Fabric & Fiction

How to Sew: Historical Seam Finishes

There were many ways of sewing and finishing seams in the 18th and 19th centuries. This is by no means a comprehensive guide, and there are probably as many variations as there are people who have ever sewn a garment, but these are some that are relatively common, and which I have found useful.

Three of these seam types (Mantua Maker’s, English stitch, and the Stacked seam) exist to save time by allowing the stitcher to sew a seam and finish the raw edges all in one go. Before the sewing machine, techniques like these saved a ton of time over modern techniques like bag lining, because they allow the dressmaker to sew each seam only once, rather than twice (once for the fabric and once for the lining).

Flat Felled Seams

Best for seams with no linings

A flat felled seam is sewn along the seamline with running stitch or backstitch. One side of the seam allowance is then trimmed down; then the longer seam allowance is wrapped around the shorter seam allowance and hemmed to the fabric. This encases all the raw edges within the seam allowance, and keeps the allowances flat against the fabric. It gives the seam a nice, crisp appearance, but does leave a visible line of tiny stitches along the seamline on the outside. Flat-fells are particularly useful for trousers, breeches, shirts, and shifts, as they are strong and hard-wearing.

Sew your seam as normal by hand or machine and press open.

Trim one side of the seam allowance. (Where possible, trim the side that will be at the back of the garment.)

Press the untrimmed seam allowance over the trimmed one.

Fold the raw edge of the untrimmed seam allowance under.

Begin stitching so that your knot is inside the folded seam allowance.

Hem stitch the folded edge to the fabric, making sure to catch only one thread of the outer fabric in each stitch so that your stitches will be as invisible as possible on the outside.

Mantua Maker’s Seams

Best for seams with no linings

In a mantua-maker’s seam, the two fabric edges are folded over together twice, and the seam is sewn along the inner edge of the fold. It comes out looking like a hem on the inside, and an ordinary seam on the outside. Best for long skirt seams. It is best done by hand, but can be done on a machine in a pinch.

Place your fabric pieces right side to right side.

Working with both pieces of fabric as one, fold the edge a small amount.

Now fold the edge again, so that the raw edges are encased inside the second fold, as if you were preparing to hem.

Stitch the seam using small stitches. Be sure to catch both pieces of fabric, and the very edge of the fold. I have found that this can be done on the machine in a pinch as long as you pin and sew carefully and keep as close as possible to the edge of the folded seam allowance in order to mimic the line of the hand stitching.

Hem and Whip

Could be used with or without lining

This is a method by which the pieces are finished individually, and then joined together afterwards. I would recommend this method most for lightweight, lined pieces, but you could also use it in unlined areas, though the hemming would show as a very small row of stitching on the outside of the garment if you use it without a lining. It is especially good for dealing with fabrics that fray easily, as it allows you to eliminate the raw edges before assembling the garment.

Fun Fact: The bodice of my Chemise à la Reine is constructed this way.

Cut your fabric with seam allowance, and your lining without. The example on the left is ready to begin; the example on the right is already finished.

Trim the corners of your fabric, about halfway between the point of the fabric and the point of the lining.

Fold the trimmed corner in so that the fold hits right at the point of the lining.

Fold up the edge of the piece so that the raw edges of the fabric touch the raw edges of the lining.

Fold the edge up again so that the raw edges are encased. Pin in place.

Do the same on the other side of the corner.

Repeat the mitering process for all corners of your pattern piece, and fold in all of the long edges to match.

You should now have all corners mitered and a hem pinned in place all around your piece.

Begin stitching at one of the corners. Stitch the edges of your miter together a couple of times to hold it in place.

Hem stitch the folded edge to the lining all around, stitching each miter together as you reach it. Make sure that you do not catch the outer fabric as you stitch.

Your pieces are now ready to be assembled.

Place your pieces right side to right side and pin.

Whip stitch your pieces together along the hemmed edges.

Overcasting

Best for flat-lined areas

This technique is by far the most common to be seen in Victorian era bodices, which are generally flatlined, with the seams pressed open and overcast to the lining. It is not the most beautiful finish, as the raw edges are left visible, though protected. It’s best not to let this bother you–our ancestors were not nearly so bothered about raw edges as we seem to be, and folding the seam allowances over in order to encase the raw edges would create unnecessary bulk in a tightly fitted bodice. This finish also makes it very easy to go in and make small fit adjustments if necessary.

Place your lining on top of your fabric, wrong side to wrong side.

Baste your fabric and lining together just inside the seam allowances.

Your pieces are now flatlined, from here on out you will treat the fabric and lining as one.

Place your pieces right sides together and sew your seam as normal, by hand or machine, through all four layers.

Press seam open. Trim the lining seam allowance so that it is even with the fabric seam allowance.

Start your thread so the knot is underneath the seam allowance. Stitch around the raw edges, catching the lining as you go, but not the outer fabric, so that the seam allowances are held flat against the lining.

“English” Stitch

Sews and finishes fabric and lining concurrently

I use quotes here because this stitch does not have a name that we know from the period as far as I have seen. It has come to be known as the English stitch in much of the historical costuming community. It is best known from this description in the Workwoman’s Guide from 1840:

The mode of sewing these four thicknesses so as to make them lie flatly when opened, is rather peculiar. Take up with your needle, three of the thicknesses, leaving the fourth unsewed. The next stitch, take again three folds, leaving the other outside one unsewed: continue alternately taking up one side and omitting the other, letting the stitches lie close together: when completed, open the seam, and flatten it with the finger and thumb.”
The Workwoman’s Guide, by a Lady, 1840

The edges of each piece (fabrics and linings) are turned under, and stitched in a way that sews all four together with raw edges between the layers. It is a very efficient way to sew fabric and lining, and is very useful for 18th and early 19th century gowns.

Press the seam allowances of both your fabric and lining to the wrong sides.

Place your fabric pieces right sides together (folded edges out).

Place each lining piece right side out against its corresponding fabric piece. Folded lining edges should be against folded fabric edges.

Make your first stitch from the outside in through one lining and both fabrics. Do not including the final lining in this stitch.

Make your second stitch from the other side, through the lining you didn’t sew last time, and again through both fabrics. Leave the lining you sewed in the first stitch out of the second stitch.

Continue stitching in the same manner; through three folds, leaving out one lining each stitch. Keep your stitches close together so that you will have a strong, tight seam.

“Stacked” Seam

Sews and finishes fabric and lining concurrently

This one is in quotes because I have no idea whether this technique has a name. It is another one that is useful for lined 18th and early 19th century garments. I also use it for a lot of my cosplays and modern sewing. It again sews the seam at the same time as encasing the raw edges, with the extra advantage that (unlike the English stitch) it can be done by machine as well as by hand. It does leave all four seam allowances running in the same direction, rather than opened out, so consider that when choosing between it and the English stitch. All four fabric thicknesses are stacked in such a way that the seam can be sewn all in one, and the lining and fabric will open out, covering the raw edges and leaving a nice, finished seam. It’s amazing how fast a lined bodice or dress can go together when using this technique.

Fun fact: most of the seams in my Dragonstone Landing dress are sewn this way.

Place your fabric pieces right sides together. In order to save confusion here, the top fabric in this picture is pattern piece A; the bottom is pattern piece B. When the seam is finished, all your seam allowances will point towards the piece in the ‘B’ position. Consider that when you decide what order to stack them in (I generally try to face them towards the back, or if it is a curved seam, towards the outside of the curve so that they can be clipped and not create as much bulk.

