Tag Archives: Historical Sewing

January 24, 2024 · 11:15 pm

A Very Victorian Skirt

Not so very long ago Wearing History put out a new “Archive Collection” pattern based on a McCall’s original from around 1900. And, rather impulsively, I bought it.

Equally impulsively, I decided to get it printed in time for my little Christmas break. I didn’t get as much sewing done as I might have liked, after one of the twins brought home yet another virus just in time for Christmas, but I did eventually start on a tester version.

Now, this isn’t exactly a pattern I needed. In particular it’s very similar to the Scroop Fantail skirt I made in September. But I thought a detailed pattern comparison would be fun! So here goes.

See the more intense waist shaping on the Wearing History pattern.

Both patterns are five-gore skirts with smooth fronts and added fullness in the back provided by pleats. Both have narrow straight waistbands and a centre back placket closure. The fullness in front and side panels is almost identical, although the Wearing History pattern is a little more full in the back panel, particularly towards the hem.

The Wearing History pattern differs mainly in three ways: the back placket is cut on, additional shaping for the waist comes from wide side darts, and the shaping of the flare, which is quite straight in the Fantail, and subtly fluted in the Wearing History pattern, narrower through the knees and then flaring slightly more below—though the difference is only a cm or two per pattern piece. There is a lot more shaping from waist to hip in the Wearing History skirt, something I had to increase in my Fantail by grading to a smaller size at the waist.

The grainlines of the patterns also differ, with the Fantail having a more modern style of grainline falling in the middle of the gore while the Wearing History original grainlines are the old fashioned type where they parallel one edge of the gore. However, the Fantail instructions also mention the variability of grainlines in the period, and when I made my version I used “old style” grainlines to get the pattern to fit on my limited yardage.

The side darts, incidentally, are features of my self-drafted 1880s skirts, based on period instructions. It’s neat to see the mix of older features and sharp new skirt shape in this pattern.

I’d rather the under placket didn’t show here, but that requires a larger waistband.

In my version of the Wearing History pattern, I decided to omit the cut on placket and do a sewn on one. This matches the directions I’ve usually read in period sewing manuals. And that whole back seam is on the bias so trying to keep a cut-on placket square just seemed like a nightmare. Instead I did the back placket basically exactly like the Fantail skirt, except for just making it rectangular instead of a fancy angle.

I tweaked the darts quite a bit to get a hip shape I liked, making them longer and a more sinuous shape. I also wound up making them deeper, at least partly because the waist was stretching out in my thick but weirdly soft fabric; I overshot a bit and currently it’s really too small so the back pleats aren’t lining up quite right. If I redo it, I might sub in a different fabric, like a thin cotton, for the waistband. This upholstery fabric is beefy and where all the pleats stack at the centre back my machine completely balked, although not before I had broken three or four needles trying.

Speaking of the fabric, I almost forgot to mention my favourite feature of the whole skirt. Since the pattern has no seam or hem allowances, you add your own. However, when I was laying my fabric out, I had distinctly less than needed for the skirt, and I wound up basically not being able to add hem allowance.

So, since I basically had no hem allowance, I decided to do a faced hem. This is a legit period way to do it, although mine is a pretty simple facing, and they often jazzed them up in period with additional layers of velveteen binding or stiffening or braid. I would have to double-check if bias was appropriate at this point in history; certainly a little earlier they were perfectly happy to cut their facings straight and just ease or pleat the top edge as necessary to have them fit. But I also serged all my seams here, I wasn’t in the mood to be too precious about historical accuracy.

I dove through scraps and eventually settled on the remnant from this dress (man that was a while ago!), a linen/cotton blend that is beefy but still a lot thinner than my main fabric. I evened my remnant into a nice rectangle, cut off the diagonal on one side and sewed it back on the other… then sewed it into the offset tube and cut a truly massive amount of 10-cm-wide continuous bias. So hopefully there’s another skirt worth of it. Probably it would’ve been faster to cut the strips flat with a rotary cutter and then sew them together, but anyway.

I’ll confess, I wasn’t super sure about the skirt when I first made it. The hefty fabric seemed too sculptural and stiff (despite actually being pretty soft). It sat on the dress form for weeks just waiting for that hem (probably a good idea since there was a lot of bias stretch to work out, but still). But this faced hem makes me love it! it’s such a nice finish. I love the facing fabric and how it makes the hem feel. I think a self-fabric hem in this fabric would just have been bulky.

Oh, and the skirt is drafted for a 41” front length (from the waist) which is pretty much perfect for me but probably a little long for many people. The pattern does actually include original instructions for lengthening or shortening at the hem, but if you want to maintain the fluted shape you should probably shorten by overlapping in two places, above and below the knee. In a perfect world, anyway.

I picked my size based on waist size, mainly out of curiosity as to whether I could make that crazy waist-hip variation work, even if it took padding. And I’m not sad I did, although a more rational way to fit the skirt would be to pick the size by your hip size and just adjust the waist. Those side darts give an immense amount of room to play with the fit, four or five inches, at least, and you can always pick a wider seam allowance if you’re worried about having to let out the waist or adjust the shaping there.

All in all, it was a fun exercise! I wouldn’t mind trying it again in a more appropriate fabric. Though I should really get back to the blouses for this kind of period…

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October 29, 2023 · 7:00 am

Black October

Tis the season, after all.

Around this time last year I started puttering gently, barely consciously, toward a mental image—-a romantic, layered, quasi-Victorian-undress look executed in all black. I made my black corset, and then a black petticoat. In between, I also started a black shift, from the same Simplicity 2890 as the corset. Alas, the very first seam I went to sew on the shift, I sewed the yoke piece on upside down. I folded everything up, tucked it in a plastic zip-lock bag, and didn’t look at it again for, well, another year.

But at our Victorian Sewing Circle in September, I finally pulled it out and unpicked the seam, and the damn thing finally started to come together. It’s got a very lovely, shapely yoke, once you finally get the right edges sewed together.

I leaned into the hand-finishing techniques for this piece, if only because the slightly loose-woven fabric has a lovely textured feel to it. I hand-stitched down the underarm facings, and the inner face of the yoke as well. I hand rolled the sleeve hems, and hand-felled the side seams, and hand-stitched a wide bottom hem. I wanted to add lace to the yoke, but had trouble finding one that would follow the elegant curves. Maybe I should just try embroidery.

I find it pretty odd how differently I feel about different hand-stitching processes. Rolling the little hems on the sleeves made me want to kill myself. Hand-felling the (much longer) side seams and bottom hem felt more like an exercise in meditation. And it’s practically the same stitch? Similarly, I can hand-sew the binding of a quilt without a blink, but sewing the binding on a corset fees like torture.

