This was a relatively quick project in the grand scheme of things. Jackets are usually easy to put together because there's not as much fabric flying around as with a full length gown.
This project definitely made me see the benefit of having suitable accessories for your outfits, they really just make them come to life. For this one I liberated my banished fichu which, despite having had it for at least 12 months, still isn't hemmed all the way round. I also used a black velvet choker because I forgot to make a more appropriate ribbon one, but they were still fashionable in the day. Finally I made my first cap with this printed white linen I bought ages ago, intending to make a fichu, but finding it too stiff. Perfect for a cap, and I managed to find near perfect lace to go with it. The pattern for the cap is, of course, the American duchess Guide to 18th century beauty.
I wore this over my pocket hoops (which are definitely too small, but they were just an experimental pair). I only wore one petticoat because I found wearing two made the hoops droop more, but I never got around to making a hoop cover so you can see the boning (a massive peeve of mine, but sod it). I wore my blue cotton/silk stockings that go perfectly with the discontinued powder/baby blue American Duchess Kensingtons.
The hair was a bit of a disaster. I'd intended to follow one of ADs tutorials, but realised I just couldn't do the one they have from the 1750s on myself, I just don't have the dexterity, even with the giant knitting needle to try and make the buckles. So I opted for a smoothed back look, over a small bumpit. I did three pleats at the back and looped them up, but as this was an on the spot decision I kind of fudged that too. My hair wins yet another battle.
It was horrible on the day I decided to take the photos, the worst kind of weather for these things: raining and windy. The rain was light at first, but the wind was vicious, and as everything is pretty light weight it was all flying about, I struggled to get a picture where my skirt wasn't Marilyn-Monroe-ing all over the place, and let's not mention the flimsy lace on my cap. The rain got so heavy I had to abort the shoot all together, with not nearly as many pics as I wanted.
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| WINDYYYYYYYYYYY |
And the shot you've really come here to see...
The making of...
I think this one may have come from some fabric I saw on my constant, unending hunt to make my fabric stash the biggest of any costumers.
As a lot of people know, yellow was quite popular in the 18th century and there are quite a lot of extant garments in museums that are this colour. I don't like yellow, I don't own one item of clothing in this colour, and I've never had the desire to. The other issue is that modern yellow, to me, is quite different from 18th century yellow, understandably. But as soon as I saw this fabric it yelled to me "18th century, 18th century now!". It was £12.50p/m, which I think is quite expensive as far as cottons go, so I was looking for minimal metres. What is 18th century and has less fabric use than a francaise of anglaise or anything in between? A pet en l'air. I could've made a caraco since I prefer them, but this fabric just said, "no, pet en l'air now!". I know, it was a very demanding fabric!
I also have plans to make a francaise later this year, or early 2020 for an event next summer. What better way to practice than to make a pet en l'air?
Then I had the trouble of figuring out what colour to put with it. As I've said multiple times in this blog over the years, I can't match colours, I just can't. Instead I use extant garments or fashion plates and just copy the colour palette. I pretty much did the same with this one.
Rather than buying new fabric though I wanted to use some of my stash cotton. These are 100% cottons that were either pretty so I bought them, or were ear marked for a project I haven't got around to doing in the last 5 years.
I already had my experimental hoops so I needed an under-petticoat (which I would usually make with white cotton/linen) and an over-petticoat which would be seen.
I've had this lovely turquoise cotton fabric for years, with the intentions of making it an 1860s skirt, but that was 4 years ago and it's still sitting there. Might as well use it for something else. It's an easily replacable fabric since I've seen many fabric shops stock it because it's cotton, so I wasn't really losing anything if I did end up ever making that 1860s skirt. That was the under-petticoat sorted, now the outer one. Then I remembered this pic from the Bath Fashion Museum.
This is a yellow brocade francaise. I'm not sure if the pink petticoat is extant to the garment, but it's a really nice colour combination, so that's what I went for. I ended up finding this really nice shade of cotton I think they called lotus (I know, I did end up buying fabric). It's more purple than pink, but I still think it goes well. After a few back and forths about which colour would be outer and inner I ended up staying with the lotus as the outer.
