And then on the 28th December 2020, I woke up to snow. Now, in the UK, annual snow is relatively normal, but it's usually January/February (although has been as late as March). I can't remember the last time we actually had a "white Christmas". A decade or more so ago, when I was living in Scotland where snow is more likely. Ever since moving to England, the snow game's been lacking.
The only thing "accurate" about this ensemble is the corded petticoat, which I'd always wanted to try my hand at, and the gown itself which is based from a fashion plate. The corset is modern based on historical examples (but not 1840s examples), the camisole is 21st century, and the petticoat is my experimental 18th century petticoat which is flatlined with stiff cotton organdie. A bit of a monster mash, really.
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| The appropriate reaction to 2020 |
The Making of...
This is the first time in my sewing career where I've tried to faithfully recreate a fashion plate. Obviously in my case "faithfully" should be taken with a pinch of salt because I can never seem to stick completely to the original, and my chosen area of divergence appears to be colour. With Gwen's dress I opted for blue instead of red, and for this ensemble I opted for red instead of yellow/gold.
If memory serves I think this fashion plate is supposed to be late 1840s (circa 1847/8), a period of fashion that is a bit different to that earlier in the decade. Notice the lack of fan front on the bodice, arguably quite an iconic and popular fashion of the 1840s and sometimes the 1850s. I like fan fronted gowns and fancied the challenge (I was glad I did).
It was a rather quick project to be honest as I already had a generic victorian evening bodice pattern I've used for other projects that I altered into a day bodice. The skirts in the 1840s are still straight panels pleated to the bodice, so no finicky skirt panels to wrestle with. The time consuming bit was the friggin' trim, which made me wish I'd gone for another 1840s gown I absolutely love (but couldn't find a cotton that really matched it).
One bit of the bodice did confuse me a bit and that was the shoulder seam placement. I thought it was right in the middle, but as I looked more at extant garments I realised a lot of them were more towards the back, reminiscent of earlier decades. But it was too late, I'd already cut out the bodice pieces, and it turns out that my later fudging made them more angled towards the front than back.
The base bodice was easy to put together. I was so repulsed by the thoughts of wrinkles in my bodice panels that I padstitched the fabric to the interlining for the first time in my life. The outer fabric, as I've stated previously, was a deep red, more of a claret, because I don't suit yellow. The interlining was the same tartan that I used for the extra panel of my corded petticoat. This project was also supposed to be my "Christmas Dickens fair but no fair to go to" getup, so the mix of dark red and tartan made it all the more Christmas-y (although I have no idea why). That was the easy part over.
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| Snug, I know. |
I draped the fan front and seem to have taken no pictures until I'd finished sewing it on and finishing the bottom edge of the bodice with my 2nd attempt at piping (it came out excellent this time). I was tempted to pipe the seams but just didn't fancy that much effort.
I did have some issues with the dropped/sloped shoulder thing the 1840s had going on. I actually kind of forgot about it until the last mock-up, and I don't think I managed to get it quite right, but oh well.
I really like the point on the bodice. It's quite a shallow one but I think definitely just makes this more 1840s. I'm quite picky with fan-fronted gowns because they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are tightly gathered at the bottom with only a few pleats out towards the top, some are hardly gathered and look quite baggy. Needless to say I like the more fitted ones, so I put in 3 rows of gathering up until under my bust. There's quite a lot of fabric in the gathered front. Perhaps there's a better way to do this, but I found just draping fabric on the bodice to be easier.
I also did something stupid in that I sewed the side seams together before attaching the fan-front, so the gathered front panel is attached more like an 18th century bodice is, in that the outer layer is prick-stitched to the lining. No one will ever notice.
Then it was onto trim. Oh...wait....sleeves.....
Yeah, these were the most half-assed sleeves I've ever done. Rather than dig out my nicely fitting 18th century long sleeves and fiddling with the pattern, I took some fabric and just made a tube that fit my arm, more or less.....Ok, so there was a bit more calculating involved, like measuring the distance from the sleeve cap to my wrist, and my underarm to wrist, but apart from that it is a straight sleeve.
Their only saving grace is that the cuffs are piped. But they'll do.
Anyway, trim. I bought the most velvet ribbon anyone has ever bought, in 3 different sizes, for this black trim. It could just as easily be strips of plain black material like cotton, but it's just easier buying ribbon, and velvet is about as Christmas-y as it comes.