This chemise pattern is geared towards 1860s, and it’s a very off-the-shoulder style. Which I knew, having read several reviews, but still didn’t adjust for. Silly past Tanit. So it’s, um, WAY off the shoulders. I think I may go in and take 4” or so out of the back so it will sit a little better.

Just a LITTLE off the shoulders.

I added a button a little higher up than maybe designed for, in the hopes of keeping it SLIGHTLY in place. (I may go back and change the button, though, this one is glass but it just looks white which wasn’t what I wanted. Now I just need to find my black corset, which has been mysteriously AWOL for several months, so I can model it properly. Though I suppose this too-small costume one will work in a pinch

But no whimsical Hallowe’en ensemble would be complete without…

A cloak.

And not just any cloak. This is Simplicity 5794, the pattern Rachel Maksy used in her cloak video, ages ago. It also had pretty good reviews on Patternreview.com.

I’m honestly not sure when or where I acquired this pattern. I am quite sure I didn’t purchase it. But it looks like good solid fun.

It is, um, a little quirky.

The first glitch came with the cutting layout, where the pattern instructions show it being cut out on the lengthwise fold. These gigantic pattern pieces are not being cut on the fold for any normal-width (by which I mean 60”) fabric. Incidentally, the best idea wound up being to fold my (non-directional, thankfully) fabric in half crosswise, and arrange the two main cloak pieces going in opposite directions, then cut the hood from the remnants. I wound up with around a metre extra for the outer fabric, and the merest scraps of my purple lining.

There are three views, each with its own hood. One has a square back forming a small point, one an exaggerated point with a tassel, and the third is… unlike any hood pattern I have ever seen. It’s shaped more like the petal of a flower. I can only imagine it is meant to create a wide, fluttering kind of hood. I might even try it out sometime. Just not for this one.

Ok the hood is still pretty extra.

I wasn’t super into the square back hood of View A, but I figured I would just round off the little point into a smooth curve and all would be fine. Which it is, but really I should just have pulled out the hood for McCall’s M6800, because that is my favourite hood of all time, and this one ended up being just a little bit short of it. They’re very similar, with a pleat to tuck the extra fullness into the neckline, but the Simplicity hood is just a little less voluminous. It’s fine, just not quite as extra. Which is odd considering this is a costume pattern and McCall’s 6800 is an everyday kind of coat pattern. I do love the body the combination of coating and Kasha lining has.

Oh and I noticed as I was putting away the pattern pieces that the hood I used (view A, again) was actually supposed to be cut on the bias. Weird, but again I can’t help wondering exactly what difference that would’ve made. Something to try in the future, perhaps.

There isn’t much to say about the rest of the cloak construction—it’s a lot of long, straight seams. The shoulders are a wee bit wide but then I was cutting the XL size since it was already cut out and I always hate to lose the larger sizes but also there’s no way I was tracing out those giant pattern pieces. I figured I would narrow them if I felt it was a problem (which wouldn’t be hard) but honestly if I wasn’t looking for the problem I don’t think I would have noticed.

The length is GENEROUS. The envelope pictures show a cloak trailing artistically on the ground and they are not wrong. I’m more likely to be adding at least 2” in length to stuff, and it still trails on the ground on me; I’m wearing 2” heels in these photos and took a roughly 3” hem and it still brushes the ground.

I decided to use some purple bias binding from stash to cover the edge of the hem, since what else am I going to use it for? It’s a lot brighter than the lining, though. I tugged on the binding and eased the wool underneath as I sewed it on by machine, so it gathers my curved hem in nicely (maybe a little too much? My tension wasn’t terribly even, either). Then I took a deep breath and hand-stitched a good 4m of hem. Ouch! I machine stitched the lining about 1/2” shorter than the outer hem, and if I am a good girl I will make some little thread chains to connect the two at the seams, but I haven’t done it yet. I didn’t even look at the pattern instructions for hemming; I opted for separate lining hems as this is what I use in coats with wide, flowing hems and I think it lets the fabrics move the best.

After much waffling, I decided to close it with a button and buttonhole; I didn’t want to do the ties the pattern calls for. I would’ve loved a metal sew-on clasp but didn’t have one on hand, and some kind of tab and button seemed a bit overworked.

You have no idea how much time I spent trying to shoo cats out of this picture.

I’m more used to sewing coats than cloaks (I say as I haven’t sewn a fullblown coat in at least five or six years) so some parts of the construction felt weird, like the lack of interfacing and facings. I’m glad this pattern didn’t have facings, as it’s a huge fabric hog already, but it still felt weird to be understitching the lining right at the edge of the cloak. Yes, it will peek out. Yes, that’s ok.

It’s not a very full cloak, actually, despite being a massive fabric hog It’s a half-circle, actually. I don’t even want to think about how much fabric a full circle this size would take). You can’t put your hands on your hips without it gaping open. However, it does hang nicely closed with arms at sides. And looks best thrown back over the shoulders anyway, I discovered.

And now that it’s done it might be making me the happiest I’ve been in a very long time.

The black corset showed up at the last possible second, after I had turned most of the house upside down looking for it, in a place I had checked several times before. So here’s a quick peek at the final look, or something like it:

Still need to decide if I want to add witchy hat or vampire fangs.

And also figure out how to be so extra I can wear this cape in everyday life.

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September 21, 2023 · 7:00 am

Fantastical Fantail

I didn’t technically NEED to make the Scroop Patterns Fantail skirt.

I mean, let’s not get too deep into the definition of “need,” especially when discussing costuming.

The Fantail is an 1890s-1900s five gored skirt pattern. Which is also totally wearable as an everyday skirt… at least if, like me, you’ve strayed far down the garden path of “WTF is she wearing?”

So wearable, in fact, that I have several others almost exactly like it. The Edwardian Walking Skirt (Folkwear pattern) that my mom made back in the 80s or early 90s, for one. (And yes, i still have the tissue pattern she traced off the original she borrowed from the library.) The grey gored skirt I made a couple of years ago that I wore like crazy last winter, for another. And three or four more long, gored skirts of various iterations.

But it is also a skirt style I wore constantly last winter and, well, winter is coming. And I had purchased the Fantail back in the spring when Scroop had a big sale to raise money for some unexpected expenses. And then one of my Victorian Sewing buddies was destashing some this gorgeous twill “denim” (not really denim, it’s fairly loosely woven and very soft. But it does have a twill weave, and white threads in one direction.) And it just really needed to be this kind of skirt.

So, just before my birthday, I got the pattern printed out. I didn’t actually get to work on it for my birthday, but not too long after I started poking away at the project.

