1880s Gold Bustle dress – All done!

In my two previous posts, I shared the progress of making an 1880’s gold/black bustle dress.

I’ve had the gold fabric for this dress for a while. The occasion to finally make this was a private anniversary in the U.K. to which I was graciously invited. There were a couple of days, all in the ‘Victorian bustle’ theme, so it was the perfect reason to make a new garment. The event was lovely, and I really loved wearing this new dress. As always, I have some small things I want to fix already (mostly necklines which wanted to gap open a little), but overall I’m really happy with how it turned out. This fabric was a joy to work with and wear.

Thanks to Serena and Melchior for taking some pictures for me!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

It was originally inspired by this dress from the MET:

MET museum Evening dressca. 1880 Wechsler & Abraham 

I changed the underskirt to better suit my taste and fabric stash, inspired by the design of this dress:

NGV. Day dress (c. 1883) ENGLAND Medium silk, cotton lace, metal Accession Number 1411.a-b-D5

And I added a ballgown bodice based mostly on this existent one;

“Evening dress, 1886-87. Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

1880s Gold Bustle dress – Bodices

With the skirt post done, it’s time to move to the bodices of the gold 1880s dress! I started the evening bodice after making the train base, and worked on the skirt/bodice interchangeably. I also planned the ball bodice at that time, but as this project had a deadline, I did finish the full evening version of this outfit first before starting on the ball version. In the end, I had enough time to finish both!

I used the Truly Victorian TV462 tail bodice as my base. Interestingly, the current cover of this bodice includes a keyhole neckline exactly like my target dress, but my pattern doesn’t have that image on the front, and neither does it have the keyhole on the pattern. It might be that I have an older version, but it meant I ended up drawing the neckline on me by myself. I also changed the back, removing the pleats. As TV patterns tend to fit me reasonably well, I made the mock-up out of the black cotton I also planned to use for the lining. After fitting, I cut the silk, flatlined all the pieces, and did the main construction aside from darts and side seams. The darts I did while fitting another time. The side seams I waited with until after I finished the bottom. This way, it’s easier to let out in the future if I want to, a theatre trick I learned from one of Redthreaded’s videos.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I marked the keyhole neckline first when fitting, and then used a silk facing piece in the exact shape. This was sewn on right sides together, the neckline was cut out (this was scary!), the facing flipped to the wrong side and stitched down. I have no clue if this is a period way to do it, but it worked for me. I decided on a facing rather than bias tape because of the sharp corner, and I like how that turned out.

• 

• 

• 

The next step was finishing the bottom! I made my own piping by stitching a cord into a bias strip, and sewed this to the bottom fronts and back. After this was done, I could finally finish the side seam. It was a bit odd for me to use this order of sewing, as I’m so used to construction first, finishing edges second, but I do like the size flexibility it gives! The next step after this was to add the collar, and finish the neckline like that.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The original garment has a lot of self-fabric covered buttons, and I decided I wanted the smallest ones possible. Of course, this meant covering a lot of little buttons, which was fiddly at best… The official mold for these self-covered buttons didn’t work too well with this small size (I’ve used it for larger versions without problem). So I ended up running a gathering thread (by hand) around the edge of the fabric to pull it in tight around the button that way. I do really like the look of the finished buttons!

• 

• 

The final steps were button holes (sewn by hand, as I do really prefer that look), and to sew on the pearl trim. I decided to go with a plastic, pre-made pearl string. The original has very tiny pearls, and given the deadline I decided to not find individual pearl beads and string them. You can see the difference up really close, but I called this a ‘good enough’. I can always go and change the trim later if it does bother me in the future.

• 

And then it was time for the ballgown bodice! I designed this in photoshop based on some originals. My main concerns were: have some black; but the black should be removable if I ever want to wear this with a different underskirt. I ended up deciding to do a ruched black panel on top of a gold base. If I really want to change it up, I need to unpick some trim, but not deconstruct the entire thing.

For the pattern, I went with the adapted version of the evening bodice. As I tend to make any adaptations directly on my mock-up, I just traced pattern pieces from the bodice directly. Then I could cut the flatlining (white cotton) and silk fabric! Again, I fitted it again after flatlining and basic construction, and pinned the darts directly on the body.

• 

• 

• 

• 

With the base done (I finished the neckline with bias tape), I could create the draped pieces. I did delay the center front and shoulder seams, as I wanted to make the trim disappear inside them. In the end, this didn’t actually work for the center front, as the ruched piece will go on top. I cut the basic shape for the draping out of cotton first, and then experimented with increasing the width to get the gathers. I cut two pieces of this, and draped it on the bodice, pinning it down in strategic places to get the folds to lay nicely.

