18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, November 13, 1913: Am trying to fix one of my winter <missing word>. Wonder how it will turn out. I am good at doing awful sewing.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma—
I understand. I’m also good at doing awful sewing.
I’m not a good seamstress because I’m not a careful sewer and tend to take shortcuts. Were you the same? Did you skip steps like basting?
—
Here’s basting directions from a hundred-year-old book:
Bastings are temporary stitches used to hold two or more pieces of material together while putting in the permanent stitches. Careful basting is essential to successful sewing.
There are four kinds of bastings.
Even Bastings start with a knot of the right side so that they may be easily removed. Pass the needle over and through the material making the stitches and spaces the same length. To fasten the thread, take two stitches over the last one made. (Fig. 1)
Uneven Bastings are made by the method just described for even bastings, except that the stitches and spaces are of unequal length. The stiches taken upon the needle are about a third shorter than the space covered by the thread. (Fig. 2)
Combination Bastings are used on seams where extra firmness is desired for close fitting. They are made by taking, alternately, one long stitch and two short stitches. (Fig. 3)
Diagonal Bastings are slanting and used in dressmaking to secure the outside material to its lining, particularly where the lining is eased on to the material, as is often the case in waist-making. The method is shown in Fig. 4.
The Dressmaker (The Butterick Publishing Company, 1911)