This kind of skirt is really, really simple, and it went together quite quickly. As per the instructions, I graded between my hip size and the waist size I wanted, and I’m glad I did as it meant I didn’t have to fuss with adjusting the perfect pleats to fit a different waist size

The fabric wasn’t overly wide, and I wanted to use it as efficiently as possible. This style of skirt straddles the evolution of grainlines from the gored skirts of the 1880s where it was standard to have one edge of the gore on the straight grain and one on the bias, to something closer to a modern, centred grainline, to allow the fabric to hang better. Maybe I should care more about the hang of my skirts, but as the pattern says, grainlines are suggestions. So I angled my side and back gores so that they fitted best on the un-folded fabric. No regrets so far. It’s not zero waste, but the amount of waste is minimal.

Back placket, two sides.

It took me a bit to figure out the instructions for the back placket, and I did manage to cut one of the facings wrong way round (though it’s on the inside so I didn’t bother to recut it). It isn’t hard, or even unclear, particularly, but everything is very side specific and there are some acronyms in the instructions that aren’t instantly comprehensible. Once I understood what they were getting at it was fine.

Other than that? Easy peasy. And those back pleats? To die for.

Pinned closed at not quite the right angle in this pic. Still gorgeous pleats.

I did use some very modern construction shortcuts: overlocked seams, machine blind-stitched hem, leaving the selvedge exposed on the inside of the waistband.

We were (are) in the process of moving the whole sewing room, so I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth for authentic detailing.

I also couldn’t find the heavy-duty hooks and bars I bought specifically so I would have them around next time I made a skirt like this, but hopefully these two traditional (and vintage) hook & eyes will do the job. I was waffling a bit about adding a touch of topstitching to the skirt, just as a nod to the denim look of the fabric, so when I realized that topstitching was an integral part of the placket, I just went with it, a little line along each vertical seam (except the centre back.)

To hem, I used my favourite trick (when I don’t feel the need to be historical) and cranked up the differential feed on the serger while finishing the bottom edge. This gathers in the lower edge for you, which makes folding up and easing in the hem super easy. Unfortunately (?) I was doing it on the new-to-me serger handed down from an amazing reader, and the differential feed on this machine is a lot more effective than the one on my old serger, so it wound up gathered in a bit too much, which took some massaging. But it made the machine-blind-stitched hem super easy!

One thing the pattern lacks is a pocket. I’m honestly not sure how common they were in this period, with the narrower skirts clinging over the hips, but there’s still room to tuck one under the pleats in the back, so I did. I used the same method I always do, which comes from an 1887 sewing manual—so potentially a bit dated for this skirt’s era but not unreasonable. I didn’t manage the tidiest insertion (particularly when trying to topstitch along that seam) but it’s tucked around back where I don’t have to look at it so it doesn’t bother me at all.

I did forget a couple of little touches I wanted, including the tape that is supposed to go from the top of the pocket to the waistband, and hanging loops under the waistband. So I will have to go back and add those.

I serged off about 1/4” in length and then did a 2” hem, and I’d say the length is an excellent walking length for me, though I perhaps wouldn’t mind an extra inch if I were going for a more formal historical look.

While I was intending this skirt to fit over a corset, it turns out I can also still wear it without, though it doesn’t lay quite so nice and smoothly over the hips. It does mean it’s another thing I can and will wear to work this winter, though, which has me thrilled to bits.

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September 10, 2023 · 7:00 am

Summer Mesh Corset (in time for Fall)

Inspiration:

Original mesh corset at the V&A museum

I’ve been in love with the idea of doing a summer, mesh corset for a WHILE. I picked up a chunk of Aida cloth for the exact purpose back circa 2015. And when I made my Victorian Sundress (better pictures still pending) it occurred to me that this might also be the perfect time to make a light, aerated summery corset. So I set to work… and then summer blazed past in a blur of everything-but-sewing, and here it is just in time for the weather to turn chilly.

But back to the inspiration: I swear I saw one in a corset book somewhere, but damned if I could find it when I looked recently. This one from the Victoria & Albert shows the features I was interested in, though: solid bits, mesh panels, “waist belt” piece.

Now, Aida cloth (the stuff for cross-stitching) is nowhere near as open as the mesh used in the inspiration corset, nor is it, frankly, particularly stable. It made this an interesting project, and I’m not at all sure how long-lived the results will be.

Auditioning materials

Materials: aside from the Aida cloth, I went with some fairly beefy white denim for the details. I liked the white and cream contrast. Probably coutil would’ve been better for those parts but I was hesitant to sacrifice good coutil when the main fabric was a bit dodgy. I also decided to use my last spoon busk, just to make my life harder; the inspiration piece doesn’t have a spoon busk but it is right for the time period I’m roughly going for. I used 1/4” spring steel boning but given that my boning channels are single and not the double ones I’m used to (and the rather shifty Aida cloth) I’m thinking maybe a slightly wider, more stable boning might have been preferable.

The pattern is a veritable saga of its own. The kernel, as with most of the corsets I’ve ever made, is Butterick 4254 view C, a basic six-panel corset. but over the years I’ve altered, traced off, and re-altered the pattern so much I couldn’t even tell you how much it resembles the original. I still wear my old white corset from this pattern regularly (despite it being technically far too small and, more recently, badly stained with bright blue after an incident involving a gel ice pack and a cat), and the shape is pretty much perfect for me, but I wanted to make sure that the various layers of alteration I’ve added to it over the years were reflected in the pattern I used, while re-sizing to be closer to my current measurements. This involved adding quite a bit of width to the front, and substantially re-shaping the side seam to mimic the effects of a hip gusset I had added to the white corset at some point, as well as an inch or so of height to the top. I had shortened the corset pattern initially, as I’m short waisted, and the top had always been a hair low, but somehow as my bust has gotten larger the last few years this problem got worse (even though I’m pretty sure my bust point is lower than it was). So this latest version aimed to incorporate the added width and side-seam shaping, while adding the missing height to the top.

I don’t think I’ve quite nailed my revamped pattern (and a test in real coutil, or at least ticking, is probably needed to really tell), but I do think it’s a step in the right direction. The bust height is great; the side-seam needs a little more refinement in the shape of the hip flare (which I accomplished in this piece by playing with the seam allowance), and I had to take out some excess width in the back, though I’m not sure if that’s just due to stretching. I might try to adjust the fall of the side seam above the waist forward a little; below the waist it’s perfect.

Construction

  • Original has solid outer on top of mesh inner at corset front/back
  • Overlay solid portions over mesh around busk, lacing panels, and bust area, plus shaped waist belt
  • Seams to the outside, covered by bone casings
  • Cording on bust solid parts (in hindsight the original may just have been quilted)
  • Waist belt added after main seams but before adding busk and lacing panel coverings
  • One bone per seam, in bone casing, applied to the exterior
  • Extra bone just beside the busk for added support (not necessary for spoon busk)

The trickiest part about this project was coming up with the order of operations. (Spoiler: I messed this up, more than once.) I added the “bust cover” patches first, with cording. Then sewed the panels together. Next I should’ve added the waist-stay panel, but instead I did the back lacing area so I could test the fit before I stitched over all those seams. It’s good I did—I had to take the back portion in significantly, and tweak the hip curve at the side seam. I’m not sure if I had added too much or if the Aida cloth just stretched; it definitely wasn’t as stable as would be ideal. But it also meant I had to unpick a portion of the back lacing panel to tuck the waist stay under it.