• 

• 

• 

• 

For the black ruched piece, I followed a similar strategy, cutting it out of cotton first, widening it so it could be gathered up, and then cutting and gathering the black silk. This panel was finished by turning in all the edges, and stitched on top of the bodice beneath the gathered pieces. (I made the gathered pieces first to determine the size of the black panel, but I did stitch on the black panel first, as it goes below the other one)

• 

• 

• 

• 

To finish the bodice, I hand sewed eyelets around boning in the center back, and I finished the bottom with piping. There are a couple of boning pieces inside, the most important one which is in the front, as it keeps the center front point from flipping up. I also added very small gold sleeves (which I didn’t take pictures of…)

• 

• 

• 

And then it was time for final touches, the bows! I found a tutorial for fabric bows here. Basically, you create one long ribbon strip, and loop this to get a bow with two loops on either side and tails. I ended up using a bit of organza ribbon to go around the bow and tie it together. I originally planned on just having bows on the sleeve heads, but I also added one to the bottom of the gathered pieces, and I am really happy with how that looked!

• 

• 

And then the whole ensemble was finished, with an evening version with long sleeves and train, and a ball version with short sleeves and train bustled up! Some pictures of the final ensemble on me and about the event will follow in a future post!

1880s Evening gown – Skirts

And then suddenly over 2 months have passed without a post!

I the meantime I have been working on the gold 1880s dress project that I talked about last time. In fact, I’ve now finished it, so time for some catching up. In this post, about the skirts!

I started this project with the train. Not because that made most sense per se, but because I knew it’d take the most fabric, and I wanted to make sure how much I’d have left.

I used the TV Butterfly Train pattern, in the shorter version. I cut the fabric on my living room floor, as it’s the biggest in the house and actually allowed me to lay out the pattern fully. I chose to slightly piece it to save on fabric. With the pleating in the train, it will be nearly impossible to spot when it is worn anyway.

• 

• 

Cutting on the floor (spot the cut lines!) and piecing in the corner

I cut the silk, and seamed all the pieces together. Then I did the same thing with the lining. I chose to line it out of plain black cotton. While black isn’t the most historical lining fabric, I knew I’d wear this with a black underskirt and I wanted it to be the same in case the train flips over and you see the inside. It’s a bit less conspicuous this way.

Construction was extremely simple. It’s bag lined, so lining and silk sewn right sides together and flipped inside out. Then the two sides were pleated up, and the top left and top right part were attached to the waistband. The top center is finished by turning the edges in, and then it is pleated up from the center and attached to the center of the waistband. This creates the ‘butterfly’ effect like poof that the train is named after.

• 

• 

Laying the silk on the cotton lining to pin it in place for the bag lining & a top view of the pleats attached to the little waistband piece.

The train has its own waistband which hooks unto the overskirt (as that needs to close center back, so under the train). I also tried out some methods to bustle up the train, as I also want to be able to dance in this dress. Eventually, I settled on attaching one ribbon center back, with two button holes. There are buttons lower on the train to button it up. Then on the sides, I attached ties, as well as a bit further down towards the center. These tie to each-other to bring up the sides. It shows a little bit of the black lining when bustled up, but I don’t really find that bothersome as the underskirt is the same color.

• 

• 

Trying out how to bustle up the train with the lining fabric only & the train waistband which hooks onto the overskirt waistband in the back.

The front overskirt is of the same gold, and I patterned myself with a little help from examples in Izabella Prior’s the Victorian Dressmaker books. I mocked it up from a sheet, and basically played around with pleats and length until I got the look that I wanted. It’s a basic rectangle type shape which is pleated up the sides. I ended up pulling the bottom side points of the rectangle over the back of the bustle and attaching a hook to keep them in place there. This makes sure that the overskirt has the feeling of volume and pleats without hanging down too low. The overskirt is attached to a black waistband ribbon, closing center back, with eyes to hook the train over. The back looks a little funny on its own (and I have no clue if it resembles period patterns), but with the train on top it looks like I meant to!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Patterning the overskirt out of an old sheet – the handstitched hem – the sides are pleated up and sewn down by machine (they won’t be visible), attachment to the twill tape waistband – the finished overskirt from the front – the finished overskirt in the back, this is covered by the train.

Then, finally, there was the black underskirt. The base was really quick to make, using the TV1880’s underskirt pattern, but of course adding a pocket. It’s made out of black twill cotton, as I wanted a solid base. Base, because the skirt is almost entirely covered in trim! I ended up taking inspiration from an other original 1880s dress, and settled on one row of knife pleats, two rows of stacked box pleats and a large ruched panel.

