The petticoat for my Versailles Sacque has been done for a few weeks now, but was waiting in the blog post queue to have its progress made public. It’s sort of boring to look at the whole petticoat, because it’s just a petticoat with longer sides than normal, so I’ve focused the pictures on the more interesting waistband section of the petticoat. (As you can see, this picture was taken before I ironed the front of the petticoat…)
In making the petticoat I 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.
When it came to pleating, I thought I might struggle as Mr. Panniers is larger than normal pocket hoops, but I found that once I put the petticoat on the dress form with Mr. Panniers underneath I could neatly arrange the pleats around the waist and not go into the extra complicated pleated needed for a very square and wide pannier shape (such as in Katherine’s court gown and Kendra’s court gown). Whew! I placed all my pleats off to the side (further than I would for a normal 18th century petticoat) to keep the front of the petticoat flat where the trim will be visible between the fronts of the sacque.
The front panel of my petticoat is the fashionable silk that my sacque is/will be made of. (Enjoy the sneak peak!) The back panels are the same blue mystery fabric that Mr. Panniers is made of. The ties are polyester ribbon to match the silk, because hey, I was already fudging the accuracy of materials with the mystery fabric but on the other hand the color compliments the silk very nicely!
Here’s what the inside looks like. The extra fabric at the top of the petticoat is turned to the inside, slit up the middle to accommodate the curved top edge, and left raw.
And here is the back. The petticoat is hand sewn. The center back seam is felled mostly because I am slightly obsessive with having nice insides and the other two seams are selvedges. For some reason the raw edges across the top don’t bother me. Go figure.
I’ve also been playing with hair styling. I’m not satisfied yet, so I don’t consider it done, but at least I’ve made a start! The sacque is coming along nicely, too!
I already had inspiration pinned to a board, I had fabric in the stash (the fabric is more of the same elusive blue I used to make my 1811 evening gown in 2014–it time travels!), and I had an opportunity to wear an 1890s gown this past month! With a vague plan in mind, I started the skirts* sometime in the fall with the sincere hope of getting a fair bit done on them, but only got as far as cutting them out, after which they languished in the closet while I worked on other projects. Languishing is a variation on procrastination, which is the HSF challenge for this January. And so, with the languishing having finished its course, here is the finished new gown.
Just the facts:
Fabric: 5 yards or so of(likely polyester) elusive blue chiffon, 3 yards or so of elusive blue polyester for skirt lining, 3/4 yard or so robin’s egg blue cotton, 1 yard or so of pink glazed cotton, 1/8 yard or so of taupe silk shantung, some small bits of ivory polyester tulle and ivory silk gauze.
Pattern: Created by me, with reference to Janet Arnold dresses from the 1890s.
Year: 1899.
Notions: Wide grosgrain ribbon, bone casing, 1/4″ plastic wire tires, narrow grosgrain ribbon, black velvet and organza millinery flowers, hooks and eyes, and thread.
How historically accurate is it?: Definitely recognizable in its own time. The silhouette is spot on. The colors are inspired by extant clothing. The construction is mostly accurate. The materials are a mix of accurate and inaccurate. I’ll give it 80%.
Hours to complete: Many. I worked on this over a few months.
First worn: January 9, 2016.
Total cost: About $15-$20.
(The low cost is due to the fact that the chiffon and lining fabrics were purchased for the amazing price of $1/yard and that many of the notions and small bits were in my fabric stash.)
For the bodice, I started with the pattern for my 1893 gown (which was adapted from Janet Arnold originally). The back needed very slight alteration, but the front had quite a few changes, due to being worn over my new 1880s corset and because I wanted different dart placements, neckline, a front/side hidden closure, etc. I did multiple mock-up fittings (no pictures, sorry) before feeling ready to cut real fabric.
Here is the bodice in the middle stages on construction. You’d never guess from the exterior, but the bodice is flat lined with pink! This is not a standard lining color, but I had it on hand, it is the right weight (with a glazed finish, which is standard), and it amused me. By this point, I’d finished my edges, adding boning, nicely finished my interior seam allowances, and covered the back with elusive blue lining and chiffon cut on the bias.
Next was creating the front bodice main piece, which is also on the bias. I draped it and then bagged the lining/chiffon with the robin’s egg cotton to create nice finished edges. The flapping bit on the left of the picture was turned under and hand sewn later in the process.
Draping the silk was next. There are actually a number of small pieces carefully pleated before being hand sewn in place.
My original main inspiration was this gown at the Met (and the alternate skirt follows this idea quite closely), but when I looked at my material options, I really loved this variation, also from the Met. Other dresses with a similar cut were also influential, including this, this, and this. Here’s a similar example that clearly shows the shadow of a side closure.