Place the wrong side of lining piece A against the wrong side of fabric piece A.

Finally, place the right side of lining B against the right side of lining A. All four of the pieces involved in the seam should now be in your stack: B fabric on bottom, then A fabric, then A lining, then B lining. This can also be achieved by putting your two fabrics right sides together, and then your two linings right sides together, and then placing the lining stack on top of the fabric stack.

Sew your seam as normal, by hand or machine, through all four thicknesses of fabric.

Pull the B lining out to one side and press all four seam allowances towards it.

There you have it: six different historical methods of sewing and finishing seams.

2019 Year in Review and Plans for The Year of the Stash

Happy New Year, everyone!

I was a little disappointed at first when I looked back at the posts from this year and realized how few there were, but it was a good time to remind myself that this was a crazy year, and that’s ok! I only completed three major projects, plus a few smaller ones, but all three are things I’m extremely proud of. Sometimes I forget that quality is better than quantity (and also fits better in my little house!). I think back to a few years ago, when it seemed like I was cranking something out every week or two, but then I remember that the things I’m making are becoming ever more complex and time consuming!

It was also a weird year for starting one project, and then having something else more urgent come up, so hopefully this year I will have time to go back and revisit some of the things that had to drop off the schedule in 2019.

So let me take a minute to look back at the things I made this year, and check in on a few UFOs (un-finished objects) that may pop up again in 2020!

Daenerys Dragonstone Dress

Photo by Alexandra Lee Studios, Wig by Custom Wig Company

Actually, looking back, this is the reason I only got three big projects done! Meet the dress that, in my hubris, I thought I could crank out in a month or two, and which then took nearly half the year to make! That’s what I get for being an embroidery nut…

I started the corset for this outfit in January, and over the course of the next five-and-a-bit months made the dress, cape, boot covers, wig, ring, and hairpiece. I have also now made leggings to go under it. In this photo I was just wearing black jeans. As much as it frustrated me at times, and as many times as I was tempted to just throw in the towel, I’m really thrilled with how it turned out, and glad that I pushed through. You can read all about it here.

Checked Silk Waistcoat

This waistcoat is the only other thing that I managed to complete during the five month Daenerys marathon! I got Brandon the fabric from Burnley & Trowbridge for his birthday in December, and I wanted him to have a nice, new waistcoat to wear to the winter ball at Locust Grove in February. The waistcoat is all handsewn, and pairs great with our 1820s outfits! It’s one of too many things this year that haven’t gotten a write up on the blog.

UFO: Yellow 1780s Stays

And here we come to the first un-finished object of the year. I had, of course, intended to start these stays much sooner than I did, but then my life was subsumed by the Mother of Dragons. I don’t care for my current 18th century stays at all–they’re too large and not very flattering. I made a valiant effort to complete these in order to wear them with the next project, but ran out of time. In the end, I had to drop the stays for the time being so that I could finish my new chemise à la Reine in time to wear it to Jane Austen Festival along with the other Custom Wig Company ladies.

I cannot wait to get these babies done this year! All the boning channels are sewn (by hand!), so really, the worst is over.

Cork-Stuffed Rump

My old rump was looking pretty sad and deflated, so I really amped things up! Learn how to make your own stuffing out of used wine corks here:

Chemise à la Reine

Photo by Lisa Renee Wilson, Wig by Custom Wig Company
Jewelry by Dames a la Mode

This was a project I’ve been excited to make for a while! For years at Custom Wig Company we’ve talked about doing a set of coordinated chemise dresses to wear to the Jane Austen Festival, and this year we finally did it! I chose to do one with a fitted, pleated back and gathered front. It is entirely handsewn, and I enjoyed every second of it. It was really satisfying to combine a lot of handsewing skills and construction techniques that I’ve been picking up over the last few years. The other best thing about it after I’d just spent 5 months on a single project? It only took 9 days! Read about the construction here.

1850s Underpinnings (Corset, Hoops, and Petticoat)

It’s always a fun adventure to embark on a new period! I particularly like this corset (made from a Redthreaded pattern). The hoop and petticoat patterns came from Truly Victorian. Most of the materials came from my stash, too, which is always a joy. You can read about these three pieces here.

These pieces went to support the third big dress of the year:

1850s Cotton Day Dress

Photo by Fox & Rose Photography, Wig by Custom Wig Company
Taken at the Conrad-Caldwell House Museum

This dress hasn’t gotten a write up because I finished it up at four in the morning the night before I needed to wear it, and I still have some modifications to make, and trim to add, so I’ll wait until it’s fully complete to blog about it. 1850’s was a period I would never have gotten into if it wasn’t for my friend Amy playing Queen Victoria at events. I’ve taken on the roll of one of her Maids of Honour, and so I needed a dress to fit the roll! I’m so glad I made this one, because as soon as I put it on, I was in love! I can’t wait to bring more 1850s plans to fruition in the future!

UFO: Late 18th Century Frock Coat

This one barely rates a mention, really. But, I have cut it out and sewn the center back seam, so it’s technically a work-in-progress. I basically didn’t exist in October, because I was playing a costumed character at the zoo for their month-long Halloween festivities in addition to my regular job, and I hugely overestimated how much costuming I would be able to do while also doing that. Brandon was more in need of a new waistcoat than a new coat for our trip to Williamsburg in November, so the coat got set aside to make room for that.

18th Century Bits (Two Projects, Really)

Best laid plans… At the beginning of the year, I was planning to have so many lovely new things for our trip to Williamsburg, where I was teaching a tambour embroidery workshop. New stays, new dress, cloak, new hat, new full suit for Brandon. In the end, he got a new blue waistcoat, and I got a red short cloak, and we both had a wonderful time! All those projects are back on the slate for 2020, though!

And that’s all! After that, it was Christmas presents all the way for the rest of the year!

What’s coming in 2020?

That wraps up the journey of 2019, so what’s in store for 2020? Big plans, but also an exciting new pledge.

There are a lot of reasons to use up your stash. I’d like to save money to do something big for my 30th birthday next year. I’d also like to open up some space in our tiny house. Plus, it’s certainly better for the planet all around if we use the things we have instead of buying new ones.

So, in case you haven’t guessed yet: 2020 is the year of the stash! From today, I will not be buying any fabric for myself for at least a year. I am allowing myself to buy notions, trimmings, linings, etc… as necessary so that I don’t have to compromise the quality of my work, but all main fashion fabrics and as many other things as possible have to come from the stash.

I went through my stash a few months ago, and counted up 35 potential projects. Some are UFOs; some are projects that have been on the docket for ages, but keep getting delayed; some are re-makes of older things I’m not as happy with; some are just ideas for what to do with fabric I picked up just because I liked it; and some are ideas for leftover fabric from old projects. Considering I only finished 9 pieces total in 2019, I think I’ll have plenty to keep me busy and then some!

There are lots of plans, but here are the first few things on my list: Brandon’s new 18th century suit (UFO), my new 18th century stays (UFO), 1850s ball gown with fabric Brandon got me for Christmas, and the elusive multi-year project that is the tambour’d Regency ball gown (UFO).

I’m actually really excited for this. I’m sure I’ll be distracted and tempted by other things, but this will give me a chance to work on projects that I’ve been really looking forward to, but that keep getting pushed to the back of the queue.

