Historical Sewing Workshops

Historical Sewing Workshops Historical Sewing Workshops by Shelley Peters. Sharpen your historical sewing skills! Learn how to construct a corset in any era, then on to the rest!

Shelley Peters has been sewing for over 50 years. She sewed her first dress in 2nd grade and costumed her 8 brothers and sisters for home productions. Her three children and their friends were always dressed in creative Halloween costumes. She moved on to Renaissance, wedding gowns, and Dickens Christmas Carolers. In 2001 she discovered Civil War Reenacting and has immersed herself in learning per

iod clothing and construction methods. She saw the need for corsets to be worn with historical clothing and started her first corset workshop in 2006. Since than she has fitted, sewn or taught over 400 custom corsets. Shelley has taught at Costume college since 2003. Shelley Peters is the Proprietress of the Kansas Mercantile, a traveling store specializing in Civil War & Victorian goods for reenactors, & Historical Sewing Supplies with over 20 Pattern lines. Her custom sewing business SewPeriod! specializes in Historical Clothing with an emphasis on Corsets. To be put on the email notification list send anEmail
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08/30/2026

After dinner...

Final fitting for Mrs. General Sherman, aka Lindsay Weiler-Leon . Need to add trim to sleeves and hooks & bars instead o...
08/29/2026

Final fitting for Mrs. General Sherman, aka Lindsay Weiler-Leon . Need to add trim to sleeves and hooks & bars instead of safety pins.

https://www.facebook.com/100044166922798/posts/1647364786745736/?mibextid=CDWPTG
08/28/2026

https://www.facebook.com/100044166922798/posts/1647364786745736/?mibextid=CDWPTG

WOW! THAT'S A 120-YEAR-OLD WEDDING DRESS! 👰🏻‍♀️

Pennsylvania bride Abigail Kingston became the 11th woman in her family to wear a wedding dress that had been treasured for more than a century.

The tradition began in 1895, when her great-great-grandmother, Mary Lowry Warren, first wore the Victorian-era gown. Decades later, Abigail’s mother, Leslie, wore the same dress for her wedding in 1977.

But by the time it reached Abigail, the delicate silk and lace had turned brown and developed dozens of holes. The historic gown was almost too fragile to wear.

A local designer spent around 200 hours carefully restoring it, bringing the family heirloom back to life.

Knowing how precious and fragile the dress remained, Abigail wore it only for photographs and during her cocktail hour rather than risking damage during the entire wedding.

She wasn't just wearing a wedding dress. She was wearing more than a century of family history and preserving it for the brides who come next. ❤️👰🏻‍♀️✨

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1665762205553348&set=a.152080810254836
08/13/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1665762205553348&set=a.152080810254836

On this day, American inventor Isaac Merritt Singer secured a patent that would stitch the nation into the age of mass production. His 1851 sewing machine wasn’t the first—others, like Elias Howe, had paved key pieces of the way—but Singer’s foot-treadle, straight-needle design made sewing faster, sturdier, and accessible to ordinary households and workshops. Marking the 175th anniversary, it’s worth noting a hidden innovation wasn’t purely mechanical: Singer pioneered installment plans and in-home demonstrations, an early blend of technology and modern marketing that helped his machines spread worldwide.

The Singer machine reshaped work. It shortened the time to make a shirt from hours to minutes, supercharging ready-to-wear clothing and fueling the rise of the garment industry in cities like New York. It also transformed domestic labor—women could earn wages from home—and sparked fierce patent battles that led to one of America’s first “patent pools,” a legal truce that kept innovation moving. From factory floors to family parlors, Singer’s sewing machine stitched together a new consumer economy.

https://www.facebook.com/abc4utah/posts/pfbid05dVSB5ZHwmbLPjC7fP5PuponR8snErnkEPqyBxzf9pnC4JNCQvTST3RXaVFyAj2Rl
08/10/2026

https://www.facebook.com/abc4utah/posts/pfbid05dVSB5ZHwmbLPjC7fP5PuponR8snErnkEPqyBxzf9pnC4JNCQvTST3RXaVFyAj2Rl

This teenager’s duct tape dress isn’t just “sticking” to the theme — it also earned her a scholarship.

Emma Fankhauser of Madison, Kansas dedicated more than 80 hours and used nine rolls of tape to craft a dress inspired by the U.S. Constitution and the fashion of the Revolutionary Period.

Hear what she had to say about her dress, article linked in comments.

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Nuevo, CA
92567

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+19513348054

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