In the next picture, both the left and right sides have been covered in silk. Each side of the bust layers and attaches separately. I also started playing with flower placement at this point. I was inspired to add black accents to the otherwise subdued colors by this dress. I really like how the black pops!
Here’s the back around the same stage.
At this stage, I’ve added gauze and tulle to the front and am playing with the chiffon edging. The flowers are tucked into place to see the effect. I’ve also sewn down the proper right (left in the picture) side. The proper left (right in the picture) side is pinned and tucked, waiting for a final fitting before finishing and adding closures.
The back also received a treatment of gauze and tulle in addition to a chiffon edging. You can see that the flowers came in stems of three (these are another part of one of two huge hauls of millinery flowers for super cheap that I’ve had in the last few years, yay!).
Sewing down all the pleats just so, in order to look natural and not constrained, took rather a long time, as did nicely tucking all the silk around the armhole. But it was worth it!
Here is the inside of the bodice, finished. I decided to bind the seam allowances in the same robin’s egg blue cotton that I used for bias binding for the edges and armholes. A hong kong finish is not accurate, but I didn’t feel like hand whip stitching all the seam allowances (although, in the end, it probably would have taken just as much time, or less), plus, I enjoy the effect. There are also closures (yay!) and a waist tape.
And here’s what the bodice looks like with center fronts together. The bit with the tulle actually hooks over the other side (but pictured this way, you can see the closures). After that, the front panel hooks across the front and is securely hooked at the side seam, effectively covering my pink lining.
The untrained skirt is flat in front and gathered at the back. It is cut in an umbrella shape (like my 1895 skating ensemble skirt), so that the only seams needed are center back, and a diagonal seam across the back to add width to the panel. The waistband and placket are standard 19th century style, with the exception of the fact that the ribbon I used to stabilize the thin fabrics is leftover gift wrapping ribbon from wedding gifts we received from Crate and Barrel. Yay! It’s hidden on the inside and folded in half, but it amuses me, because recycling is great and it’s nice to have a bit of Mr. Q-related-something in a dress.
A nice package of placket and waistband pieces. I made one for each skirt.
The most annoying thing about fitting this gown was marking the hem on the skirt. (Fitting the bodice on myself with all the layered closures was also a feat, but more uncomfortable twisting than annoying.) Chiffon is annoying to hem most of the time and it only gets more complicated when you’re marking the hem on yourself. It meant looking in the mirror, bending over to place a marking pin while everything shifted, standing up to check things, and then repeating that over and over again to shift pins by tiny amounts until they all looked good (while wearing a corset and fluffy petticoat of course, so the whole thing would hang properly on my body). Once that was all over, I hemmed each layer with self fabric bias that is turned to the inside and invisibly hand stitched in place.
I was quite successful, but it took a whole afternoon to mark and cut and sew the hem of the chiffon and of the lining (because of course the lining couldn’t stick out or be too short!). The whole thing would have been much speedier if I’d had someone else to mark the hem for me. (I thought of using my hem puffer, but the floor is too close for the puffer to reach and I didn’t have anything to stand on.)
Anyway, the end effect was fabulous. The chiffon and lining swooshed so beautifully that it was necessary to get “swooshy skirt” pictures at the ball just to highlight their movement.
The ball also gave me an opportunity to have fabulous hair and a new hair ornament instead of a tiara as well as an opportunity to photograph my new 1880s corset completely finished and the fabulous petticoat I have for 1890s/1900s styles. It gets worn often, but hardly ever seen (which I suppose is rather the point of a petticoat, but when you have one as lovely as this, it really should be seen!). There will be future posts for the hair and undergarments, as this post is getting pretty long.
Overall, 1890s ball was lovely, with beautiful dresses and beautiful dancers. There were fun new people as well as quiet moments to sit and have engaging exchanges with friends.
And the new gown was very comfortable and fun to wear. I’m looking forward to completing the trained skirt (hopefully without too much procrastination) and wearing it this summer!
*My plan is to have two skirts for this gown, one without a train, for dancing, and one with a train, because trains are fun! I only finished the non-trained skirt for the ball, though the trained skirt is assembled and mostly finished with the exception of a closure and hems.
This year, I paired my new parasol and hat with a pleated skirt from ebay (it was one of those things you gamble on when you order, and while I don’t like it for modern wear I think it worked perfectly for an early 20s look!), a new silk blouse c. 1922, my 1917 Knitted Sweater of Angorina (because I’m sure people didn’t wear their clothing only during one year!), and my American Duchess Astorias. It’s wonderful to have accessories and pieces like sweaters in the closet that can fill out an outfit without having to always create an entirely new ensemble.