Wish me luck, and I hope that your 2020 is bright!

1850s Structural Garments

I have been part of a Victorian court interpreting group since the beginning of the year, helping to support my amazing friend Amy as Queen Victoria by portraying one of her Maids of Honour. Since we were just getting started, I was stuck wearing my 1840s gear until I could get an 1850s outfit pulled together. We did several gigs this spring, and I had no time, as other projects were more pressing, but as a September gig approached, I was determined to make my newest decade happen!

Of course, no historical ensemble is complete without the full range of appropriate shapewear. For the 1850s, you’re looking to create the nipped-in waist and bell shaped skirt that is iconic for the decade.

This won’t be the most in-depth post I’ve ever done, because I was seriously racing against the clock to make this, but here is what I have:

To start with, I had some corseteering to do. I’ve never been very happy with my old corset. The fabric I used just wasn’t strong enough, and it was basically pulling itself apart from day one. It was also a later Victorian shape, so I decided I would pull it apart, reuse the bones and busk, and replace it with two new corsets, one later Victorian and one mid-Victorian. This is the mid-Victorian, and the later one will come some time in the next 2 years depending on what I end up needing it for!

The new corset is made using Redthreaded’s 1860s corset pattern, which only needed slight modifications to fit me perfectly. I used a purple cotton sateen from Renaissance Fabrics leftover from my 1870s bustle.

The first step of any Victorian corset (or at least all the ones that I’ve made) is inserting the busk. For me, this meant first ripping said busk out of my old corset.

I must have marked all my lines on the wrong side of my fabric, because I ended up putting the busk with the hooks and loops on the wrong sides. This doesn’t actually matter functionally except that it still feels a bit weird to do up the busk.

I added a bit of quilting on the bust gussets, since you often see quilting on corsets from the 1850s. I based my simple parallel lines on this example from the de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Fransisco.

Next, boning channels! These are done using bone casing (this and the grommets came from Corsetmaking.com) on the inside of the corset, with contrast stitching showing on the outside. I think with my next one, I’ll try doing them in self-fabric on the outside.

Most of the boning channels do not intersect the corset’s waist seam, so those are all put in before attaching the hip gusset. This is a wide piece that allows the corset to flare dramatically at the hips. After all, while you might want a tiny waist, there’s no point in constricting your hips when you’re just going to put a big hoop over them!

There are two bones on each side that cross the waist seam and keep the sides under control. Otherwise, the hip gusset would be likely to crumple towards the waist when worn.

Next up: grommets! Always a satisfying pursuit, as it involves hitting things with a hammer.

Once all the bones were inside, I bound the edges with a strip of the same sateen.

Because the seam allowances at the point of the gusset are nearly non-existent, and it’s a point that’s likely to take strain, I reinforced that area with satin stitch in a cotton embroidery floss that matched my thread. You see this detail often on corsets from the 1850s, including the one in the photo at the beginning of this post.

Just one final step: flossing! This is decorative stitching, usually done in a contrasting color, which holds the ends of the bones in place and helps prevent them from tearing through the fabric.

And that’s done!

I love it. It’s amazing how much you learn just by making and wearing one of something. This is leaps and bounds above my old corset in terms of quality and comfort. I definitely highly recommend the RedThreaded pattern!

The other major structural garment I needed was a hoop skirt. I used the Truly Victorian Walking Hoop Pattern, made with some white cotton I had in my stash and an adorable grosgrain ribbon from Farmhouse Fabrics.

A fabric ‘bag’ encloses the bottom three hoops to prevent you from stepping though them by accident.

Oddly, the most stressful part of this project was keeping track of the different ribbons. Since the hoop is slightly shorter in front and longer in back, it was imperative to make sure I didn’t get the ribbons mixed up after they were cut! I did pinned a note to the top of each ribbon. The horizontal pins you can see are marking where the ribbons will attach at the top and bottom, and where the tops of each hoop will sit.

Attach the bottoms of the ribbons to the bag with nice, sturdy stitching!

The tops of the ribbons are sandwiched between two layers of a little corselet that goes around the waist. This has several bones in it to keep it from bunching up, and is bound at the top edge.

The bones and bone casings were also all very carefully labelled so as not to mix them up!

As I was attaching the bone casings to the ribbons, I made sure that the join in each bone casing is covered by the center back ribbon.

It is impossible not to swing back and forth like a bell while wearing this:

I also made a petticoat to go over the hoop, smooth the silhouette, and bulk up the skirts even more. I didn’t bother to photograph this process, since it’s just four rectangles sewn together. Truly Victorian has the instructions and diagram for this petticoat available for free!

I do want to add a corset cover to this set of underpinnings, but overall, I’m very pleased. The 1850s were a decade I probably never would have ventured into on my own, but now that I’m here, I’m loving them, and have so many more plans! It’s a crazy month for me, but as soon as I have a chance, I’ll write up a post about the first dress I’ve made to go over these underthings!

Chemise à la Reine

After taking forever over the Part 2 of my Dragonstone Landing post, it’s nice to be able to write about a construction that was both very simple and very satisfying. This is a gown with no embellishment: no embroidery, no ruffles, no lace, no anything! But, it was constructed entirely by hand using historical techniques that I’ve learned over the several Burnley & Trowbridge workshops I’ve been to (these workshops are so worth the money and the drive to Williamsburg! If you’re interested in jumping into full-on period garment construction, there’s nothing I would recommend more highly!). I loved every stitch of making this gown, and I didn’t want to take it off the day I wore it! After a long day in the booth in the KY heat, that’s saying something.

Chemises à la Reine are frothy confections of fine, usually (but not always!) white fabric, which came into fashion in the 1780s and began the slide from 18th century fashion to Empire/Regency fashion. They are lightweight and heavily gathered. Many have poofy, gathered sleeves unusual earlier in the 18th century. There is a lot of variety in the sleeves–some have a single row of gathering, some two, some three, some are gathered in at the bottom, some end in a ruffle. Some gowns have straight sleeves or shaped sleeves–some full length, some shorter. There are a huge variety of ruffles on the necklines and hems of these gowns as well. So, while the base of the gown: gathered, white cotton, can seem very repetitive, there is actually a huge variety of designs within the category of Chemise à la Reine.

Portrait of Princess Louise Auguste of Denmark by Jens Juel, 1787. In the collection of the Museum of National History, Denmark.

For the Jane Austen Festival this year, we at Custom Wig Company wanted to have coordinating outfits to wear in the booth. We all loved the idea of showing off some fabulous hedgehog hair, so our uniforms became chemises à la Reine with colored sashes. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t all wearing exactly the same dress, though, so we played with different variations of the look.

I wasn’t sure exactly where I wanted to go with my chemise gown until I saw this one from the Musée de la Toile de Jouy. It was featured in episode 6 of A Stitch in Time with Amber Butchart.

Rather than being gathered all the way around, it has a pleated back, and flat sides, with an enormous gathered skirt and front, and plain straight sleeves. I liked the way that it took the airy, frothy chemise gown, and gave it a slightly sleeker look.

I really wanted to have my new 1780s stays done before I started the gown, but finally I had to accept that that wasn’t going to happen, and I started this with less than two weeks to go until Jane Austen Festival!

