projects – Page 62 – Démodé Couture

November 18, 2004January 15, 2026

Confession time

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]).

November 11, 2004January 15, 2026

hee! i look like a big stripey candy cane!

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…

November 7, 2004January 15, 2026

Tonight I finished up the bodice mockup and pattern

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!

November 5, 2004January 15, 2026

I spent last night draping the bodice

Can I just say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE draping? Not just because you can do with your hands what you spent years trying to do yanking commercial patterns into shape or trying to wrap your brain around the geometry of pattern drafting. But also because it’s just such a tactile way to make what you see in your mind happen in reality… Okay, I’m done waxing poetic.

I really like where I’m going in the front, but not too sure about the back. The evening bodice is going to have inside box pleats, with the inside of the pleat in solid white (like in the Truly Victorian 1870 evening bodice pattern) — but I think it would be boring to do the exact same thing on the day bodice as well. I was trying to go for the ruffly full look you see in a lot of early bustle era bodices, but it’s still pretty flat. Off to my book collection for inspiration!

Here’s the intial drape:

And the first mockup:

October 31, 2004January 15, 2026

Even though I was sidetracked by Halloween

I’ve been busy assembling things for this project.

The first big one was finding enough white silk taffeta for all the trimming. I’d finally settled on ordering from Silk Connection because they had the best prices, but of course stupidly didn’t order a swatch first, and the silk came back noticeably more of a natural white than a bright white (anybody want to buy 5 yards of natural white silk taffeta?). So I hauled myself down to Thai Silks and went through their remnant bins, which aside from the hauling factor worked out well because I got 6 yards for $30.

So now that I had the fabric, it was time to start on the trimming. A few nights ago I started marking and cutting out the strips of fabric to make the three pleated rows around the underskirt. I have a nice pair of pinking shears that I inherited from my mother but which probably haven’t been sharpened since 1975 — I’ve never made the investment in another pair because I kept thinking I could get these sharpened, which I finally did at Costume College — but I don’t know if they’re just dead or if the sharpener sucked, because I was able to cut out about one row of fabric before the teeth just started chewing the fabric.

So! New pinking shears needed. I’ve admired those pinking/scalloping blades for rotary cutters for a while, so I went to crappy Joann’s today to pick some up. But noooo, Joann’s only carries replacement blades for Fisk rotary cutters, not Olfa which is what I have. So now I need to find a Michael’s and hope that they have what I need.

So since I was stymied on the trimming front, I sat down tonight to watch scary Halloween movies and sewed hooks and eyes on the two skirts (which as we know, should really take about 5 minutes but in reality takes about 5 hours).

Next I decided to finish the overskirt by marking the poufs (finally picked up some white twill tape — I just don’t think black would cut it). I basically followed the pattern’s markings, except that I added a third row of attachment points as I don’t like the look of poufs at the top and then a bunch of straight fabric.

The skirts aren’t fitting my dressform at the waist because I left my Victorian corset at work after our Halloween party — but you get the picture.

Speaking of dress forms — my Uniquely You is adjustable in height by a little plastic ring that fits around the pole of the stand. The ring has screws, which means you move the ring where you want it, tighten the screws, and then the ring holds up the form. But my ring cracked and broke (hello crappy plastic!). Now I remember someone telling me that the same thing happened to them, and they contacted the manufacturers who sent them a snappy replacement METAL ring — but I can’t find the contact info for the manufacturers! I did some web searching but came up with zip. Anyone know who makes Uniquely You’s and how to contact them?