My goal was an early 1920s look, when the skirts were still long and the clothes weren’t quite such bags. In terms of overall clothing style, I was aiming for the yellow lady in the image below. In terms of accessories, I was aiming for some of the looks which you can see in this past post about making my parasol.
The Delineator Magazine 1923
The blouse I made from white silk crepe the afternoon before the event. It’s all one piece, with the gathered sections on the sides. I used short sleeves, as in view A, but omitted the bow, as in view C. This was partially due to fabric restrictions, as I used fabric left over from another project and I only had an odd shaped piece to work with. I’m not entirely pleased with it, because, being 20s, it is rather a bag, but it was very comfortable, which I did like. I think I would like it better if it was an off white rather than a bright white, because it would have complimented my outfit better. But my hand knitted sweater is ivory and I was really pleased to wear it over the blouse, because I liked the color and the length better. It has such nice proportions with the skirt!
My inspiration for the blouse. Butterick pattern #3779 from 1922 at COPA. I used the pattern layout as a general guide for creating my blouse.My 1922 blouse. (…that is a bag!)
In no particular order, here are a variety of pictures taken around the estate of the entire ensemble. There were quite a few that I liked, for the movement of the fabrics, or the pose, or the background. The wide hat brim was great for hiding my face. Useful, since I am really good at making weird faces and not always the best at making good picture faces.
Looking out over the ocean.In the sunken garden.At the gate to the secret garden.At the beginning of the wooded path.Exploring the wooded path.Appreciating the gnarly trees.Ascending the path.
Of course, sometimes I was the person behind the camera as well (it’s only fair that if I want lots of pictures of my outfits that I also reciprocate!). Here are a few other pictures just for fun. I took all of these except the last one.
Capturing the ocean and the lovely parasol.The house is surrounded by a lovely terrace with stone walls.Through the gate to the secret garden was distant view of marshes.
And, lastly, a bit of humor to end the parade of pictures.
One section of the lawn had a great bootlegger setup and I was particularly amused to see the (modern) police hanging out right next to it.
And there we are! All of my recent 1920s accessories have been worn/used and documented in my complex photography files. That’s it for 1920s for awhile.
Make something that is celebration worthy, make something that celebrates the new skills you have learned this year, or just make something simple that celebrates the fact that you survived HSF ’13!
This challenge gave me the inspiration to finally finish my Mineral Felicite jacket!
Here’s the story… I bought the fabric over a year ago, but didn’t really start thinking about the project until this summer. I made a mock-up of my chosen 1760s pattern and thought I’d sorted out the fitting issues, but after I’d cut and sewn the real fabric I had many more unexpected problems! I was discouraged, but recieved some really wonderful opinions about what I should do to proceed from you lovely readers. I decided to go with a stomacher front jacket with self fabric pleated trim around the neckline/front opening and around the cuffs on the sleeves, like this jacket at the Met. Then, back in September, the HSF inspired me to make a stomacher to match my jacket for challenge #19. After that, my jacket languished, because I really wasn’t very excited about finishing the sewing for the other decisions I’d made and the alterations that needed to be done to make the jacket the way I wanted it. But I really wanted to finish the jacket in this calendar year. And that brings us to the present, with the jacket finally completed. Yay! I am SO ready to celebrate that this jacket is finally done!!!
Front. The pleated trim easily hides the pins used to attach the stomacher!Back. It’s wrinkly and without a waist on the hanger. You’ll just have to believe that it looks better on a body!
The facts:
Fabric: Almost 2 yds Waverly Mineral Felicite printed cotton and 1yd (I think) peach linen
Pattern: Heavily altered, but I started with the 1760-1790 jacket pattern in Janet Arnold.
Year: Well… 1760s is what I was aiming for in the beginning.
Notions: Thread and cane boning.
How historically accurate?: 60%. This definitely falls in the historic costume category of my wardrobe. The Waverly fabric is in the spirit of the 18th century, but not accurate, though the linen is accurate as are the methods of construction. The trim is based on extant garments but not specifically reproduced. The jacket is 100% hand sewn.
Hours to complete: So many! With all the problems and alterations and re-sewing I completely lost count.
First worn: Has not been worn yet.
Total cost: $30 maybe? I don’t remember exactly what I paid for the fabrics.
Hopefully, I’ll get some more pieces of an 18th century ensemble done at some point and get pictures of the jacket on me. Don’t hold your breath, though, it could be awhile!
