November 2024 – The Quintessential Clothes Pen

I’m trying to get in all of my Historical Sew Monthly 2024 posts before the new year! So in that spirit, here is another one!

Above is a closeup of the fluff that makes up the arm openings of the new yellow sacque I mentioned in my last post (where I shared details about the petticoat for the new sacque) as well as my Versailles dress from 2016. Part of the fluff is the sleeve ruffles on the dresses and part of the fluff is the engageants — lace for the Versailles dress and a double layer of ivory silk for the new yellow sacque!

Engageants are sleeve ruffles. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word back to the 16th century with its origins in French.

These new engageants are made of two layers of silk gauze, inspired by the ones displayed with the lovely yellow dress below by the Royal Ontario Museum.

Robe à la française Spitalfields (London), England. Silk extended tabby (gros de Tours) with liseré self-patterning and brocading in silver lamella and filé Georgian Rococo. 1750s. Gift of the Fashion Group Inc. of Toronto in memory of Gwen Cowley. ROM2009_10909_22.

I specifically wanted the semi-sheer quality as a change from the lace engageants that accompany my Versailles sacque (which you can read about in this past post detailing construction information about that dress).

I looked through my stash and realized that the best fabric I had for this project was salvaged from an old ballroom dancing dress I’d made. Here is a blast from the past for you! The elusive Mr. Q is even hiding there, behind my head… But back to the dress. It was made pre-blog, so no photos of it have made it here before.

I was so proud of it! But after a fair bit of wearing this dress, I moved on to creating new ballroom dresses and sacrificed this one for parts. The rhinestoned lace was re-used in a dress that did make it onto the blog in 2013 (documented in this past post), but the float — that dangling piece hanging from my wrist that floats in the breeze while dancing — was simply put into my fabric stash, which is where I found it when looking for engageant material!

The float was an odd triangular piece, so I had to do some piecing (adding center seams, for example) to make my engageant pieces fit. But that’s fine! In all the fluff you can’t see the seams.

And in fact, the pattern I used, from 1769, was intended to create zero fabric waste, which intentionally added seams, as well. The scalloped pieces are stacked together with the scallops facing each other to efficiently use a single rectangle of fabric.

Completed engageants are below. The seams are not obvious!

Every individual silk piece for these was narrow hemmed on all the edges and then the seams were butted, whipped, laid flat, and pressed. Below is a close up of a seam and a scalloped bottom edge.

Once all of that was done, the two layers were laid on top of each other and whip gathered along the top edge. This was then sewn to a ¼” cotton tape. This allows for the engageants to be removed to be cleaned or used with another dress someday.

And that’s it! These qualify for the Historical Sew Monthly Challenge #6 Up Your Sleeve:

Level up your sleeve game by making a garment where the focus is on the sleeves.

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: Approximately ½ yard of ivory silk gauze.

Pattern: From page 14 in Patterns of Fashion 6 (written by Janet Arnold, Sébastien Passot, Claire Thornton, & Jenny Tiramani).

Year: 1769.

Notions: Approximately ⅔ yard of ¼” white cotton twill tape and thread.

How historically accurate is it?: 95%. Entirely hand sewn. The construction methods are historically sound. The fiber content and weave may not be perfect.

Hours to complete: 8 ¾.

First worn: October 5, 2024.

Total cost: I have no recollection of what I paid for the silk gauze many years ago. Plus, at this point this fabric is being re-used, so might be called free regardless. The twill tape was bought in bulk and cost less than $1 per yard. So let’s say approximately $5.

Over the last year or so I’ve been working on another new ensemble: a second 1770s sacque dress (also called a Robe à la Française or sack-back gown) to be friends with my original Versailles dress (which you can read all about in this past series of posts). My goal was to have a new dress that I could loan to two different friends so that they could join me in 18th century splendor. Luckily, the two friends I have in mind are not too different in circumferences!

The new ensemble has many individual garments — under petticoat, over petticoat, the sacque itself, a tucker, and sleeves flounces (or engageantes) — so there will be a number of posts coming up that share details about these various pieces. This post is going to focus on the over petticoat that I made for this ensemble.

The petticoat front is made up of the yellow jacquard fabric that the dress itself is made out of, while the sides and back are made of a cream colored cotton. No need to use expensive fabric where it is unlikely to be seen! This was a common 18th century practice. Above is an image of the front of the petticoat. Below is an image of the back of the petticoat.

There are three fabric panels — two of the cotton and one of the silk. These are seamed together and then divided in half, such that some of the cotton falls on the ‘front’ of the petticoat (since it makes up ⅔ of the circumference of the skirt). There are slits cut into the sides at the halfway points. These are narrowly hemmed by hand.

Below is a closeup of the top the petticoat, which shows the pocket slit on the right side.

The front and back are pleated in the same way, though with differing quantity and depth of pleats. They have an outward box pleat at the center and additional deep knife pleats towards the sides. The pleats are held in place by front and back waistbands that are finished at ½”. Below, you can see the inside of the front and inside of the back, showing the knife pleats and waistbands.

And here is one more interior closeup of the waistband. You can see that it was sewn on by machine and then flipped to the inside and whip stitched in place. You can also see the ribbon tie on the right as well as a little bit of the pocket opening.

Set inside of the waistbands are long ties (in this case, made of ivory polyester ribbon because it was on hand). The back ties are long enough to tie around the front of the body. Then the front ties warp around the back and are long enough to tie in front. (You can see how this works in this past post about the petticoat I wear under my Versailles sacque.)

The bottom of the skirt has a ½” hand sewn whip stitched hem, which you can see in the image below. It is leveled to sit over 1770s panniers (which you can read about in this past post).

And that’s basically it! This petticoat qualifies for the Historical Sew Monthly Challenge #12 That’s A Wrap:

Make an accessory or garment that is worn by wrapping it around the body.

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: Approximately 1.25 yards of yellow jacquard silk and 2 yards of cream cotton.

Pattern: I referenced my first petticoat, which referenced Katherine’s 18th Century Petticoat Tutorial and The Standard 18th Century Petticoat Tutorial at A Fashionable Frolick. The nice thing about Katherine’s tutorial is that it’s adjusted for a petticoat to go over pocket hoops, while the great thing about the tutorial at A Fashionable Frolick is that it has tons of detailed construction information like which stitches to use. Both tutorials are clear and very helpful.

Year: c. 1775.

Notions: Approximately 3 yards of ¼” ivory polyester ribbon and thread.

How historically accurate is it?: 90%. All of the visible bits are hand sewn. The construction methods are accurate, though cotton is not the most likely fiber content as it was expensive in the 18th century.

Hours to complete: I didn’t keep track (a nice change from some of my projects). My guess is about 5 hours for machine sewing non-visible areas and hand finishing.

First worn: October 5, 2024.

Total cost: Approximately $30 (the cotton was $4/yard, the silk was $17/yard, and the ribbon was free).