I started with the bodice pieces, which Brandon helped me drape. I used a technique wherein the pieces are hemmed around the lining before assembly, so all the seams get finished before they actually get sewn. The gorgeous sheer, checked cotton is from William Booth, Draper.

To make the pleated back, I cut the lining according to the pattern we draped, then cut a larger rectangle of my fashion fabric. I pleated the fashion fabric onto the lining and cut away the excess fashion fabric to leave just a hem allowance around the edges.

I made front pieces for the bodice out of two layers of plain linen. These will be pinned together at the front, underneath the gathered portion, which will give the gown structure that the gathered fabric alone couldn’t give.

The bodice pieces are then stitched together. This could be done with a whip stitch, but I went with something like an English stitch, except that I was only dealing with one edge on each piece, rather than a lining and a fabric edge for each. I found that this fishbone-like stitch allowed the pieces to open out flatter than a whip stitch would.

The shoulder straps on this gown are unusual. Rather than simply going from shoulder front to shoulder back, with a gap between, these ones come around the neck in the back and meet in the middle. I though it was an interesting element on the original dress, and decided to replicate it.

A lot of the work on the skirt was done during the Independence Day event at Locust Grove. The skirt is made in three panels: two back/side panels, and one front panel that includes the gathered portion of the bodice. On the 4th of July, I finished the side edges of the back skirt panels, hemmed them, and put the gathering stitches in half of the top.

Photo Credit: Historic Locust Grove
This is my Lydia Fast bonnet, and of course I’m wearing a Custom Wig Company wig! The jewelry is from Dames à la Mode.

I put the final gathering stitches in the skirt at home. Checkered fabric is very convenient for making nice, even stitches that line up perfectly! Two rows of stitches are important if you want you’re gathers to be really neat and even.

I pulled up the gathers and stroked them to get them to line up nicely, then put the finished bottom edge of the bodice over the seamline. Then I stitched the skirt to the bodice, being careful to put a stitch through each gather. The two back skirt panels go from the front/side front seam on one side to the same seam on the other side.

Next, it was time to deal with the large panel that forms the front of the skirt and bodice. This is just a large rectangle with a slight dip in the top to make the shape of the neckline.

The sides are both selvedges, so they just got turned and stitched down. There is a slit cut in the center from neck to about hip level. This slit is what allows me to get in and out of the dress. It is finished with a narrow hem. The bottom of the slit is re-enforced with buttonhole stitches and a bar tack to prevent it from tearing.

The top edge of the front piece is hemmed to make a drawstring casing, with a piece of narrow cotton tape from Burnley & Trowbridge tacked to the shoulder strap seam for the drawstring. The bottom of the piece also got a hem, though apparently not a picture.

The front piece is then whip stitched to the skirt back, and blind stitched along the front/side front bodice seam so that it will cover the plain linen, fitted portion of the bodice.

The waist and underbust drawstring cases are made of more cotton tape from Burnley & Trowbridge.

The dress so far. She looked a bit awkward because my dress form is still padded out for Daenerys’ underbust corset, not for 18th century stays.

I briefly considered doing a nice, simple straight sleeve, which I could draft in my sleep, but did end up drafting a shaped sleeve like the one on the original using one of the patterns from The Cut of Women’s Clothes as a guide, though it needed a good bit of adjusting to fit me.

The only plain seams in the whole dress! The sleeves and sleeve linings are sewn with running stitch, with a back stitch every few stitches for strength.

The back sleeve seams are open at the wrist to leave room for the hand to get through. These adorable flower-shaped mother-of-pearl buttons were left over from another project.

I was attaching the sleeves on Friday night at the Jane Austen Festival! Down to the wire for a dress I planned to wear on Saturday!

The final step when I got home Friday night was to stitch the fabric shoulder straps over the top–blind stitched along the seams, and prick stitched at the neckline edge.

I’m head over heels with this dress; I really am. It really reminded me why I love hand sewing, and why I try to do it on any garment from before sewing machines were widely available. I just enjoy hand construction so much more than machine. Machine sewing is all about the end goal for me, but when hand sewing I love the process as well. Loving the outcome is just the cherry on the cake! The jewelry in these photos is from Dames à la Mode, the wig from Custom Wig Company, and the makeup from LBCC Historical.

Here are some comparisons of the original dress from the Musée de la Toile de Jouy and mine. I didn’t have enough fabric (or enough time!) to do the skirt ruffle, and Wm. Booth is sold out of this fabric now! But, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it anyway, so that’s okay.

And here are a couple of photos by Fox & Rose Photography, which show me at work netting the cap for an 18th century men’s wig.

Dragonstone Landing Part 2

This is the second part of my blog about recreating Daenerys’ Dragonstone Landing dress from Season 7 of Game of Thrones. Click here to read Part 1.

Where we left off, I had just reached the part of this build that I was most looking forward to: the embroidery. There are two major sections of embroidery one this costume: the shoulders of the dress, and the shoulders of the cape. Both form vague, stylized dragon-shapes that wrap from front to back, and there are a lot of elements that evoke dragon skin, scales, wings, or tails.

My first step was to get the basic shape I would need for the dress embroidery piece. The major embroidery isn’t done directly on the garment, but embroidered on organza in a hoop, then appliquéd on with a bit more embroidery done around the edges to mask the join.

I used a piece of scrap linen to trace out were the embroidery needed to go. The dragon head sits on the bodice front, while the rest of the design falls on the sleeve-capes. The line of pins below marks where an area of smocking will sit below the embroidery.

This gave me a pattern that I could transfer onto the charcoal grey silk organza that forms the base of the embroidery.

I used a silver sharpie to sketch in a rough idea of where the major design elements needed to go, and started layering the bottom portion with crumpled and pleated fabrics. Almost none of this shows in the final design, it’s just there to add some texture behind the sequined dragon wings that will come later.

I added another element of texture to this portion with a bit of wool roving, and a few rows of black, grey, and silver backstitching.

After deciding that the grey lockstitch would look very dull against the plain organza, I added a layer of linen and wool over that portion as well before doing the lockstitch.

The large chunk of lockstitch got broken up with sinuous lines of long stitches in light and dark grey wool.

A dragon head rests on the front of each shoulder, outlined in couched silver cord and filled with a web of the same.

I gradually layered more of the grey yarns, the silver cord, and sequins. The sequins are the same ones that were used in the show. They were purchased from Top Fabrics of Soho.

Layers of sequins fill the top portion, where they will stick up along the shoulder of the gown like the spikes on a dragon’s neck and back.

The raw edges at the bottom edge are ok, because they will get covered by a lay of chainmail-like Italian Mesh Ribbon. Mine came from Specialty Beads on Etsy. They seemed to have the best selection I could find on the internet. Italian mesh is used as embellishment on quite a few Game of Thrones costumes.

Believe it or not, this is only the base stage of these embroidered shoulders! The next step is a 3-d element. Each side has three pieces evocative of dragon wings that flare out along the upper arm. I made these from buckram covered first in a layer of the grey organza, then a layer of Italian mesh, and finally with rows of sequins. I did not actually attach the wing pieces at this point, because I wanted to be able to see them placed on the curve of the sleeve before I sewed them in place.

It’s funny going through the pictures again, when I can’t remember why I did things in a certain order. Clearly, at this point, I started working on the cape, but I’m not sure why I didn’t attach the embroideries first! Anyway, that’s what I did!

I had to do a lot of fiddling with layout in order to get the undersleeves and the cape cut out from the fabric I had left, but I managed it!

