In all those pictures of Evie and the Returning Heroes Ball that I’ve posted recently, I don’t think there were any good shots of the front of my dress. So for now, a quick post showing the front of the gown with the double rosette to match the skirt and the graduated ruffle showing itself from under the bertha.
You know how sometimes the best laid plans are waylaid by life? I had every intention of finishing this bonnet before the HSF deadline of yesterday, but along the way got side tracked by life and made conscious choices to do other things with my time instead of bonnet-ing. Oh well, it happens to the best of us!
I made this bonnet to coordinate with my new Regency Tree Gown (which is why I’m calling it the Tree Bonnet). Lucky for me, it also fulfills the HSF Challenge #7: Accessorize and will coordinate with other items already in my closet (such as my 1819 brown spencer). I’ll be wearing the new gown, the spencer, and the bonnet this weekend for the Regency Dance Intensive, along with a lot of other Regency things, so be prepared for lots of pictures next week!
The facts:
Fabric: Silk twill, changeable silk taffeta for trim, and china silk for lining.
Pattern: Created by me.
Year: 1815.
Notions: Four approximately 8″ pieces of sage green polyester ribbon, a spray of wired millinery flowers, about 1 1/2 yds of navy silk ribbon for ties, about 3/4 yd of navy grosgrain ribbon for inner band, buckram for the base, millinery wire, cotton flannel for mulling, tacky glue, and thread.
How historically accurate?: 95% I’d say. There are a few polyester things, but the overall shape, impression, and majority of materials are accurate.
Hours to complete: 28? Hand finishing and trimming takes a long time, especially on hats, because the angles are weird, so it’s a slow process.
First worn: Not yet, but will be worn this weekend!
Total cost: $6ish for the silk twill bit, the green silk and china silk are remnants from other projects, the polyester bits are old and from the stash, the millinery flowers were from the stash, the buckram was maybe $4, the wire was probably $2… so about $12? I didn’t buy anything special for this bonnet, it’s all from the stash! Yay! Go me!
This week marks the end of the MpRSW (though I still have one more post to go about that), with the final goal aimed at yesterday, #5: Anything Left! I’d already completed some packing for this goal, and procurement of kite making supplies (yes, there will be a future mention of kites!), but this bonnet also qualifies!
Now let me share some of my inspiration for this bonnet. There are more bonnet images on my 1810s Pinterest page as well.
In trying to determine length of ties for the bonnet, I looked to some fashion plates that included people in them. Here are some of the best examples I found.
Well, there we are. I just finished sewing that pleated brim trim tonight, and I am glad to be done! It’s slow and slightly painful on the fingers. But pretty, so totally worth it!
Remember Evie, my 1864 green ball gown? I felt compelled to make a matching hair wreath to wear with her, and here it is! A ring of paper covered millinery wire colored black (to blend with my hair) with a sharpie, decorated with a bit of gold silk, some green silk ribbon, and the mysteriously changeable gold/green ostrich feathers. Here those feather look gold, but I assure you that they sometimes appear as green as the silk background (which is the silk the dress is constructed of).
I think I would like to trim the ostrich feather on the right so it is the same shape as the one on the left, but aside from that one change, this is good as is! It’s super easy to bobby pin the wire to my hair and it’s easy to hide the bobby pins under all that silk and ostrich feather business going on at the bottom.
Remember in my last post I promised pictures of the finished ball gown now known as Evie? The time has come! I had a hard time narrowing down the options (because of course I wanted to share ALL of the good pictures), but I’ve tried to limit myself to only the best of the best. This post will focus on the completion of my dress, Evie, but there are two more posts coming soon that will share some of the other photo series as well as pictures of the ball itself!
These photos are the idea of my friend with the camera. She wanted to take series of pictures of us in our modern clothes, 1860s undies, and then dressed in our 1860s ball gowns: all in the same location and the same pose. It’s a neat idea and the results are great, not only because it provided lots of pictures (yay!) some of which are of things I don’t have pictures of (like my 1860s undies), but also because you can see the time passing through the evening by looking at the light in the photos. They start in the afternoon, proceed to early evening, then finish at night. Not all the series are a complete set, but all around, it’s pretty cool. Which series do you like best?
Series 1: To The Right
Series 2: What A Change
Series 3: On The Stairs
I’ve never been able to get pictures of my 1860s undies before, so this is exciting! I’ve got a chemise, corset, drawers, cage crinoline, and petticoat (in addition to stockings, shoes, jewelry, hair wreath, gloves, fan, and gown). The crinoline is entirely hand sewn, except for the waistband. The measurements of the hoops are taken from an extant crinoline, and I believe the circumference of the bottom hoop is about 120″. The crinoline closes with a hook on the waistband. The other pieces are machine sewn and trimmed with lace, pin tucks, and ribbon. The chemise slips over the head and the drawers close at the back with a button and loop arrangement. (And that poor petticoat does need a press… but I threw it in the washer and dryer a while ago and since it doesn’t usually get seen I haven’t taken the time to press it.) The petticoat ties around the waist. As you can see, the crinoline stops mid-calf, so the intense petticoat ruffle really helps keep the shape for the skirt below that point, in addition to keeping my hoops from showing as horizontal lines through the skirt of the gown.
