Sew Honest: An 1870s First Bustle era day dress

See the post on my evening attire. This year I had planned enough time to make a completely separate daytime ensemble that I could wear to breakfast on the Sunday morning, and so it turned out for the rest of the day.

I have real problems with colour. I'm not colourblind, but I just don't understand which colours "go" together. I will put anything together, and I mean anything, I am not averse to a skirt and top of completely different prints. It's what I find so challenging about some Victorian ensembles where there is more than one colour to play with. For my evening gown it was easy because I started with the teal floral fabric and quite by accident I put a light blue cotton sample next to it and the lightbulb lit. I had no such luck with the daytime ensemble.

What's a lass to do? One option was to make the skirt and bodice out of the same colour. Boring (in my opinion unless it's trimmed to kingdom come, and we know how I felt about that). The second, and period accurate, would be to use the same colour but in different shades, like royal blue and light blue, purple and lavender, etc. As much as I think it looks nice, it presented its own kind of problem. What colour did I want in the first place?

I took to the fashion plates, as any good costumer does. If you can't match your colours then you can bet that the people who coloured those plates did.

The above is what I found. I love the dress on the right for several reasons, and it was almost on my bucket list of things to make, but instead of faffing around with that pattern I took the colours. Who knew? Green and purple go together really well. The strange thing was that I'd seen cottons that looked exactly the same as the plate. Klona cotton is a make of what I believe to be quilting cotton, and I'v worked it with it before on my atrocious 1880s skirt. I know how sturdy it is, so perfect for underskirt and mounting trim onto, not that it was in much danger of being overloaded by the lazy seamstress here.

Ice Frappe Klona cotton

goes nicely with Purple Klona cotton

So thanks to a fashion plate I had my colours.

I had 2 daytime designs, but only time to make one. The second, which is on my ever growing bucket list of projects, involves making a pinafore thing-y, like in the fashion plates below. I'm not quite sure if this is a separate sleeveless dress that slips over the bodice and skirt, or it's similar to the one later on in the natural form era when it's a dress with princess seams, but the sleeves and collar match the underskirt. I'll experiment when the time comes. The other was more similar to the TV polonaise pattern I'd bought so I used my hybrid evening bodice pattern and heightened the neckline. I wanted a square neckline on this as well, just not as revealing (hah!) as my evening one was meant to be.

Pinafore-y thing on the left

I can't remember if I made a mock-up of the daytime bodice. I definitely remember making some adjustments because of my sloping shoulders, and the height of the neckline, but can't remember doing that on muslin. I also can't find any pictures of a mock-up. Whoops. I was using the same bodice pattern as the evening one, it was just a matter of being generous with the neckline and then cutting.
There was one more design change on the polonaise that I wanted to try, and that was the two pointed end.

There are other ones similar that can be seen on my pinterest board. I should have drafted a pattern, but why do that when you can just cut once it's been made up? It worked, this time, but the points are too pointy, ironcally.

polonaising

One small issue I did have was the back. It's two pieces, a bodice back, and then a skirt attached to a waistband in the form of some twill tape and tacked onto the lining of the back bodice. I liked having the illusion of back tails from a bodice and a separate skirt, but for a while the little tails of the back didn't sit right, and it didn't help that I'd lined then in bright white cotton. My tacking stitches weren't very good wither because the lining was cotton lawn, not the strongest of fabrics, and the waistband had 2 layers of fabric and the weight of the polonaise, so I ended up doing tiny stitches all the way through the bodice. All of this was not helped by the fact that I didn't place it on straight and so in places it's quite crooked.

Testing trim

I spoke in my last post about flatlining the back panel of the polonaise. I used silk organza (more expensive) for the evening one, and I had heard so much about cotton organdy I had to try it with the day one. Holy hell is this stuff stiff! It made the entire ensemble hard to handle, and even harder to manoevre under the machine. I am blaming the organdy on the back panel for the awful way it went on, I swear the back panel can stand up by itself, but it did what it said on the tin, it kept those poufs in place, and even gave me the oomph I wanted out the back. What great stuff, it not a little unwieldy.

I was already decided on what I wanted to use for trim because as I have a lot of spare time trolling around on the internet I find things I can use for sewing, and trim is one of them. I have a lot of bookmarks for different projects, and whenever I'm casually looking I'll bookmark it to come back to when I'm actually completing the project in mind. That's what happened with the trim for the neckline. It is just yards of gathered chiffon, which I probably could have made myself with much fiddling and not nearly enough satisfaction. I was really chuffed with it as I thought it was perfect for the 1870s, at least in my mind.

