I totally love my Pfaff for every other function except its button holes. They totally suck. Inconsistent, unpredictable, and totally amateur looking from a machine that otherwise produces top notch results in every other task. SO frustrating! End mini rant.

 

And a quick peek as I test fit and try out trim placement.

 

This project cost me a whopping $4.99. I had pulled the lace I used off some curtains that were going to be tossed, and buttons and ribbon were in my stash. The fabric I found at the thrift store ($4.99) in the bedding section; a high count cotton, like new, queen-sized flat sheet.

 

I am very happy with how this project turned out. You can see in the final version that I added some tucks at the neckline. It was a little gappy and I missed that in the original fit. I think the tucks are justifiable though. I am looking forward to trying lots of different embellishment options in the future and I will be keeping my eye out for nice laces! Hope you give them a try and don’t be afraid to Frankenstein something together. It won’t always work but when it does, it is a whole lot of fun.

 

 

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