Cording the bust area wasn’t hard, though it was a tad tedious. I was pretty sure within the first few lines that I should’ve used a thinner cord, as my channels are VERY raised. Looking back at the inspiration piece, they may actually have just been quilted, not actually corded at all. Oh well. If I were to do it again I’d move the entire corded section higher by a good inch, as it mainly sits below my bust. But that was pretty much impossible to determine in advance.

The trickiest part of the construction was wrapping the busk covering panel close around the busk pieces, but still with enough room to edgestitch it down, without breaking a needle. Especially while getting the busk in place over the bulk of the corded patches. I used a fairly thick string for the cording and in hindsight I wish I’d used a thinner one. Those parts are VERY thick and were really hard to sew over, even for my Pfaff 360, and I’m a little worried all the trimming I had to do may have left these seams vulnerable to fraying.

(Laced a little too tight at the upper back. More comfortable when laced more straight.)

Even with the width I removed, the corset is not really “tight”… I can lace it very nearly closed, although I wouldn’t want to wear it like that all day. If it stretches any more with wear it might still become too big. Although, I’ve also lost a little bit of weight this summer; if that reverses come winter I may be glad of a little extra room!

Maximum lacing tightness

I had planned to use the same white denim for my binding, but at the last moment decided to go for a lighter-weight cream twill, for less bulk at the edges of the corset. No regrets, although the texture of the heavier denim would’ve been nice.

I also remembered to add drawstrings in the upper binding, using more of my 1/4” stay tape. Which is possibly my favourite notion at the moment and I may need to just bite the bullet and buy it in bulk.

Anyway, I’m cautiously thrilled with the results, imperfect and experimental though they are in many ways. The shape is very much what I wanted. The bust height is so much better than previous versions. The size is a pleasant change from nearly-too-small corsets. I love the solidity of the spoon busk. How will it be as it breaks in? Don’t know. Will it self-destruct after a few hours of wearing? Could be! Will it be fun to sew? Definitely.

And now… to the fall sewing!

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July 30, 2023 · 6:14 am

A Victorian Sundress (skirt)

This is part 2 about my “Victorian sundress” project. I drew on two main inspirations for the skirt. One was this blog post from the Fashionable Past, about an extant and very lightweight summer dress (unlined skirt!!!), and the other was this pattern from Etsy, the “Étamine Dress.”

It’s one of those “unimproved” ones based on an original from Harper’s Bazar. No grading, no additional instructions. I didn’t particularly care about the bodice, having just muslined my own, but after a few mind-boggling attempts to work out all that layered pleating on my own based just on the illustration, I bought the pattern.

As I had feared, the pattern piece was LARGELY a rectangle. with a very slight curve at one end. So I was basically paying for the marked pleat points, and about two lines of instructions. Ah well. (Actually the terse instructions were really helpful in clarifying the dizzying array of layers on the dress in the image, even if I wasn’t likely to have enough fabric for all of them. )

The Étamine pattern skirt, as written, contains four layers. From the inside out:

  1. The foundation skirt,
  2. A “tablier front” pleated just across the front, visible in the slit between all the other layers,
  3. The “straight breadths”, a straight, pleated layer (probably meant to be applied to the foundation skirt?), and then finally
  4. The swagged outer layer.

The pattern actually includes a piece only for the final, outer layer—which was the main reason I bought the pattern, and which, it turns out, is also basically a rectangle, curving only very slightly on the top front. (And in hindsight that curve probably only exists to accommodate attaching this layer to the bodice, as per the instructions, which wasn’t my plan until I realized that)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I needed to construct the foundation skirt.

Based on both my desire for a maximally light weight dress and this blog post from The Fashionable Past about recreating an extant, and remarkably lightweight, dress in her possession, I decided to throw propriety to the wind and make an unlined foundation skirt. The complete invisibility of the foundation skirt in the Etamine dress illustration did little to dissuade me from this course, and actually, if the “straight breadths” and “tablier front” layers were mounted to the skirt as I suspect the pattern intended, it might very well have been a single layer foundation skirt that was intended.

My fabric was about three metres of this grey cotton-linen blend, a long-stashed remnant from this Vintage Vogue dress. The colour coordinated well with my grey striped border embroidery, although if it proved invisible in the final product it wouldn’t matter. It’s not a particularly historical-looking fabric, but it is yummy.

I constructed the foundation skirt in a low-waste gored manner similar to this skirt draft from my 1882 book and this 1903 petticoat draft, although slightly modified to take advantage of my wide modern fabric. I cut both front and side gores from a single length, and then used a further full width to make my back panels. In hindsight the front gore is too flared for this skirt style, making the seams run somewhat diagonally down the skirt. I should’ve cut it narrower at the hem edge, and then had a bit more fullness to pleat in to the back waist. But, see the part about how it’s basically going to be invisible, I’m not too bothered.

For the closure, I made a pleat-placket in the middle of the back breadth, using the same slash method I did for my first petticoat, which according to past Tanit came from Plain Sewing and Amateur Dressmaking (published in 1887). This part was entirely hand sewn. It’s completely covered in the final dress, but somehow was just fun to do.

The Étamine pattern, by the way, barely even mentions the foundation skirt layer in its terse instructions, except to say it has a four-inch box pleating of the fashion fabric at the hem. They were obviously assuming their reader either had a basic foundation skirt pattern they liked, or would just draft their own like I did.

Because I like the look, I decided to try out stacked pleating at the centre back, covering my placket pleat. I didn’t fuss over it too much. The single layer of fabric definitely made this a less bulky feature than it might have been.

My hem is just a very basic machine hem, again based on the Fashionable Past example, although a little narrower.

I also made a pocket, again very much following the same method I’ve used in the past. However, it somehow turned out too small. So I may need to open up the bottom of it and patch on some more. I also initially sewed it in upside down, because you’re never too experienced to make mistakes.

Pocket fail. The pointy end should go up towards the waistband.

Now, the skirt came out relatively short. This is partly because of fabric limitations and partly because all my Victorian skirts ever have been too long, at least for day wear. I did not want that for this skirt—but I definitely needed to shorten my petticoats.

(This one is still too long though)

I did this by the very inelegant method of adding a 1” tuck just above the bottom ruffles. Because the front and sides are gored (i.e., wider at the bottom than the top) this means that the underside of the tuck needs to be eased to fit. The period manuals talk about basting a gathering stitch along that line and easing it in. I just pressed and hoped. It mostly worked out better than expected, though there are one or two bad spots.

