Sunday Update

No matter how much I keep trying to make anything and everything blue for my 18th century wardrobe I keep ending up with red tones. This weekend I found some red linen for $4 a yard so I got 5 yards of it. Actually I would have gotten more but that was all that was left so hopefully that will work! I'd like to make a round gown similar to this

I also ordered the American Duchess Antoinette shoes... I almost didn't and I literally ordered them with 2 hours to spare but I couldn't stop thinking about them! Of course I got the blue... and I'm a little worried about that. I still want to make a dress out of my magenta redish taffeta so blue shoes aren't going to go great with that but maybe if I dyed them dark blue... 

And because this post feels empty without a picture, three tie blankets I made this weekend! 

1908 Corset Mockup

I decided to make something for the 2014 Foundations Revealed competition. 

I don't really have any ideas for the geometry theme but the 1908 Transitional Corset I thought would be a great thing to make. I've never actually made a corset, the closest was making my 18th century stays.  Early 1900's is also an era I haven't looked at before. 

I got the pattern and found a lot of helpful information from this article. I think you have to have a subscription to see it though. 

It did not have seam allowance and I decided not to add any because the measurements the original came out to be were a bit bigger than me and I'm not great with math so I figured I'd just go with this. 

As far as I can tell, I think the mock up size worked well and except for taking out one of the gusset pieces, it works. So next I'll cut out the actual fabric, when I decide on it! 

HSF Challenge #23: Gratitude

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While finishing up this dress, I was super excited to realize this could count as an HSF challenge! I couldn't have gotten through the making of this dress without the great tutorials and pictures that others have put out there. This was my first 18th century gown so I had tons of questions and no pattern so I relied on what others put out there! 

Research:

Here I learned more about chintz fabric

William Booth Draper sells a blue chintz fabric here that has the same white background with floral blue print similar to my fabric.  They also cite, The Pennsylvania Gazette which said "Run away... a native of Ireland... has on, and took with her, one chints gown, stamped with blue."  The same site also sells patterns and says that printed cotton is an option for a robe a l'anglaise seen here. This helped reenforce that my fabric wasn't completely inaccurate.

Before I could start on the actual dress I had to make a basic bodice lining pattern and the pictures of her draped lining on Jenny La Fleur's Robe a l'Anglaise dress diary helped a ton! Not too mention her other 18th century projects I looked through just to get a better idea of how to make my dress.

After completing my lining I really followed much of the tutorial here from The Fashionable Past

As mentioned in a previous post, when I got completely stuck on my sleeves, this website and dress tutorial here gave me a sleeve pattern that got me back on track!

I'm sure there are even more links that I am missing because as this shows the first place I turn to when I'm stuck are the tutorials and even just pictures others have put up. Anytime I make a historical item I spend a ton of time researching by looking at examples others have made. I love this challenge because I really am so grateful for all the research and pictures others put up! It's why I always try to document mine because you never know what little picture, or way of wording something, will help someone else with their project!

The Challenge: Gratitude

Fabric: Blue and white cotton chintz, blue linen, cotton lining

Pattern: Robe a l'Anglaise self drafted

Year: late 18th century

Notions: cotton tape

Accuracy: It's pretty accurate, I've hand sewn the entire outfit including both petticoats and I think I got the shape down pretty well. It's only issue may be the fabric. While there was blue chintz on white, the pattern on my fabric is probably not the most accurate in terms of the design size. The blue linen petticoat is accurate.

Hours to complete: many

First worn: For pictures!

Cost:  I bought this fabric in the early summer so I don't remember that anymore and am calling it stash fabric. The linen I got from an old table cloth! So no money spent for this one!

This is my favorite 18th century outfit so far. I really love how it turned out with the blue linen petticoat. It's very simple and I'd like to go back and trim it one of these days. Besides some problems with the sleeves it went together pretty well and was a great step in learning to make 18th century gowns.

The matching petticoat!

For all previous posts of the making of this dress click here. 