“Georgina” is the name I’ve chosen for my new 1858 cotton print day dress. Being a day dress from a new decade (the 1850s), makes her a fabulous new expansion in my wardrobe of historic clothes!
Georgina: 1858 cotton print day dress.Back view.
The dress is constructed from about 5yds of a Marcus Brothers reproduction historic cotton print I purchased earlier this summer. I used Past Patterns #701 and #702 bodice patterns as a starting point, though I had to make significant alterations to achieve a comfortable and pleasing fit, especially in the shoulder/armsceye area. I used the darted pattern for the fitted lining and the gathered pattern for the gathered exterior. The sleeves are the bishop sleeves from one of the patterns, though I totally changed the cuff design.
The cuff design and a lot of other fiddly details were taken from this c. 1852 dress at the Met (pictured below). If you zoom in on the cuffs on the Met website you can see that they look just like mine (pictured later in this post)! I also used the following design elements from the Met dress: piping at the neck and waist, gathers that are tacked down beyond the seam line, button closure on the cuffs, and cartridge pleating all around the skirt. I have a whole pinterest board of inspiring images for this dress and hat ensemble, but this dress is the one from which I took the most information and detail.
c. 1852 Dress, Met.
Here are a few pictures of the fiddly details I integrated from the Met dress:
Gathers at the center back that are tacked down beyond the seam line. I like the controlled look these extra stitches produce.Self fabric cuff finished with a small ruffle. The cuffs close with a hand sewn buttonhole and button.
Georgina’s bodice is lined with white cotton. There are hand sewn boning channels sewn into the bodice in the front darts on each side and on the sides. The bones are then slipped in between the layers of fabric. I didn’t have the right length metal bones, so I used heavy duty plastic wire ties–but–I cut them in half the long way so they are much skinnier than normal (they just don’t look at all historically plausible in their normal width, in my opinion). Once they’re in the bodice, you’d never know they are plastic instead of metal.
The proper left side of the bodice: hand stitched boning channels in the darts, front hook closure, a hook to attach the skirt and bodice together, and nicely finished piping along the bottom edge.
The bodice is finished at the neck and bottom edge with piping that is nicely whip stitched to the inside. There is also piping in the armsceye seam. The sleeve seams are french seamed by machine with the opening seam allowance at the cuff turned twice and stitched by hand. The other bodice seams are all machine sewn and the bodice is hand finished. The bodice closes at center front with hidden hooks and bars. It also hooks to the waistband of the skirt to keep the two pieces from gaping while worn.
The skirt has a wide hem that is hand stitched. The long skirt seams are machine sewn. The waistband is the same cotton print with an interfacing layer of canvas to create stability. The skirt is cartridge pleated and hand sewn to the waistband. There is a single layer of lightweight flannel folded into the cartridge pleats to give them a little more bulk than the thin cotton had on its own.
I also took the time to add pockets to this skirt! This turned out to be really useful for storing gloves, sunglasses, chapstick, a fan… with two pockets a lady can store so many things! Here’s how I made them and sewed them into the skirt:
The pockets are muslin rectangles with a piece of the cotton print topstitched on the top center (this is the part of the pocket that can show while I’m wearing the dress and taking things in and out of the pockets).After the cotton print was sewn on I french seamed the vertical seam and then the bottom seam by machine, making sure that the cotton print stayed centered. On the left is what a pocket looks like with the french seams facing out. On the right is a pocket turned inside out to show the cotton print centered at the top.I left the top part of the vertical seam open and hand sewed that into slits in the skirt using a whip stitch through the pocket and the seam allowances (essentially under stitching the pockets, which keeps the muslin from rolling to the outside!). The pocket slits were made after the skirt was cartridge pleated and attached to the waistband, so the slits stop below the cartridge pleats (it was way too much thinking to try and figure out where the pockets should be before cartridge pleating the skirt!).It worked wonderfully, and the pockets blend right in and are hardly noticeable, even when they gap open! (I’ve turned the edges of the pocket so you can see the muslin pocket for this picture, but they don’t actually stay turned out like that, and you can imagine how the print fabric of the skirt blends right into the print section of the pocket).On the inside, the top edge of each pocket is stitched to the cartridge pleats to evenly distribute the weight of anything in them.
Georgina cost about $18: $15 for the fabric and about $3 for hooks and eyes. The various other fabrics (cotton lining, canvas interlining, etc.) were all in my stash from previous projects (yay!). I first wore Georgina last weekend to a vintage dance performance on George’s Island in the Boston Harbor. I’ve got pictures of the performance and pictures of island exploration coming up soon!
