Tutorial: Patternless Full Gathered Skirt

There are some very exciting things coming up on the event roster! At the end of the month I will by putting on my foot wigs and spending a weekend in the Shire at ALEP 3.5, and immersive Lord of the Rings themed event at the Shaker Village in Harrodsburg, KY. It is actually a smaller, halfway point event between two larger, triennial ALEPs (which stands for A Long Expected Party). Along with my coworker Hannah W., I will actually be leading a workshop on Saturday about taking a commercial pattern to the next level. We’ll be teaching how to fit a mockup, and discussing seam finishes, trimming options, fabric choices, and other ways to make your costume wow.

Standing at just five feet tall and with an almost obsessive love of food, I will obviously be dressing as a hobbit. I watched the birthday party scene from Fellowship multiple times (and then the rest of the movies for good measure), and dug around through the costuming special features and put together a list of everything a stylish hobbit woman needs:

1. a peasant blouse with half-length sleeves
2. a vaguely 18th century sleeveless bodice which closes in back and usually has some embellishment on the center front panel (different fabric, lacing, embroidery, etc…)
3. (optional) a shawl or other tucker worn loosely around the shoulders with ends tucked into the front of the bodice
4. a full, gathered skirt which ends about mid-calf

This picture is a bit grainy, but you can see that almost every hobbit woman is wearing some variation on that outfit. (The exception being the woman in blue/grey in the front who seems to have gotten an extra costume from some 18th c. set film.)

The first item I set out to create is probably the easiest: the skirt. No need for a pattern on this one, you can make it all by yourself! This skirt isn’t just for hobbits either: it’s great for many eras (especially for petticoats), and can be made any length–you could even make yourself a cute shorter skirt to wear this summer!

Fabric Choice

Start with the fabric: you want something light-to-medium weight, anything extremely heavy won’t gather as well. The hobbit ladies seem to have gone mostly for a medium-weight, so their skirts have a nice drape. Some of them (including Rosie) also have multi-layered skirts, which makes for a fun variation.

For my hobbit, I chose a linen/cotton blend from Renaissance Fabrics. They carry it in lots of colors if you’re interested! I also made myself a petticoat, which is exactly the same thing, but I put a bit of lace on it which will show beneath the skirt.

Amount of Fabric

How much fabric you need will depend on your height, the desired length of your skirt, and the desired fullness.

The easiest way to make a skirt like this is to use panels the entire width of the fabric. This means your seam allowance will be the selvedge edges, and you will not need to finish the seams.

I am 5 feet tall, with a 28″ waist (remember when measuring your waist, find the place where your torso can bend to the side without moving your hips). I used 2 pieces of 44″ wide fabric, making a total skirt circumference of 86″ after sewing. The total fullness is a little more than three times my waist measurement, and is almost as full as gathering can handle–much more and I would have had to do cartridge pleats to contain all of the volume, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Depending on your size and the width of your fabric, it may take three or four widths of the fabric to get to your desired fullness, but I wouldn’t try to gather any more than 4 times your waist measurement into a waistband. For the hobbit skirt, I would say 3-3.5 times your waist measurement will do it. You don’t have to be exact, as I said it’s easiest to work with multiples of the fabric width.

Example: if your waist measures 40″ I would recommend three widths of 44″ fabric or 2 widths of 54 or 60″ fabric. Any of these options would make a nice silhouette, though they don’t come out to exactly the same circumference.

To figure out the length of your skirt, have someone measure from your waist to your desired length (mid-calf, floor, knee, whatever your like. Hold the top of the measuring tape against your body and the bottom slightly away, since the skirt will stand out from your legs when worn. I would recommend measuring at the side of your body, starting at the waist and bringing the tape straight down from your hips.

My finished skirt needed to be 29″ long in order to hit at the hobbit’s preferred mid-calf length.

To know how much fabric you need, add together:

• your finished skirt length x the number of pieces required for your desired fullness
• a generous 6 inches for seam allowance and hem
• an extra 12 inches to cut a waistband and placket and allow for another if one gets messed up

Divide your answer by 36 to convert to yards.

For me, this added up to 2.11 yards. I bought 2, which meant slightly less wiggle room, but easier ordering.

Make sure you read every step through to the end before beginning!

Cutting

With fabric in hand, it’s time to move on to cutting. You’ll rarely cut anything as simple as this skirt: it’s just a bunch of rectangles.

To begin, make sure that the cut edge of your fabric is straight and runs perfectly perpendicular to the selvedge (finished) edges of the fabric. Measure down the selvedge edge your desired skirt length plus six inches (for me this was 35″). Cut straight across the fabric. Do this until you have as many pieces as you will need to get your desired fullness (two for me).

From the remaining fabric, you will cut the waistband and the continuous lap placket. (The placket is the piece that will finish the slit where your skirt closes, don’t worry, I’ll explain more about that later!) If you have an odd number of skirt pieces, the placket will be unnecessary.

I wanted a 1.5″ wide waistband, which means my piece had to be twice that wide, plus 1″ for seam allowance–4″ total. Your total may be different depending on how wide you want your band to be. The length of your waistband will be your waist measurement plus 2 inches (1 for seam allowance, 1 to allow for overlap).

Cut the waistband with the short edge parallel to the selvedge edge.

Your continuous lap is slightly trickier, but not by much. It should be 2″ inches wide. To figure out its length, subtract your waist measurement from your hip measurement (make sure you measure at the widest part of your hips). I usually add  5 more inches to make sure I have plenty of room. That made my lap 2″ x 14″. Remember, if you have an odd number of skirt panels, you will not need this piece.

Construction

Step 1: Sew your skirt panels together around the selvedge edges.