Then I set to drafting the petticoat pattern. I've fitted skirts over a split-bum before, but pocket hoops are a whole different beast. I busted out my American Duchess guide and followed the instructions, machine sewing but felling the seams by hand (I know, I'm evolving). Thankfully the fabric was wide enough that I could just use full panels, which made finishing the seams a lot easier.
I pleated it to the waistband by eye, so uneven. I was also hoping that I could perhaps use this as an outer petticoat someday if I wanted, so versatility was key. After stabbing myself multiple times with the pins holding the pleats in place I finally got it to fit.
I attached the waistband which is this weird polyester white ribbon stuff that I mistakenly thought was cotton herringbone tape which I use as a waist stay on corsets, but is very much not. I have an entire roll of it so may as well use it up somehow.
I fiddled with the length a bit and ended up taking up a lot of fabric so will need to factor that in for the lotus cotton.
I managed to make up the lotus cotton petticoat quite quickly, minus having to wait for some cotton tape to use as drawstrings at the waist. I did have a slight problem in that I didn't have enough fabric, and by this I mean I was literally short 6" of fabric. I know, when does that happen. I wasn't buying another metre just for 6" so I pieced, but it was still lopsided. I decided I'd just cover it with a white organza ruffle.
Then I tried them both on and realised a problem.
Two cotton poplin petticoats were too heavy for my hoops. They just seemed to flatten a bit. I didn't take any pictures of this step, so sorry about that. Oh well, I'm sure the turquoise cotton petticoat will come in handy one day.
Then it was onto patterning the Pet en l'air itself. I have little to no pictures of this step because I'm lazy. So I'll briefly explain it.
I used the pattern from my other 18th century jacket, my white floral Pierrot, and tweaked it a bit. Cutting out some of the back for the adjustable ties that are usually inside a sack-back gown, and trimmed down the front so it would be worn with a stomacher.
After I was satisfied I made the mistake of cutting out the lining in cotton lawn because I'm still swimming in the stuff. From now on I'll definitely use cotton poplin as the lawn is, predictably, a bit flimsy.
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| Small tip: don't use satin ribbon as ties, you'll forever be re-tying them. |
Once the lining was fitted it was onto the exciting part. The Watteu pleats at the back. Referring to the American Duchess guide, but more heavily on Enchanted Rose Costume's youtube channel, I fiddled with the pleats on a bit of an off day. I wasn't feeling great and my mood was rock bottom (ah, the stresses of doing a PhD), and I decided to have a go just to do something to take my mind off of things. As a result I took very few pictures.
AD suggests a minimum of 2m to pleat down at the back, but advised more like 2.5m. Not wanting to fell a few seams I used 2 full widths of the fabric, which added up to just under 2.5m. In hindsight this was too much. It looks nice and all, but I had major issues pleating all of that down to the narrow space between the shoulder straps.
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| attempt #3 |
Turns out I f*cked up! It's not major, but is certainly very silly, and my own fault. I didn't mark on the strap pattern piece which side was the neck. You can probably guess what happened. That's right, I put the straps on the wrong way, so the straight neck side was now at the arm, and the curved arm was now at the neckline. Oops.
That was probably why the space between the straps was unnusually thin. Either that or 2.5m of fabric is just genuinely too much to pleat down for a pet en l'air. The fabric was also quite thick, and the pleats were huge just to make it watteu pleats. I was worried for the lining, which I thougbt would truggle holding the weight, so reinforced the back of the top panel. There's between 4 and 5 layers of fabric just at that back portion, so it's a very thicc garment.
Before I did the back, I obviously attached the fashion fabric to the front panel. Remember this step, it'll come and bite me on the arse later.
Anyway, after much fiddling I had my pleats. I read somewhere, probably AD, that earlier in the century pleats were wider and then later on they became thinner. The pleats definitely spill onto where the shoulder strap seam was, which obviously meant if I had to do adjustment I'd have to do it at the front strap instead. I know, palying with fire.
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| The final pleats, all stitched down |
For Watteu pleats you're meant to sitch them down for about 4 inches from the top, but I don't particularly like that look, so I think I stitched them down for 2". I also wasn't sure about what to do with the excess fabric. Should there have even been any? By excess fabric I mean that white strip (which is the selvadge) which was wider than my shoulder blades. I suppose I didn't end up pleating the entire width down anyway.