• 

To try out the design, I copied the underskirt of the original dress I liked and pasted it on top of my picture, painting it black. Then I could measure the height of the pleats and the ruching.

The pleats took a little time to make and prepare, and various calculations were done and re-done to ensure I had enough silk (I’m still not sure I did it right, but I had enough fabric, so it’s okay). The pleats were all hand pleated, pinned in place, sprayed with a vinegar/water mix to set the pleats, steamed, and taped in place with painter’s tape. This last step ensures that the pleats can fully dry and won’t be distorted when handling them later. The ruched panel is one large piece with gathering stitches running horizontally. I ended up not giving my piece a lot of extra length, so the ‘poofs’ aren’t quite as poofy as in the example, but I actually quite like this slightly flatter look. The entire panel was then stitched on the skirt, together with the pleats. Only after doing this, did I finish the side-seam, so I could include the ruched panel in the seam. It took some fiddling to then make the pleats match over the seam, and if you look closely you can see that the pleats aren’t quite the same there. It’s not noticeable if you don’t look closely though, so I really don’t mind.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Pleating the knife pleats, stitching down the stacked box pleats, and gathering the ruched panel on the base skirt. This is why I didn’t sew the final seam yet, makes it a lot easier to lay it out flat!

And that completes the whole lower part of the outfit! I’m really happy with how luxurious the gold and black work together so far!

• 

• 

1830s Pelerine

I finished another UFO! When I made my gold 1830’s dress, I also cut out the fabric for a pelerine, as my inspiration original had a matching one. However, I didn’t have occasion to wear my dress outside, nor did I have a hat to do so, so the pelerine didn’t have any urgency. It also had many scallops, so I left it. But I’ve been on a UFO finishing streak and I now have a 1830s bonnet, so it was time to finish the pelerine!

I chose to finish my scallops by lining them instead of binding them as it would cost less fabric and I thought it might be easier. I don’t think it was all that much easier in retrospect, but I’m happy enough with how it turned out. I did add the piping between scallops and the pelerine though!

I tried two versions of the scallops beforehand, and settled on the deeper scallops. In retrospect, I should have drawn them out fully, as the trick to clean scallops is that you can cut the seam allowance all the way to the point. Turns out that’s very difficult if your stitching lines are too close. I did this right in the sample, but in many places in the eventual thing I had to snip some stitching to make it lay nice (and then use fray check, which is definitely not what you’re supposed to do…). Drawing out the scallops would have helped to keep enough space between the stitching lines.

I’ve tried to illustrate this below. Red is how to do it, with the green arrows showing you could cut all the way between the red lines. Blue is how not to do it, as there is a large overlap of the stitching lines of both sides which will make the scallops impossible to turn around.

I like how I now have a pretty versatile set of 1830’s things. I have 2 dresses, one green and one gold. The gold has detachable lower sleeves, so can be worn for both evening (ball) and day wear. The green would work for (non-ball) evening and day activities as well, it’s copied from an evening gown but has long sleeves to work for day. I have a brown/white bonnet which will go with both dresses. I have an antique white cotton pelerine which will go with both (though probably looks best on the green), and I have a gold silk pelerine which would work both with the green and the gold dress. Ideally, I’d have two more additions to this: a white bodice/blouse to wear with the green skirt (as the gold dress doesn’t have a separate skirt/bodice it won’t work with that) and make it more informal; and a coat, for which I actually already have green wool fabric. Those aren’t up next though, because I’ll first be making an 1890s vest of the leftover fabric of my split skirt. I’ve already started on that!

1830s dress

I started thinking about a 1830s dress quite a while back, mostly inspired by the wonderful Nikki, who does this era so well. About half a year ago, the theme for the new-years ball in Ghent was announced to be 1830-1860, and I figured that this would be the perfect excuse to finally start this dress.

I already had the fabric, a wonderful pale gold figured silk. So I started looking at pictures, and was immediately drawn to the pleated sleeves you see appear around 1836. The 1830’s is known for the huge sleeves, and I do like those, but I love the pleats, so that’s what I went for. (When in doubt: do what excites you most). I looked at quite a lot of originals (online) in the MET museum, and eventually settled on this dress:

 

I love the sleeves on this dress, how they still have the fabric fullness, but also the pleats. I also quite liked the shape of the bertha, and the little rosettes. Extra bonus was that I figured I could make the ‘sleeve bands’ removable, and make the dress more versatile this way. It also has removable undersleeves, and a pelerine which transforms it into a day dress. I’m all for versatility, so that’s great.