You can use a 5/8″ or 1/2″ seam allowance if you like, or you can simply follow the line where the selvedge meets the main fabric. Press your seams open.   **if you have an odd number of pieces, leave an opening at the top of one of your seams 1/2 the length of your placket piece. This will be your center back

Step 2: Find your center front and center back.

You will now have a large tube of fabric. Lay your tube on a flat surface and arrange so that the seams are directly on top of one another (if you have two seams). Mark each side of the folded tube. These will be your center front and center back.

**if you have three pieces, arrange your tube with the slit you left to one side, then mark the opposite edge

***if you have four pieces, arrange the tube with two seams lined up left of center and two lined up right of center. mark both edges just as you would with two pieces.

Step 3: Sew your continuous lap placket **if you have an odd number of pieces, you can skip this step, but you may want to neatly whip stitch the seam allowance to the skirt on either side of the center back slit to keep it in place.

Decide which mark is your center back. Lay it out on a flat surface like an ironing board and measure straight down from the mark 1/2 the length of your placket. For me this was 7 inches. Draw a line from the CB mark to this point with chalk or a water-soluble marker.

Cut a slit down this line.

Fold your placket in half and mark the center with chalk or a water soluble marker.

Line up the mark on your placket with the bottom of the center back slit.

Open the slit wide and pin the placket along one side, then the other. The skirt fabric will bunch a bit at the center, but don’t worry about it, this is totally normal.

I find it’s best to sew this part with the placket down so that you can see the slit in the skirt while you work. Start with a 1/4″ seam allowance at the top of one side. Stitch towards the bottom of the slit, gradually bringing your seam allowance down so that it is about 1/8″ when you reach the bottom of the slit. Leaving the needle in the fabric, raise the presser foot and pivot the fabric so that you can sew up the other side of the slit. Lower the foot again and stitch the other side, gradually widening your seam allowance to 1/4″.

Begin at 1/4″ seam allowance.

Gradually narrow the seam allowance as you stitch.

It’s okay if the placket is a touch off at the center, but try to keep the two layers lined up as much as possible as you shrink the seam allowance down to 1/8″.

Leave the needle in and pivot the fabric so that you can sew up the other side.

Gradually widen your seam allowance back to 1/4″.

Press the seam allowance towards the placket. Your placket should now look like this:

Turn the skirt so that the wrong side of the placket is facing you. Decide which side of the skirt you would like to overlap the other. On the overlapping side (for me it was the one on the left with wrong sides out) fold the placket edge in so that it touches the seam. Fold it in again to enclose the raw edges. The seam will now be at the edge.

Do this to within an inch of the bottom of the slit.

On the other side, just fold over the edge of the placket, then fold again so that your first fold rests on the seam, encasing all raw edges.

Do this to within about an inch of the slit bottom.

Hold the skirt as it will be when worn, with one side overlapping the other. Now that everything else is in place, you will be able to place the last few pins. You may have to fold, unfold, and adjust a few times before you get everything to lay just right, but don’t get discouraged!

Once everything is pinned, slip stitch the folded edge of the placket down to skirt. At the bottom of the slit, simply pass the needle from one side of the placket to the other between layers so that you can slip stitch the other side. The placket should remain folded at the bottom as you sew.

Slip stitching down the edge that will overlap when finished.

Passing to the other side of the placket at the bottom of the slit. Be careful as you sew this area to make sure you encase all raw edges.

Slip stitching back up the side that will be overlapped.

From the right side of the skirt, your finished placket should look like this:

Pat yourself on the back, the hardest part is over!

Step 4: Sew gathering stitches

Use chalk or a water-soluble marker to mark halfway between the center front and center back on each side (if you have two pieces, this will be your side seams). Starting at the center back, sew two rows of gathering stitches (this can be either a long running stitch by hand or the longest straight stitch on your machine) all the way around the top of the skirt. Begin and end your stitching just outside of the placket. Leave very long tails of thread at each end. If you are using very heavy fabric for this project, use a heavy duty thread to prevent breakages while gathering!

Step 5: Prepare your waistband

Fold your waistband in half lengthwise and sew along each short end, stopping at least 1/2″ from the open edge.

Trim your seam allowance, making it especially small at the corner.

Turn the waistband right side out and press along the entire length.

Mark the center front and the sides with chalk or water soluble marker by folding the waistband in half, then folding each half into the center.

Pin the right side of the waistband to the center front, sides and center back of skirt, matching your marks. Be careful to leave the inside edge of the waistband free. I pinned mine out of the way.

Pinning the inside of the waistband out of the way.

Pinning the waistband to the skirt at the marks.

Pull up the gathering stitches by holding the thread ends and carefully sliding the fabric along the threads so that it bunches. Work very slowly so that your thread doesn’t break–believe me, you don’t want to get most of the way through and have to start over again! You may have to un-pin and re-pin as you do this to make gathering easier, but always make sure you line up the marks.

Once you have your skirt gathered to fit the waistband, make sure the gathers are nice and evenly distributed, then pin securely in place.

Sew the skirt to the waistband using a 1/2″ seam allowance. Make sure that you keep the inside of the waistband and the voluminous skirt fabric out of the way of the seam!

Trim your seam allowance to 1/4″.

Press the seam allowance towards the waistband. Unpin the inside of your waistband and fold the edge under. Pin the folded-under edge to the skirt at the waistband-skirt seamline so that it encases the raw edges.

Slip stich the inner waistband in place.

Your skirt is nearly finished!

Step 5: Closures

You have plenty of options–you could put on buttons, skirt hooks, snaps, hooks and eyes, or even tie your skirt closed with ribbon or cord. I had some hook and eyes lying around, so I used them. My skirt overlapped enough that I could put them only on the waistband, but if you find that your skirt is gaping in the back, put another in the center of the slit.