Following Enchanted Rose's thoughts about her project, she saids he wished she'd put the seam between front and back a bit further under her arm. Ironically, I did this but think I should've ended it further back, where she did her own. Because I had this flap of fabric in the skirt. In hindsight I should've just cut it off straight, but I kept it thinking it would make up part of the skirt panel over the hoops.
Folks, just cut it off. When you pin the edges of the back panel to the lining, just keep it going straight down, don't leave a stupid flap of fabric hanging about. It'll annoy you later.
Now, that warning from earlier. Look at the pic below and tell me what you think is wrong.
It took me a few days to notice. Arguably there isn't anything wrong, but to me that front opening was too wide. In other words I'd been too scissor happy with cutting the front panel. In my opinion, the opening for the stomacher should be narrower than that.
What did I do? I frankenstein monster'd that bitch.
I had quite a lof of excess fabric, I'm talking enough fabric left over to make another one, which meant I had the flexibility of re-patterning the front panel and re-cutting the fasion fabric. To extend the lining I just cut a strip of white cotton lawn and pieced it together.
Possibly still a bit wide, but I ended up adjusting the ties at the back and it made it all better.
With all that done it was time to move onto the skirt, which proved a bit of bother. For those unfamiliar, you need to add a gore to the skirt so it'll go nicely over the hoops. Problem was I found that my gore just wasn't wide enough, so had to piece one together from some scraps of fabric. I made it work.
But it took me 3 or 4 attempts, and I couldn't wrap my head around the AD instructions about it, so fudged over it. It was only after I'd stitched everything in place that I suddenly remembered about the Enchanted Rose Costuming series. What a noob.
I finally managed to get it sitting nicely! Then I stitched it all down by hand because I'd made that much of a dog's dinner of the whole thing I needed max. control.
Then it was onto sleevils....but wait.....these weren't sleevils at all. In fact, these have to be the easiest, most agreeable sleeves I've ever sewn into a garment. I don't know what happened.
I patterned the sleeves, made a mock-up and they were practically spot on. It only took my 2 mock-ups to get the final pattern.
I cut out the lining and yellow cotton (which I did upside down, btw, but just decided to roll with it), and set the first sleeve in with no problems whatsoever.
It made me nervous.
The second sleeve wasn't so great, but it was more to do with how I'd lined up the sleeve and the pleating arrangement, but after faffing about I managed to get it, and both looked awesome, and what was more, I actually had full motion of my arms!! I can't tell you how many of these costumes I can't actually properly move my arms....
It was only when I was adding the shoulder straps that I realised what I'd done with the lining. So the scissors came out and I fiddled with them to make the neckline better. Rest assured, I've now marked on the pattern which side is the neck side...
All that was left to do was hem and trim. Now, trimming is a bit of an issue for me, not beacuse I dislike it, but because I'm lazy. However, I was willing to go the distance for this beautiful SOB. I was planning to go with trim similar to this blue brocade one.
But two things. It was common for self-fabric trim on silks to be pinked, this wasn't the case for cotton. Most of the extant printed cotton garments I've seen don't have trim at all.
I trimmed my Pierrot in pinked cotton trim, but that was before I knew it wasn't appropriate. I tried out a few ways for trim.
I was going to get two strips of fabric, sew them right sides together, then flip them inside out, so make a tube of fabric that I could box pleat, like the above. No pinking involved.
But when I did the box pleats they looked so clumsy, granted they weren't as delicate as the garment above, but that was because sandwiching two layers of cotton together made it very thick.
I gave up and the pinking shears came out. Down with the HA!!
Even the pinked strip didn't look right box pleated. My original idea had actually been to use ruched trim, i.e. row of gathering at top and bottom, and in the end this looked better.
Using scraps I sewed strips together to get one long, snake strip which I'd have to gether to fit the neckline. About 1/3 of the way into gathering I tested it on the neckline, and do you know what? It wasn't doing anything. In fact, it looked kinda weird.
It was ashame as I'd gathered quite a lot of finicky wee strips, but glad that I probably already had enough to do the cuffs, which did look good, without cutting or gathering anymore fabric.