 

In making this dress, I tried to copy it as much as possible. That meant lots of piping, and double piping, which was quite a bit of work, but definitely worth it.

The process of making double piping I found in the 1876 ‘Guide to dressmaking ‘, which can be found online (page 30). Basically, you take a bias strip, put a cord in one half, then a cord in the other half, then fold double to get a double cord.

 

The bertha was made following Janet Arnold’s ca. 1840 dress. It has a cotton canvas base, and the silk are bias strips which are stitched on top. It looks like pleats when finished, but the construction is quite different.

 

For this dress, I also really wanted to try out padding, inspired by a talk by Luca Costigliolio on padding in 19th century bodices. (The gist: it’s extremely common, for all types of figures, through the eras. Sometimes visible, sometimes hidden.). The silhouette in this era is quite wide, and I can use a little help in the bust era in general. I made my padding of cotton quilting sheets. Cutting in layers of 2, I cut 4 circles in increasing diameter.

 

I ended up taking off the smallest one, and folding it up to fill in the space above the bust a bit. This is a place you often see padding in originals as well. The padding was placed quite wide in the end, as the main goal was to increase width. I really love how it ended up, the effect is subtle enough that you don’t immediately think it’s padded, but it helps the whole shape so much.

I sewed a cotton ‘lining’ to the padding before sewing the whole thing into the bodice. This is the final shape.

 

The sleeves are pleated towards the middle at the top, and then stitched a bit further down as well. The armhole is piped, and the shoulder seam as well. For the final sleeves, I made sleeve bands which are pinned around the fullest part of the sleeve.

 

I also followed Janet Arnold for the skirt, taking inspiration for the skirt fullness, and gathering the very back, then pleating the rest forwards, as the original also shows. I choose not to fully line the skirt, as my original shows a line of stitching where the facing is attached, so I faced the hem as well.

Hem facing. The long stitches are to catch the silk where it’s folded double, so the hem is basically 2 layers of silk and one of cotton.

I sewed all invisible seams by machine for this dress, but all the finishing is by hand, as usual. The dress closes with hooks in the back, and the final touch are the little rosettes. One to hide the endpoints of the bertha, one on each sleeve band and one in the back. They are made by covering a button, and then gathering a folded strip of bias to form a circle.

 

I managed to finish the whole dress just in time for the new years ball last weekend. I’d counted on skipping the sleeve band, or not finishing the insides, due to lack of time, but it was done! I made this in about 5 weeks, (2 of which were holiday), which I think is a record for me. I also managed to finish without rushing through anything, which I’m really pleased with. Now I just have to make under sleeves and a pelerine with a whole number of small petals….

So, some finished pictures of the dress on me! More on the ball itself in a next post!

The 1660’s dress in action! New-year’s ball in Ghent

Last weekend I wore the full 1660’s ensemble for the first time! Although I’d been looking at this period for longer, the theme of this years new-years ball in the opera of Ghent was the perfect excuse to actually start. The theme was inspired by the early days of Versailles, and was 1660 to 1715, so I was one of the ‘old fashionably’ dressed. There were a couple more beautiful 1660’s gowns, but also some wonderful late 17th century ones, which was nice as it’s not a style to see too much.

We arrived in Ghent early afternoon, had some lunch and then went to the hotel to change. Luckily, we had quite some space and very good mirrors in the room, which really helped with changing. Doing some last-minute sewing, hair, and actually getting dressed took some time, and we were ready just in time for the ball!

My hair was inspired by these images:

 

I curled the front of my hair with rags, put in the evening before the ball. As it looks quite ridiculous with the rags in, I wore a vintage-style most of the day. Perfect for hiding curlers! I’m really happy with how my hair turned out, a big thanks to Josselin for helping me, as it did require more than 2 hands!

 

The ball itself was very nice, with quite a lot of dancing. There was a dance room, a room to sit and one where you could get drinks. Other than the dancing, there was not much in terms of entertainment and there was no food, but given the price of the evening I expected this, and I wanted to dance anyway. There was also a small baroque-dance demonstration at the end, which was very nice to see.

Watching the demonstration

 

The building was really beautiful, and fit in perfectly with the dress code. Thanks to Josselin for these images, as I forgot my pocket and left my phone in my bag most of the evening…

 

All in all, I had a lot of fun, and will definitely keep an eye out for next year’s theme!

The pictures of the full outfit!

1660’s bodice – Finished!

The 1660’s dress is done!

Well, nearly done, because I’m skipping the lining of the bodice for now, as I also still need to make a shift, and the ball is in two weeks. First up, construction of the outer layer and the sleeves! (scroll to the end for pretty pictures).

