I haven't made anything non-historical since my first ever project; my fantasy Italian renaissance dress. It currently sits in my wardrobe at my parent's house, but I will have to take proper pictures of it because I still love it to this day. Don't get me wrong, the seams aren't finished, and its completely poly (apart from the cotton velvet bodice). I miss fantasy, and do you know why? Because you can use friggin anything!!
I love historical costuming, believe me I wouldn't sew half of my projects if I didn't, but sometimes it's just so annoying. Because I try to be historically accurate it means that nice fabric gets looked over because it's not 100% natural fibre. I have a growing bookmark list full of polys and poly mixes of the most beautiful fabric just waiting to be bought, but can't be because they're not HA. Well, after my 80% accurate regency spencer (which I think I may have put in the bin), I decided that the next project on the list this year was a fantasy gown I've been thinking about for months.
You're probably wondering at the name of this project. Baldoch (pronounced the Scottish way, please, Bahl-dochhh, like Loch), to my knowledge, is fictional (there is a place in Kent, but it's spelled differently). It is a made-up kingdom that I created in one of my short lived story ideas (the plot was weak and the storyline outplayed), but the idea of the gown remained. I wanted a flow-y dress made of layers and layers of chiffon, with a train that dragged out when I walked, and bishop style (although I hear the youths of today are calling it balloon) sleeves. So I set to work in what is probably the most unplanned project in any sewer's list.
The Making of...
I started out with the best of intentions. I wanted to start learning how to draft my own patterns, and I remembered that one of my books has a section at the beginning that shows you how to draft basic bodice, skirt, sleeve, and trouser patterns. I looked at the bodice and thought why would I draft it from scratch when the pattern I drafted for the Victorian Ball 2017 was exactly what I wanted? I was torn with the skirt. I knew I needed a panelled skirt if I wanted the volume at the hem with no bulk at the waist, and I ended up digging out both my 1860s and 1870s skirt patterns. In the end I drafted one completely from scratch, using the very helpful instructions in the book.
Now, as you may or may not know, I have 2 degrees in statistics, two, and I'm going to be starting a 3rd (a PhD - I know, I'm insane). Taking all that into consideration do you think I could half my waist measurement? Absolutely not. What made it worse was that it took me a week, and a fully drafted skirt pattern, to realise I'd not managed to successfully divide a number by 2. Yet, somehow, despite the spectacular brain malfunction, the completed skirt is still too big! How...just how?! Numbers don't work the same way in costuming as they do in real life! Needless to say, I'm glad whatever happened did because it meant I didn't have to back to the drawing board - literally.
Fabric was actually quite hard because I didn't know what colour scheme I wanted. If you read this blog a lot you probably know I have issues with colours. I'm not colour blind or anything I just don't know what colours go together. For my first bustle era day ensemble I had to copy the colour scheme from a fashion plate, something I will no doubt repeat in the future. I knew I wanted chiffon for the skirts solely because of the drape and flow-iness, but there are different kinds of chiffon. It's meant to be sheer, but I've seen a few that are quite opaque. The other bad thing about poly is that everywhere does it. Usually I have a select few suppliers that stock HA fabrics, but every fabric shop in existence stocks poly. I still stuck to the usual suspects. I also decided I wanted a tonal effect, if that's how you put it. Because chiffon is see-through to an extent I wanted to create a kind of marbl-y effect through the layers.
The first layer was actually a purple poly crepe, just to make sure that no one was seeing what was underneath the skirts. The next layer was a lovely, yet thick, lilac chiffon. This chiffon was strange as it acted more like a Georgette in that it wasn't shiny, and it was barely see through. I didn't really need to use the crepe lining but I did anyway. The next layer was a bottle green chiffon I got from a shop on Ebay I'd never used before. I couldn't find the right green at any of my suppliers so took to Ebay. It was completely different quality from the lilac. It was labelled as bridal chiffon, and it was shiny with a little crunch, and was practically see-through. I wasn't that impressed with it, but I liked the colour so I cracked on.