In order to get the desired fullness in the cape, while keeping it flat along the back of the shoulders, there are two pleats at the back of each shoulder. I think that the original costume only had one (though it’s hard to tell in the one blurry back view available), but I liked the fullness I got from two, and the way it evoked an 18th century robe à la Française.

Like the dress edges, the pleats were topstitched in place with metallic thread.

The structure of the shoulders comes from Pellon Flex-Foam interfacing. I had to play around quite a bit before I got a scale of shoulders that I was happy with–the original pattern I draped turned out comically large once it was made in foam!

The cape is constructed over them the same way as the dress–corduroy outer and linen lining prick-stitched together at the edges with metallic thread.

The large embroideries on the shoulders of the dress and cape are not the only pieces that need to be made! There are also smaller embroidered scales–one at the closure of the cape, and one on each sleeve.

I sketched a little pattern on a scrap of buckram, and used that to test the size and shape, then transferred the pattern to some more organza. The shapes are outlined with couched silver cord, filled in with herringbone stitch in cotton floss and augmented with silver bugle beads and red seed beads.

I braided together several lengths of grey crochet cotton to make the ties that hold the back of the dress. This is one of those little steps I had been putting off for no particular reason, but at this point I wanted the dress to be supporting itself a little more accurately on the dress form.

Before attaching the dress embroideries, I added some red accents to them. This was done between the dress’s first wearing in season 6 and its second appearance in season 7.

Here, the embroideries have been attached, with a section of smocking pinned below. It looks like a bit of a mess around the edges here, but you’ll soon see how that gets blended in!

The edges of the smocking are masked and blended in with lockstitch in black silk and metallic thread.

The dragon wings are placed along the center of the embellishment. I stitched them on only at the corners, so that they maintain their dimension.

Here you can see that the back corner is blended in with rows of long stitches in silver cord, additional sequins, and grey lockstitch.

Finally, the tops of the sequins around the shoulders are strung together and wrapped with more silk thread.

Here is the finished dress embroidery.

I made the sleeves as separate pieces that were attached to the finished dress, because they were only added to this costume for the second wearing on the show. They are quite a simple straight sleeve, but with an added seam at the front of the arm, which is embellished with feather stitch, which spread out to become a triangle of fly and feather stitch at the wrist.

The base of each of these embellished seams gets one of the embroidered scales I made earlier, which is incorporated into the design with grey herringbone stitch and a line of alternating silver bugle and red seed beads.

Instead of being left raw, the sleeves are finished at the top, and whipstitched into the armscye.

At this point the dress is finished! Now, back to the cape.

I marked out the embroidery design on the cape with pins, then sketched it out on organza once again and put it in the hoop.

This one starts with some of the Italian mesh ribbon along the shoulder.

Like on the dress, there is a dragon head sitting at the front of each shoulder, done in silver cord and metal thread.

The base of this design is made from braided and twisted wool yarn, picked out with silver cord, which defines areas of the design that will be filled with other textures, and fans out at the back to become three dragon tails.

I used a kind of modified fly stitch in grey crochet cotton to create the shapes of scales along the ends of the dragon tails, then filled them in with wool yarn and created a spine to connect parts of the tail with yarn and silver cord.

I accented the bottom two tails with red–heavier on the bottom and lighter on the middle tail.

The ‘body’ of the stylized dragon is filled in with lockstitch. I did this portion in grey silk thread.

Layers of sequins form a ridge from the back of the dragon’s head all the way down its back. The sequins divide into two lines and break up the large lockstitch section, and they also form a fringe along some of the braids.

The base of the sequins are stitched over with thread and silver cord, and surrounded by a sea of red beads like smoldering embers. I used a combination of size 9/0 and 11/0 3-cut seed beads in two different shades of red. The 3-cut beads have a gem-like appearance compared to standard round seed beads.

Following the advice on Michele Carragher’s (the GoT embroiderer) website, I painted the backs of the embroideries with glue to help hold the stitches fast. I did this on the dress embroideries as well, but must not have taken photos at that point. I used watered down fabric glue.

Before attaching the cape embroideries, I built up a little area of fly stitch for them to sit in, and attached an embroidered scale over the cape closure.

Here are the cape embroideries pinned in place:

I clipped and turned the edges of the organza under as I stitched the pieces in place.

The backs of the pieces are left as-is, but the front gets a bit of additional blending in the form of beads. There is also a row of red yarn and beads that masks the shoulder edge.

And that’s the cape and dress finished! But, there was still more to do…

I made the wig as part of my job at Custom Wig Company.

I made the boots by dying down a pair of my own boots, and making covers to go over the tops and make them taller. The covers are made of faux suede backed with heavy interfacing to give them structure.

I made two of Dany’s pieces of jewelry as well: her iron ring, and her three-headed dragon hair-stick. Sculpting does not normally form a part of my costuming, so this was an adventure! They are made out of Sculpey, and pained with acrylic paint. I know there are lots of other, probably better options, but I was in a hurry and wanted to work with things I was familiar with and could acquire easily. This was the part of this costume I was most nervous about, and I’m actually really happy with how they turned out!

I pictured the iron ring next to my actual wrought-iron dress clasp because I was pleased with how similar the color I painted turned out! The clasp was made by a blacksmith I know–I thought about making it, but I was not confident of being able to make something strong enough to bear the amount of weight it needs to. It’s not perfectly screen accurate, but for something he threw together after I ran up to him at a re-enactment with nothing but a sketch, I’m really happy with it. It makes me feel pretty bad-ass.

I did watch a tutorial about making this piece on YouTube, and then I used some of the things they did, and went in my own direction for some parts.

And there we have it! I only have some behind-the-scenes images from a photoshoot so far, but keep an eye out for the finished photos coming soon! I will put them in a separate post and link them here.

Repurposing Wine Corks for Stuffing

As all of us who study historical fashion know, our foremothers had all sorts of ways of changing the shapes of their bodies in keeping with the current trends. Of course, we all know about stays and corsets, and hoopskirts are all but notorious, but we can’t forget about all the ways that women have shaped their backsides over time! Bum rolls, false rumps, bustle pads and other forms of hip and rear padding have been coming in and out of fashion for centuries. Sometimes we forget that, if you’re looking for a small waist, padding out your hips goes a long way towards achieving that goal. The contrast of large hips makes the waist look even smaller.

There are many kinds of stuffing you can use in your padding, but I have a definite preference.

Fiberfill is always available, but it’s hot, gets lumpy and flat easily, and it’s basically a million pieces of microplastic, which I try to avoid putting into the environment whenever possible, especially for my hobby.

Wool roving is also a choice but has the same problem of eventual flattening. You’ll also have to buy either Fiberfill or roving (unless you have sheep), while my other options are free!

Fabric scraps are always around in any costumer’s studio. My first rump was stuffed with these, but it was very heavy, because you have to pack A LOT of fabric scraps in to get enough volume. It also, inevitably, will eventually deflate.

That leaves my favorite option: cork! Cork is lightweight for the amount of volume you get, and is much less prone to being slowly crushed by the weight of gowns and petticoats. Cork is also a very historically accurate material for this kind of padding. In the 18th and 19th century, the cork was generally carved into blocks of the right shape and size before being covered in fabric and attached to a waistband. Today, though this may still be possible, it’s a lot easier to repurpose the corks that many of us already have lying around!

