Author: TheQuintessentialClothesPen

The Quintessential Clothes Pen creates historical clothing and accessories as well as modern garments.

The Sweater Of Determination, Or The Deauville (HSM #11)

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I’m really excited to have finished this sweater and even more excited that I like the finished product! It’s been a bumpy road to completion… but more on that later in this post.

First, I’m excited that this sweater qualifies for the Historical Sew Monthly challenge #11: Above The Belt!

No hitting low! Let’s keep things on the up and up as the year closes, and make something worn above the belt.

Before I go into the story of this sweater, here are just the facts:

Fabric:  1 ¾ skeins of Red Heart with Love acrylic yarn in Boysenberry, ¾ skein of Red Heart with Love acrylic yarn in Eggshell, & ¼ skein of Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice acrylic yarn in Dusty Purple.

Pattern: An ad for Fleischer Yarn published in The Ladies Home Journal.

Year: June 1920.

Notions: None!

How historically accurate is it?: 90%. The weight of the yarn is a bit heavy, though the fiber content and color are plausible. My crazy alterations make sense but of course the goal would have been to avoid their necessity.

Hours to complete: So, so many. At least 100, I would think.

First worn: November 23, 2019.

Total cost: Approximately $39.

Inspiration

The story of this sweater starts with inspiration I found on Pinterest for 1920s sweaters. I think I came across these while making my last sweater in 2013, the 1917 Sweater of Angorina. Fast forward a few years to the summer of 2016 when I got all excited and ordered tons of yarn. Enough for three sweaters…

(Let’s get side tracked for a moment to tally my successes at using all that yarn. The 1st of those three sweaters is made but has never been photographed (it’s on the list of things to do!). The 2nd sweater is the Deauville this post is about. The 3rd sweater hasn’t been started… the yarn is still sitting in my stash. But after making two quite thick sweaters out of this weight of yarn, I’m pretty sure that the yarn I have for the 3rd sweater will not make what I want. Here’s the inspiration for the 3rd sweater–despite knitting rather often I’m not confident in my ability to pick the right weight of yarn and size knitting needles for a project like a sweater. I think that a sport weight yarn might be better for that 3rd inspiration, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to do more research!)

But back to this sweater: below is the inspiration for The Deauville sweater, including the instructions provided by Fleischer Yarns (this advertisement was listed on eBay). It is dated June 1920.

Making and Remaking

So I think I started on The Deauville in 2016. That means it’s been on my knitting needles for about three years… which is not to say that I’ve been working on it that whole time. Oh, no! This was definitely an on-and-off (mostly off) project–partly due to the fact that I just don’t pick up my knitting needles that often, but also because I encountered problems with this sweater that were demoralizing and time consuming.

I tried to follow the instructions as best I could. I think I did pretty well with the back and front. Then I started on the sleeves. But it became apparent as the first sleeve took shape that the sleeve I was knitting was not going to make a sleeve shape that made sense for the shape of the sweater. The top of the sleeves would have had three separate curves and the bottom of the sleeve would have curved down like a bishop sleeve. What???

Here’s the point in knitting that sleeve when I stopped. The top of the sleeve is the top of the photo. You can see that’s started to go downhill, but that was only about ⅓ of the way across rather than about ½, as you would expect for a sleeve. And the bottom curves down… why? I have no idea. It doesn’t make sense given the illustration of the finished sweater.

I could not see how the directions would produce usable sleeves, so I took apart what I had knitted and created my own instructions that made an expected sleeve shape. The sleeves took a really long time to knit… because it turns out that I had made them much wider and longer than they needed to be! I had lovely bell shaped sleeves, but that wasn’t the shape in the inspiration… ugh! (No photos, because I was frustrated at this point and just wanted to keep moving.)

I discovered the sleeve shape after having sewn up the sleeve inseams, the shoulder and side seams of the body, and attaching one sleeve. I was not inspired to re-knit two sleeves again, so I had to think of other solutions. In addition, I’d discovered other problems during my first fitting… I realized that the back of the sweater was 5″ smaller across than the front. What??? This pulled the side seams to the back and also made the sweater waaaay too tight around my body. That’s not the right style at all! It also explained why it was hard to set the sleeves in nicely–there was way more sleeve than armsceye!