Make sure you try the skirt on before sewing on the fastening so that you know how much it should overlap.

Step 6: Hemming

Hem the skirt to your desired length–this is easiest if you have another person who can pin up the hem while you wear the skirt, or if you can try it on a dress form. If neither of these options is possible, determine how long your skirt needs to be, then lay it on an ironing board and use a tape measure to measure straight down from the waistband  and mark where you would like the hem. Do this all around the skirt.

In my case, I had already made a lace-trimmed petticoat, so I put that on my dress form and pinned up the skirt so that the lace showed beneath the hem.

You’re finished!

Here’s my finished skirt and petticoat, and a peek at my in-progress hobbit bodice.

You now have the tools you need to make any variation you may desire on the gathered skirt. You could make a sassy short skirt, a period petticoat, or even gather two different colors of lightweight fabric into a single waistband and hem them at different lengths to create a layered look à la Rosie Cotton!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you have any questions please leave them in the comments–I’d love to help!

Hannah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn to Sew Again: The Burnley & Trowbridge Pelisse Workshop

If you’re like me, you’ve read a lot of historical fiction, or possibly historically-inspired fantasy books. Inevitably, somewhere in these books, a woman gets a new dress. The dressmaker comes, takes measurements, shows her swatches and sketches, goes away, and a day or two later, the dress arrives, lovely, and perfect, and above all, finished. Now in my case, when I was young, I dreamed of reaching a skill level where I could work that fast (yes, yes, I know, the dressmaker would have had apprentices to help as well, but twelve-year-old me does not care). The older I got, and the more I sewed, the more I was baffled. I could sew fast. I could sew neatly. I didn’t actually start using a machine until I was 18, so I had years of hand-sewing experience. But there was still no possible way I could complete a garment, let along a ballgown, (even with help) in 48 hours. If you’re someone who knows anything about the differences between period and modern construction, you’re already laughing at me.

Over the years, especially since I started interpreting, I have added to my repertoire of hand-sewing skills, but nothing has shone light on the mysterious speed of historical seamstresses and tailors like the Burnley & Trowbridge workshop I attended in October. I signed up with two of my dearest friends, Amy and Melissa, almost as soon as the workshop was announced last winter, and the three of us planned for months and then trekked across the Appalachians to Williamsburg, VA. There were several times over the months between signing up and going when I considered dropping out for purely financial reasons. Even minus the hotel, gas, and price of admission, this was going to be an expensive project. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I stuck with it.

Seriously. Go to a workshop here. It will blow your mind. Burnley and Trowbridge also sell beautiful period fabrics. You can shop on their website, or check out their Facebook page.

The workshop was led by Janea Whitacre, who is the Mistress Milliner and Mantua Maker at Colonial Williamsburg. Over the course of the three day workshop, she taught each of the (approximately) dozen women in the workshop how to make a Regency pelisse from the ground up. We started by ‘cutting on the person’ (draping on a body, rather than a dress-form), and stitched everything using period techniques that have fallen out of modern dressmaking, but suddenly explain how it was possible for a skilled dressmaker to produce garments so quickly. Everything about period construction is centered around a single goal: sew the smallest number of seams possible, mostly by not sewing the same seam twice unless absolutely necessary.

Amy draping my bodice.

Sewing my bodice.

Melissa and I were very excited about our finished bodices!

Thanks Angela Burnley, for letting me use these photos!

With machines to help us, sewers today are rarely troubled by the idea of bag lining, where the same garment if made first of lining fabric, then of fashion fabric, and put together afterwards. But think how silly that would be if every seam had to be sewn by hand! You’d have to make the same garment twice! The period techniques we learned for lining are like magic tricks. You put your fabric together in a way that boggles the modern sewer’s mind, sew a single seam, and it all comes out stitched and lined! For example: did you know it’s possible to sew a lined sleeve with a single seam? You just fold the sleeve with the right sides together, fold the lining with the right sides together, stack the two pieces on top of each other, sew down the length of it once (though 4 thicknesses of fabric), turn the fabric right side out and, voilà! the lining is inside. The seam allowances are all going in one direction, but here’s the thing: who cares? When did it become more important to have seam allowances open than to sew efficiently?! The old finished product looks just as good, keeps the lining from twisting around inside the sleeve, and halves the sewing time. And it could be done on a machine, if you want. There’s literally no downside.

My Completed Sleeve

No need to worry about putting things in backwards when Melissa sets your sleeves right on you!

If you want to learn how to line a bodice in half the time, you’ll have to attend a workshop yourself, since Janea is a thousand times better at explaining in person with the real pieces in front of her than I could ever be trying to put everything in a single blog. I’m telling you: take one of these workshops, they are more than worth the price of admission and the travel time. The first couple of hours were worth the $165 I paid. B & T only have a couple of their workshops for this year up, but keep checking back.

But I suppose you want to see the concrete item I got out of this, and not just hear me geek out about all the tricks. So here you go:

Each of us brought our own inspiration images to the workshop, and I was working to reproduce this extant piece:

I’ve been wanting to try reproducing it for a while, and I’m so glad I didn’t get around to it until now.

When I was originally planning this project, I wanted to make it out of this silk from Renaissance Fabrics, but sadly, in the two intervening years, they ran out (shocking, I know). It’s incredibly difficult to find really interesting striped fabrics like this, and finding one that had stripes and florals was pretty much a pipe dream, but luckily, Renaissance also had a lovely cream, fawn and sky blue striped silk faille that worked very nicely. It even picks up  the colors of the original piece.