I even bought a cute wee lace collar. I had to check the placement of the ribbons, and the width of each. The fashion plate has 4 groups of 3 rows on the bodice, and despite me not being shaped like an idealised Victorian woman I managed to get this without it looking awful. I stitched them down by hand because I needed to control and to manoevre the gathering of the bodice.
Ah, yeah, there's something I've neglected to mention about this bodice. It's front fastening. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you'll know I'm a bit anti-HA, but this decision was for once not motivated by rebellion. I've seen one front fastening 1840s gown, and if there's one then there must have been more. The 1840s is a decade of predominately back fastening gowns, but I don't have a husband or sewing friend to help me get in and out of things, and the dog's a prince so won't lift a paw, hence I need to be able to get in and out of things all by my lonesome. And I'm sure some women back then did as well! I was going to use hook and eye tape, but that didn't work out so well the last time, so I bit the bullet and went for sewing individual hooks and eyes, and i'm so glad I did because they're so much better. Spaced an inch apart, I ran out of the bigger sized ones near the bottom so had to go slightly smaller. I found I could do about 3/4 hooks or eyes with one length of thread. Overall, it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.
Then it was onto the skirt. I read a few other blogs on how wide the skirt needed to be as I was intending to cartridge pleat mine, even though it looks like the fashion plate it pleated. I think the figure I saw somewhere was 127", which equated to just under 3 panels of my fabric. I cut them all out, and added a pocket to the side seam ('cause pockets be awesome), and sewed them altogether but left the last seam. The reason for this was that I wanted to add the trim to the skirt whilst it was still flat (hoping I wouldn't come to regret it).
They were sitched on by machine, which had been another reason I'd added them before the skirt was fully constructed. Then it was on to cartridge pleating. I used some more tartan for the top, and then proceeded to kill my fingers for a few days trying to cartridge pleat the skirt to the bodice. According to Mrs Pitcher's Victorian Dressmaker book to attach the skirt to the bodice with cartride pleats to sew the cartride pleats just above the cord in the piping. My God was this difficult, do so at your own peril because this killed my fingers. It's so awkward because I couldn't find a way of pinning the pleats in place, so you're trying to sew them down straight, whilst holding them with one hand, getting the needle through the bias binding holding the cord, and through the top of the pleats so it can't be seen on the outside.....in other words, a small nightmare. I wish cartridge pleating wasn't so pretty.
I did a lot better with measuring with these cartridge pleats than my last attempt for my 1660s court gown.
After all that was done it was time for the finishing touched. Mainly the bows. I'll admit, I kind of f**ked up here and had to make some lemonade. I should've bought wider ribbon, but didn't, and also thought it'd be better if the bows were made of fancy ribbon rather than velvet, so I ordered some black satin ribbon with gold edging.
I now hate bows. I found that every one I was doing was different, and you know what, they all went on. I also didn't order enough ribbon and refused to buy more. Maybe one day.....
I hated making them so much I was tempted to leave them off the skirt completely, but decided it wouldn't match the fashion plate and caved.
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| Need to find myself a Victorian pamphlet instead of pretending to read sewing pattern instructions |
And then this project languished for the next 12 months. No joke. This is now the longest UFO I've ever completed. It was definitely the bows, they just took the fun out of it for me.
Anyway, fast forward to 2020, the year of the plague, and hence no Dickens Faire envy for me, but still, I decided I wanted to finish this project once and for all. It was practically done. I'd attached the hem facing at the bottom, and just needed to hand finish it on the inside, attach a few more rows of the velvet ribbon to the skirt, and decide what to do with the trim.
By this point I knew the bows were bad. The solution I came up with was to swap them out with velvet buttons. Buttons were bought, and they were still difficult to attach since they were shank buttons, but overall I preferred the look. And the ironic thing was that during my travels to find said velvet buttons, I actually found a seller who was selling ready made black bows, exactly like the ones I'd wanted to make. I bought a few of them just to see, and a part of me wishes I'd used them for the whole project, and the other part of me didn't want to spend any more money on the trim of this gown. I ended up going with buttons (of varying sizes) for all but 3 of the rows (at the bottom) where I attached the bows.
Final thoughts. This project might actually be in my top 5. I love the colour, I really like how the trim came out in the end, and it's really comfortable (my arms even have full range of motion). I can't actually find anything that is wrong with it, or that I'd do differently. Wow, this is unusual, ending a blog post without an endless list of things I'd change. I'd call that a successful project, even if it took me over a year to complete.