If you look carefully at my shoulders in this photo you can see that the armsceye seam sits pretty far back on my shoulders in the back, due to the narrow back panel. Luckily the sleeves have a shape that accommodates being pulled so far back.

It was my goal to wear this for an event in November and by now it was mid-October, so I had to come up with solutions that wouldn’t take too much time to execute (or add too much frustration). I’d put in so much time already–I was annoyed with the sweater but determined to carry on! I decided that I could take in the sleeves, hem them, add in two 2.5″ panels to the body, and hem the very long bottom of the sweater. That would solve most of the problems, but it required taking apart most of the seams I had just sewn. Ugh!

Oh, and one other problem from that first fitting? The v-neck was unreasonably deep! It went all the way down to the middle of my ribcage. And there was really nothing to do about that in terms of knitting something new. I decided to stitch it partway shut, hoping that the tassel in the front would hide my Frankenstein seam.

Happier Progress and Finishing

I unstitched my seams and knit my new panels, hoping that my side panel additions would look intentional or mostly not noticeable. (Luckily, from the outside they’re really not noticeable, are hidden under my arms, and symmetrical, so vaguely intentional looking. Yay!) After making the new panels, I sewed up all the seams again. I found that the sleeve to armsceye ratio was much better, so that was positive.

Here’s the inside of the sweater, showing one of the added-in side panels, as well as the hemmed bottom edge, and the white contrast band.

The next step was to take in the sleeves (more unstitching and restitching). Finally, I hemmed the sleeves and bottom edge, making for rather thick edges, especially at the sleeve hems, where the seam was taken in and then the sleeve was hemmed! Luckily it’s not too visible, just a little bulky when you can feel it–which I didn’t really notice while wearing the sweater, so that’s good.

Here’s the inside of one sleeve, showing the taken-in-seam (which was whipped down to keep the bulk in place), the hem of the sleeves (also whipped down), and the white contrast band.

At some point along the way I’d made the long rectangle for the belt, so that was done. It was an easy no-stress step to add in during the midst of all the frustrating sleeve/side/seam ripping business.

The final steps were to make and add the white bands of trim as well as the collar and tassels. At this point I threw the instructions out the window, using them for general guidelines but making it up as I went along. I decided that my rounded hemmed bottom edges wouldn’t look proportional with a single layer of white knit band, so I decided on the final widths I wanted, knit them double wide, sewed them into a tube, and then sewed the tube to the sleeves and bottom edge. I like the result!

I mostly followed the collar directions (I changed the length to match my neck opening and changed the curve slightly), but wanted a rounded, doubled collar look to match the bands. To do that, I made the collar a bit wider than I intended for it to be, turned under the outside edge, and whip stitched it down. The instructions gave no information on how to attach the collar, so I whip stitched that, too. (In addition to the collar, this photo also shows the inside of the v-neck that was stitched together. I finished those stitches off with a bow, to offset the frustration of the sweater.)

Done!

And that was it! It was a bit of a rush at the end, but I got it done in time to wear to the event–a Thanksgiving parade in which friends and I represented support for women’s suffrage. The 19th amendment granting women’s suffrage was ratified in 1920, but did you that it was approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2019? Any year is a year worth celebrating suffrage, in my opinion, whether it’s a 100th anniversary year or not!

About Fleisher Yarns

I did a bit of research on Fleisher yarns, and Silverglow in particular (as that is the specific line of yarn that my inspiration advertisement is promoting). This blog has compiled an amazing resource, listing Fleisher Yarns from the 1890s through the 1970s, with photos. Here is the listing from that resource for Silverglow:

Silverglow

1904: ​​ “A soft and lofty two-fold yarn, a mixture of wool and art silk, having a rich, lustrous appearance. ​​ Adapted for light weight sweater’s, scarfs, sportswear, etc.”