Of course, whole wine corks would make for a very lumpy and uneven stuffing, so it’s necessary to process them down into something a bit more effective. You will need:

Lots of corks
A large pot
Water
A serrated knife
A cutting board

Before you start, you’ll want to go through your corks and make sure that none of them are synthetic. It’s usually pretty easy to tell the difference. The synthetic ones are generally very smooth around the outside, and spongy on the ends. In these images, the two top corks are both real, the bottom one is fake. You can also see that the two real corks have cracks where the corkscrew went in, while the synthetic one has a clean, round hole.

Put your corks into a large pot. You will probably need to work in batches in order to get enough. You don’t want to do too many at once or they will cool before you have a chance to cut them all up. You will also probably get tired of this after a while, so give yourself a break before you get too tired and start to rush and cut yourself!

Add enough water to cover the corks by an inch or so (they will float, but add enough water that they would be covered if they weren’t).

Cover the corks with something that will weight them down and hold them in the water (or at least hold in the steam). I used a smaller pot lid, but you could also use a plate or smaller pot. Make sure that whatever you use, you will have a way to lift it easily while it is very hot!

Bring the water to a rolling boil and let boil for 20 minutes.

When you remove the lid, the corks should look swollen. Remove a cork carefully with tongs or a slotted spoon. Replace the lid so that the rest stay nice and warm.

Your cork should be larger than an un-boiled cork, and be squishy and pliable. In these photos, the cork on the left has been boiled. The one on the right has not.

Cut your cork in half lengthwise with a serrated knife. I found it was easier to cut it part way and then just tear it the rest of the way. You want to work pretty quickly, as the cork will become harder quickly once out of the hot water and steam. Don’t try to work so fast that you cut yourself!

I have read about people grinding whole corks in the food processor, but that didn’t work for me at all. There was always one cork that got caught on the blade, effectively capping it and rendering the whole thing useless. Go ahead and try that if you want, and I wish you better luck than I had!

Cut each half in half lengthwise again.

Chop each piece into 4 equal pieces, 16 pieces total.

At this point, if you need smaller pieces, you might try the food processor again. For my purposes, these 16ths were just fine. (Remember, the smaller your pieces, the more cork you will need to stuff something, and therefore the heavier it will get. I would only go smaller than this to stuff quite a small pad.)

Leave your pieces to air dry, or pop in a warm oven for a while.

You can now use your cork pieces as stuffing!

I used mine to stuff a 1780s split rump made using the pattern from the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking.

Now, go use up those boxes and jars and bags of wine corks you’ve been stowing away forever!

Dragonstone Landing Part 1

It’s been a wild five months, y’all. In January, I embarked on what I thought would be a 2-3 month project, and here at the beginning of June, I’m still putting the finishing touches in place. It’s been a long, inspiring, frustrating, and all-consuming project. It has pushed two months worth of other projects back, and has been the reason you haven’t heard from me here in more than three months.

But, the other day I put on the completed pieces. I’m still working out the details: jewelry, and wig, but the main part of the costume is done. I’ll be honest with you all, I was terrified when I put this costume on. I hadn’t actually tried it on for several months, not since I started working on the major embroidery. I had never tried it with the sleeves, I wasn’t sure how much things would weigh, and how that weight might affect the way the dress hung. I was afraid the whole thing might fall off my shoulders and be a disaster that I had to waste another several months fixing. Honestly, if that had been the case, I might have just thrown out the last five months and tried to forget that I ever attempted Daenerys Targaryen’s Dragonstone Landing dress from the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 7.

Luckily for my sanity, it wasn’t a disaster. Much to my delight (and somewhat to my surprise), I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so proud looking at myself in a costume. Even with no wig on (not to mention no pants, since I was just testing the fit of the dress and cape) I felt so. utterly. badass.

I’m not going to show you the finished product on me just yet–hopefully it will be photographed soon in all it’s glory by someone with more skill and a much better camera than my iPhone 7. But, here is the beginning of my saga of making a replica of this incredible costume, originally designed by Michele Clapton, and embroidered by Michele Carragher.

Hi-res images from FarFarAwaySite.

I have been wanting to make another Daenerys dress for quite a while now (you can see my first one here), and as soon as the promo images from Season 7 started to appear, I knew that this was the one. I loved, the structure, the cape (those shoulders! This was the first of Dany’s costumes to feature this silhouette, which she rocked through the final two seasons), and I especially loved the idea of attempting to replicate some of Michele Carragher’s embroidery.

But, before I could think about that, I had to think about understructure. Looking at the above photos, you can see that her torso is very smooth and stiff looking–the fabric fits closely with no bunching at the waist. You just don’t get lines like that without a corseted body and boned bodice. In this case, we also know from interviews that Emilia Clarke did wear a corset under her costumes. Because the waist is smoothed out, but the bust still has a natural roundness, I went with an underbust corset. I used Laughing Moon #113 to get the silhouette I wanted. (Now that I have this Late 19th century underbust corset lying around, I’m feeling the urge to add an 1890s riding habit or bicycling outfit to my wardrobe!) I’ll just go over the corset quickly before I get to the good stuff.

I made a very quick mockup of the corset out of heavy linen. This was mostly to check the length, since I have a very short torso, and have to shorten most commercial patterns. I wasn’t looking for a ton of waist reduction with this corset–I’m wearing it more for structure than anything else.

This corset is made with a single layer of coutil, no lining. The first step of the actual construction is to put a facing at each center back, which gives a nice double-layer to put the eyelets through.

The center fronts also get a facing, both for strength, and to give you somewhere to put the busk. In the left hand photo, the breaks in the seam that holds the facing to the front are where the loops of the busk will stick out. The posts of the busk come out through holes in the front made with an awl. Once the busk is in place, with the posts and loops through their holes, you stitch along the edge of the busk to hold it in place.

The next bit is simple: all the pieces get sewn together.

A piece of twill tape at the waistline helps to strengthen the corset at its highest stress point.

Pieces of bone casing get placed, first covering each of the seam allowances.

And then through the center of each piece.

The top and bottom are bound with bias tape.

And voilà! I padded out my dressform to match my shape in the corset as closely as possible.

Well, that’s the understructure out of the way, now on to the main event. With my dressform padded out, I was able to start draping my pattern.

Working on the front.

The back has a particularly interesting shape. The black tape helps me lay out the seamlines before I start working with fabric.

The cape!

I am am always way too focused to remember to take photos during fittings, but rest assured that I did sew this up into a mockup, try it on, and make lots of adjustments (I think that’s the third iteration of the bodice front you see there, and I actually ended up altering it to have a princess seam instead of darts after this photo was taken) before I went ahead and did this:

Turns out I had JUST enough fabric. I spent a long time figuring out a layout that would get everything I needed on the right grain-line!

In order to stiffen the neckline, I catch-stitched a piece of buckram interfacing along the center front and neck edge.

And then sewed the front into a single piece.

I did the first round of bodice embellishment while the front was still in two halves. This started with making a section of smocking to look like dragon scales. Mine is done in silk habotai. Michele Carragher (the embroiderer from the show), has a useful tutorial on how to do this.

Here is a little video of the smocking process:

When the pieces were finished and pressed, I stitched them to the sides of the bodice.

The rest of the fronts are filled in with variations on fly stitch and feather stitch in grey and black silk thread.