With considerable fussing and measuring, I eventually determined that I did have enough of the border embroidery to do at least the upper two layers of overskirt, although not the tablier front layer. I was content to have my foundation skirt show a tiny bit though. I had enough extra eyelet trim from the making of the bodice to add a vertical piece to the centre fronts of the topmost layer.

There was, however, nothing left for the longer fronts of the middle layer, what the pattern termed “straight breadths.” Never mind any excess for trimming the bodice. I considered for a long, painful while, but I knew what I had to do: make more edging.

You see, as it happened the existing border embroidery was arranged kind of in two rows with a small space between them. This made it possible, with enough patience, to add a scalloped zig-zag in the space between that I could then cut along, instantly doubling the amount of eyelet edge I had available.

I thought the best machine I had for the task would be the Pfaff 360, as its embroidery stitches are customizable to length. However, it has a dodgy tension and hadn’t been out of the carrying case in, um, years.

Eventually, I managed to nerve myself up, pull the Pfaff out, and get to work.

The tension was actually being fairly well behaved, but the embroidery stitches didn’t seem to be engaging, or at least only very randomly. I eventually traced the issue to a series of little levers under the main cover of the machine that are supposed to drop down into slots depending on which stitch option is selected, which were not dropping without manual assistance. So, eventually, I was able to get it to do a scallop the length that I wanted—but there didn’t seem to be a width adjustment available for the scallop setting, and I could only make it do a very narrow zig-zag. I think this is a limitation of the machine, since it has a fairly narrow total stitch width; in the end I went over the automatic scallop with a wider zig-zag freehand, and aside from the tension being a little too low (I had turned it down as that tends to work best for machine embroidery, and it looked great on top and didn’t pucker up the fabric, but it is quite loopy on the back side.) It’s not indistinguishable from the original, but it won’t be noticeable, and I desperately needed that extra length of edging.

I think cutting the strip off the bottom may actually have taken longer than embroidering it. But eventually it was done. Then I remembered I also needed to add three 1” tucks to the “flat breadths” panel before I pieced on the edging at the short ends.

But eventually I got it done. It was easier than the upper layer since the mitered corner was narrower. The removed edging isn’t the same as the remaining piece, but at least their width is similar.

Based on the terse instructions, I actually think the “flat breadths” layer was supposed to be attached directly to the foundation skirt, attaching partway down, even though the illustration doesn’t exactly fit with this idea. But I didn’t want to do it that way, mainly because I feel like I might want to wear the foundation skirt alone for other things. As a result my “straight breadths” are pleated into a twill tape waistband and hike up a bit in the back. If I really wanted I could probably come up with a bit of an upper skirt to mount them to, but at the moment I’m not sure I’ll bother.

At last I could truly play with the upper layer. I was grateful to the pattern for at least clarifying the rough plan for the pleating; I basically used its markers at the front and back edges, and then added some fudging in between to get it to both fit and look how I wanted. I originally tried underlining the fabric with a craft netting to give it more volume, but my smooth fabric didn’t cling to the netting at all so while the netting had big, smooth folds, the fabric just slid over the top. So my folds definitely aren’t as full and thick as in the illustration. (Apparently étamine was a lightweight cotton, loosely-woven, almost mesh like fabric… so I’m not sure how much body it would have had either.) But I think they will do, even if they aren’t quite like what was illustrated.

Arranging the pleats and folds of the upper layer was definitely the longest and most nerve wracking part of this project. Once done, I hand-basted them to the bodice and then carefully hand-stitched from the right side, and then catch-stitched down the seam allowances on the inside. This took forever as I kept having to tackle it in tiny ten minute intervals, but did eventually, and it does make the intricate upper layer very simple to take on and off.

And that’s about that! I’d like to add a big red bow on top of the bustle, and I might just have enough long skinny scraps to add the 4” ruffle the pattern describes to the foundation skirt, if I want to. I’m contemplating some hooks and eyes at the bottom front of the bodice, to keep the various layers all together in the front, since that’s one of the things I like about the original illustration. But on the whole this has been a much bigger project than I had originally envisioned, so I’m happy just to get to wearable!

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July 29, 2023 · 5:00 pm

A Victorian Sundress

So Victorian Sewing Circle is carrying on through the summer this year. Hooray! Except. The one Victorian outfit I have at the moment is, um, fairly heavy wool. This is not going to be fun come July. (Hopefully it’s still July when you’re reading this. )

So, I decided to pull the trigger on a project I’ve been halfway planning for a long time. What I’ve mentally dubbed a “Victorian sundress”

I had picked up this light cotton border embroidery on clearance ages ago when I was working at Fabricland. I actually got several different colours, though previously I have only used a tiny bit of the red to make these dresses for the twins. The most important thing about it though, was that there was something like nine metres of the grey colourway alone. For a bit of interest (and to stretch my fabric as I only had about 9m of the stripe) I decided to pair it with this grey cotton-linen blend, not historically accurate but yummy nonetheless, for the foundation skirt.

I started with the bodice; the skirt will get its own post.

It’s the same pattern I’ve used before, TV 462 although since I’m a very different size than I was in 2016 when I made it the first time, I was basically starting all over again. Which is ok, since I didn’t exactly nail it the first time. I had actually muslined the new size back in the winter. Truly Victorian uses a fairly complicated system of measuring for their bodices where you choose front, back, and sleeve sizes separately and then adjust to make it work. My bust and back were only one size different, so in the end I decided I would make everything the (larger) back size and if I had extra bust room, just pad it out. I still had to narrow the shoulders pretty massively, and I did a lot of vertical length adjustments since these patterns seem to skew long and I have a fairly short torso. I also did my usual preemptive swayback and square shoulder adjustments. When I tried on the muslin I determined that the front was actually pretty darn good, as was the back width across the shoulder area, but there was a lot of extra room in the back waist. I ended up taking 1” out of the side-back piece to get the shape approximately right, which improved the back fit immensely.

Also added width at the side seam below waist. May have overdone it.

One thing I forgot to consider, since there was a bit of a gap between muslining and cutting out my fashion fabric, was the shape of the back hem of my bodice. My pattern is for a tailed bodice, with a non-tailed lining, and to save fabric I had just muslined the lining pieces. At some point between muslin and final fabric, I’d decided on a different overskirt style that didn’t work with a tailed bodice, so I just went ahead and cut the final fabric with the same hem as the lining pieces, without thinking too much about the final shape it would make. If I had it to do over, I would try to draft a slightly longer, more elegant V point in the back. It’s a kind of short, meh shape on its own.

I went for the “closures first” fitting strategy, finishing the front of my bodice with bias tape and then adding the (machine) buttonholes and buttons. This let me try it on without pinning, which makes it a bit easier to fit. I then refined the fit a little, reshaping the side seams (taking in the waist 1/4” on each side and letting out the hips an equal amount.) and also wound up deepening the centremost front darts by about 1/4”. Not unexpected given the size I chose.

