Above These six laces represent the variety of Dorgan’s extensive collection. All of them are vintage, ranging from the mid-1800s to the 1900s, with some being made by hand and some made by machine, and all stored securely on vintage bobin spools. // Photos by Elizabeth Gelineau
The spacious, sunlit sewing room is bursting with beautiful textiles and yards upon yards of lace. Shelves in the back contain clear boxes of lace, meticulously organized with labels. A big table showcases a few projects: a delicate baby dress, a christening gown, a lacy pillow. In the middle of it all is Toodles Dorgan. Her love of sewing began at 10 years old when her mother taught her hand embroidery. “I embroidered on my clothes and then learned to sew on a machine at 12,” she says. She continued into her adulthood, learning smocking and French hand sewing, and eventually designing and creating garments and items from old lace and heirloom pieces. “I just look at a piece of lace or a textile, and my brain starts creating what could be made from that piece,” she says.
French hand sewing, also referred to as heirloom sewing, is the art of creating heirloom pieces for special occasions. Heirloom sewing often utilizes fine textiles and delicate lace, even repurposing old pieces into something new, and imitates French hand sewing of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The sewing techniques employed, such as rolling and whipping, handmade tucks, puffing and embroidery, create visual interest, and accents such as lace and ribbons add charm and elegance to these garments. Heirlooms make frequent appearances in our Bay-area culture at celebrations and special occasions, often handed down through the generations. Old lace accents little serving girls’ dresses at the Camellia Ball. Wedding dresses, christening gowns and the like feature showstopping, intricate details. “It’s so wonderful to have all these beautiful old laces that are 100 years old or more,” says Dorgan. “We don’t know who made them, but they were heirlooms, and now we’re creating beautiful things out of [the creators’] work, too.”
In her studio, two wedding dresses dating back to the early 1900s hang on a door, waiting to be cleaned and eventually repurposed. “Because the gowns were so small back then, most of the time it has to be taken apart and something has to be remade from them,” Dorgan explains. “And not many people wear that style either, you know. So, I usually try to do, you know, something special for the family, like a christening gown, a pillow or a First Communion dress.” Sewing books by Sarah Howard Stone are stacked on a table, filled with detailed patterns, instructions and tips on heirloom sewing. Dorgan lovingly refers to them as her “sewing Bibles.” “Sarah Howard Stone was like the matriarch of French hand sewing,” says Dorgan. “She brought it back to the South.” An Alabama native by way of Montgomery, Stone taught classes throughout the country on heirloom sewing, reviving what was becoming a lost art. She published her first book in the 1980s. “When I had my shop Lilies and Lace, I contacted her and asked her if she would come to Fairhope that I would love to do a tea for her in my shop,” says Dorgan. “I had a smart, green dotted Swiss dress hanging on display. We walked in the door and she said, ‘I want that dress.’ It was such an honor to me. I still have a copy of her check.” Stone passed away in 2022, but her influence lives on in Dorgan and fellow devotees.
Above
Two handmade Edwardian dresses, dating back to the 1910s and featuring delicate hand embroidery and lace insertions, await Dorgan’s magic. Due to decaying fabric, they will be washed and reworked into something new to preserve for the family.
These elegant blue Swiss batiste dresses were designed with antique collars for Kate Chaney Montgomery’s daughters. Dorgan made the drop-waist dress using Sarah Howard Stones’ Melissa Pattern and the yoke dress using Collar’s basic yoke dress pattern. Both dresses feature antique lace bands and silk ribbon.
This baby bonnet was designed by Dorgan, and employs antique machine embroidery eyelets and lace circa 1900s laced with silk ribbons, perfect for a christening or Easter portrait.
This christening gown was designed using a veil and wedding gown lace from 1968. The gown was worn by Abby Self and then by her daughter Montiene Self Brown in 1998. In 2000, Dorgan then preserved the fabric and transformed it into
a christening gown for all the grandchildren to wear.
Dorgan now commissions custom orders from her Fairhope home. She creates pieces and repurposes old garments. In the case that someone wants a piece from modern materials but has a traditional look, she uses new lace. “The newer laces are made in France, and there’s only one company that makes these laces now,” she says. “But for the ones that are going to think outside the box, I like to then I use a lot of my old laces.” She sources the old varieties from antique stores, The Silver Market in Fairhope and from people who have cleaned out their attics. “I do a lot of cleaning,” says Dorgan. “People say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a christening gown. I’ve heard you will clean up and get it ironed and ready for me for christening.’” In the back of the sewing room is her washroom. Garments soak for a few days in plastic boxes and the counter displays a number of cleaners: linen wash, Pink Stuff, baking soda.
For each project, patience is paramount. “Sewing time on any garment — to construct it, to make it, to design it — would be probably anywhere from 30 to 35 hours,” she says. “Now, if I am taking a dress apart, first I would clean it, then I would have to take it apart. When you do that, it’s another 20 to 25 hours, depending on the project.” Dorgan uses all hours to get the work done, using the daylight hours for machine sewing in her sewing room and hand sewing at night in four-to-six-hour increments on the couch in front of her television. “Sarah Howard Stone only sewed by hand,” says Dorgan. “Her daughter Melissa did the heirloom sewing on the machine. I said, ‘[Hand sewing] is the only way to do it, machine sewing is cheating.’ Well, I ate my words, oh my gosh. I love doing hand work, but the time involved is not 35 hours. You’re talking about 100 hours compared to 35 hours on a small something.”
Her projects have not only given chance to dress even the littlest locals and craft clothing for the Bay area’s most cherished events but has also earned her opportunities to sew outfits for national events. Thanks to one assistant’s connection to Fairhope, Dorgan found herself making pieces for Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen’s wedding in 2009. “I made dresses for their wedding, for her nieces and then I made an outfit for Tom’s son, who was about two years old at the time,” she says. “They asked me to go to Costa Rica for the family wedding they had, and I helped to with the wedding, so that was a real highlight, and a fun thing get to do. I remember someone coming in and she hangs Gisele’s wedding dress up, and she said, ‘Can you iron her wedding dress?’ And it was, you know, this slinky dress. I think, ‘Oh my god, if I scorch this thing…’ But anyway, it was a fun, fun trip, and I loved being able to make those dresses.”
Left Dorgan’s sewing room is filled with various projects, from bonnets to christening gowns.
Right Dorgan keeps certain laces on spools for easy access.
Dorgan is passing down her expertise to the next generation through her sewing classes for young girls. The groups are small, no more than six girls at a time, to ensure one-on-one instruction is more effective. Dorgan starts her students off with hand embroidery, much how her mother began teaching her when she was young. “Hand-eye coordination is really important when you’re doing this,” she says. “I also teach them how to iron and I’ve started teaching sewing machine classes. I want them to respect a sewing machine. I want them to know a sewing machine. That’s important to me.” The girls often sit on couches or on the porch swing to hand embroider; Dorgan knows that comfort on long projects is key. Some of their past projects have included embroidering pillows, sewing their own skirts and even creating rabbits ahead of Easter. The smiles on the girls’ faces as they hold up their completed project in photos say it all. “In the end, I want them to have a project that they can take pride in, that they made that is not coming apart, and that they learned how to do this,” she says. “I would say I’m pretty firm with my techniques of teaching sewing, but the girls love me.”
Through sewing and preserving heirlooms, and teaching sewing skills, Dorgan finds beauty in embracing the old. “I will try to find a way to create something with what I’m given, because the workmanship is absolutely gorgeous,” she says. “Why wouldn’t you want to preserve it and use it any way you can?”