This costume is particularly interesting in that it was actually used twice in the show. The dress was originally created for the finale of Season 6, and the cape, long undersleeves, and some details of the embroidery were added for the first episode of Season 7.

The red fly and feather stitch along the neckline and center front was one of the additions for the later appearance.

At this point, I decided that my grey thread was too light, so markers to the rescue!

The next stitch was an interesting one to undertake. There is hardly any information about lock stitch online at all. I had to base my entire process on observing the finished stitch, and seeing what other cosplayers had done. The key to the lock stitch in this costume is to make it irregular and organic, so that it gives the effect of reptilian skin.

The stitch is formed by wrapping thread in alternating directions around long stitches. In this case I worked the stitch in two different threads: black silk, and a silver and black metallic.

With that preliminary embellishment done, I went ahead and put the dress together. It is grey corduroy lined with grey linen. The construction itself is not the most exciting, but the edge finishing is a nice little detail. The edges of the fabric and lining are turned under, and finished with prick stitching in metallic thread. There is also a row of metallic prick stitching where the skirt front attaches to the bodice. I love it when costumes incorporate period handsewing techniques that are rarely used in modern sewing!

Adding the side backs:

Constructing the back:

I made the sleeve drapes separately, and stitched them to the dress afterwards. They will tie at the center back.

Here I am trying on the dress before finishing the edges and attaching the sleeve drapes.

At this point, it was time to finish the remaining edges. They are all prick stitched together with metallic thread.

The sleeve drapes are stitched to the dress along the top of the shoulder, and left to hang free in the back, where they will be tied together. These ties are what will bear a lot of the weight of the major embroidery later.

And with that, the dress is made and ready for the major embroidery!

I’m going to stop here, because this next bit definitely deserves its very own post, but here’s a sneak peek of what will be happening in the next installment! You can now read Part 2 here!

How to Make Basic Lucet Cord

If you’re just getting into historical crafts, and you need a little something to do with your hands while at an event that is cheap, portable, and easy to pick up, lucet cord may be a great option for you!

There is some controversy about when exactly throughout the course of history lucets were used: if you are interpreting in the medieval period, or in the 19th century, you’re probably pretty safe–between those two periods you may want to do a bit of your own research or check with the site or group that you are interpreting with before you demonstrate it at an event.

That said, lucet cord is simple to make, and makes a nice, strong cord that can be used for drawstrings, lacing, trimming, and any other use you can find for a nice bit of string.

What You Need

Here’s the great thing about luceting: you only need two things!

A lucet. This is the shaped wood that you will use to hold your loops of thread as you work. You can buy a basic one for $5-$10, or spend a bit more if you want one with some pretty fretwork or other ornamentation. Just search the word ‘lucet’ and you’ll come up with plenty of options, and you can also usually see them around at events from vendors that sell basic sewing supplies.
Thread or yarn. Exactly what you want to use will depend on the final use and look you are going for. Basic heavy linen thread will make a nice strong cord. Making a cord from yarn can make a great accent for knitting or crochet projects. In these photos I am using a green size 10 crochet thread because I was looking to match the color of a particular fabric. Experiment away!

The Process

I will go through the process in pictures first–there will be a video of the process lower down!

Put your thread through the hole in the middle of the lucet. Contrary to this photo, you should do this from back to front. Whoops, sorry!

Let an 8″ or so tail hang down the front of your lucet, and hold it in place with your thumb.

Keeping the thread tail held in place with your thumb, take the working thread (the part that is still attached to the spool) around the left arm from back to front, then around the right arm from back to front.

Wrap the thread again around the second arm from back to front. you should now have the thread around the left arm twice, and the right arm once.

Bring the thread across the front and hold it in place against the front of the right arm.

These next few steps can get a bit frustrating until you have built up a little cord. Because there are no knots yet, there is nothing to hold everything in place, which makes things a bit delicate. Be gentle and try not to get frustrated–it will get easier soon! You will be repeating these steps over and over again to create your cord, but I will go through them a couple of times so that you can see how it works as you begin to build up a bit of cord. It will seem complicated at first, but as the cord begins to build up, the process becomes simple and feels more natural.

Continue to hold both threads against the right arm with your thumb, Let go of the bottom thread and take hold of the lower thread on the left arm.

Lift the lower thread up and over the upper thread and off the arm. Be gentle so that you don’t pull the thread tail back through the hole.

Put your left thumb back on the thread tail to hold it still. Pull the working thread gently with your right hand to tighten down the loop that you just pulled over the arm. You can see how the thread is now wrapped once over the middle of the threads between the arms. No need to pull it too tight here.

Continue to work slowly and carefully until you have a little tail of cord built up, at which point you will be able to speed up a bit.

Holding the working thread in you right hand, rotate the lucet so that the right side moves towards you and around to the left. This will cause the working thread to wrap around the right arm, which will then become the left arm.

You will now once again have two threads on the left arm and one on the right. Once again, hold the working thread and the wrapped thread in place against the right arm with your right thumb. You will be working again with the lower thread on the left arm.

Again, lift the lower left thread up and over the upper thread and off of the arm.

Here you can see the thread loop that has now been pulled over the arm.

The tail will have loosened a bit when you did this, so give it a gentle pull, continuing to hold the right threads in place.

Hold the tail in place with your left thumb. Keeping the working thread contained in the space between your thumb and finger, take hold of the loop around the right arm and pull it gently, this will tighten down the loop in the center between the arms.

You can see the tightened knot in the center here.

Rotate the lucet again: right arm towards you, holding the working thread.

This is the point at which the process really solidifies and feels the same as it will through the rest of the cord.

Lift the lower left thread up and over again. You can see how the center knot lifts up and to the left when you do this.

Holding the working thread against the right arm, pull gently on the tail in order to bring the center knot back down.

Hold the tail in place with your left thumb. Tightening the knot is a threefold process: first, pull the working thread to tighten the knot most of the way. When it is nearly tight, pull on the front of the right wrap to tighten it the rest of the way (doing it this way will help keep the knot centered. Finally, pull on the working thread again in order to tighten the right wrap back down.

You can see the tightening process in more detail in this video:

Finishing

When you have a cord of your desired length, cut the working thread.

Remove the loops from the arms of the lucet.

Put the working thread through the right hand loop.

Pull on the left loop. This will tighten the right loop around the working thread.

Put the working thread through the left loop.

Pull the working thread to tighten down the left loop.

Ta-da! You have just completed a pice of lucet cord.

If you enjoyed this, it is just the beginning! This is a very basic lucet cord. There are many other variations on the art, including multicolored variations using different colored threads. Go out into the world and use more things, and perhaps I will add more tutorials here later!

Rambling Rouleaux

I’ve been a bit slow about publishing recently, and there’s a good reason for that! This project has been taking up my whole life! I think it was worth it, though.

This project is the culmination of a couple of things I’ve been thinking about trying for a while. First: I wanted to make a spencer and petticoat set that hooks together at the waist, like this one circa 1815.

You can see more details of this set on LACMA’s website.

In the soggy heat of a Kentucky summer, a little trick like this can save me a layer on my upper body, plus it’s a fun little teaching moment at events, as most people don’t realize that women wore separates like this during this period.

Second: I wanted to make an outer garment trimmed with rouleaux (thin tubes of fabric). Rouleaux trim was a little journey of discovery for me, and you can read my tutorial on how I did it here.

