HSM #3, Stashbusting: Hannah's Hooverette

Hannah and Albert

Today's post is all about Hooverettes!  I'm calling mine Hannah's Hooverette after a friend of my mother's family--she was surrogate grandmother to my mom and her siblings in the late 1950s, and I like to think she might have worn something like this at some point. 

A while back, I decided I really wanted to make a Hooverette.  Hooverettes, for those who don't know, are simple cotton house dresses that wrapped in the front and were introduced in the years after the Great War as an easy dress to wear for housework, but nice enough to wear out to the shops for the daily errands.  This style of dress was popular from the 1920s until at least the early 1960s, although back wrap versions were introduced in the early to mid-1940s.

They mostly wrapped across the front, so that when one side was soiled, the garment could be lapped the other direction to present a clean side.  I was especially intrigued after reading Jen's post about her own Hooverette adventures, and started collecting images of them after perusing her Pinterest board about them.  There were lots of newspaper versions that included drafting instructions, and most Hooverettes are very simply constructed of two fronts and a back with facings or bias binding.

Via Pinterest

After looking at a bunch of different iterations from the early 1920s up through the mid-1930s, I decided that my Marian Martin 9257 from the early 1960s could be modified to work as a Hooverette.

The pieces were exactly the same shape as many of the newspaper drafting guides, and there were plenty of examples from the 1930s that included bias binding instead of a collar.

The main changes I made to the Marian Martin were to grade it up slightly and to omit the facings and most of the waist shaping, as the early Hooverettes appear to be fairly straight up and down (most of them have a slight a-line shape to the skirt section, but there are no waist darts as such)  I meant to draft a collar like my inspiration pattern (Pattern 2068 below) but when it came down to it, I really just wanted to get the project done.  

Well.  Let's just say, the first go-through was not a success.  I think you'll agree that it looked like a hospital gown.  I think the fabric was mostly to blame, as the bubble print got lost at a distance and washed the kelly green color out to a nice hospital scrub green.  The general shapelessness of the garment combined with the color made it look ready for the operating theatre rather than something cute for washing dishes and making beds.

I thought it looked okay from the back, though.  The undershirt didn't help matters any either.  This fabric was a cheap quilting cotton from Joann that I had in my stash from the late fall, and it just doesn't behave the way that the premium quilting cottons do.  It wrinkles terribly, and feels like it has too much sizing in it.  The weave of the fabric is close to feedsack, but unlike feedsack, which drapes nicely, it is very stiff.  I washed it a second time in vinegar to see if it would soften any, but no dice.  I'm hoping a few more vinegar washes and vigorous spin cycles might soften it up. I asked on the Historical Sew Monthly Facebook forum what I should do to fix it, and a lively discussion ensued.

I experimented a little with the ties to see if wrapping them around to the front would help.  It did, a little, but I still couldn't shake the hospital vibe.  I drafted a collar and pinned it on, and while it looked okay, I couldn't get the ends to meet in the right place. Several people suggested contrast trim so I turned back my bias facing to see how it looked.  It was an improvement, but the green-on-green bias didn't seem like enough contrast.  At this point, I nearly binned the whole project.  I put it in my donate pile and tried to move on to another project, but I really wanted to salvage the trim I'd used since bias hem facing is a little hard to come by.

I ended up removing all the trim except the hem facing, and started fresh with some vintage yellow bias from my stash, turned to the outside.  The yellow by itself looked a little blah, however, and I pondered how to add in some additional contrast.



I really like yellow, red, and green together, and it is a frequent color combination from the 1930s-1950s, but I couldn't work out how to add in a pop of red without it looking odd until I remembered I had some vintage red ric-rac in my stash.  I'm not really a ric-rac girl (I know, vintage girl heresy, gasp!), although I like it fine on other people.  I think it feels too young for me or something.

I added the ric-rac to the edge of the bias, which was the perfect little pop of red without seeming too cutesy or sweet, I think.   I think the trim saved the dress!  I also managed to use up all but 6" of the trim in my stash!  This little piece is all that is left.  Win-win.

I made some ridiculous problems for myself while trying to fix the fit of the dress (I wanted the pass-through closer to the front of the dress instead of in the side seam, as in my inspiration photo, but not only did it look bad, but I cut it while wearing the thing.  So.dumb.  I darned over the area with a zig-zag stitch and reinforced the fabric behind with an iron-on patch, so I think it will be fine.

The top ended up just being too big, so I did an 18th century fitting thing and just pinned the excess flat and sewed it down by hand.  The back is a little wonky (it could also be how I'm standing, as it looks even on the hanger), but at least there isn't tons of excess fabric everywhere.  I also pinned two princess-type lines in the front and hand-sewed them down as well.  Not perfect, but it is a house dress, after all.  It is more or less functional. 

I can't decide if the front or back wrapped ties look better.  The back wrap is looser and more comfortable, in addition to being more correct for the garment/period.

I realize that I don't really have the ideal shape for this type of dress, but I also think that there is a lot of deceptive advertising going on here as well.  Several people on the HSM forum suggested foundation garments, but honestly, this type of dress was supposed to be worn without them (there is a long history of a certain type of women's garments that are meant to be worn without foundations, to give the body a break, or allow for ease of movement during heavy work.  18th century bed jackets and Victorian/Edwardian afternoon dresses spring to mind).

Also, if you look at the sepia photo of the 1930s ladies above, many of them are shaped just like me.  I think the garment isn't meant to be that flattering, actually.  It is a work dress, plain and simple.  I would also like to point out, for the record, that Mrs. Macguire, Sidney's housekeeper on Grantchester, is frequently to be found in a Hooverette, and she is definitely shaped a lot more like me than like those long slim pencils on the Sears-Roebuck advert!

That said, it is fairly comfortable, and I won't mind wearing it during the heat of summer or when my GI system acts up and nothing fits well around my middle.  I do think that wrapping the ties around to the front looks a bit better on me even if it isn't quite right for the period.

The Challenge: Stashbusting!

What is it? A Hooverette

Fabric: Green 1930s style quilting cotton

Pattern: Marian Martin 9257

Year: 1930-32

Notions: 5 yards vintage yellow bias tape,  about 4 yards vintage red ric-rac, about 2 1/2 yards kelly green hem facing

How historically accurate is it? 8/10  The shape of the dress is correct, the trim is period appropriate.  (Ric-rac was in use from the late 19th century, although I'm a little unclear when it became common on clothing--it was certainly in use on clothing by the early 1940s, and this style of dress persisted well into the 1950s)  The fabric is so-so.  It is cotton, which is appropriate, and the pattern is similar to 1930s cottons I've seen, but the hand/drape is off.

Hours to complete: about 7 (although it would have been more like four if I'd trimmed it in contrast the first time--I spent about four hours removing trim and reattaching it again).

First worn:  I wore the first version for a few hours one frigid day in early February, decided it was a disaster to look at and that it was too cold for a thin cotton dress; I wore the final version for photos at the end of February 2015

Total cost: $16.17 for the fabric (Creating New Traditions Dot Green), thread from the stash ($2.00), ~$5 for trim?  I usually buy vintage trim in destash lots on etsy and ebay, so I really don't know.  Pattern was in the stash but cost around $10 on ebay when I did buy it.