The sleeves were a bit strange. I'm not entirely convinced I'm doing armholes correctly. I always, always have to widen them, just like I have to take in the bust on all patterns. I think it's because I'm not entirely sure where the armhole is meant to go. I know it's not meant to be right under your arm, but how far away from your armpit is it supposed to be? I probably should have googled this long before now...It is meant to be a smooth set-in sleeve, and can you believe this is the first sleeve I've ever done without gathers? In every project I've always gathered it, last year's Victorian ball, and with all of the regency stuff, it's just period appropriate, but with this polonaise the sleeves were meant to be smooth. Because I played around with the width of the armhole I was kind of afraid I had mucked the sleeve as well, but it turned out that it was only a few mm larger than the armhole. Thanks to Jennifer at historical sewing, I simply made a small tuck at the top of the shoulder, and voila, I had a smooth set-in sleeve.

The pattern's sleeves were those bell-shaped ones that are just dying to be dipped in tea or soup, and up until the last minute I was going to do them, but I really prefer a more tailored look. I love the 1870s, but there's something about the floufs and girliness that I just don't get on with, bell sleeves is one of them. They're nice to look at, but I am the Empress of practicality, hence the pockets in everything this year. I want to be able to eat and do what I like without my sleeves waving in everything. And besides, the cuffs of 1872-1875 are epic. I compromised and made a sleeve all of my own devising. Two rectangular pieces of cotton, sewn together, and then gathered once near the top and bottom and then attached to the sleeve.

Ok, ok, you got me. I wasn't clever, and believe it or not the cuff wasn't intentional. I have quite long arms, longer than average, and so I have to lengthen sleeves, which is normal. However I don't do mock-ups f sleeves, I simply lay the paper pattern on my arm, putting the top where it should go into the bodice and then see roughly how many inches I need to add on. Goodness, I can hear the tuts and head shakes from here. I know, there are plenty of easier ways, but you try to measure the length of your arm with no help. I do have one talent, and that's I'm able to, quite accurately, tell the length of something. It works great for hems. I look down, say that's roughly so many inches, and do you know I've not been wrong yet. I do check, of course, by pinning the hem first, but as I said, not been wrong yet.

Unfortunately my method of measuring sleeve length didn't pan out. I don't think I held the sleeve high enough on my arm because when I set it into the armhole it was too short. there were two possible solutions. Cut it to a 3/4 length sleeve, which I wasn't sure was quite as historically accurate for a day ensemble. Or...add a cuff! And I must admit, best decision I made. I loved this cuff to pieces, and it looked so good.

For the trim I bought some mint green satin ribbon and traced around the neckline, the same way I'd use it to cover the gathering stitches of the cuffs. This ended up being extended to around the hemline, which ended up working. I have to say I am a lot more proud of the day ensemble than the evening, because of those extra finishing touches.

The bodice was flatlined with cotton lawn, since I'm swimming in the stuff, and was boned on side and back seams, not the front darts because they were too narrow and it hadn't worked out with the evening one, and the pattern was the same on both. I also had the same issue with this belt as I had with the evening one in that I can't seem to take a measurement over garments properly, so it had to have an oriental style fastening at the back, which was ok because of the decoration.

This was my first real photoshoot outside of my home with anything I've made. I keep meaning to take a camera out one day and take photos of myself outside, but it's something I've either never had the inclination, clothes, or guts to do. It was really nice to give this ensemble the setting it deserved because this has got to be on of the favourite things I've ever made. A friend I met at the ball and I went around Bath after breakfast dressed in our Victorian clothes, and you know what, it was so fun. The incessant pictures were...unsettling, but I had expected that, even getting stopped and asking for a picture was acceptable. You can't stick out and not expect to get stopped every now and again.

But the cherry on top was that we went into this chocolate shop on the high street we hadn't had time to go into, but wanted to, and they were so impressed they gave us a 10% discount. Worth it!

And finally, the hat. I didn't make this, but it is from the very lovely Farthingale Historical Hats. I bought it when I was at TORM in March, and it just so happened to be purple. Don't you love it when things are meant to be?

Without further rambling here are pictures from sunny Bath in May of my First Bustle Era day gown.