Most of my process shots are from after I returned from the workshop. As you can imagine, everything there was happening way too fast to get many pictures in. By the time I left, I had a completed bodice and the sleeves and skirt were set and pinned in place, ready to be attached. The bodice seams are all sewn by top-or-prick-stitching (I chose prick) through two layers of fabric and one of lining, then covering the seam on the inside with the other lining piece and quickly slip-stitching it into place. Since I wasn’t lining my skirt, I got to learn about a fun little thing called a mantua maker’s seam, which allows you to sew a fully finished seam like a french seam with just one row of stitching. The Fashionable Past has a quick tutorial here.

The first thing  I did when I got home was to sew the sleeves in place. Since the material is very thick and pulls hard against the pins, I basted it before doing the final prick-stitching. As you can see, the fullness is controlled by pleats, rather than gathering, since these are much easier to set on a person.

The skirt was attached the same way:

After that, I had to take a break for a while in order to finish the company dresses for the Jane Austen society AGM. You can read about Heather’s here, and Meredith’s here. When I got back to the pelisse, it was time to finish the front edges and hem.

The front bodice edges were finished by folding in the edges of both fabric and lining, then prick-stitching them together.

At this point, life got in the way again as I rushed to complete holiday gifts. But once the holidays were over, I could finally buckle down and finish this project, which was now spread out over three months.

Not unlike the project itself, this post is not getting away from me, so I’ll wrap it up here, and there will be a special 2nd edition of this post on Wednesday, where you’ll get to see collar, trimming, buttonholes and the finished product! Here’s a sneak peek:

See you then!

Hannah

Read Part 2!

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The Banyan Bustle*

*As in a rush, not the undergarment!

This holiday season has been just full of bustle, and the weeks leading up to it were also full of something else…great subterfuge and trickery. You see, it’s quite tricky to sew a present for the person you live with while still keeping it a secret.

In this case, the project was a linen Regency banyan, which is a casual men’s over-garment meant for wearing around the house. Basically, it’s a way of staying very comfortable while still not being embarrassed if guests come by. Attire’s Mind has a great rundown on the history of the banyan here.

What with the sweltering humidity of Louisville summers, Brandon has been desperately wanting a banyan ever since he learned they existed. Since he plays one of the sons of the Locust Grove family, it would be perfectly appropriate for him to wear during casual daytime events, and in a lightweight linen, it will be perfect to beat the heat.

Banyans were a holdover from the 18th c., and while Regency men generally wore solid colored frock coats, banyans were a different story. As you can see above, they came in stripes, dots, and brocades, and that’s not all: paisleys, florals, and patchwork are all represented in extant examples. Basically the sky’s the limit when it comes to fabric pattern, though Brandon did request when he hinted he wanted one of these, that his not be too over-the-top. He’s not a man at home in head to toe paisley, and certainly not in this:

Although you must admit–it’s pretty fabulous.

So I set out on a quest for a tasteful, striped linen with enough visual interest to showcase how different a banyan is from a frock coat, while still being something Brandon would happily wear. I went through many options. The fabric I was originally planning to get was from Burnley & Trowbridge, whom I adore, but sadly they had one yard less than required. I was nervous at this point, since I’d discovered in my first search that an irregular, but not over-the-top stripe is incredibly hard to find. Either the stripes are regular, or it’s white with bright green and yellow stripes, or something equally eye-catching. I was about to give up on my dream of irregular stripes when I found the perfect thing on Fashion Fabrics Club. It’s a very light weight linen in a dusty purple (you may think purple would be too much for Brandon, but in fact it’s his favorite color, so I was home free there) with dark blue stripes alternated with subtly patterned beige stripe.

It was perfect, even better than my first plan. I ran it past our male costume director (our friend Brian) with my fingers crossed and he loved it! I sent the package straight to his house to avoid prying eyes.

So that was the fabric squared away, but I still needed to get this thing made. As you can see from the examples, it’s not a small garment that could be easily worked on in secret.

Cutting it out wasn’t a problem, I “worked late” and zipped over to Brian and Amy’s for a cup of tea, chat, and fabric cutting, then snuck the pieces home at the bottom of my enormous work bag. Once safely at home and out of sight I stacked them in the order in which I would need them and hid the stack at the bottom of a box of pillows waiting to be covered for other Christmas gifts.

The main construction all got done in little chunks while Brandon was in the shower, and when he leaves earlier than me for work on Mondays. Occasionally, he would have to go do something on one of the days when I work from home, and I would go “Jackpot! I’ll do this now and work a little late!”

I used the Mill Farm Banyan and Cap pattern, though I borrowed it from Brian, who had already altered it slightly to fit himself, and his altered pattern was perfect on Brandon. Though the pattern calls for lining, I didn’t do this, since the point was to make the banyan as light and airy as possible. All of the seams are French seams, so that they are nicely finished.

I’m afraid I didn’t take process shots, since I was trying to cram the construction into 20 minute intervals. Here’s a finished shot of the armscye seam, which I’ve never done with a French seam before, but works on this because there’s little to no gathering on the sleeve.

The collar is a very simple narrow band, and all the edges of the front are hemmed, since there is no lining or facing to finish them.

Once it got down to the more time consuming hand stitching, I would “stay late at work” and either sew at the studio, or go over and hang out with Brian and Amy. The closest Brandon got to discovery was when I came home smelling like fried onion because Brian was cooking dinner while I was there. It made Brandon suspicious, but he still didn’t know!

Here are the cuffs: They are prick stitched all long both edges to keep them nice and neat, and stitched to the sleeve itself along part of the top edge to keep them hanging properly:

The pattern doesn’t include any kind of closure, but I added 5 one inch covered buttons (though I didn’t put them on until after Christmas, so I could fit it on him first). I covered simple wooden buttons from Joann by gathering one large circle (about 5/8″ bigger than the button) around the front and tying it off. I covered up the raw edges with a smaller circle (about 1/4″ bigger than the button) that I gathered up, flattened into a disk and whip stitched to the back of the button. I could then use the same thread to sew the buttons to the front of the banyan. I backed each place where a button was sewn on, and each buttonhole, with scraps of canvas to keep from pulling on the thin linen.

