Sewing Scot: 1870's undergarments

This weekend was all about undergarments for the ball next May.  I know, I'm starting very early and there's a few reasons for that.  This year I want to make both night and day time wear, which each involve some separate components, but I'll get to that.

The innermost foundation layer in any Victorian ensemble is, of course, the chemise.  I had loads, and I mean loads, of trouble with this pattern.  The only thing about it that was good was the yoke style.  For the chemise I used Simplicity 2890.

Last year's chemise, I recently found out, was supposed to have a front closure on it....which isn't there because I must have given up on reading the destructions, as always.  It has no closure, and is just a curved yoke around my shoulders.  It's a little big so I could hide it beneath the off-shoulder bodice.  The thing I didn't like about it were the sleeves.

I also used bias binding to finish the sleeves, good old tartan because I own a 50m roll, and why not?  As you can see on my gown last year it popped out.  It's not as bad as it may seem but I confess, despite my laziness I am a wee bit of a perfectionist.  This sleeve will forever annoy me in this picture...it's one of two things that do (the white lace is attached to the belt and I wanted it to sit a little further back than it does).  I'm getting carried away.

Back to this year.  I could use the same chemise......but why not make another one I know won't show (potentially)?  I swapped one simplicity pattern for another.  The one I chose to make this year has short sleeves, not puffed, and I made them quite short just to ensure no exposure.  It has a closure, although it's hard to miss on this pattern to be fair.

But my God, it's a terribly sized pattern.  patterns are always a little on the big side for me, despite me taking my measurements on a regular basis, but this one was ridiculous.  I wish I had a picture for how large the original was on me (no mock-up, I'm afraid).  I later found out if I'd simply Googled a review for this pattern I would have found this out a lot sooner....oops.

The yoke is meant to skim over the top of the shoulders, if we go by how it looks both on the drawing and the woman modelling it.  It went a few inches past the ends of my shoulders!!  And the main body...like I had decided to attach a bin liner to a yoke and wear it!  It made me laugh.

I couldn't tell how to fix it so that went in the bin.  Onto the next go and I fiddled around with the yoke.  Last year's pattern came out, I drafted a new yoke that incorporated what I liked about the new one and what had fit in the old one.  Still no luck...yokes went in the bin, panels remained intact.

Finally I decided to get the original yoke pattern and place it on myself to see what the problem was.  A few bits of folding here and there and I'd got it the way I wanted.  I used the folded paper to make a new yoke pattern, front and back.  Voila, solved.

I can live with a little bit too big, falling gracefully off my shoulders big.  It's not as well fitted as last year's one, so there's quite a lot more room; we'll see if that's a good thing or not.

However, I couldn't get through making this without one stupid mistake that was completely avoidable.  I cut the front opening too far.  I did it on the first one and thought I hadn't transferred the markings properly, but when I checked it turned out I had.  I may have made some alterations to the yoke, but the length at the front was kept intact.  However, due to some misstep the front yoke didn't go all the way down to the bottom of the opening, leaving a really annoying half an inch gap where there is raw material.

My only solution now is good old bias binding.  It won't look neat, but at least it'll cover the raw edges, and maybe make that front opening a little sturdier, because we all know what cotton lawn is like.

Bias binding attached to front opening raw edges

It is pinned to the mannequin at the shoulder seams.  Last year I let one side hang off the mannequin, but because of that flimsy front opening I didn't want to put any strain or weight on it.  It is very loose on my shoulders still, but that (hopefully) means that it won't be making an appearance over the top of my evening bodice.  Short sleeves should also disappear.  So overall success with the chemise, and no tartan bias binding in site.

Next....the bloomers!  I didn't make these last year and I can't remember why.  I had the pattern but for some reason didn't use it.  I might have thought it would make me too hot?  I honestly can't remember past-me logic.  This year, though, I'm tackling the bloomers.

The bloomers were a pretty simply pattern to follow, a front and back waistband, and the largest patter piece you've ever seen.  There's no using folded fabric here, it was opening out the entire piece of cotton lawn.

First is to add lace and hem.  I didn't have any lace to hand so I added pintucks to the bottom.  I confess I didn't transfer the pin tuck patterns but the instructions told you the gap between the first tuck and the hem so I worked it out from there and how big I wanted the tucks.  I really liked the graded effect on my regency petticoat, so I thought I'd try a little bit of a twist on that.  I measured how long the panels were and thought I could get a way with a few more.  After meticulously measuring out each of the 4 pintucks (bottom 2 at 1cm thick, the top 2 at 2cm thick) it was time to make legs.  Frustratingly despite my measuring, an unusual occurrence for me, the tucks didn't match at the seams!  I literally copied exactly what I did to one side to the other, yet the larger pintucks don't match at the seams.  Irritating.

Next was the waistband (I'll finish the seams one hand sewing afternoon).  I forgot to cut 4 of the back waistband so had to get the lawn out again.  That was easy to assemble, and then it was to gather the top of the legs to the bodice.  Overall these bloomers took my most of a 4 hour afternoon.  And not so shockingly enough they are huge!  I did measure the waistband before I made it up and it seemed as though it would fit alright, with a bit of room but I can live with that.  However the legs themselves are like balloons, or those short trouser things you see in 17th century paintings (can't think of the name).

My bloomers

I can also, potentially, deal with this since they're undergarments, but since they were so quick to make up I can always make another pair in case I can't live with them.

I was meant to begin tackling the corset, but after I'd finished the bloomers it was late afternoon and I didn't really see the point.  I had difficulty inserting the gussets on the mock-up and I want to take my time with the real one, so I'm spared that until next week!

Finished Ball undergaments!