La Belle Assemblée, January 1815
La Belle Assemblée, 1814
La Belle Assemblée, May 1815
Spencer ca. 1815, Chertsey Museum
Spencer ca 1820, MET

This is a selection of the inspiration for my spencer. I copied much of the rouleaux pattern from the spencer at bottom right because there are lovely clear pictures of it, and it had a similar feel to the fashion plate at the top left, which I particularly liked. I went with back details from another spencer, combined with the same motifs as the front and my shoulder caps were inspired by the fashion plate on the upper right. My spencer will someday soon have a tasseled belt as in the center fashion plate, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it!

I started the process with the Period Impressions 1809 spencer pattern, which I have long since modified until I have a basic spencer that fits me nicely. It’s a great base pattern for making Regency outerwear.

I used a minty green lightweight cotton twill. The crochet thread is for the tassel details which will be added to the spencer later!

Reduce, reuse, recycle! The spencer is lined with fabric from an old pink linen duster of my mom’s, which had a big coffee stain down the front.

I made an extra copy of the front of the spencer and drew the pattern on it so that I could work out the proportions.

And transferred the pattern to the fabric using tracing paper.

The pieces are put together using a technique I love, where the lining and fashion fabric are sewn together simultaneously. You put the two lining pieces you want to sew together right side to right side, and the two fabric pieces right side to right side, and then put them all together so that one matching pair of fabric and lining pieces are together, and the other matching pair are on the outsides. Then you sew all four pieces together, and when you open up the fabric and the lining, the seam allowances are sandwiched between.

You can find lots of pictures and information on how the rouleaux were made and applied in my tutorial, so here is a little gallery of the process.

And here are a few of the back rouleaux details.

Just in case there weren’t enough little tubes of fabric involved in this project already, there is also quite a bit of piping: on the edge of the color, on the center front edges, and between the bodice and the waistband.

I didn’t get a lot of chances to work on this particular project during events, but here I am working on the collar rouleaux at Locust Grove!

I just love the textural richness that the overlapping pieces have!

I will often leave sleeve seams unfinished since period examples usually are, but in this case the fabric shredded a bit too easily for my comfort, so I flat-felled them.

The shoulder decorations are just petal shapes with piping around the edges, which are appliquéed onto the top of the sleeve. There is a rouleaux bow at the bottom, and I’m planning to add some little tassels hanging from it when I get the chance!

Some of the trickiest bits of decoration were the rouleaux designs on the cuffs. It took a while of staring at a photo to realize that every other loop is made while laying out the pattern in one direction, and then the gaps are filled in as you work your way back up, so that both ends of the piece end up at the top. This also got topped with a rouleaux bow, and like the shoulders will one day have some dangling tassels. I had to lay out the design in kitchen twine first (first photo) so I would know exactly how to proportion it and how long each rouleaux piece needed to be.

The waistband has a row of piping along the seam.

To finish the front edges, I sewed on a piece of piping with an extra long seam allowance, and used that allowance to encase all the other raw edges on the inside.

Finally–closures! The front of the spencer closes with hooks and eyes. There are also 9 hooks inside the waistband for attaching the separate petticoat.

Petticoats are a nice, quick little project–if you’re deperate for an extra outfit for an event, but don’t think you have time for a new dress, try adding hooks to a spencer and whipping up one of these! I plan to make a couple of these, and put waistband hooks in all my spencers, because it’s just such a nice little trick to have a walking outfit without any added heat or bulk.

The petticoat is made the way I make most of my 1816 skirts–the back piece is a rectangle the width of my fabric, and the front piece is narrow at the top to fit my front underbust measurement, and as wide at the hem as I can make it. The front waist edge is slightly shaped to help the skirt stand out in a nice bell shape without too much pulling at the sides or awkward clinging.

The long side seams are sewn with mantua maker’s seams.

I finished the slit in the back with as narrow a hem as I could manage, with buttonhole stitch to reinforce the bottom so that it (hopefully) won’t tear.

The whole thing is gathered onto a matching waistband.

I worked eyelets in the waistband to correspond to the hooks on the spencer. There are two at center front, one in each side front, one at each side, one in each side back, and two at the center back. These two overlap on a single hook at the center back of the spencer, which keeps the petticoat closed without the need for any additional closures.

I wore this outfit during the day at Christmastide, and just about died of happiness. I’ve been working on the spencer since August, and it took so much longer than I anticipated. I gave up on a couple of other things I wanted to do in order to get it done, and I have no regrets! I am totally, completely in love with this outfit!

Sorry I won’t have a separate post about the bonnet–I started it ages ago and didn’t take any photos of that part of the process, and then it languished for a long time because I wasn’t happy with the brim. I finally pulled the brim off and drafted a new one, which I love! All the decorations came out of my stash, too, which made me happy! The veil is a scrap of lace left over from my wedding dress!

Here are a few progress photos of covering the bonnet.

And here are photos of the full ensemble at Christmastide at Locust Grove!

And here’s a little video that Brandon took, which shows everything really nicely! I’ve never felt more like I stepped out of a period movie! (In case I haven’t made it clear, I’m REALLY excited about this outfit!) I can’t wait to wear it again!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2019 is full of things that bring you as much joy as this project has brought me!

Daisies and Bluebells: A New 18th Century Jacket

Since I started building 18th century wigs using period techniques at work, I’ve been doing more and more 18th century events. And you know what that means: I need more 18th century clothes!

In preparation for 18th Century Market Fair at Locust Grove this year, I set other projects aside to give myself time to build a new jacket and petticoat so that I wouldn’t have to wear the same outfit both days. When I bought this jacket fabric, I had hoped to get enough for a gown, but sadly by the time I bought it there were only two yards left, so I could only make a jacket. But I do love a smart 18th century jacket, so no real harm done!

This was a quick project, and I didn’t take as many photos as usual, so this will be a bit of a short post for me, but I love the way my new outfit turned out!

I was loosely inspired by this plate from Galerie des Modes 1778.

I started with the petticoat while at a cabin getaway with some friends. It is made from a lovely dark red wool from 96 District Fabrics.

Making an 18th century petticoat is incredibly simple: just sew the side seams, leaving them open at the top for pocket slits. Hem the bottom (which I didn’t take a photo of).

Pleat the top so that both the front and the back measure a few inches longer than half your waist measurement. Pleat the front away from the middle, the back towards the middle.

Bind the pleats at front and back with tape long enough to tie around your waist. You put the petticoat on by tying the back waistband in front, and the front waistband in back. You can also wrap the back waistband all the way around and tie it in back as well if your tape is long enough.

And now, the fun bit: my new jacket! This is made from white linen with a woven yellow stripe from Renaissance Fabrics.

I was a dingus, and completely forgot to take photos of cutting and putting the main pieces together. Luckily, the body is basically the same as this jacket, except that I modified the back to a swallowtail, and sewed it all by hand.

My first photo is of the sleeves, all sewn together with their lining, and ready to be set. Since my other striped jacket has vertical stripes on the sleeves, I went with horizontal on these ones just to shake things up.

Setting 18th century sleeves is a fascinating process, in which you sew the bottom of the sleeve to the body, and then sandwich the top of the sleeve between the fabric and lining of the shoulder straps. This lets you really play with the pleats on the shoulder until you get a look you really like.

Brandon helped me drape the shoulder straps for this, and you can see his sense of humor in the notes to tell me which strap is for which side.