I was quite silly about how I positioned the boning in the front darts this time, putting it close to the fold of the dart where it flips around rather than against the stitched edge. But it doesn’t really show in the finished garment.

I added a waist stay, of course, using some of a wide red twill tape I got as a hand-me-down last year. It’s perfect for the job. I was a little worried about show-through on my light fabrics, but it seems to be fine.

I selected the “dinner bodice” neckline again because it’s both my favourite and maybe more cool than a high neck. However, I think I should probably make a high-necked little dickey to go under it, since this is meant to be a day dress.

Once the basic construction was done, it was time to consider embellishments. I had a (very limited) amount of eyelet edging left over from the skirt draperies to contribute to the bodice decoration. After some playing around and an abortive attempt at adding it to the ends of the sleeves, I settled on a strip going down each side of the bodice, coming to a V at the front bottom point. This kind of decorative feature is SUPER common in 1880s illustrations, although usually creating a faux-vest kind of look. I don’t think my variation is beyond reason though. I hand-stitched the trim in place, along the whole length at the straight edge, and tacked down between each scallop on the inner edge. I was a little anxious about getting such a wide flat piece smooth on the rather curvy front of the bodice, but it worked out ok. Did I mention I hand-basted it in place? I did more hand-basting on this project than I’ve done in YEARS.

I had one last tiny bit of trim (the piece I started to attach to the sleeve but didn’t like) so I made that into a small standing collar at the back of the neck. I think it’s cute, but I should probably add a little bit of wire to support the ends.

It turned out that the top layer of the skirt is actually sewn directly to the bodice, creating what the pattern terms a polonaise. I hadn’t planned on doing it that way, but I do like the simplicity of wearing that it gives the resulting dress. There is definitely some extra width in the hips, though I think more in the back—I like where the side-seam falls. I’m unlikely to take it in at this late stage, what with the upper layer of the skirt draperies attached directly to the bodice; I might add some padding to the area to smooth it out.

I also want to add a hint of red, to coordinate more with the hat, which will have a post of its own, too… but for now, at least, it’s wearable!

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July 29, 2023 · 6:45 am

French (Bonnet) Connection

It’s time. I’ve avoided it for almost a decade of costuming now: Victorian hats.

No Victorian lady’s outfit is complete without a hat. If you left the house, you wore a hat (and gloves, but, one problem at a time). The illusion can never be complete without it. Since I don’t have the right hair anyway, and my illusion was more of an impression, it didn’t seem too urgent. But I’ve dawdled long enough.

There seem to have been a wide variety of women’s hat-styles in the 1880s, from close-fitting frames to “flowerpot” hats to wide brims approaching, though not reaching, Edwardian levels. But in looking for something SPECIFICALLY 1880s (maybe not the wisest choice), you can’t really beat the distinctiveness of the weird peaked-brim style called a “French Bonnet”. (Or “Conquistador hat”)

I spent a bit of time messing around with a simpler, almost fedora, shape, before deciding to bite the bullet and purchase the Truly Victorian pattern. It was nice to have the instructions on construction to follow, since I’ve never done anything even remotely like this before.

I was hoping for some pointers or suggestions on trimming, the real wild card of hattery, but no such luck.

The hat is cut and sewn using buckram and wire, which shouldn’t have posed much of a problem as I have both in stash. Unfortunately I couldn’t find either. Syo was good enough to pick me up some (more) buckram, and I wound up harvesting the wire I had used in the twins’ mushroom capes last year. (It didn’t work super well there and I think plastic boning would probably be a better solution in their capes anyway). The new buckram from Fabricland was pretty floppy so I used a double layer, and I did take advantage of that to sandwich the vertical wires in the crown between the two layers. Otherwise I followed the instructions pretty closely, or regretted when I didn’t. (For example I somehow neglected to have a wire at the CB seam, and there is a bit of an indent in the back portion of the crown because of this. Oops.)

Other than attaching most of the wire by machine, the whole thing is almost entirely hand-sewn. I don’t mind a bit of hand-sewing but i definitely didn’t love trying to hand-sew so many thin layers on a rigid frame. Possibly a curved needle would’ve been helpful?

I tried out layering some quilt batting underneath the top of the crown and I like how it smoothed the look of the hat. The wire frame kind of leaves dints between the wires and this filled that in. However, I also wanted a light summer-weight bonnet, so I didn’t do any more. But if I try this again I will definitely consider it, or at least a flannel underlining or something.

Also, sewing the butted seam at the front of the brim to create the peak was a bit of a trip, and I’m glad I had sewn butted seams before as it’s a completely counterintuitive action.

For the brim, I departed from the instructions slightly and used a straight strip of fabric to line the underside, then pleated it towards the middle, because I’ve always liked this look in bonnets. It didn’t take quite as much pleating as expected.

I was a little stumped about how to put a band on the hat (necessary to cover the hand-stitching that attaches the brim to the crown, at least when following the instructions as written.) The sides of the crown curve down dramatically, making even a flexible bias band impractical. There seemed to be two options—either cutting a shaped band using the same pattern piece as the crown, or using a soft, draped piece of fabric like a sash.

Early test of trimmings. Somehow I didn’t get any pics of just the “hat sash”

I went with the latter, which seems to be what most of the internet has opted for, and I do like the soft, whimsical look for a soft, whimsical bonnet. Somehow, despite the fact that the hat sat around with just the sash on for over a week, I didn’t take any pictures of that stage.

Needs curly bangs.

My mother was kind enough to provide a selection of fake flora to help trim the hat. There is one big rose under the brim and two above it, nestled amongst a bunch of other little floral bits. I’m thinking the back bow may need some floral additions. I’d dearly love to add a feathered bird wing, or entire bird if I could find one that doesn’t look quite as derpy as the little one in the pic where Tris is wearing it. (So far no luck, all the fake birds at Michael’s looked just as derpy.)

I actually kinda hated this thing during most of the construction. The shape is just weird. Very far beyond my comfort zone. And not in a way I expected to find cute. Although I don’t think I can quite convey to you how much Tris loves it, so that’s something. It apparently hits exactly the right vibe for a not-quite-four-year-old obsessed with looking like a princess. However, it has weirdly grown on me, particularly as I got more of the trimmings in place. I’m particularly fond of the flowers under the brim.

I eventually made it to Michael’s to look for ostrich plumes. They had exactly one, however it was bright white and I wasn’t prepared to mess around with trying to dye it. I did find a little spray of coordinating feathers, though, so I got that, and I think it finishes off the hat nicely, at least for now.