The pocket flaps are quite large, and didn’t lay nicely, especially considering how incredibly not-stiff the fabric is, so I added a buttonhole at each corner and fastened them down with 1/2 inch buttons covered in the same way. The gap between them is still large enough that Brandon can slide his hand in without rumpling them.

Here’s the finished product, though I forgot to get a back or side view where you could see the pockets.

I managed to get it wrapped and in the present stack without Brandon knowing where it came from, and his reaction on Christmas was a totally worth all of the subterfuge. He was so excited, and proceeded to wear it for the rest of the day. For next year, I guess I’ll have to come up with some new sneaky tactics…

Hannah

 

 

Green Goddess

These next two posts might be pretty short. I was in such a rush to finish things by AGM (the big annual Jane Austen Society conference), that I didn’t take as many pictures as normal.

I’ve been doing a lot of sewing for the past month, but you may have noticed, not as much writing. Not only did I have two complete Regency outfits to finish, I also attended the Burnley & Trowbridge Company’s pelisse workshop. More on that when I’ve finished the project, but I learned so much there may be brain leaking out my ears.

My big projects have been dresses for my boss and one of my coworkers to wear to the AGM, where we sell hairpieces, take orders for wigs, and help people with their Regency styling. Both of their gowns were styles I’ve never tried before, starting with my coworker Meredith’s green pinstripe crossover.

Meredith was a bit leery of Regency style, and wanted something very simple and sleek. Like me, she’s only about 5 feet tall, and was drawn to the elongating v-necked crossover styles she found in her research. She requested plain long sleeves and no extra frills whatsoever–which I realized is a new challenge for me. I do love my ruffles.

My first picture, though, is of the one and only extra frill I did add:

I sandwiched this teeny-tiny edging in the neckline seam. Don’t worry, though, I sent her this photo before I actually did it, and lucky for me, she loved it!

I just adore the fabric she chose–the stripes are so tiny that from a distance, the dress appears a lovely shade of seafoam, but the pattern becomes apparent as you get closer. Everybody at the company wants pinstriped dresses now–including me!

Here’s the bodice, ready to go, with the trim in place all along the neckline to the waist seam. I made the neckline nice and high for modesty and day-time appropriateness sans chemisette. I suppose she could wear one, but there wouldn’t be much room for it.

The sleeves have just a touch of shoulder-broadening poof without adding excess volume to the upper arms.

Since the skirt crosses over and is open in front, it needed to be hemmed on the sides as well as the bottom. The dress is made of very fine lawn, so I used french seams on the skirt in order to finish them. I pressed the first seam allowance open so that it would fold more neatly when I made the next seam.

A front closing dress means beautiful, uninterrupted gathers in the back.

The skirt extends a few inches beyond the edge of the bodice so that the two front panels overlap as much as possible–we don’t want any peeking petticoats when she walks! (Especially since I haven’t made her any petticoats!) The top edge of the skirt has a very narrow hem until it disappears under the lining.

The waist is closed with a narrow sash made of a bias strip of the same material. (Fun Fact: Always seam together bias strips at a 45 degree angle–with the grain of the fabric–it breaks up the bulk of the seam and helps it disappear so that the join is almost invisible.) The sash is tacked around the waistline to keep it in place. There are also hooks on the upper neckline corner and on the inner skirt corners.

And that’s it, really. No ruffles, no frills, just nice, clean lines. I love the way it looks on her (sorry about the wrinkles, we didn’t get around to taking pictures until the last day):

Obligatory plug for my awesome job: Meredith has a blonde bob in real life–this gorgeous ginger Grecian is the same wig she uses to cosplay Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter. Custom, hand-tied, human hair wigs may be expensive, but they sure are versatile! Case-in-point: I’m about to go style mine, which has already served me very well in 1816 and 1822, into a style from the 1790s!

I’ll be back next week with more about Custom Wig Company’s AGM style! In the meantime, like my new Facebook page to see updates about current projects and events, and follow me on Instagram (@fabricnfiction) for event photos, projects, and cats trying to “help”.

Hannah

Déjà Vu in Yellow

I toyed with the idea of calling this post “Turn This Stupid Fat Rat Yellow”, but decided one could push an allusion too far.

As previously discussed, this spring my friend and I took a mini-road-trip to a fabric store that was going out of business, and while there, I bought 6 yards of extremely wide seersucker that was probably originally meant for curtains for only $5 a yard. I used half of it to make a dress for my friend Marrie, who is a fellow interpreter. The rest of it is now a lovely summer pelisse for me! (Actually I can hardly believe this, but there’s still nearly a yard of it left.)

Now that I have two day gowns and a spencer, a pelisse was the obvious addition to my wardrobe. Pelisses were extremely popular in 1816, which was known as the Year Without a Summer. Temperatures (already at the tail end of the centuries long cooling period known as the Little Ice Age) were very low the entire year due to the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, so women would take any extra warmth they could get.

I based my pelisse on this one by John Bell, from February 1815:

Check out that turban–a possible use for my extra yard of fabric!

Since this plate shows only the back, and I could find no description of the front, I had to dig around a bit to determine what the front might have looked like. Capelets like this were relatively common, but often shown from the back, since they were (presumably) the most unique and interesting detail about the piece, but I was able to use plates like the one below for inspiration. Though much of her bodice is covered with that amazing cascading ruff, you can see that the cape folds down and comes down to a point at the underbust.