Want to be further amused? Look at the apparently changeable feathers on my hair wreath. Sometimes they’re brownish/gold and sometimes vivid green! They really do seem to change color depending on the light!
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but the basic pattern for this gown is essentially taken from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 2. The trim however, is based on two things. Thing 1: the skirt trim is from the fashion plate I shared with you in the first post of this project journal. Thing 2 : the bodice trim is based on this gown, below. I went through a lot of phases trying to decide how to trim the bodice, since I didn’t really like the fashion plate bodice trim. In the end, I decided on this look: a graduated ruffle (just one, in my case, to match the one ruffle on the skirt) that gets longer toward center back, a triple pleated bertha that has a swoop towards center front rather than being straight, and a big trim thing right at the center (in my case, a rosette to match the skirt, rather than a bow). It’s pretty hard to see the front of my dress in these pictures I’ve shared so far, but there are some coming up in the next two posts which will show off the front of the gown better, so stay tuned for that!
While getting dressed we might have been making silly faces for the camera while the owner walked away…
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!
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.
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!)
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.
Well, I hope this isn’t too much of a stretch (or maybe interpretation is a better word), but I’ve finished preparing all of my skirt trim and I’m going to call it my project for the HSF #4 Challenge: Embellish. I say it’s a stretch because my completion of this project is the preparation of the trim, rather than the attachment to the garment. To be fair, just the prep has been a lot of sewing, so I think it counts. Here it is, below: gold trim on the rather wrinkly skirt of green and gold shot silk taffeta. Because the gold is shot with silver, and the green is shot with gold, they are both photographing more washed out looking than they appear to me when not looking through a camera. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to get a picture where they look a little less silvery.
The top pile of trim (that rather resembles a ruffly brain, don’t you think?) is for the zig zag. The two piles on either side are the 18 rosettes. The section on the bottom center is the ruffle that goes at the bottom. You can see the inspirational fashion plate here, in this previous post, to see what these different trim sections look like in their actual context.
Anyway… here are the facts:
Fabric: almost 1.5 yds of gold shot with silver silk shantung.
Pattern: none, just a lot of math.
Year: 1864.
Notions: none, just thread.
How historically accurate?: Well, shantung is not accurate, but silk is (and this shantung is pretty smooth and not slubby, so I don’t think anyone will know it’s shantung unless I tell them). The trim layout is from a fashion plate, so super accurate. The stitching is accurate. Overall, I give it a 90%.
Hours to complete: Um… a lot. It’s all hand sewn. I started in January, so… 50 hours to get to this point? I really have no idea. I think in terms of months or weeks usually, not hours or even days.
First worn: Not yet, but will be worn in March.
Total cost: $9, because the silk was a remnant.
And while I’m keeping count, let me also note the yards of stitching currently sewn into the trim. When it was all hemmed I was at 45 yards. Now I have the addition of gathering stitches (31 1/2 yds) and ruffle binding (9 yds). That ups the total yards stitched for trim to 86 1/2 yds, and that’s before attaching it! Nice.
It’s time. I’ve been wearing Annabelle, my flounced not-so-new-anymore white 1860 ball gown, to all Civil War events for about a year straight, with no relief on the horizon. Not that I dislike Annabelle, I just want options, and a change. I have Belle, a dark blue 1860 ball gown, as well, but I haven’t worn her since 2011, and since most of the women in our dance troupe have blue dresses it’s not likely that I’ll get to wear her soon, and anyway, she’s too heavy for summer, and summer is coming up. So it’s time. Time for a new 1860s gown! Yay!
This gown was included back in autumn of 2012, when I made my 9 month sewing plan. It’s my goal to have it finished by mid-March, for the annual Commonwealth Vintage Dancers Returning Heroes Ball. My inspiration is this fashion plate from 1864 (pictured below).
Specifically, I’m going to be making the dress on the left. Or one inspired by/sort of like it. As I’ve been working on it I’ve made changes to my plan, as you’ll soon see. My dress will be green silk shot with gold and with gold silk trim. I bought the silk remnants for the project months ago, so I have had to make my plan work with the yardage I have. The green isn’t an issue, but the gold had to be carefully considered to make sure I have enough for all the trimmings. After lots of math, I realized I didn’t have enough to do all the trim, so I thought about what was visually most important and decided to eliminate the vertical lines of trim, as well as the waist trim. Here is the same fashion plate, with my changes:
Of course, me being me, I’ve decided to hand sew the entire gown! Yes, sometimes I like my big projects. But I’ve got time (I think). I’ve sewn the skirt and the polished cotton lining and hemmed them, though the skirt isn’t attached to a waistband yet. I’ve sewn the bodice seams, so now it needs boning, and cording, and trim, and closures in the back. And, most importantly, I’ve cut and hemmed the MANY yards of gold trim for the skirt.