I will say, it’s growing on me, weird shape and all. It stays on the head surprisingly firmly, although I suspect a hat-pin or two would still be wise, at least if I had the kind of hair one could anchor stuff to with a hat pin. It will make more sense, I think, if I can ever manage a proper hairpiece, since it should really sit over a chunky braided bun, and have curly 1880s bangs to help fill in the top front. Apparently 1880s bangs have a lot in common with 1980s bangs. Who knew.

Now I just need to get the rest of the outfit to go with it finished!

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April 2, 2023 · 6:12 am

Black underneath

I obviously needed a petticoat to go with my Edwardian skirt (the 1880s ones just don’t quite work). And I’ve been a bit obsessed with the idea of an all-black set of underthings (hence the black corset, and there’s a black chemise cut out and living in limbo at the moment, too.) So, why not a black petticoat, particularly since I had a nice chunk of black batiste in stash for just such a purpose.

Now, what to use for a pattern? Well, I could have gone with the same as my skirt, maybe just omitting the above-waist extension. And I might still make one like that.

But I ran across the following draft in the “Art of Dressmaking,” copyright 1903 by Madame Marie Boudet, one of an assortment of historical sewing manuals I’ve collected digitally. In particular, I liked that she works in metric (being French), and also that it’s designed to be drafted directly on the fabric. It’s also extremely economical and low-waste, requiring only two skirt-lengths of fabric, and only a few bits are cut away to form the curves at hem and waist.

Now, working out the pattern was not quite as simple as I might have liked—there was a lot of on-the-fly calculation I would rather have worked out beforehand, and her order of describing what to do left a bit to be desired. I also realized partway through that her calculations seem to assume a fabric width of about 32”—not surprising but I had to make some adjustments for my 60” wide fabric. But aside from some issues (mainly losing track of some of my measurements) I still do really like the draft. Even if it does consider 60 cm (23.6”) an “average” waist size. Because of my wider fabric, I had to make my flare a bit more extreme, and I have more gathering at the back waist than is probably intended. On the other hand the draft does mention that a more full petticoat might be desired, requiring three lengths of fabric, so I don’t think my version is beyond the realms of the possible.

I added about a 6” ruffle at the bottom, which was what I planned for, but I really think I do prefer the wider ruffle I used on my earlier petticoat. Although maybe I just need to press it more. I also would’ve liked a nice black lace at the bottom, but I definitely don’t have that much of anything suitable in stash.

For the waist finishing, I used a method from Sew Historically, which I’ve also found described in period sources (isn’t it nice when we’re all reading the same books?). It’s basically two drawstrings anchored at the side backs, that run opposite directions through a casing and emerge from eyelets to get tied together. Although I didn’t follow it quite right and I think I have a lot more gathering at the waist than might be intended due to my overly-wide fabric, so for me it works best to pull the drawstrings around and tie them in the front. Otherwise it looks a bit wonky, as below:

There isn’t much else to say, other than the obligatory complaints about photographing black. So I’ll just let it be that.

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February 17, 2023 · 8:05 am

Fluffy up front

So now that I have an Edwardian skirt, obviously I need a proper blouse to go with it. You know the kind—the ones that are mostly lace. But those are, y’know, notably sheer, and my current corset is, y’know, black, so a corset cover is kind of in order.

Now, ever since I started the Victorian Sewing Circle I’ve been collecting “resources” for attendees. Mainly some reproduction catalogues and a couple of original sewing manuals, some older Folkwear patterns my mom had kicking around, and of course the relevant Janet Arnold book. But we’ve received a few donations as well of odds and ends people have collected—including an Edwardian corset-cover pattern someone had painstakingly hand-traced from a magazine article, and photocopied the instructions, I’m guessing in the 90s if not 80s, allegedly based on a 19-aughts original. It’s also, by the way, the exact opposite of size-inclusive. I sewed up the largest size, which was intended for a 40-42” bust.

Inspiration: Random Pinterest photo with a broken source link.

So since I had that on hand, I used it. But, the pattern is designed for vertical pintucks and lace insertion as decoration, and I wanted the horizontal lace ruffle (bust improving) version.

TVE02

If I were buying a pattern, this Truly Victorian one would be the one. View A, right there.

My pattern is a little different as it goes below the waist and has gathering at the neckline as well, but the ruffle layout was the same.

I also wanted to take this opportunity, because I’m kind of messing around here, and the result won’t be visible, to use up some of the massive stash of questionable lace I’ve somehow accumulated.

Now, on digging through one of the bins of random white fabrics, I settled on a piece of stretch cotton sateen. The stretch is a bit unfortunate, but I already knew I wasn’t going for high historical accuracy here. It’s also a bit on the heavy side, but I figured that would be a bonus for the bust-volumizing I was going for. But most importantly, it was a tiny remnant that was just exactly big enough for a sleeveless pattern like this.

Of course, I didn’t begin diving through the lace stash until after I had cut out the main body pieces. Turns out the wider, ruffled laces I remembered were all beige, rather than white. And I really did not feel like gathering up a flat, nasty polyester lace for this purpose.

So, I wound up going with the nicest, and lightest coloured, of the off-white pre-ruffled lace. And this one is very pretty, not too nasty-feeling, and there was enough for the two ruffles I wanted, with very little left over. It’s a weird lace, with a ruffled top and bottom joined to a flat kind of connecting piece, but I think it will serve its purpose. And if I want to run ribbons through the joining I can.

If I had realized I would end up using the off-white lace before I had cut out the main fabric, I would probably have tried tea-dying the fabric to be a closer match. I might still try with the whole thing, after I test how the lace reacts to a tea dye. (Polyester won’t be affected but if it’s nylon it will take up the tea stain too and might end up even darker). But, I’ll survive either way. The binding I used for the neckline and armscye, and the drawstring casing at the waist, are all ivory, so the whole thing has a tone-on-tone vibe, in theory.

I REALLY wanted beading lace (the flat kind you thread a ribbon through) to finish off the neckline. However, that’s the one kind of lace I do not have in stash, and I just couldn’t make myself spring for the polyester stuff at Fabricland, even if the ruffled lace is already polyester. So I bound the neckline, then realized I had JUST enough lace left to do a third tier right at the neckline. Which solved the issue nicely.

A lil bit goofy all on its own.

Now, on looking at the finished creation, I think my lace might be just a little bit too wide. The ruffles are VERY full-bodied, even allowing for the part where the original inspirations are a little compressed after over a century.

In an attempt to tone them down a bit, I shortened the bottom row of lace, so that doesn’t reach all the way around to the side seam, as it just seemed to make the whole thing look huge.

I kept the pintucks in the back, but I think maybe they should have been 1/8” instead of 1/4” tucks. Also this is the only photo I got of the back, because obviously this piece is all about the front. This is the first time in a long time that I was working with a pattern with pre-marked tucks (as opposed to making the tucks before cutting out the pattern piece, or just doing some calculations and I have decided I much prefer marking my folds one at a time and measuring from each fold to the next. But also this fabric was a bit heavy for all those tucks.