Ackermann’s Repository, August 1816

I couldn’t do exactly that, because my inspiration plate also has a collar, and the collar has to attach somewhere, but this at least gave me a jumping off point for the basic line of the design. In the end, I attached the collar in the normal way, and made the capelet a separate piece that was blindstitched in place. The ends extend slightly below the waist and have little tassels on them to go with the tassels at the back of the cape.

I did several rounds of mockups to get the shape and drape of the cape and collar just how I wanted them, but as usual when I’m concentrating on mockups, I didn’t think to get pictures of all the steps. I must work on that. I did, however get a picture of how the skirt works.

The skirt in my inspiration plate, instead of falling straight down and being squared off at the bottom, curves from the waist around to the back, leaving the front of the gown skirt exposed. I originally intended to do this with three pieces, one in back and two in front, but as I was drafting, I realized that I had so much fabric that I could do the entire skirt in a single piece, since the front pieces of the skirt would have been extremely small in any case. I used the Sensibility Regency Gown Pattern. You can see that I’ve folded down the curve at the top of the skirt back. This makes the skirt work for a later-Regency walking dress, where the hem should be even all around, rather than dropped slightly in the back. It’s possible to hem the original pattern into the right shape, but much easier if you keep everything straight right from the start so that the grain of the fabric is working with you. The blue line is where I’ve extended the skirt by half of my front underbust measurement and gradually curved it down to the hem.

After putting together the bodice and lining, my first fun step was the collar. I tacked a small piece of trim just inside the seamline before sewing so that it would show when I turned the collar right side out. If you’ve never done this, it’s one of those things that gives you this extremely satisfying feeling of precise-work-well-done. I highly recommend it. Also, I love how the collar has that little dip in it to make it just that much more interesting.

I gathered both the skirt back and the bodice back into the center, so that the underbust would fit nice and snug. Before sewing them together, though, I had to hem and hem and hem and hem all the way around the edges of the skirt.

And then I had to hem and hem some more, because it was time for the cape! As I said above, the cape was then stitched on under the collar and along the front of the bodice, where it is mostly covered by lapel until it meets the edge of the bodice opening. The ends are free-hanging.

Now here’s the real reason I was so excited to make this particular pelisse. I’ve had the perfect trim hanging out in my stash for nearly two years, just waiting for the right project!

I mean look at this stuff! Could it have been any more perfect if I’d gone out looking for it? I love that this is the kind of trim you put on top of the hem, because it even has those adorable little picots on the top–wouldn’t want to hide them! Don’t worry, I gave it all a good press with a little starch when I was finished so they all lie nicely.

The sleeves were feeling unloved, so I gave them their own little bit of trim and ribbon to get them to stop grumbling.

And now…tassels! I made two little tassels for the ends of the cape in front, and a larger one for the back using whatever I had lying around on my desk to measure.

Loving the tassel swish!

Anyway, here it is:

I think I’ll probably move the front ties up a smidge and fiddle with the lapels, as I’m not quite happy with how they’re lying yet, but I love that cape in the back so much!

I just started working on a white silk bonnet to go with it. I’m embarking into unknown territory with this one, but I can’t wait to show you how (if) it turns out!

Hannah

Sunshine, Daisies, Butter Mellow

So, you might think that after finishing an insanely huge event like the 1822 wedding, I would take a break for a while, but while idle hands may not be the devil’s playthings, they do drive me mad. I can’t even watch 20 minutes of Parks and Rec without something to do with my hands. So when all of the wedding pieces were finished, I did a cross stitch piece for a friend’s birthday and jumped straight into another Regency dress. Not for me this time, that comes next, but a commission from another interpreter.

Several months ago, a friend of mine heard of a fabric store that was going out of business several towns over. That was sad of course, but it meant it was time for a road trip! I got six yards of some lovely yellow and white striped fabric for $5 a yard, plus it was meant for curtains, so it’s really wide. It turned out to be the perfect fabric for Marrie’s dress, and there will be enough to make myself a pelisse as well!

I based the design of Marrie’s dress on this English dinner dress from 1815. I decided to make the ruffly neck-piece a removable fichu so that Marrie can switch up the look if she likes by wearing a chemisette instead for daytime or leaving her neckline bare for evening.

I should have taken pictures of the two rounds of mockups we did in order to get the bodice fit exactly right, but sadly, I did not. I’ll begin with the real bodice instead.

  This fabric is basically an extra-large seersucker. It is lightweight enough to be just translucent, but sturdy enough that it goes through the sewing machine beautifully. The stripes were nice to work with because they’re an automatic guide to whether you’re square on the grain, and lining up buttonholes has never been easier.

This shows the smooth neckline edge once the lining has been sewn in.

From here I’m going to skip a few steps, because the basic structure of the skirt and sleeves is not particularly interesting. The fun of this dress comes from the embellishment!

Here is the dress, finished and ready to be pretty-fied.

The skirt decoration is actually very similar to the poofs on my 1822 wedding gown (and made of the same material too!). I started with loops of fabric about twice as long as the circumference of the hem and creased each edge under, then ran a gathering stitch through both layers of the creased edge. The biggest difference is that instead of letting the strip poof out, it is pulled taut against the main fabric.

For extra pretty (and to cover up those machine stitches), I hand-stitched yellow ribbon over the seams.

When the skirt was done, I took a quick break from the dress to create the fichu, which is also made of the leftover Swiss dot from my 1822 dress. It has matching ruffles around the edges which are gathered down the center and pinked on the edges instead of being finished with a hem–a very common time-saver in the period.

Not sure why this is the only picture I got of the ruffles in process, but oh, well. The green thread down the center of the ruffle is just for gathering–it got removed once the ruffle was sewn on securely.

Definitely not the prettiest buttonhole I’ve ever done, but they were better after that one.

But they get covered up by the pretty buttons anyway!