Back to my thoughts about the weight of my yarn, this description pushes me towards the thought that my yarn was a bit heavy for the original intentions. Although, I was thinking of this sweater as being on the sporty side of things (hence my accessories of the pom pom hat and wide scarf with tassels–inspired by ads such as those below), so I think it is still tangentially possible for this yarn weight to make sense–and it certainly did a great job of keeping me warm!

Interestingly, you can still find Fleischer Yarn. Here is one example, and though it’s not clear exactly when these skeins are from, I bet that a bit of looking at the labels on the first resource I linked might answer that question.

About The Color Of My Sweater

The color of my sweater color is one that I love. Berries of all kinds are yummy and pretty! But is it a reasonable choice for 1920? Well, I did a bit of researching that, too. Here is a color chart for Fleisher Yarns from 1929. My boysenberry color isn’t represented, but there are yarns with a similar depth of color and saturation, so I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for a color like this to have existed at that time. For example, combine Wild Aster and Cardinal on the color chart and you might get a color similar to my yarn.

A Few More Photos

To finish off, here are a few more photos of my Deauville sweater, which was most definitely an exercise in determination!

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part X: Photos From The Ball

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I was able to wear my new 1863 dress, Genevieve, to the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers’ Victoria and Albert Ball in September. I’ve spent a very long time sharing all about the dress and you’ve seen some photos of the wonderful staircases in the hall as I’ve shared finished construction photos, but I thought it would be fun to share a few photos of the ball as well, for context.

On the night of the ball, there were many dresses and tailcoats to admire in a range of years focused on the 1840s through 1860s. There was also the lovely ballroom to admire, with a famed organ at one end and many pretty details and portraits along the walls.

The guests of the evening filled the ballroom with dancing and socializing, while, in a side room, a spread of delicious refreshments was waiting to be devoured by hungry guests.

While getting more serious documenting-sewing photos, a few silly photos made their way in as well. They started off staged but reasonably not silly…

Then we tried to point at a non-existent something…

And that turned into silly-ness! I think this last one was: ‘Oh no! We’ve made the invisible object disappear with our magical powers!’

Thanks for sticking with me through so many posts about one dress!

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part IX: Braided Crown Hairstyle Details

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I am very pleased with how my hairstyle turned out for the first wearing of Genevieve, the 1863 dress I’ve been blogging about for the last few months. I took the idea directly from my inspiration drawing, though I changed the hair decoration that accompanied the style.

I’ve used false hair to have braided crown styles before (here’s an example of the same braid used for a Regency hairstyle), but that old braid is only about 1 ½” wide, which is a bit subtle for the look I wanted for this dress. It’s also long enough to wrap around my head about 1.5 times, which is longer than what I wanted for the new hairstyle.

So I decided to buy some new false hair and make a new, fatter braid. I used this hair in dark brown. It’s intended for African style braid extensions, so it has a texture that’s great for matching my curly hair–I don’t think it would work well for someone with straight hair. I also bought these black hair nets.

I used one bundle of the false hair for this braid. The hair comes braided already, but I took it out and re-braided it a little tighter than how it was originally. Then I cut the elastic on one of the hair nets so that it would stretch out to be as long as my braid.

I laid the braid on top of the hair net and wrapped the hair net around to the back side of the braid. Then I used large whip stitches to secure the net to the braid. You can see one of those stitches mostly centered in the next photo. Covering the braid with a hair net helps keep all the frizzies from making the braid look messy. (My old braid isn’t covered in a hair net, so it looks very organic, like my real hair… nice and frizzy!)

The final step was to go back and stitch the hair net down in the dips between each section of the braid. In the photo above you can see the hair net traveling between braid bumps, but in the finished photo below those are mostly sewn down and much less visible.

For the actual hairstyle, I secured the braid to my head behind the sections near my face that get swept back over my ears. (I also pinned the braid to the top of my head to keep it in place while dancing. Those pins were put into the back side of the braid (to keep them hidden) and secured into the roots of my hair.) After securing the braid I was able to arrange the front sweep sections on either side of my face. I made sure to cover the ends of the braid with these sections.

Then I arranged the back of my hair. I wanted to keep it simple to showcase the braid and the velvet bow, so I arranged the back of my hair into a low puff. It continues the ring of the braid around my head while being more unobtrusive than the braid itself.