Did I mention I’m hand sewing all of this? All of these trim bits on the skirt will be gathered to a ratio of just over 1 1/2 to 1 (that was all that my yardage would accommodate). The zig zag is hemmed on both sides and will be sewn onto the skirt with a band of green silk running down the middle. The rosettes will be gathered in the middle and the raw edges hidden, which is why that bit is hemmed on only one side. The ruffle at the bottom will be bound at the top, which is why only one edge is hemmed.
Hem-age: 13 1/2 yds of zig zag, hemmed on both sides equals 27 yds of hem; 10 1/2 yds of rosette hem (there will be 18 finished rosettes on the skirt, if all goes according to plan); and 7 1/2 yds of ruffle hem. Total hem-age: 45 yds, and that’s just the skirt trim!
I love hand sewing, which makes me excited about that total, rather than bored. And I really enjoy the sense of satisfaction I have when I’ve completed the different pieces of this project, so I can only imagine how great it will be when the entire gown is complete!
Historical Sew Fortnightly (HSF) Challenge #1 complete! It was actually completed a few days ago, which I am super pleased about. Even better is that it is for a Regency ball in February, and it is entirely complete a full month ahead of time! All the trim, all the closures, everything! All I have to do on the day of the ball is put it on. Wow! Usually when I wear a new dress to a ball I’m furiously sewing right up until the end and often all the trim doesn’t make it on (that’s what happened with my 1820s green dress back in December, remember?).
The facts:
Fabric: 4 yds red and black shot polyester
Pattern: The bodice front was draped, the back was adapted from my 1812 square neck Ikea gown, and the skirt is the same as the 1812 square neck Ikea gown, with the pattern originally from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion
Year: 1813
Notions: 3 yds metallic gold bobbin lace, hooks, and little brooch bits
How historically accurate?: The silhouette, cut, and style are accurate, as is the interior finishing (all flat felled and bound edges… it’s quite pretty!). The fabric is obviously not accurate and neither is the lace fiber content, though the style of it is. The closure is accurate. The little brooch bits are accurate in style, though not in materials.
Hours to complete: I’m so bad at estimating this. Let’s say 48 hours.
First worn: Hasn’t been worn yet! Its first wear will be in February 2013.
Total cost: Approximately $26
Now for other details!
Well, first, here’s a closeup of the bodice, so you can actually see the details and the little brooch bits. I’m super pleased with them, because I think they really finish off the bodice and add a little extra touch. I got them from New York and Company, actually. They were part of triple drop earrings, which I took apart. I kept the bottom drop and put them on clip backs (so now I have matching earrings for the dress!) which you can see in the picture below. And the best part is that one of the sections had a missing gem, so the cost of the earrings was refunded by NY&Co and so the total cost of the earrings is $0! Awesome! (It worked out perfectly, because I only used 5 sections of the triple drop earrings, so the damaged one wasn’t a problem.) Of course, the materials used in the earrings are not at all historically accurate, but I’m ok with that, for the cost (yay!) and the fact that they do have the right look.
And here’s the back. As you can see, it doesn’t quite fit Squishy in the back, but it shouldn’t have trouble fitting me. I love the drape of the fabric! Now that all the raw edges are enclosed and the polyester can’t fray everywhere, I am totally happy with the fabric choice (bargain!). The photos don’t really do justice to the fabulous gold lace at the hem.
The dress is entirely hand finished and mostly hand sewn. Originally, I was going to make it all by machine, but then I had sewing parties and things that required hand sewing, and I just didn’t feel like lugging out the machine, so I wound up hand sewing a lot of it, which was quite satisfying. There’s one side back seam sewn my machine, I think the long skirt seams are sewn by machine (though I can’t remember, because I started this dress back in October or November), and the waistband was sewn by machine. Actually, it was so much easier to keep the width consistent using the machine than when sewing it by hand.
The only other information to share is my inspiration for the dress.
Clearly, I need a Kashmir shawl to complete the ensemble… I have a pashmina that sort of looks the part, so I’ll have to try that out at the ball. Stay tuned for more pictures of this dress in about a month!
This story starts as so many sewing related stories do: I went in “just to look.” In fact, we all went in “just to look.”