Time for the last details:

I originally bought this lace to use on the fichu, but when I pinned it on it was just too much. It was perfect, however, to create a ruffly detail on the cuffs, with more of that yellow satin ribbon as an accent down the center.

The final step was to add a piece of ribbon all along the neckline as an extra little bit of interest if Marrie wears the dress without the fichu.

I absolutely adore this dress! I’m actually a bit jealous of Marrie, but I can’t wait to see it in action on her, either! Here are a few preliminary photos of her, and hopefully I’ll get more at an event in the future:

And now it’s my turn! I’m finally starting on a new day dress for myself with some block printed grey fabric that I’ve had in my stash for a year. About time!

Hannah

Miss Croghan’s Accessories, Part 1: Things Get Ruff

When I first started interpreting 1816, I loved pretty much every aspect of clothing (as I do in many eras) but there was one accessory I shook my head at. I laughed about it. I swore I would never wear it. You’ll see what I mean:

The Ruff. (These are, in order, an 1815 fashion plate from Costume Parisien, an 1815 fashion plate by John Bell and an 1815 sketch by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, one of my favorite portrait painters.)

I thought it was silly. Why would anyone want to make their neck wider? Or look like a disgruntled chicken fluffing her feathers?

But it says something about how fashion works that the longer I’ve been doing Regency, and the more images I look at, the more I like the ruff. It’s frilly and feminine, and it’s one of those details that is so beautifully, distinctly a part of its era. It can really give a period outfit that finishing touch that makes it seem like more than a costume.

And ruffs like these, inspired by Elizabethan fashion, stuck around though the 18-teens and into the ’20s. In 1822, when Ann Croghan wed Thomas Jesup, they were still fashionable in all shapes and sizes:

(Extant dress ca. 1818, 1822 La Belle Assemble Fashion Plate, 1822 Ackermann’s Repository Fashion Plate)

So I set out to make my  very own chemisette with attached ruff (a chemisette is a simple garment that fills in the neckline of a low-cut gown in order to make it more modest for use during the day). The nice part about this particular accessory is that when it has done its duty for the wedding, it can go into my regular 1816 wardrobe. I kept the ruff on the small side for 1822 in order to ensure that this is the case.

The basic structure of a chemisette is incredibly simple. The body has three pieces: one back piece and two front pieces (I believe they can also go the other way, with the opening in the back). The real fun and interest of a chemisette comes with the collar: plain, ruffled, lacy, embroidered, or full on ruff. Mine is made of cotton voile, so it is a bit sheer, but not overly so.

The only seams in the body are at the shoulders. Since there’s no lining, I made these french seams, meaning that I sewed a narrow seam with the wrong sides together, then flipped it around with right sides together and sewed a second seam that encased the raw edges. I flipped back the fabric edge for the second photo so you can see both the finished edge and the raw edge it is enclosing.

Then it’s time to hem, and hem, and hem. Every edge but the neck needs a hem. The bottom hem is slightly wider so that you can put a string though to secure it under the bustline.

The collar is tall, so that it can fit plenty of lacy goodness, with overlapping points in the center where it comes together. Like most collars, it is made of two identical pieces sewn together, which makes neat edges all around, and gives a bit of extra stability for attaching those ruffles.

Since the collar needs to fit snugly around my neck, the body of the chemiette had to be gathered into it, which I think adds another level of pretty detail. With the collar attached, the only thing left to do was the lace. I got a pretty simple cotton lace with a pattern of dots for it, since all those layers meant the pattern wouldn’t be very visible anyway. Plus the dots imitate the dotted Swiss dress fabric, which I enjoy.

Now the fun part! (Look at me accidentally taking pictures going every which way)

My chemisette and lace even got to come with me on a trip to my parent’s house in Michigan. (See that blue carpeting? Chicago O’Hare.)

Once the lace was all gathered and attached, I just had to add a couple of strategic hook and eyes and here it is:

I took pictures first without the dress, so you can see how the whole thing works. Next time I do one of these, I’ll get more lace and gather it more so that it really wants to stand out, but I think this is a nice not-too-ostentatious start to my ruff-wearing experience.

Here it is with the dress on.

Bonus picture: I made a corded petticoat last week (no blog post about that because there’s only so many pictures you can take of sewing 25 pieces of cord between two layers of fabric before everyone falls asleep), so here’s a picture of the dress with all its corresponding underthings in place.

The event is coming up quickly (only three weeks!), so it’s good to see things coming together. There’s still a wig and veil to complete, though! Don’t forget to come see it at Locust Grove on July 18th!

Hannah

The Wedding of Miss Croghan, Part 4: Finis

Deep breath. And. IT’S FINISHED! Exactly one month to the day after I started this crazy journey, Ann Croghan’s wedding gown is complete. As you could see in my last post, things were winding down last weekend. The skirt decoration was finished, the dress was shaped like a dress, the lining was in, but there was still a ways to go.

As you may remember from my first post about this project, the sleeves were inspired by these from an original 1822 wedding gown:

I had been putting them off for three weeks, but everything else was done, and and it was time to face the sleeves.

The first step was to cut out the pieces. The white piece is a bit larger than the blue so that it can get gathered in the center. I carefully drew and cut out the teardrop shapes so that the blue would show through.

But, of course, when you cut a bunch of holes in your fabric, you have to do something to keep it from falling apart, so I bound the edges of the slashes in blue.

While that was a long and fiddly task, the tricky part was doing the little button loops that contain the excess fabric between each set of slashes.

First I used the extra bias strips that didn’t go into binding the slashes and made little flat cords, like spaghetti straps.

Then I covered some little buttons I had lying around with more of the blue fabric.

I attached each button to one of the fabric cords to make a loop.