The final step was the bit of lace and the velvet bow. I opted for those instead of the lace framing the braid in the inspiration image. I wasn’t sure how I would accomplish that without essentially creating a cap… and that’s not the look I wanted. So I made up something else!

The bow is one I was able to make after my bow disaster. I think it adds a nice touch of color on my dark hair. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it and the lace until the ball, so I bobby pinned each piece in place for that first wearing. Then one of my after-the-ball tasks before I could put this away was to sew these two pieces together and add a comb so that it is now an official accessory that will be easier to put in my hair the next time I wear this dress.

Here’s a side view of what all of that amounts to. I intentionally placed the bow and lace off-center on my head in order to pick up on the asymmetrical bow on the skirt of the dress.

When I did a quick trial with the braid in modern clothes it felt very large and I was worried it would be too big, but once dressed in Genevieve I think the scale of this new braid is great–an excellent hair crown size and length, and the hair net keeps it looking super tidy and frizz free!

 

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part VIII: ‘Of Apricot Silk With Cream Lace And Red Velvet Bows’ (HSM #10)

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DONE! I am so glad to be done. I’m also excited to have a new dress (and, despite the challenges and worries along the way, one I like the look of! YAY!).

I’ve kept you waiting to see photos of the finished dress. Life got a bit busy after the ball and then I wanted to share my final sewing details with you. But now it’s time to introduce you to Genevieve, my 1863 Apricot Evening Gown, also known as the Orange Monster for the last few months. Here she is!

I’m excited that this dress qualifies for the October HSM challenge.

Details: Sometimes the little things really make something fabulous. Focus on the details of your garment, to create something that just gets better the closer you look.

This dress is definitely one of those garments! I’ll explain and show you lots of reasons why in these finished photos, but there are currently seven other posts in this series sharing tons of details about the planning, patterning, sewing, and trimming process as well.

First, the facts:

Fabric:  6 ⅔ yards of apricot silk, ½ yard of dark red silk velvet, approximately ½ yard of ivory tulle, muslin scraps for hem facing, a scrap of canvas for stiffening the waistband, and about ½ yard of drab cotton for flat lining.

Pattern: It originally came from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 2 but has been adapted over the course of a few dresses.

Year: 1864.

Notions: 25 yards of 3 ¾” lace, 2 brooches, 3 yards of ⅜” polyester ribbon, a few plastic cable ties, about 1 yard of bone casing, a variety of hooks and bars, and thread.

How historically accurate is it?: 95%. A few substitutions of modern materials exist but aside from that it’s pretty much as close as I can get.

Hours to complete: 57.

First worn: September 28, 2019.

Total cost: $112.78

The cost breakdown is as follows: $66 for the silk (local discount store in 2016), $12.50 for the velvet (WM Booth Draper in 2011), ~$2 for the tulle (local discount store in 2011),~$1 for the drab cotton (local discount store in 2018), ~$15 for the lace (Debs Lace and Trims in 2019), $6.28 for the brooches (Etsy in 2019), ~$6 for the ribbon (Farmhouse Fabrics in 2019), and we’ll say $4 for the scraps and other notions since they’re from the stash, reused from other projects/mockups, or used in very small quantities.)

Visible details, you ask? Well, in addition to sharing so many other details along the way, the finished dress has many visible layers of details. The most time consuming detail is the hand sewn 3 tiers of lace ruffle/silk scalloped & pleated trim around the skirt. This detail alone took 17.5 hours. There is a whole post dedicated to this aspect and the details that went into it.

That form of decoration is continued on the bodice sleeve caps. Here’s a closeup where you can see the pleated silk. It is meticulously hand stitched with tiny stitches everywhere it is used.

Another layer of detail is the bertha and sleeve caps. Those have tulle, gathered tulle, and lots of velvet details. My last post explains how these are made.

I found the sleeve caps to be rather unusual amongst dresses from this period, so I was pleased to find this fashion plate which has a similar look.

(This next one is a great ‘I’m plopped and tired of standing’ photo!)