Yup, that’s me I’m talking about in the title of this post. I was straggling along the first bit of the Mar-pril Regency Sew Weekly road. For Goal #2: evening wear, I had hopes to fix the rip in my 1813 red evening gown, but unfortunately I didn’t get to it in time for the deadline.
Sad, sad rip.
I did get to it before the Regency Dance Weekend, though, so I was able to wear the dress for the Grand Ball and Reception on Sunday night. I’ve got pictures of the event to share soon, but for now I’m going to focus on the gown.
When I first made this dress back in January and wore it to the Pride and Prejudice Ball in February, the skirt of the dress was tightly gathered across the back to take in all the fulness of the skirt. But while taking pictures after the ball, the dress caught and ripped! I suppose it’s hard to tell in the picture, but the rip was not small.
Gathers used in the back to take in all the fullness.
Ugh! What to do? Try to patch it, or darn it, or replace the whole vertical panel where the rip was? None of those ideas sounded like they would be pretty or fun.
I didn’t actually get around to fixing this until after I had constructed my Tree Gown, which has a skirt with an angled (trapezoidal) front panel and the back panel cut as a rectangle. The effect of that shaping on the Tree Gown is neat: there is less fabric to gather at the back and the skirt has a nice shape to it that is different than the shape that is created by the original tube shaped skirt on the red gown. In addition, I decided after looking at the pictures of the red gown that the gathers were too poofy in the back and created a shape I wasn’t looking for.
So I came to the idea of using the trapezoid plus rectangle skirt shaping for the red gown, because making a trapezoid would allow me to cut out the section of the skirt with the rip. This required taking the skirt off of the back waistband, sewing the new seams, then reattaching the whole thing. Since I was taking it apart anyway at that point, I decided to also pleat the fabric around the back instead of gathering it, like this dress, below.
1812 Wedding Dress at the Met with a pleated skirt.The ripped side of the skirt, removed from the waistband and with the new seam pinned. Now you can see the scale of the rip!
It looks like I don’t have any great pictures of the back of the gown with the new pleated back… whoops! Here’s one picture, though, where you can sort of see what’s going on with the dress.
Sort of hard to tell, but the area where the skirt meets the waistband is much flatter, and the skirt has a much bigger flare at the hem due to the new seam shaping.
Perhaps hard to envision, but if you compare this back picture to the one at the beginning of this post, there is a definite difference. It wasn’t a fun project, but it needed to be done, and I sure am glad it is! Next time there will be pictures of the reception, including more fun pictures of this dress.
It’s been a little while since I posted about my new 1864 ball gown. Over a month, I think, because in February I posted about the plan/inspiration and then about the progress I made on the trim. I was steadily working on it during the month of March and had it ready to go for the Returning Heroes Ball a week ago. That’s not to say there wasn’t a little bit of last minute sewing the afternoon of the ball. My last minute sewing was gloves and hair piece, though, not dress, so that’s an accomplishment! And I wasn’t alone in my afternoon sewing… friends were sewing with me! There are lots of upcoming pictures but for now I’m going to post about the insides of the skirt and bodice. It’s a sneak peak, since you have to wait for the others pictures to see the full ensemble!
Completed skirt trim! I was SO ready to be done with it by the time I was sewing down the green zig zag (the last step of the skirt trim).
My other 1860s dresses have names: Belle is my dark blue gown and Annabelle is my white gown. I haven’t really been thinking of this dress by name until recently. Upon consideration, I’ve decided that she’s named Evelyn, or perhaps Evie for short. Why that name? I just like it, it’s old fashioned, and it has Y, and I have a fondness for the less commonly used letters of the alphabet. So here she is: Evie.
Skirt waistband of self fabric, to which the box pleated skirt is sewn. There is a cleverly hidden opening on the fold of one of the pleats.Magic! The pleats are deep enough that you can’t see the opening when the skirt is hooked closed, even with my hoops underneath.
The raw top edges of the skirt are just turned to the inside and left alone. The silk skirt is flat lined with muslin, which helps give it some body, preventing creasing, and some stability at the hem for all that trim. There are six double box pleats evenly spaced around the skirt, as you can see. I haven’t tried this evenly distributed method on an 1860s skirt before (my previous dresses have knife pleated fronts and cartridge pleated backs, which makes them much heavier in the back than the front… I suppose I could divide the skirt in half and do that method, but given how those skirts are weighted, I’m sure there’s more fabric in back than in front). All that to say that I love how evenly weighted this skirt is! It means I don’t need a giant bum pad to keep my hoops level with the floor. (Come to think of it, I suppose I could remount the skirts of my other dresses onto new waistbands and redistribute the fabric… hm… I’ll have to think about that!)
