The Unspoken Piece; My friend the gusset.

This whole article from Threads online has got me thinking.

It's this line: "In the earliest commercial patterns, very little instruction was included because it was assumed that the majority of women knew how to sew most any garment."

Now I know that, like I know where the milk is in the grocery store. I've DONE my vintage sewing, I am doing it. Right now I'm in the 50s with a serious batwing sleeve thing going.

But I was reading this article anyway, even though I Know It All (you can see where this is going, right?) and when I got to this set of photos, it hit me.

Threads Magazine, my screenshot

There is probably no gusset piece included in the pattern set.

There isn't one in this pattern

And I cannot move my arms in it.

It probably gets sewn with an underarm gusset in it, because as a seamstress in that time, I would have KNOWN to add one. 

Yakking at Made Sewing Studios with Carissa, local genius, recently about this gusset matter. As far as she knows, they were also made to be removed so you could wash the gusset and not the whole shirt. Or replace it, much like dress shields.

Which begs to ask: what else do I not know to add that I would have known about?

From the past ages of the internet, a nifty tutorial on Gussets