I’m sure you can guess what happened…
All three of us each came out with 2 or 3 lovely fabrics! We just couldn’t resist the bargain priced silks! My stash additions: 4 yards of apricot cotton, 6 yards of pink silk, and 2 yards of icy green silk. All truly stunning colors on their own, but together they just make me super happy!
What will I use them for, you ask? What a practical question! Well, the cotton for an 18th century under petticoat (a garment that will probably never be seen, so I picked a fun color that is vaguely plausible for that period), the icy green silk for 18th century accessories (hat, muff cover, and maybe mitts, with some leftover to do something else with as well…), and the pink for… something. Perhaps an 18th century something, maybe a sacque? Perhaps a 19th century something, maybe a bustled gown? I got enough to make something and have enough for self fabric trim, I think (it was all that was left on the bolt…). I’ll have to wait to be specifically inspired, but in the meantime I am generally inspired by the color. It’s a great grown-up shade of pink! Whee!
I also bought some silk ribbon that is a stash addition. The champagne ribbon on the top is the ribbon I plan to use to decorate my Kensingtons. Of course, while looking for that I got totally distracted and overwhelmed by other beautiful ribbons as well… not surprising, really, considering how lovely they are!
I justified their purchase by proposing a use for each of them. Blue: to trim my soon to be made Waverly Mineral Felicite 1780s jacket. Purple (they called it silver/grape, which is a cute name): to trim future Regency bonnets and an 18th century cap. Dark pinkish/red: I couldn’t resist the color! One day I plan to make the Costume Close-up laced front jacket, and I think this would be lovely for that, perhaps with some plain purple wool that is in my stash. Champagne: to trim my Kensingtons. Gold spool: to trim an 18th century hat, perhaps with my icy green silk? We’ll see about that. Persimmon spool (it’s not quite so bright in person): I couldn’t resist the color! I love it! I do plan to use it to bind some 18th century pockets in the near future (it will make me super happy to know that color is on my pockets, even if no one else sees them!). I have 10 yards of it… so I’m sure it will get used for other things as well!
As I mentioned in my look back at 2012 post, one of early 2013’s projects will be to paint and decorate my recently purchased American Duchess Kensingtons.
When I first thought of buying Kensingtons, I was set on painting them yellow, either a lightish shade of yellow or medium yellow, like the images below.
But then I started looking at fashion plates… Some of them had very cute yellow shoes, but there were also some that had pink shoes that caught my eye. I love pink things… so I started thinking about painting the shoes pink.
First, fashion plates with cute pink shoes from the 1770s and 1780s.
Second, fashion plates with cute yellow shoes from the 1770s and 1780s.
Then I went back to looking at extant shoes and thought “perhaps two-tone shoes?” Either yellow with pink accents or pink with yellow accents… perhaps like the ones below? Here’s a fashion plate showing two-tone shoes, and there are more extant examples a little farther down in the post.
Another thing, I’ve noticed that many of the extant shoes I see are cloth, not leather. Well, the Kensingtons are leather, so that’s what I’ve got to work with (and I like it in a way, because the shoes will be much more durable). So then I started thinking about what I need to do to capture the 18th century in leather shoes that already have the right 18th century shape. I took a close look at the details in these next photos and analyzed what I saw.
If that isn’t enough examples, you can see more on my pinterest board: Shoes: 1770-1789. The details that strike me are: the binding around the ankle opening and latchets (often in a contrasting color) and the 3D quality of the trim and fabric of the shoes… the decorations are not simply painted on, but sewn on. That’s hard with leather, but glue is a good alternative to stitching.
I’ve seen other styles of painted and decorated historic shoes on my costuming friends. And at American Duchess, Lauren has done multiple posts and tutorials about 18th century shoes that she has painted and decorated.
What materials to use for decorations? Lauren used what looks like cotton bias tape, and on later Regency shoes narrow grosgrain which comes in a wide variety of colors. But the extant shoes look like they are bound with silk, so that’s what I’m going to aim for.
“What will I wear these shoes with?” is an important question I asked myself. “Well, everything I own from the 18th century until I buy another pair of 18th century shoes,” I answered. In the works right now are a taupey-brown silk petticoat, blue wool petticoat, Waverly mineral felicite jacket, and creamy quilted petticoat (you can see most of these fabrics in this previous post). In the future, I’m inspired by a purple and yellow color combination, as well as green and pinkish/red (these colors all in the fashion plates above!).
I’ve been ruminating over this decision for months so I make a choice I’m really happy with. I had all these options to think about: pink, yellow, both… It was tough. But I finally made a decision to go simple: yellow with champagne silk binding and champagne heels (saving pink for later, or removable ribbons, or other accessories). The latchets might also get pained champagne, I’m undecided on that point. Do you have thoughts about that? (More opinions is always better in these situations, you know!) I’ve got the paint from my Astorias, so that was easy… and the silk ribbon has been ordered! More to come soon!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 