Inside of the bodice at center front. The bodice is flat lined in ivory polished cotton. The edges are finished with cording (even the top edge, which you can’t see on the outside because it is hidden by the bertha, grrr, but oh well!).Inside of the left front and outside of the right back.
The sleeve is lined in muslin. I originally intended that it wouldn’t be seen, but then changed the sleeve design so now the muslin is visible on the inside of the bodice. It doesn’t matter, though, but I do like it when everything matches. The seam allowances of the bodice are just left unfinished (I might whip stitch over the edges some day, but that’s unlikely, since I’ll probably be sewing something else!). The armhole seam allowances are whip stitched together to keep them from fraying and to keep all those layers together. The armholes also have cording in them. The bodice closes at center back with lacing. The eyelets, like everything else, are hand sewn. The bertha also closes at center back (unusual, since a lot of them close on the shoulder, but I didn’t want my bertha pleating to be able to move or show the top of the ruffle). You can see the stitching holding the bertha in place in the first bodice picture, because those stitches go right through to the inside of the bodice.
I stopped keeping track of how many yards of hand sewing went into this dress… but now I’m curious again. So when I finished stitching the gathering stitches I was at 86 1/2 yds just for the trim. I’d estimate about another 22 yds of stitching to attach the trim and about 12 yds of stitching to construct the skirt before attaching it to the waistband. Waistband attachment was probably about 7 yds (it’s quite sturdy and all those pleats are well sewn!). That puts the skirt at a total of about 127 1/2 yds of hand sewing. Then there’s the bodice, which is maybe 12 yds of hand sewing total? That’s a harder one to estimate. That brings Evie to a total of approximately 140 yds of stitching.
I’m proud to say that every single stitch is hand sewn. Next time, though, I’m planning on machine stitching the inside seams. It’s super satisfying to have an entirely hand sewn dress, but it took about two months, and that could have been much sped up with the use of a sewing machine, which means I could have made more things! Who knows, I might change my mind, but right now even I am tired of hand sewing that dress.
I’ve been meaning to post about my new 1893 ball gown since Newport Vintage Dance Week back in August… Well, I’m slow about getting it done, but but this is going to be a post with mounds of great detail, so I think the wait was worth it!
This gown is constructed of bronze shot silk shantung with pale pink slightly slubby silk satin. It is flat lined throughout with ivory waxed cotton. It is stabilized with cotton canvas at the hem and in the waistband. The bodice is trimmed with ivory net and bits of metallic bronze/gold net that have sequin motifs on it (in fact, it’s the same metallic net as the top sleeve section of my 1912 burgundy silk evening gown, which I also wore at Newport). The sash is trimmed with the metallic bronze/gold net. The sleeves have layers of ivory tulle inside them to help maintain the full shape.
I wore this dress with a combination, a corset, a slight bum pad, two petticoats (one silk, one cotton), stockings, and shoes. Exterior accessories include cotton/poly elbow length white gloves (I have lovely leather ones that come up above the elbow, but they are getting soiled from being worn while dancing with men who are not wearing gloves (breech of decorum on their part!), so I chose not to wear those to this ball); my handy Battenburg lace fan; my faux pearl drop earrings; a long strand of faux pearls (originally bought to be worn with my 1928 green silk evening gown); a nice bling-y necklace borrowed from a friend for the evening; and my fabulous almost-Victorian tiara from eBay!
My tiara shares a general design with the Lover’s Knot Tiara, below. Both tiaras have round elements connected by jeweled arches above a second row of round elements, both rows of which are surmounted by tear shaped pearl elements which are set above a final row of further round shaped elements around the base. Additionally, in both tiaras there is a high point in the center which then diminishes toward each side. Obviously, the two are not exactly the same, but I think they’re similar. Of course, wearing mine for an 1893 look is slightly earlier than the given date of the Lover’s Knot Tiara, which is c. 1913. But isn’t that excusable, when the tiara looked so wonderful with my dress and accessories? There’s a closeup of my tiara below so you can compare.
Lover’s Knot Tiara by Garrard c.1913.My eBay tiara.
It took a bit of work to come up with a hair style I liked that also worked with the tiara, I can tell you. I wanted to have a puff of hair not directly behind the tiara, but close enough that it would provide a dark background for the tiara to stand out from. Unfortunately, I don’t have any great pictures of my hair. Oh well! It also took A LOT of bobby pins to secure the tiara. I think I used about 20 for the tiara alone. I put one between each of the base pearls, then another to cross the first one. I also secured the ends of the tiara with extra pins. It was really stable and didn’t move at all during the entire night, so that part was successful!
