Sewing Scot: Regency wear

September has come, and as the Starks so correctly say Winter is Coming, but what have I been doing since my jaunt to Bath all the way back in May?

Immediately proceeding the completion and debut of the Butterfly dress I took a hands-off approach to sewing in that I did none.  All of the build up, and the endless weekends and some evenings after work sewing, it was time for a break.  I can't remember how long that break lasted, a week, maybe more.  Before the ball in May I'd already begun to have ideas for next year's!

According to my published list, the next project on my sewing agenda for 2016 was a regency outfit.  By regency, I mean the broad style stretching from the 1790s to 1820-ish.  The Empire waisted dresses in floaty material that everyone loves picking apart or admiring on our Jane Austen & co. adaptations.

First thing's first, a good old chemise.  I've been kind of swimming in cotton lawn for the last few months, and I don't really know why.  Metres and metres of the stuff was being purchased, and it's hard to keep track on the reason.  First was the regency chemise.  From extant examples that I've seen the square neckline continues from the chemises of the earlier 18th century.

The pattern I used was Laughing Moon 115, regency chemise & corset.  There is two options, a high and low neck line, and I went for low....because you're only young once.  Making it up was quick, and a side note I really hate underarm gussets.  I hated them last year with my 1860s chemise, and I hate them with my regency one; they're just so finicky.  I did fare better with this one than I remember doing with the last one, so silver linings.  I did have minor issues with the bias binding around the neckline.  Because it is square, there are right-angles on the corner, and I wasn't sure what the best method to attach the binding was.  One; treat each edge separately with a length of binding, or two; try and mold the binding around the corners.  I did both....yeah, that's how I roll.  Lesson learned, you use one length of bias binding for the whole thing.

I don't have a close-up, which is probably just as well.  I finished off the neckline with green ribbon to draw it tighter.  I even finished the seams!!  I'm growing into a real seamstress now.

Next was the regency short corset.  I said in another of my posts that I wanted to do a comparison between two corsets, both short ones as the long ones are too long, and all that cording, blegh!  I used Nehelenia's Regency short stays pattern, without tabs (wish I'd used tabs though).  The pattern calls for coutil, which isn't particularly time-accurate, but relieves the need for cording.  It was really easy to sew together, and I lined it with white cotton.  I used spiral steel boning to support the hand-bound eyelets on the front closing (no metal grommets for me).  I'm still impressed by the quality of these stays, they're completely finished, and so far they've been the best thing I've made.

Except they don't quite fit right.  This is happening to me in everything Regency I make.  I don't know what it is, whether my body is weird or what, but at the back of the armhole, just below where the strap meets the back bodice, there's gaping.  I didn't notice it when I fitted this corset, which is wildly annoying since coutil is stiff as hell, and so just pushes out anything that covers it.  Considering how quick they were to make I'll probably just whip up another pair and fix this problem ('cause too lazy to unpick the finished one seeing how proud I am of it).  Perhaps with tabs, although binding them will be annoying.  Either that, or making up the one that comes with the laughing moon pattern......with cording.......*cries*.  I do have cotton sateen, which I ordered specifically for this, but the thought of all that cording, even by machine, just makes me cry out for coutil, which is saying something because I hate that sh** too.

Moving on.  Next came the petticoat.  For anyone thinking of buying one, or making one, I recommend you do one of two things.  If you intend to line your gown, use a non-bodiced (is that the word) petticoat, like the following example.

Honestly, I didn't know you could do this because I hadn't researched properly, but you can now avoid my mistake.  I now need to make one of these....more cotton lawn please.

The second option is to not line your bodice, but use a bodiced petticoat, like the one I made.  Unfortunately, and quite unlike me, I followed the pattern instructions to the letter with my gown, hence why there's a good few layers covering my chest,  More on that later.

I made a bodiced petticoat, part of the Laughing Moon range.  In the pattern it calls for a back opening, but since I have no maids I changed it, barely, to a front opening.  I still haven't got around to putting buttons on it yet, and so it's just pinned in place.

I swear it does close centre front, but it's gaping because I still have the fake non-movable boobs
on the mannequin

Yes, it even has pintucks (right?) at the bottom.  They're all meant to be the same size, but due to various inconsistencies with the way I made it, I ended up making a gradient effect, which I thought was cooler.  I have a feeling that my petticoat, despite my best attempts, is too long, so I may have to adjust this in the future.  The back is pleated rather than gathered because I didn't want too much bulk on my behind, at least not from a petticoat.

Now we come onto the gown.  This is Sense & Sensibility elegant ladies closet, and it has every variation of gown (except bib front) that you'd ever want for making a late 1790s gown.  I've had this lovely cotton lawn (i know, i'm obsessed) saved in my bookmarks for years now, knowing it would look great as a regency gown, and it didn't disappoint.  It's my first time working with a patterned fabric, but the pattern is so small there was no need for pattern matching (ok, maybe I should have but I've not gotten to that stage of my development yet).

I made the high round gathered neck and empire waist one with this fabric, although I know where there's more.  I gathered it from side seam to side seam due to the gathering at the front as well, however in my next gown I'm only going to gather between centre back seams, as is also period accurate.

complete with more green ribbon at the waistline

Gathered poof sleeves, which are a little too tight on the arm because I thought they were longer and fitted to the wrong part of my arm, but they'll do considering I made this gown to go under an over-gown.

I can chose different ribbon colours

It does have a bit of a train, but I was worried that it wasn't going to be long enough because, as always, I forgot to measure the pattern size for length.  So it has a small seam allowance at the waistline, and a narrow hem.

With loops at the back for the ribbon

How the dress gathers at the front is that you put binding around the raw seam at the waistline all the way around.  You attach the top of the binding to the bodice front, from side seam to side seam, then run a ribbon or string through it.  The ribbon comes through a small whole in the side seam (that I put too high up due to miscalculating the seam allowance on the waistline to make up for the short hem incident).

The mistake.  The ribbon is meant to come out just above the seam of the bodice and skirt.

It's wearable though, and ever since the gaping-at-the-back incident with the corset, I fixed it with everything else I made.  I did make this gown to be worn on it's own, but I also had the intentions of putting in under a regency over-robe, the pattern of which I was going to scale from Janet Arnold's set of books.  That's looking like too advanced an option for lil' old me, especially since my deadline for making regency period clothing is looming, as is the victorian ball next year, and so I'll draft it from the pattern of the dress.

In the midst of all of this I managed to make a victorian chemise for the ball next year, and my goodness what trouble I had with that.  A separate post of my whining will be coming to a screen near you soon.

For the meantime here's a sneak peak of my next regency project.

I know, it's so red!