Beautiful Dresses!

It's Beautiful Dress Time! or BDT for short.

This sexy little number is what is known as a Robe a l'anglaise. from the latter half of the 18th century. (17980's or so)  Beautiful cotton fabric with a metallic embroidery design. Center front closure and 3/4 sleeves, which may have once had a few flounces on them. The bodice appears to be tabbed at the hem and, though we can't see it, the neckline is probably deep and rounded.

Now, what's so confusing about this gown is that it appears to be depicted with Pocket hoops as the skirt support. At least, that's what I believe. The silhouette of the skirt is pretty square, all things considered. The fullest part is not at the hips, like you would see with a bum roll.

This is the back view of the same dress, the square hips are really obvious here. And the skirt train seems 'collapsed'.

The silhouette of this gown is beautiful, and misleading. White cotton fabric, embroidery that runs vertical, what appears to be a train, puff sleeves and a below bust waist line are all details of 1805-1810. The wide sash isn't typical of the time, but not totally implausible. What's so strange is the fullness of the skirt. It must be shown over a relatively full petticoat for the time. I love this dress and shape and I am a stickler for accuracy. How can you not love it? It's beautiful!

Education, 7:00am, what is this?

That's it, Autumn is coming, it's official. It becomes official when Starbucks brings out their pumpkin spice lattes.

This means that I start school tomorrow. Which means little time for personal sewing. In theory I could update with what I am doing in school, but since this blog is accessible from my facebook, and I have classmates on there, and we have a not so healthy competition going on.... maybe not?
We'll see.

Let's see, a beautiful gown of the day...

This 1910(ish) beauty has hand embroidery, applique's and insertion lace. It's an overdress, which would have been worn with a colored slip underneath. The Princess cut is absolutely gorgeous. I think it is very similar to this plate, which I found dated for 1909

The gown on the left with it's vertical decorations and high waist are evident of an attempt to bring back the empire waisted gowns of the early 19th century. Something that was just succeeding when WWI brought it to a halt and the style completely changed to reflect the new world mentality.

**Note** My photo collection of gowns has been the work of several years. I don't always know where I got an image from, though I do wish to give proper credit. I apologise, any infringment on copyright is unintentional and meant only for educational purposes. I will say that the first photo (I think is from a private seller [Vintage textiles?] who noted that the neckline was only pinned to be square and didn't fit like that)

Inspiration, where for art thou?

Fall is coming so quickly! I cannot believe that summer is already over, tomorrow is september 1st, and soon I will be breaking out my Autumn decorations. I do love fall, the beautiful colours, the smell in the air, pumpkin spice lattes...bliss
More importantly, this season (by season I mean fall/winter/spring) is already looking quite busy. There is School, Halloween, Jane Austen's birthday, Christmas, Titanic Centennial, and a Regency ball to sew for.
I'm already feeling concerned, last year I was so busy with school, there was no time for personal sewing and I desperately want to commemorate the Titanic centennial by dressing up (it's not like there will be another one any time soon) I really want to go to the Regency Ball, which will be my first ever! Halloween, of course speaks for itself, and finally Jane Austen's birthday. A very important event with JASNA, I will be giving a presentation on what the Dashwood's would wear, and I need to sew for that...*phew*
So, I had better get busy.

I am totally in awe, and inspired by this lady's work. http://bridgesonthebody.blogspot.com/ I want to try that kind of project! And I really want to say a big thank you to her, she gave me the answer my teacher could not. How to scale patterns up from a book if it's not on a graph and you don't want to free hand it. I knew I could use a projector, but there had to be something easier, I thought of scaling up at a copier but staples wouldn't do it and said they couldn't, but she mentions way at the beginning that she scaled it up 200% at a photo copier, then another 200% of that!
Mwahaha.
I did it today, and it was so perfect. I cut the pieces out individually after copying them the 200% and angled them to fit on the one 11X17 piece of paper. All in all, including many trial and errors, I paid only $1.68. Not bad, not bad.
So, first corset will be...

(Picture from Dreamstress's blog)

I tried this corset once already, it turned out okay, a bit big, and I didn't really finish it neatly, or use the right fabric, or anything like that. The silhouette was right though! That's all that really matters. 

But now, I know more! Round two, begin!

Revamping an old gown

Last year, for Halloween, I dressed as a Jane Austen heroine. I had woken early everyday for two weeks to work on the gown and Spencer before school. It can be said that I had little experience then, and I drafted the pattern for it myself. Needless to say, there were problems with the fit.
The drop front was too long and gaped at the sides... The under bodice has a gap between it and the skirt. The hem was literally tossed together, so it looks odd, and is fraying.
I really want to be the type of person who strives for historical accuracy, but in this case, time is seriously crunched. We are attending an english country Dance event this Friday and saturday. I wasn't going to dress up originally, but, maybe I'll try for it.
Well, despite accuracy, I added busy darts on the bib front. Then I increased the angle of it as well.
I'll stitch the skirt a little further on the under bodice to fight that gap and I'll add a couple more loops to hold up the ties at the back. And I guess I have to narrow hem it, there isn't enough for a proper hem, and to have it hemmed, even one inch, makes it ride too high and looks odd.
The first image is me in the dress last Halloween, you can see how high the hem is. The second photo is the detail of the bodice, now (mostly) fixed.
I've been very busy doing rob's breeches, which look so good! Men look so rakish in breeches and an undone shirt. Meow!

First Post

Exciting first post! And it's not even about women's clothes...

It could be... but it's not.

My patterns have arrived (well, two out of three) for a gentlemens regency outfit for Rob!
I bought the country wives tailcoat pattern, the Kannik's Korner waistcoat pattern, and the smoke and fire Breeches pattern. This last one is the one I am waiting on. It was ordered first and has yet to arrive... It's only been what, 19 days?
Not only is it taking forever but I also noticed on the confirmation email, that the wrong pattern was being mailed to me (I'm not sure how this mistake could have happened during the ordering process) But since it was already in the mail, I have to wait for it's arrival, then return to sender THEN they send me the correct one.
Since I don't have the breeches pattern, I cannot start on the waistcoat. It requires you to wear your breeches to determine the correct length of waistcoat.
And without the waistcoat I cannot start the jacket, since the jacket will require the waistcoat to determine the correct length of that as well!

I may implode from weeks of contained excitement and subsequent let down.
This really is dreadful, I had hoped to get his outfit ready for some English country dance events on August 26 and 27. But this is unlikely to happen now.

On a happier note, my stockings and buckles from Jas Townsend and my annotated sense and sensibility have arrived! And once I do make up his coat, I'll be able to give a review on the country wives pattern. There isn't very much out there as of yet and all the ladies are eagerly awaiting to hear word on this pattern.

I bought 8 mtr of bargain fabric for a mock up. Perhaps I can start on those to pass the time.