And as for details, let’s not forget the velvet bows in addition the velvet trim. Especially that oversized skirt bow! I also spent quite a bit of time looking for the gold brooches to go on the velvet bows.

Aside from the photo above I don’t have many directly front facing photos of this dress–I guess I did a lot of my posing at an angle–but here is one that is slightly less angled and gives the full effect of all the trimmings.

I was super pleased to wear my American Duchess burgundy satin Amelie shoes with this dress! They matched my velvet trim quite well and were fun to have peeking out from under the giant skirt. It’s such a fun piece of history to have contrasting shoes that actually match your dress! Yay! You can see them in this next photo.

The venue we were in for the ball not only had a number of fabulous staircases leading to the ballroom but also many photos of generals and other military figures from the Civil War. It seemed fitting for this period of dress even if they do occasionally seem to be ‘photo-bombing’! Here’s an example. I love this photo! But does the painting look amused, or disapproving? Hm…


I’ve got a post coming up specifically about my grand crown hairstyle as well as a few photos of the ball in general. For now though, thanks very much for bearing with me through this project! I’ve appreciated your encouraging words and excitement about seeing the finished product!

 

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part VII: Finishing Details

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Next post will be photos of my finished apricot dress… YAY! But first, I have the final finishing details to discuss. Most of the finishing left was on the bodice, so let’s start with that.

Bertha

Side note: have we ever talked about what a bertha is? A bertha is a collar of lace or other thin fabric, particularly popular during the 19th century. Check out this link to learn a little more about the history of the word.

In my last post, I included a photo showing the assembled front of the bertha for this dress before I attached it to the bodice. My goal was to make the bertha completely separate so that it would be easy to change if I decided to do that at a later time.

The foundation is a single layer of ivory tulle cut to the shape of the front (and one for the back) of the fully assembled bodice. A gathered piece of my lace trim was machine stitched to the bottom edge of the tulle, about ½” up from the cut edge.

On top of that foundation is a second layer of tulle that is gathered at both the top and bottom edges. The top edge is folded under by about ½” and the gathering stitch run through both layers so that the top edge is a fold rather than the cut edge of the tulle.

It took quite a few pins to secure the gathered tulle to the tulle underneath. It was finicky–tulle on tulle… not fun!

And I might have made a mistake while ironing my first foundation piece of tulle. Any guesses about what that was?

Oops! I like to iron with a hot iron but the nylon tulle was having none of that! I had to cut a new piece… and turn down my iron for a bit! The bottom gathered tulle in the above photo shows another failed experiment. That tulle is a full double width folded at the top and gathered top and bottom. I decided it was too bulky and not as elegant and decided to go with my previously explained method of only turning the top to create a fold.

After machine sewing my successful gathered tulle to the base layer of tulle it was time to add velvet trim. The velvet was cut on the bias, both edges pressed under, and then it was slip stitched over the stitch lines in the tulle. I also created velvet bows, as I hinted about last time. This is one of the bows I created before I realized I needed more than I had cut out… oops again!

After recutting my bows, this is the velvet I had left. I didn’t include anything for scale, but the longest piece in this photo is about 6″!

Remaking the bows (or rather, cutting new ones and disassembling ones I had already made) brings us back to where we were in the last post. The old velvet bows had top bow parts and dangling bow parts cut on the straight of grain, but due to my limited fabric I cut out the new bows with bias dangling parts. In the end I’m glad I did, because I think they hang more elegantly than the straight cut version.

Brooches

You might have noticed that the center velvet bow on the bertha has a gold filigree oval on it. In my inspiration it looks like these are buckles or brooches of some kind. I started by trying to use my stash, finding two matching football shaped buckles that I hoped could work. But the more I looked at them the more I didn’t like them.

So I spent a long time looking for something else low-cost that would work. Ideally, I wanted two sizes of the same style, but that quickly proved to be hard unless I wanted smallish very sparkly rhinestone buckles. But of course the scale of this dress is not small. Eventually I found the right search terms to find open centered brooches intended for creating your own cameos. I purchased these and painted them gold using acrylic paint. Despite being the same size for the bodice and skirt, I think they worked well!