18th Century Cap

I did get pictures and a post of the Patience Tabitha dress, but I realized it was a perfect dress to use for the HSF challenge: Generosity and Gratitude  so I'm going to wait on that post for another weekish so it's closer to when the challenge is due!

I am somewhat taking a step back from the 18th century this week, to work on a halloween costume inspired by this dress (Though ending up very very different because I was working with the only star fabric I've got in my stash, but the idea of a starry night is the same!), my never-ending quilt of doom, and hopefully a football game day dress for a game this upcoming Saturday! ( I don't have high hopes for this last dress...) 

And finally the 18th century cap!

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Inspirations: White with Yellow ribbon cap here plus many more I forgot to document. I mean to get a better actual silk blue ribbon or maybe yellow for this I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Pattern: Made by me from information on these websites, here, Fashionable Frolick, and Art Beauty and Well-Ordered Chaos

Fabric: Very thin white cotton (I'm pretty sure it's cotton) from my stash

Year: 18th century

Accuracy: All hand sewn. Each edge was hemmed with a tiny hem and then whip stitched to the other piece.

It was pretty hard getting the proportions just right particularly when you are putting pleats around your face. I don't love how my pleats look, I rushed to finish the hat for pictures with the P.T. dress so I think they could look better than they do.

It was kind of awkward taking closeup shots of my face with the hat on so to show the direct view of it I cropped a picture from the full outfit. I tried to make it look cool and rounded and old timey, it just looks like I cropped it into a circle... oh well

Sleeves Finally!

After my complete fail and frustration with my PT dress sleeves I spent a good while searching for 18th century sleeve patterns and any kind of visual that could help me make a better sleeve. I couldn't find anything that would help me draft a sleeve to fit my specific dress, which was my original plan to fix the sleeve, but I found a pattern that worked!


Using the sleeve pattern from this page, I was finally able to get some good sleeves! I actually just enlarged it on my computer screen till I thought it was at a large enough size then traced it bit by bit onto paper. I had to make it a little bit larger and a little bit longer after the first try but that was simple enough.

I lost my original scaled up pattern from the costume closeup jacket and tried to do that general shape after draping it and things are in the wrong place and it's just a mess! I do love that seam at the elbow though, I just couldn't get it right!

and finally the pattern that worked!! Yay!! 

Here are the finished sleeves!! Which makes this dress officially finished! I'd like to add trim but I'm going to move onto other projects before I come back and trim this. 

Hopefully I'll get some full outfit pictures of it up by tomorrow! 

More Sleeves...

I tried measuring the armhole and adjusting the pattern I had and that still didn't work. Then I tried to drape it which also didn't work.

Draping it I got a sleeve that fit the armhole and went and cut the fabric only to once again have the sleeve go wrong. 

I'm really really frustrated with these sleeves. I know the armhole may be too big but I can't think of any way to fix that without starting over. The newest sleeve fits the armhole but it just gets all weird and starts twisting. On top of that its too big around my arm and the elbow is too far down. 

I did finish the solid color linen petticoat to go with it, so all thats left are these awful sleeves! 

18th Century Handsewing

While working on my shortgown, I looked up a lot about 18th century hand sewing and different types of stitches. I started a list of sites with information about different stitches and sewing techniques and I figured I'd put my list on here so it's easy to find again later and to update when I find new information!

• This one is an examination of multiple short gowns, not necessarily sewing techniques but helpful. I learned that piecing at the end of my sleeves and corners of my peplum were period appropriate from here. 
• 18th century button holes hand sewn here
• Dorset Buttons
• PDF of lots of sewing techniques here. Tells you where they found the stitch used and what the stitch is/ how to do it. also shows sleeves.
• Diary of a Mantua Maker- this post has a drawing of different stitches and explanations for them
• Period Sewing Techniques- some drawings of stitches and descriptions of different sewing techniques
• Annekata- this post doesn't really have sewing techniques but it does have a great picture from Costume Closeup on how to sew with the lining. 
• Crooked Tree Farm - this has some links to sewing techniques which I think are some of the above links. It also has links to how to make men's clothing and children's.