12/04/06

I finished the dress! Six days to go, and it is done. Now all that needs to be done is figure out what I'm going to wear on my head...

11/26/06

As you can tell, the gown is almost entirely finished. (As you can also tell, my sewing room is a disaster area. Please ignore.) The sleeves, which have been sewn up, just need to be sewn in, and the buttons up the center front need to be attended to and then it is pretty much done. But since it is kind of a diary, I guess I should say a bit more about what I did, right? ;)

The Bodice:

I draped the bodice on my dress form, making a fairly conscious effort to keep the stripes in mind. I chose a single dart on each of the side fronts, rather than gathering the waistline as in the inspirational garment. This was because the taffeta is a lot more crisp than the cotton lawn used for the original, and I felt that the gathering would not lay flat enough. I also considered a double dart on each side, but thought that the continuity of the stripes would have been impacted too much.

The Underskirt:

The underskirt was made from Truly Victorian pattern TV 201 - 1870s Underskirt, which went together flawlessly, even after the drama of cutting it out while preventing a VERY interested kitten from trying to eat my pins, play with the pattern pieces, peel out on the fabric, and attack my scissors while cutting. I think the Truly Victorian people were on to something when they decided to use heavy white paper for the pattern pieces... More durable and less likely to be destroyed by hyperactive small animals.

Anyway, back to the skirt. It is flat lined with a cream cotton sateen, which gives it a nice drape and weight. The hem is bound with cream bias tape, mostly because I was too lazy to do a turned hem.

The Apron:

By now I was getting low on yarddage. I'd only purchased 5 yards of the fairly expensive stuff back in August when I was at the Fabric District in L.A. so I was trying to be as conservational as possible in cutting. I was left with about 2 yards after getting the bodice and the underskirt squared away, and a few large-ish scrap pieces. I determined that the largest of the scrap pieces was just enough for the sleeves, so I used the 2 yards to drape the apron. I didn't use a pattern, but just eyeballed it and put darts at the front to help it to lie smooth. The inspirational dress has a pretty simple apron with only 2-3 pleats at the side back seam to creat a bustled effect, and I was just barely able squeeze three pleats on either side with my skimpy amount of fabric. The effect was much less drapey than in the original dress, and made my dress appear more 1870-72 in silouhette than the 1868-69 original date.

The waistband needs to be re pleated as it ended up about an inch too small around the waist.

The Sleeves:

I set both sleeves today and finished pretty much all of the raw edges on the bodice. The sleeves turned out a bit short (in my opinion, anyway) so I broke from the inspirational garment and added a pleated silk dupioni cuff to extend the length a bit. The cuff covers a fair amount of my hand so I may have overdone it a bit, but I like a lot of hand coverage in general. The pleated cuff lead me to make a pleated frill for the neckline, which isn't yet attached in this photo. I'm not sure if I like the pleated frill at the neck, but since I haven't tried the entire outfit on, its staying put until I decide it doesn't work for sure.

Now the only thing left to do on the bodice is the button holes and buttons and to stitch down the "belt" at the waist (it is pinned on in the picture).