Sleeves

I suppose I should also mention the sleeves. They made it onto the bodice but I haven’t talked about them at all. They are cut on the straight of grain and are basically a round-top trapezoid shape, with an outer layer of silk that is larger than an inner layer of my flat lining cotton. The silk was gathered around the bottom and around the armhole to fit. Due to the longer measurement of the silk it rolls up inside the sleeves by about 1″, which keeps the cotton from showing while being worn. Here you can see the poofy sleeves as well as the bertha before it had velvet added.

Oh, but those sleeves weren’t done yet! My inspiration had sleeves that appeared to be droopy continuations of the bertha. This is a detail that is different from all of my previous dresses from this period, so I felt it would be a neat detail to include. It took quite a bit of pondering to decide how to achieve the look and it was something I didn’t feel I could tackle until well into the process when I could see what the bertha and sleeves were doing without the extra layer.

My solution was to create sleeve caps of single layers of tulle with more of my lace and silk pleated trim on top. The tulle rather disappears when worn, giving the effect of floating trim. It’s pretty neat, actually.

Sewing the lace on was easy and relatively fast, as I did it by machine. But the silk… well, I thought I had enough left over from my crazy skirt trimming for the sleeves but those pleats eat silk so quickly! I only had about 75% of what I needed.

It was less than a week before the ball. I had returned the scalloped scissors to my friend so I couldn’t cut more silk. I tried spacing out what I had as much as possible without looking different from the skirt. And I was still short! UGH! Last minute challenges aren’t very fun. I pleated and re-pleated. Got a few more inches covered. Then I decided to harvest some pleated trim from my skirt, from underneath the big velvet bow where it wouldn’t be seen. Not terribly fun, to seam rip something you’ve just made. And the pieces I got were about 5″ in length. But I got them. And I put them on those sleeves. And even though they’re pieced you can’t tell at all and those sleeves got done!

This photo shows the first sleeve in progress, before I realized I didn’t have enough silk trim…

I sewed the sleeve caps on with small top stitches to the outside of the bodice at the armsceye seam. Again, this makes them easy to remove if I want. Also, I’d already set the sleeves… so I couldn’t easily put them into that seam (oops?). In the end, it doesn’t matter that they’re on the outside, because the bertha lace completely hides the armsceye along the top of the sleeve.

Bodice Finishing Details

In addition to sewing on the sleeve caps, I also attached both the front and back bertha layers to the bodice.

I finished my eyelets and ran the lacing ribbon through the top half. I find that 3 yards of ribbon allows me to leave the ribbon laced through the top eyelets and still get in and out, which makes getting dressed faster as the person helping me then only has to lace the bottom half of the bodice and tighten the ribbon at the top.

I also made and whipped in a placket. That’s the rectangular piece that’s rather wrinkly in the center of the photo below. While this bodice fits perfectly now, you never know what the future will bring and this will allow for a slight gap (if needed) that will still look like dress fabric and not like underwear.

I added hooks and thread bars to the bertha at the right shoulder, as well as two along the right back neckline to hold it in place along that edge. There is also a hook on the lace to secure it to the lace on the front of the bertha. Once hooked it looks seamless!

The final step was to sew hooks on the front and sides inside the bodice to allow it hook to the skirt. You can see the hook on the boning at the center front in the photo below.

Skirt Finishing Details

The skirt was basically done once I added my giant velvet bow except for a few things.

I added two hooks and bars to the waistband to close the skirt. The narrow hemmed opening is hidden under a pleat and will allow for future changes in waist size if needed.

I added loops to hook the bodice to. You can see one of those on the left. Turns out I didn’t line the side ones up very well (I think this was the very last task late one night on the last night I was stitching), so we added a safety pin at the ball and hooked the bodice to that. The safety pin is visible just to the right of the loop. At some point I need to move the loop to the location of the safety pin. Boo! There’s always something to fix or repair or change once you wear a garment!

And finally, when I added the waistband I also added hanging loops for the skirt. There’s one poking up on the right. These allow me to easily hang the skirt to keep it from getting wrinkled in storage.