Here’s a closeup of the jewelry.
In the picture above you can see the jewelry better. You can also see the one major flaw in this dress. The wide neckline wasn’t shaped quite right, so the sleeves started slipping off my shoulders, making the sleeves look slightly less impressive. This is one of those things that was perfectly fine in all my fittings. It’s during those pesky balls, when you move and sweat, that you really discover the flaws in your clothes! I’ll have to do something about that before I wear the dress again.
A full length view. This was the end of the night, and the end of the week, so that’s why I look tired.A full length back view. Again, you can see how the sleeves just didn’t want to stay on my shoulders.
Now on to the specifics of patterning. The bodice (and especially the sleeves) of this dress are from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 2, as is the skirt. The decorative sash and bodice trim were inspired by an image in Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Women’s Clothes. I looked at many images that had similar sashes with bows, so I’m sure I was influenced by those as well.
The next thing to discuss is the construction of the dress. It is in two pieces: a plain bronze silk skirt and a decorative bronze and pink silk bodice. The wonderful thing about this arrangement is that I can make other bodices to go with the skirt (I’ve got extra bronze and pink silk). For example, I plan to one day make a day bodice to go with the same skirt. Since the skirt takes the biggest bulk of fabric, this is an economical and practical plan in addition to adding to my wardrobe!
I’ve got some great closeup pictures of the bodice construction, but I didn’t take any close up pictures of the skirt, come to think of it. Honestly, though, it’s not as interesting. The skirt is gathered in back and set into a waistband which closes at the back with hooks. There is a placket opening that is hidden in the gathers. The entire skirt is flat lined with ivory cotton. In addition, the hem has a 12″ band of bias cut canvas tacked between the silk and cotton. The canvas helps the skirt form those wide folds at the hem as well as providing a certain weight and gravity to the lightweight silk. Finally, it also helps provide a clean sharp edge over which to turn the hem. For the hem, the bronze silk is folded to the inside over the canvas, turned again, and stitched to the cotton lining. The hem is about 1/4″.
The bodice, by itself. As you can see, the sash is a part of the bodice.Here is the net applique on the sash ends. The net is great because it doesn’t fray, so I simply had to cut out the motif I wanted and then stitch it around all the edges to the sash. The sash is a tube of bias finished at an angle on the ends with a slip stitch.A closup of the shoulder and top of the sleeve. You can see the ivory net trim around the neck of the bodice, which terminates in those cute bows on the shoulder. The bronze part of the sleeves are rectangles that are knife pleated radially at the shoulder, which you can see in this photo. And finally, you can see the gold net applique which is stitched over the ivory net around the neck opening.Then comes the question, where are the closures on this bodice? Well, the sash is stitched to the bodice from the right side front around the left side to center back. Then the bodice opens up center back.To keep the sash in place around the right side, there are three hooks that correspond to thread loops on the bodice. This keeps the sash in place. You can see the canvas backing of the sash in this picture.One of the thread loops on the bodice that holds the sash in place.The center back closure is hooks and thread loops. I like thread loops better than the metal eyes or loops because you can’t see them when the bodice is pulled tight, like you can with the metal. You can see that I added a placket that extends farther than the loops just in case something pops open.The inside of the bodice. I LOVE to make the insides of garments pretty, and I think this is one of my finest examples! Aside from the fact that it is modern materials, it looks just like an extant garment from the 19th century. The bodice is boned up center front, the front darts (which create a V-shape on either side of center front), the side seams, and each of the four side back seams. The neck and hem are finished off with self fabric bias with is then nicely whip stitched to the cotton flat lining. The armholes are bound with self bias. Then there is also a waistband, to help alleviate the tension on the center back closure. This waistband is cross stitched to each boning channel and closes with hooks and eyes.The right side of the bodice. You can see the bias bindings, the boning channels, cross stitched waistband, and hooks. Oh, and I just noticed that I also finished the exposed seam allowances by turning them back on themselves and whip stitching. (The seam allowances under the boning channels are trimmed and left raw.)Center front. The boning channels were whip stitched to the cotton lining along the sides. It was a bit of a logistal problem to determine how to nicely bind off the edges of the bodice with bias, since there is a sash part of the way around. You can see that there is a separate piece of bias covering the join between the sash and the bodice from the right side where the sash opens.The left side. On the waistband I did use the metal bars instead of thread loops, since I knew they wouldn’t be seen from the outside. You can also see how the sash was attached. It was flipped up and topstitched to the bodice (avoiding bones!), then flipped down to cover the raw edges and joined to the bottom of the bodice with bias.The interior of the pink under sleeve. The silk is gathered into a cotton lining. Of course, you can’t see up into the sleeve when there is an arm in it!