Let this be a lesson to anyone reading. When drafting your own pattern I recommend writing instructions on how to assemble it. I can hear the snickers of derision from here, but I didn't do this because it's a dress, with two pieces that go together, how hard can it be? It wasn't to be honest, except that I forgot about the layers of the skirt. Another foolish thing I did when cutting out the skirt panels was making them all different widths, and this was because all 3 fabrics were different widths, and because I was lazy, and knew I wanted the skirt pleated to the bodice, just used one width by the desired length. I thought it would be a pain in the arse to put all three panels together and pleat them as one, so I attached the lining to the bodice first, pleating to fit. Have you seen the problem yet?
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| The mistake |
The crepe layer was attached, and I was drowning in metres of chiffon. My solution was to hem both top and bottom of the remaining panels, and then attach them on top. This would create a lot of bulk, so I kind of planned to grade them, with the top most layer hiding the very visible seam of the middle one. The order was, crepe as the base, lilac as the inter-layer, and then the bottle green on the top.
I had attached the lilac layer with semi-visible blue thread, and it was looking good. Then when I went to drape the green layer on I stopped.
It ruined it. The green layer just muted the vibrancy of the lilac and made the whole thing....well....meh. Not to mention, because I was planning on covering the lilac layer I hadn't measured the pleats, and they weren't even in the same place on either side of the front!
What was I going to do? I had cut and hemmed this nightmare chiffon layer, and couldn't bear the thought of not using it. One seam hadn't been sewn up yet, so I thought of making it like a detachable train, then realised I hadn't sewed up the CB, the longest piece. Ugh.
So I made lemonade again. I took inspiration from the regency era. I read somewhere on a pattern (think it might be S&S) that some empire gowns were only pleaded between the curved side back seams. The bodice had these as well, so I did the same thing with this skirt.
I also made it so the skirt didn't go all the way round, leaving the bright lilac on show in the front. I was satisfied, considering what a disaster this project was already turning into.
One more note about the lilac skirt is that I faced the hem. I couldn't quite get away from historical costuming, but there is a reason for this. I faced it with bias binding all the way round, but corded the back panel. I wanted the skirt to pull out behind me, and thought adding the cord would weigh it down, thereby dragging behind me. To make matters worse because I thought I was going to cover it the binding is that tartan I can't seem to finish and have used on most of my projects since the beginning of time, and obviously the cord makes the hem look a little weird as well. Oh well, we live and learn.
Let's move onto the bodice. This was another weird one. As I stated above I used the pattern from my first bustle era ensemble made for the Victorian Ball 2017. I knew it fitted me perfectly over a corset (which I was wearing with this dress anyway), so I used it. The first thing that went wrong was the waistline. For some reason it lost a few inches in the process of transferring it from the Victorian pattern to its own one. This dress is meant to be at the natural waistline, but you can see it's crept up an inch or two, not that it's a bad thing, I suit that as well (just not empire, please, God, not empire waistlines). But considering I made a mock up of it anyway, was surprising. I even added a seam allowance to the bottom! I suppose this is what happens when you don't plan anything.
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| Mock-up |
It was also a bit** to get the scissors through. The gold vines are this strange golden embroidery thread I've used before, kind of like imitation thread of gold, not really sure if it has a name and what that name is. It was also bejewelled, and because the pattern pieces sometimes rested on these jewels I had to hack them off, and for anyone who was worked with poly velvet will know how painful this can be.
It was thin fabric, and in hindsight I should have flat lined it instead of just lining it, but oops, I didn't. Can't remember what my logic for not doing it was. I bag-lined it (is that the term?) with blue marble-y effect cotton I had in the stash. That's what you can see poking from the arm holes.
For once the lining actually fit perfectly to the bodice, so I took this small victory. There are no bones in this, because CBA, and this dress was meant to be flowy and delicate, so bones would have been a little counter-productive.
I made the sleeves of the lilac chiffon, and was going to put cuffs at the wrist, but then CBA with that, so ended up hemming them and putting a ribbon through as a drawstring. Finished with lovely etched aglets that I've always wanted to use.
This was my last project in my old sewing room as I moved house a few weeks after completion. As people reading this blog will probably have seen or know about the other costuming blogs out there, they always have really cool photoshoots, and for years I've been planning to have one. I had the perfect location, but no suitable camera, and buying it was put off and put off, so it took me 2 years to actually photo this project on me. I am wearing my natural form era corset underneath.