And finally… after many, many hours of sewing, this dress is done. I like big projects but I confess to getting a bit sick of this one after sewing on it every day for about a month at the end of the process. Next post will be photos of the finished dress. (And I can report that I was happy with it in the end! Yay!)

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part VI: Second Thoughts

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As I hinted at in my last post, the Orange Monster recently reached a point where I became rather concerned that I wouldn’t like it. First, I was worried that I might not like the pleats facing the back of the skirt (as opposed to the front, as I’ve done before). But then, as a much bigger problem, I was worried about the lace trim.

Here’s the dress in a partially trimmed state… but still with two more rows of lace to add to the skirt and more planned for the bodice as well!

I was nervous the dress would be too twee and sweet for my personality. And after all the hours of work I’ve put in… I’ve enjoyed the process, but I would really like to have a dress that I like and that fits my personality in the end!

I think one of the problems was also that I didn’t like my mockup bow. The proportions were off. So I changed it a bit, shrinking the scale of the loops and also the width of the hanging bits.

And then, despite my worries, I forged ahead.

I cut out all the red velvet bow pieces from my ½ yard of fabric. Assembled them. Had a complete ‘Oh no!’ moment when I thought I was done sewing bows and realized that I’d only cut out and made two bows instead of four… and then needed to figure out how to get two more bows out of my very small scraps! Ahhh!

I just had to cross my fingers and hope that the red velvet trim would give this dress the edge to make it suit my personality. I’m not sure what that edge is in words… drama? excitement? unexpected-ness?

Here’s the state that the bertha is in now. Much better! The velvet is an elegant addition, I think!

So whatever that descriptive word is that I can’t find, I am feeling better about the dress now that I have all four red velvet bows and the other velvet trim sewn. (Taking apart the one of the bows to create the extras even made enough bits to create a hair bow!)

I can finally see the whole dress picture coming together. Four days to go until this dress gets worn!

Project Journal: 1863 Apricot Evening Gown Part V: Starting Skirt Trim

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I have more details to share with you about the Orange Monster, as I’ve recently named this dress. More on the tongue-in-cheek name later… Right now it’s time to talk in detail about the skirt for my new 1863 gown. (Check out Part I for the plan, Part II for patterning, Part III for starting bodice construction, and Part IV for very detailed further bodice construction.)

The trim on this skirt is… immense. Not so much in terms of scale (I think I’d call the scale just large, rather than immense), but in terms of quantity required to circle the 154″ hem 3 times each for both the lace and pleated silk. (For a reminder of what I’m trying to achieve, check out my inspiration image in the first post in this series.)

Not too long ago, the skirt was in this state of trimming. Started, but by no means finished.

But let’s back up. To get to this point, I had to decide what my trims would be. The inspiration clearly has lace, but there is trim above that as well. It sort of looks like a tall beading lace, but I couldn’t find anything of that sort that would work. Other trim types also turned up nothing. Plus, I wanted to keep the cost down.

So I looked at originals and decided on pinked, pleated, self-fabric trim to top the gathered lace. Single layer pleats (knife, box, etc.), without spaces between them and without overlap, take 3x fabric, so I used that as my starting point. I did the math and realized I didn’t have enough silk to make enough strips to get 3x fullness, so I opted for 2x instead. I also rationalized that decision with the knowledge that my pleats would be spaced apart, thereby taking less than 3x fabric.

I did a sample of my silk with pinking shears on the grain, cross grain, and bias. I wanted to see how my silk would behave so I could pick the direction of cutting that would fray the least. I found it fascinating that cutting with the grain (the top edge in the photo) was the best option.

My spaced box pleating plan was most directly inspired by these two dresses at the Met: the first is the one that inspired the double piped trim on my bodice and the second is another great example of large scale trim encircling a skirt. When you zoom in on these two dresses you can see that the trim is pinked in little scallops. I only have zigzag pinking shears, but a friend has scalloped ones from our Versailles adventure a few years ago and she was kind enough to let me borrow them. (Also, it turns out that the pinked method was a great idea because it didn’t require using fabric for hems and it didn’t require hemming!)

