Category: 19th century

Now I just need to redo the sleeves and trim the bodice/sleeves. I’m HOPING to maybe be done with that fast enough to whip out the Truly Victorian Talma wrap — but we’ll see. It would be tres chic, but sanity (and sleep) shall prevail.

When, at 3am Saturday morning, the dress still wasn’t in wearable condition, I made the admirable decision to chuck it all, go to bed, and wear my black & ivory natural form gown. I worked and worked and worked, but it never happens as fast as I think it should.

Thursday night I made the sleeves. I thought I liked the mockup, but when I made the real deal I stopped liking it. I want to make it fit a bit more on the upper arm and then to flare out just from the elbow — right now it’s too much of a big tube. Forgot to upload photos, sorry!

Friday ALL day and night I worked on trimming the skirt. The pleats around the hem of the underskirt were the killers — it took a while to iron in the pleats, and then I had to pin each one into place before I could sew it. It looks fabulous, but it took most of the day.

At 2am I was finally making ruches, which I’ve got laid on here (not stitched) to see the effect (which is going to be really good!), but again, I was going to need a whole lot of ruching to make this thing wearable — plus I had yet to trim the sleeves. Sense ruled over sensibility, so to bed I went!

So! Now I will make this for the GBACG day at Dickens Faire on 12/11. Yay for new deadlines! Photos from the tea coming soon.

I’ve been avoiding my blog like crazy, both because I’m deep in must-sew-deadline-approaching-mania, and because I’m irritated (just slightly) with one element.

The buttonholes took me THREE DAYS — but that’s what you get for making bound buttonholes, I suppose! This time around I used the method in the Reader’s Digest Book of Sewing (or whatever) described as “foolproof” — sounded good! I certainly need that when it comes to bound buttonholes! Basically there’s a whole lot of basting involved, which before you remove to complete the buttonholes allows you to measure so you can be sure there isn’t any wonkiness. This actually worked out well except for 1 buttonhole which is slightly wonky, but hey, I can live with that. I turned the stripe on the straight for some contrast on the buttonhole lips.

So then I made my covered buttons out of white taffeta and sewed them on…

…after which I was able to start binding the edges and finishing up the neckline, which is where the irritation came in. I wasn’t 100% certain about how the V-neckline would be affected by the front overlap, so when I finalized the neckline I realized that my top buttonhole is too high — it really should start one buttonhole down. I’m HOPING that once I put on the super-froofy trim, I can cover that buttonhole — in which case I’ll just take off the button and ignore it. Could be a whole lot worse, but it’s a drag because it’s not something I can rip out.

So now I’m onto piping edges and sewing in boning — the lovely Mercurio stopped by Lacis during a trip to the East Bay and got me boning and boning tape — yay! We love her!

And now I’m off to the race to the finish — and no, I CAN’T wear the dress without trimmings (I did buy pinking shears, so that’s good, right?). Besides, there’s no victory to attending an event unless you haven’t slept the night before, right? (But seriously… let’s just say I predict I’ll feel a bit peaked on Friday [cough cough]).

Over the last few evenings I cut out the bodice (refreshingly easy as I had a separate piece of not-off-grain fabric) and basted together my layers, and then put together the main bodice pieces. Did the first try on tonight — the fit is a little weird around the armholes and neck because I haven’t clipped the seam allowance yet:

…after which I took in the darts just a smidge at the top (to get rid of that pointy thing) and took in the waist at the sides a bit more. I’m also going to lower the V neckline a bit to avoid the choking look.

Now I’m trying to gear up for buttons and buttonholes — le sigh! Seems like an awful lot of work making bound buttonholes, but you know me — no machine shortcuts here! I looked through a bunch of period images and fashion plates to see if anything used any other closure, but it seems like buttons were ubiquitous. Of course, I only have 8 covered button forms in the house, which necessitates another trip to Joann’s for supplies.

I also need to get boning for this. I never buy boning ahead of time because you never know what final measurement you’re going to end up with. I want to just do the easy thing and order online, but Lost Coast Historic Patterns doesn’t have the lengths I need, Greenberg & Hammer and Farthingales want me to spend my firstborn child on shipping, and we all know what happened with Grannd Garb when I made my 1910s corset. So it seems I’m going to have to call AlterYears or Lacis in the morning — maybe Lacis? I could just go over there, but when you live in San Francisco, a trip to Oakland takes about 3 hours round trip, and that’s just too much time out of my life!

Back to buttonholes…

Had to do some adjustments to the darts and finalize the neckline — I ended up just making the back rounded. I figure I’m going to put a big ruche on it, it doesn’t REALLY matter what shape it is. Plus, all the interesting shapes I was finding in fashion plates etc. worked better for tailored styles — the froofy ones like mine just seem to be round and froofy.

My left side (your right) is the fitted side.

Now if I can stay awake long enough, I’m going to start cutting!