I’m not 100% sure I’m in love with the below-the-waist ruffle created by the drawstring as it’s pretty pronounced in my heavy fabric, but I guess if I hate it I can cut it off later. It was on the pattern, and would be good to have if your skirt didn’t have an above-the-waist portion like mine.

While I’m not so sure I love the piece itself, I THINK I do like it with my skirt, and that it will work well for it’s intended bust-improving purpose. Part of me wants to take the entire bottom row of lace off, but I’ll leave it at least for now.

Because now I can make a blouse!

(Or. Y’know, make the twins that “Elsa mermaid” costume they’ve been desperate for since before Christmas.)

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February 9, 2023 · 9:25 pm

A long awaited party (dress)

Back in the day…

Way back in 2015, I started coordinating a little monthly get-together I like to call the Victorian Sewing Circle, based out of the Marr Residence, the Oldest House in Town* that the City operates as a sort of mini-museum. I was hoping to indulge my latent interest in historical costuming, meet some like-minded people, and give myself a venue to WEAR at least some historical stuff. Since the house was built in 1884, a mid 1880s outfit seemed like a good goal.

Inspiration dress

I picked an inspiration dress from a reproduction of the 1886 Bloomingdale’s catalogue, acquired a ridiculous amount of discount wool blend suiting in my favourite muted blue colour, and ordered two Truly Victorian patterns for the bodice and overskirt, TV462 and TV368.

I started work on the skirt in October of 2015. Later that winter, I got sidetracked and made a “quick and dirty” version to actually wear to our little meetups… and then my progress on the blue “good copy” slowed to an utter crawl. And then when I got pregnant early in 2019, it stalled completely. And what started as a planned hiatus of a year or so turned into three, and I didn’t dust things off until this past fall.

At which point pretty much every measurement on my body had gone up 4-5”. And the “quick and dirty” outfit (the first pic in this post) no longer even remotely fits, so making the blue version wearable became a lot more urgent.

I was pleasantly startled, actually, when I pulled everything out again, at how close to complete it actually was. The skirt just needed the waistband finalized. The bodice just needed boning—but it also no longer fit, and I had accidentally used a very rigid ticking for my underlining, which wasn’t ideal in any way. And (which I had completely forgotten), the overskirt was complete, just needing a way to connect the back tails to the front apron. And perhaps some trimmings.

New waistband, new waistband pleats

Adjusting the skirt wasn’t going to be a big deal—I had only basted on the waistband, and it needed length taken out at the top. I marked the new length on the front, basted and trimmed down to it, but then for the back I folded the extra down and just stitched the edge of the pleats to the waistband, so the seam allowance doesn’t add bulk to the waistband. This is a technique I’d read of in both historical sources and costuming articles, but never actually tried before. The transition from “seam allowance in” to “seam allowance out” is maybe not perfectly smooth, but every original Victorian skirt I’ve examined (which isn’t a high number, granted) had the most half-ass slapped on waistband, so I have a hard time being too fussy over it.

I had made a whole new corset, back at the end of summer, so all I had to do now was adjust the waistbands of both petticoats. For one petticoat this was no big deal as I had originally made it far too big and had to put in two large tucks in the waistband to make it fit. Ripping those out took about 30 seconds and it was good to go.

The second, on the other hand, was snug even when I first made it, and by the time I last wore it in 2019 I had already added a hair elastic looped through the buttonhole as a makeshift extender. But that no longer did the trick so the only option was to unpick the gathered back portion of the waistband and attach a substantial additional piece, then re-attach my painfully stroked gathers one by one, just spread out over a larger space.

It’s definitely an improvement though. I think even my hand-worked buttonhole is better, not that it’s a thing of great beauty.

And then there was the issue of the bodice.

I had steeled myself, frankly, to make a new bodice from scratch. The seams were only 1/2” and already somewhat frayed from a ridiculous amount of handling, and the rigid ticking underlining made the whole idea of altering just seem unpromising. I had enough fabric left over, just. But every time I went to start tracing out a new size of the pattern, a wave of exhaustion struck me.

I decided to try, just try, and see what happened if I let all of the back and side seams out as much as possible. Some of them, especially the waist, had been taken in quite a bit in my previous fitting adventure. And while 1/2” seams don’t allow for a lot of letting out, there are quite a few of them. I tried the bodice on again… it wasn’t enough. In particular, actually, the BACK just didn’t seem wide enough. Not at the waist, but the upper back, and there was still a stubborn 2” gap all along the front. I did toy with a plan where I could add a panel to the centre front, creating an “open jacket” look that is pretty common for the era. But the back still felt uncomfortably tight. If only I could just add more fabric, right at the centre back seam.

Well, why couldn’t I?

So I ripped open the CB seam, from just below the collar to about mid back. Try on. Rip a little further. Try on again. And lo and behold, after ripping it all open except for about 3” at the bottom, it closed in the front.

So I pulled out my scraps, cut a long, tapered spindle-shape, and set about stitching a panel into the back.

It’s not an ideal fix—it’s added some of its own fit issues and ripples, and makes boning the CB of the bodice difficult. But it’s also saved me an immense amount of work. Which these days, I’ll take.

My joy when the alterations actually allowed me to close the bodice!

After all that, all I had to do was add all the boning to the bodice, which I wound up doing by stitching the casings on by hand since my seam allowances were both narrow and quite irregular. Unfortunately, I also had to pull off the bias facing at the front hem to add the bones to my darts, because past me got ahead of herself in the finishing department. Mistakes like that played a huge role in why this damn thing took forever to make, by the way.

I swear in real life the hem looks symmetrical.

Anyway, the bones definitely help smooth out the look, though I might need to redo my buttons to get a truly smooth front. I’ll face that some other day.

After a fair bit of waffling, I decided to attach the tails to the overskirt apron the same way I did with my first version, with elastic loops and large buttons. It’s not historically accurate, but it’s easy, comfy, and highly adjustable.

And, at last, I finally got to wear it!

There are a few more tweaks that could be made. The back of the skirt, where I had omitted one of the overlay panels, looks a little plain. I’m not sure that my draping of the bodice tails or the back of the overskirt is finalized, and I do have some black tassel trim that might look good there.

But after a saga like this, wearable, in any degree, is a huge step forward. And for the first time in ages, I can actually say to myself “what’s next?”

(Actually, I finished this back in early December, so what’s next was the Edwardian skirt. But I really wanted some pictures that weren’t taken in my hallway. Thank you to my mom for digging out her good camera to take most of these, and for braving the technological minefields of iCloud and Dropbox to get them to me.) Next up… an Edwardian-style blouse to go with the skirt. Unless I get highjacked by one of my children, anyway…

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