But… Oh. My. Goodness. I pinked. And pinked. And pinked. I wore one of my knuckles raw and had to wait for my skin to heal before I could keep going… Not to mention the fact that pinking shears seem to always be harder to open than regular scissors (is that related to the not straight blades and more resistance?) and my wrist muscles can’t deal with that for long (spring loaded scissors are my lifesavers!). I wound up with a system where I would open the pinking shears with two hands, then close them like normal, then use both hands to open… Tedious and slow, but hopefully worth it! It was a serious labor of love. And I wound up with a pretty pile of confetti-like strips that amused me.

Eventually, I had about 30 yards of strips scalloped on both sides. I seamed these together and divided them into three pieces–2 of them slightly longer than the others in order to account for the swoop up to the big bow. I was ready to sew!

To sew the trim on (in the sort-of-most-efficient way–if you count circling the skirt 3 times instead of 6), I started by trimming off the very top edge of the lace (and saving the narrow bit for later–it might be good for edging undergarments someday!). This reduces bulk, because the top edge is left with only a bit of net rather than a finished lace edge. Then I ran a gathering stitch by hand along the lace and gathered and pinned that in place. I left that thread hanging and put my needle on another piece of thread, then used running stitches to secure the gathers to the silk. Next, I pinned the pleats in place above the section of lace that I’d just stitched, then used a second needle to stitch the pleats down. I worked in approximately 10″ sections. And went on, and on, and on… yikes that skirt is big!

For the bottom row of trim, I very carefully matched half points, quarter points, eighth points, and probably 16ths and 32nds, too. I wanted to make sure my trim was equally distributed. By the time I started the second row, though, I just eyeballed it. In both cases, the pleats themselves are entirely free form: no measuring. I’m sure there is variation in there, but honestly with so much skirt no one is ever going to know! The pleats are caught in the middle with very small running stitches with the occasional back stitch thrown in to keep the thread from pulling too taut. The pleated trim just overlaps my stitches on the lace. Up close, it looks like this.

Just sewing on the three rows of skirt trim was approximately 14 hours. Whew!

While we’re on the subject of the skirt, let’s just also quickly talk about the waist and hem. Before I got anywhere near sewing the trim on, I’d sewn a muslin hem facing about 5″ high onto the bottom of the skirt, pressed it up, and then slip stitched it in place. I made sure that the stitches would be hidden behind the trim, even though they’re tiny… details, details! The muslin will protect the silk as it brushes along the floor while I’m walking up and down stairs or dancing. It also provides a bit of stability and weight to the hem.

At the top, I added the waistband after putting on the bottom row of trim. I wanted to have the pleats in place in order to determine where the swoop up of the next two rows of trim should be placed. The waistband is silk, faced with muslin on the inside (because I was trying to save silk in any way possible to make my oodles of trim). I added a strip of canvas in there as well to provide stiffness as the silk and muslin on their own were not sturdy enough for my liking.

Here’s the assembled waistband, ready to have the skirt pleated to it. The waistband has the quarter points and my 3″ overlap for center back marked with pins.

 The next step was pleating the skirt. I decided for this skirt to have knife pleats facing the back of the skirt. This is seen on extant dresses and is a style I haven’t tried before. It seemed like it would work for my trim plan.

Pleating is always more time consuming than I expect. It’s hard to get the pleat depths just right and the exterior spaces just right and also fit the correct amount into each quarter of the waistband. One could do lots of math to potentially make it less trial-and-error, but I would rather pin and re-pin than do pleat math. Just saying. To each their own! I’m an eyeball pleater! I made it extra challenging by having that 3″ overlap at the back. That will allow for future variation in size (a goal of mine), but also made the pleating a little extra confusing to figure out, since one quarter of the back was 3″ larger than the other but I wanted the pleats to be the same…

The jury is still out on if I like this pleat style. I might prefer the pleats facing forward, as I did on Eleanor... We’ll see once the dress is done and I look at photos. It’s staying for now!

After the three rows of lace and pleats, there are still more trim bits to think about. There’s a bertha, and that big bow on the skirt, and smaller bows on the bodice as well… so we’re not done yet! Stay tuned!