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, to have such a beautifully finished bodice. And I felt like such a princess at the 1890s Soiree, to be wearing an all silk dress with silk petticoat and a fabulous tiara!
This is super exciting! A significant part of my nine month sewing plan is to increase my Regency wardrobe pieces so I have more options for varying weather conditions and activities, including accessories. I’ll list my plan in another post sometime soon-ish, but let me jump forward to say that it includes a chemisette.
Well, there aren’t many extant chemisettes that I know of and it doesn’t seem like many other people are able to reference a wide variety either. Janet Arnold has patterns for some of them in Patterns of Fashion I… and I didn’t originally want to go with one of those (because, you know, it seems like everyone does and I like to be different), but after researching and realizing that Janet Arnold has the monopoly on extant chemisettes I decided to just go with it. I also do really like the chemisettes she has… I particularly like the ones with the mushroom pleated collars. And that style will work well for my wardrobe planning, because I want to make high necked walking dresses, spencers, and pelisses, and I like the idea of the mushroom pleating filling in the high necklines. Plus, the Regency was full of 16th century style references and ruff-like things.
All of that to explain that I looked into ways to make mushroom pleats. I discovered that the best way is to use a fluting iron: a special type of iron that produces small pleats. I got super excited and bought one on ebay for about $20.
Here it is: a fluting iron!
I also did research about different types and brands of fluting irons. This website was super informative about different types and their values. This one also has good pictures and information about fluting irons and their use. Essentially there are three types. I bought the rocking sort, which is an iron and a base; there is also the rolling sort, which has a rolling device (like a paint roller) and a base; and then there is the cranking sort, which has two rolls that wring the fabric through to create the pleats.
The rolling sort.The crank sort.
I chose to buy the rocking sort of fluting iron because of the price. There are enough of particular brand I bought (Geneva) in circulation today that they are relatively inexpensive. The type bought was patented in 1866, as you will see.
Proof of manufacture and name.The iron on its side and the base.
I also did research about how to use a fluting iron and how to get your pleats to stay in your fabric. It sounds like the best thing to do is use a homemade mixture of cornstarch and water to starch your fabric before pleating it. Once I try it I’ll report on how that works! One thing that did stump me for a day or two was how I plan to heat this thing and which part to heat. A lady in the 19th century could have heated either part on her cast iron stove, but I was thinking”I don’t have a cast iron stove… how am I going to heat this??? Do I heat the iron, or the base?” Well, one of those questions was easily solved by using my eyeballs…
Duh!
Isn’t it fabulous that the manufacturer included some sort of direction? I was thinking of putting either the base or the iron in the oven… And then it occurred to me that I do have a stove, even if it is not a cast iron stove… So my current plan is to heat the base on the stove, and then somehow figure out a way to take it off the stove, so I can use it without fear of burning my fabric by having it touch a hot burner. I’ll have to report back on that part of the adventure, too!
You can see that the iron and base are a little grimy, so I also need to consider cleaning them before I try using them. I have not yet researched methods of cleaning cast iron. I imagine you can use similar methods as to what you might use to clean a cast iron pot? If you have ideas about the cleaning, please do share!
The two pieces are smaller than they appear, but because the iron and the base are cast iron, they are actually rather heavy. Until I use them (and probably after I do) they will be a door stop… they work really well for that purpose! And they add a bit of history to the room. Mr. Q has dubbed the fluting iron the “Cast Iron Crinkle Cutter” because he thinks it looks like something you might make crinkle cut fries out of… which makes me laugh. So here’s a picture of the Cast Iron Crinkle Cutter being a door stop, which also helps to show scale!
The back of my 1912 tea gown. I like the belt that crosses and swoops up (hard to see, except that the line of beading is interrupted by the belt) and the side back seams that end in pleats (it looks really cool while I’m walking!).It’s a little hard to see in the first image, but the side back seams make a few intentional right corners before opening in inverted box pleats that help form the train. Here is a close-up of those seams: unfortunately, they pucker a little in the silk charmeuse because I didn’t think to stabilize them before starting to sew and snip corners… Let that be a lesson to you!Another view of the back seam and pleats.Here’s a side view, so you can see the front and the back.And a recap picture of the mushroom hat.
I was able to wear my freshly painted and moved-button Astorias with this dress and others at Dress U recently, but you’ll have to wait to see pictures of the finished shoes–they’ll be coming in another post soon!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 