When I left off in the previous post, the foundation of the bodice was done. The silk outer layer is attached to the foundation piece by piece, by hand. It’s also not patterned the same as the outer layer, so the first thing I did was compare where the new seams would be on the foundation pieces, and draft the pattern on top of the foundation. A lot easier than adapting the pieces first time around, as I now had the foundation to start from! I also put a cotton layer between the foundation and the silk, to get some extra ‘padding’ to hide the boning. Cotton is not period, but I didn’t have linen thin enough laying around, and my goal was that all visible parts would look period, and you can’t see this layer anyway. The original bodice did not have a layer of interfacing like this everywhere, but did have paper in places. I’ve no clue what type of paper would be best, so I used cotton.

Cutting the silk was terrifying by the way.

The first piece that was attached was the side back piece. It was also the most difficult piece, as the foundation has a little gore between two of the tabs, yet the outer layer has not.

The book described how the outer layer was basted in place first with pad stitches, before being stitched down, so I did that for this piece. Took time, but helps in getting it to lay flat.

After the basting, it was stitched in place around the edges and around the tabs.

Next up was the side front piece. For this one (and the others) I skipped the basting. Instead, I pinned the silk over the foundation while it was on my dummy, so it would follow the right curve. I kept most of the pins in while stitching the edges in place, which was a challenge as they were sticking out straight in the back. Yes, I pricked myself regularly.

The edge next to the side back was cut to size (as I’d cut the pieces quite large), folded over and top stitched.

 

For the front piece the process was slightly different. The sides were folded over first and stitched in place, before attaching it to the bodice.

 

This is done because the lace is attached to the silk before being stitched to the bodice. I used antique metallic lace, a combination of netting and a scalloped lace. The cords are modern, but I wasn’t counting on getting lucky enough to also find golden metallic cord.

The netting was stitched on first, two rows down the center and along the edges.

 

After that the scallops came on, and finally the cord was stitched along the edges. I really love the depth of combining the lace like this.

 

The front piece was then attached as a whole. The back piece was stitched on much like the others, seams folded back along the side back seam and top stitched. Center back it was turned around the edge and prick stitched in place so that the space for the eyelets was secure. I forgot to take pictures at this stage….

I did take pictures of making the eyelets though! I also calculated that these took about 10 hours in total. I spaced them quite closely, as I find that eyelets spaced too far apart really look too modern.

It’s a bit of a pain to do so many.

 

But so worth it.

The top edges of the back of the bodice was finished by turning the silk in between itself and the foundation, and stitching it in place. Possible as the top of the foundation was already bound. The front wasn’t, so there the top was folded over to the inside and stitched in place there. The raw edges will eventually be covered by the lining.

Then it was time to trim the back! Again I used a combination of netting, scallops and cord. This time it was stitched on through all layers.

Final thing on the main bodice was to bind the tabs! The original used a silk ribbon, I chose just to use strips from the silk fabric. This was my first time binding tabs, and they’re not the prettiest thing, but as they’ll be worn inside the skirt I’m okay wit that. You can also see quite clearly which side I did first (left image). I did get better (right image)!

 

Bodice done, right? Except the sleeves, which I’d put off slightly… I made a rough mock-up by making a cotton sleeve and fitting that, to see if I could use the original size sleeve without alterations. Turned out I was rather restricted in my movement, but that was wholly due to the strap being quite low on the shoulder, the sleeve was fine.

The little sleeve-wings were made first, 2 layers of linen, covered in silk, covered in netting.

The sleeves themselves are made of silk, with a cotton lining, and a layer of heavy linen partly covering the top. This linen mostly helps to fill out the cartridge pleats. The sleeves were trimmed with one side seam sewn.

Inside stitch lines, also showing where the layer of linen stops.

 

After that came stitching the other side seam, and then the cartridge pleating, and pleating and binding the bottom. After pleating, they were attached to the bodice. The shoulder wings I attached after I did the sleeves to get the placement right, and the finial step was to trim the bottom of the sleeve.

Almost ready to be attached! Left is already pleated, right not yet.

 

And now it’s done! This took so much hand sewing fiddling, pricking in my fingers etc. I’ts probably the most labour-intensive thing I’ve ever made, definitely the most structured. I learnt a lot making it though, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. The materials are gorgeous (still so happy with my metallic lace!), and with the heavy boned interior I think it really gets the look of the period right.

So, time for pretty pictures!

From the front:

 

And a slight angle

 

I also love how the back came out.

 

And some details:

 

I’ve put the bodice over my new petticoat in these pictures. The skirt is also done, but deserves it’s own post (this one is getting way too long), so that’ll follow shortly!