Once those were done, I just wrapped them through the slashes, secured the button, arranged the extra fabric how I liked it, and stitched them in place.

When the sleeve pieces were sitting on the table after I’d cut them out, Brandon walked by and asked “What are those football things?”

“Sleeves.”

“No they’re not.”

“Seriously. I promise. They will one day look like sleeves!”

So I set out to prove that they would indeed, someday look like sleeeves. The first step was to gather the lower part of the sleeve into the sleeve band, then to sew the underarm seam to form a ring. (No picture of that since I figured you’d seen enough pictures of me sewing a seam that could or could not be the one I was talking about).

And then to fold under the sleeve binding and stitch it in place to create a nice edge. See? Now they look like sleeves (sort of). It’s easy to forget how bizarre pattern pieces look unless you know what you’re looking at.

Here’s what I get for doing things out of the natural order. I had to wrestle with the entire heavy dress while I gathered the sleeves onto the bodice and stitched them in place. But look how pretty! The puffs are longer and the extra fabric in the center a bit less than in the inspiration, but I’ll take it!

But puffs weren’t the only part of the sleeves! I used the white fabric with no blue underneath to create the rest of the sleeve, so that it would be a little sheer, and stitched it to the inside of the sleeve band on the puff.

As we all know, every wedding dress could use more lace! So I added some at the cuff and sleeve band.

We’re down to the smallest finishing touches now!

Buttons and buttonholes.

Hemming the blue underskirt.

That’s it! With that final anticlimactic and interminable seam, I was finished! The height of the skirt back may need a bit of adjustment once I’ve completed my corded petticoat and tried it on, but here it is!

Once again, I couldn’t have done this without help from some fantastic ladies! I can’t wait to show you all the rest of the outfit as it comes together (or maybe I’ll make you wait until July to see it all together!). If you possibly can, don’t forget to come to the Locust Grove Historic Picnic on July 18th. You’ll get to see the dress in action at a period ceremony, plus lots of other fun stuff including dancing, a reading by the Kentucky Shakespeare Company and much more!

You can also read about the making of the chemisette! And the veil!

Thanks for watching!

Hannah

To see the entire finished ensemble, click here!

The Wedding of Miss Croghan, Part 3: Poof? Puff? Pouf?

Welcome back to the story of the 1822 wedding dress for the wedding of Ann Croghan and Thomas Jesup at Historic Locust Grove–if you haven’t read parts 1 & 2, please check them out!

My big triumph for the beginning of the week was getting all of those pintucks done!

Once I was down to the final cluster, I took a pintuck vacation to sew the waistband onto the bodice. It was important to do this before I completed the last few pintucks, because I could then hem the skirt, pin it to the bodice and try it on to test the length. Good thing I did, too, because I ended up only needing two more pintucks, instead of four! (After another look at my research images, I realized it should be a bit longer than I had originally planned for).

Getting closer! It’s pretending to be all one piece!

But an end to pintucks didn’t mean an end to skirt decoration. I still had an uphill slog before the skirt was ready to go. What more fiddly bits could it possible need, you ask? Why the poofs of course! Every bride needs her fair share of over-the-top accents.

Like all ruffle-related accents, they took up more time than seemed necessary, but I gave myself three days, including an entire Saturday, to work on them. Each one started with a band of fabric nearly twice as big around as the actual skirt. The worst part about ordinary ruffles is that you have to hem the darn things, and hemming 145 inches of fabric for each ruffle is no picnic. Luckily, no hems were needed here. Instead, each piece had to be creased under, then get a gathering stitch along both edges. Thank you again to Judy and Heather, who got two thirds of that pain in the butt done for me!

I divided each poof into quarters to make it easier to gather evenly, and put them on the skirt one quarter at a time. Each quarter was pinned into its section of skirt, gathered to fit, pinned to within an inch of its life and stitched. The real majesty of the poof doesn’t show until you pull out the gathering stitches.

Finished poof on the left, next prepared section on the right.

Saturday morning, Brandon and I went on a great hike (the first one since his surgery, and he says he wants to keep doing it!), rewarded ourselves with ice cream, and then I settled down to this for the rest of the day:

Okay, okay, I tell a lie, I actually settled down to this:

No, this is not the first time I’ve watched the whole thing in one sitting.

Two down, one to go.

After sixteen hours (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) of gathering, pinning and sewing, all three poofs were present and accounted for:

Removing all of the blue marks. Scared the cats to death.

Finally, finally, finally, the skirt is finished!!! Time to move on to more exciting things!

Lest you were afraid there wasn’t enough lace going on with this wedding dress, here I am tacking some all around the neckline so that it will form an adorable ruffle once the lining is sewn in.

I spent a lot of my lining-sewing time holding the project up to the light to make sure the lace was laying correctly. The last thing I wanted was to have to tear part of it out to fix something. Huzzah for sheer fabrics!

And this is why you check and check and check… because when you turn everything around and press it, the lace is all pretty and perfect! And guess what? This is the LAST photo of the bodice all by itself!

Yes, indeed! Time at last to add a placket to the skirt and gather the skirt into the waistband! There was so much fabric to gather into just a couple of inches on each side of the skirt back, I was almost afraid it wasn’t going to fit. But I crammed it all in there and managed to get a needle through it and, at long last, the dress is all one piece!

The short sleeves in the picture are just my shift sleeves showing, they’ll be all covered up when I get the real sleeves in. I’m thrilled with how the color looks. It’s hard to tell in the pictures, but you can really see the blue through the white, and it makes a really nice effect on the ruched front and between the poofs on the skirt.

Now just to make those lovely sleeves and add a few finishing touches–see you next week for (fingers crossed) the final installment!

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel!

Hannah

You can read all about finishing the wedding gown in The Wedding of Miss Croghan, Part 4!