1883 winter bustle dress - planning

This year I made the resolution to return to my roots and make at least one bustle dress. Bustle dresses are my costuming roots because I totally fell in love with them after I saw Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie. I had to have one, and after a quick research revealed that there was absolutely no way I could afford having one made, I decided it would be time to start learning how to sew. That was in 2004 (hey, that's 10 years ago! Anniversary! Whee!).
I didn't dive right into the subject but started with some easy stuff like skirts and bags, and stayed there for a while. My fascination for victorian fashion was rekindled a few years later when I went to Budapest, visited the Hungarian National Gallery and came across this painting of a lady dressed in a purple gown:

"Lilaruhás nő" (Woman in a purple dress) by Szinyei Merse Pál, 1874 

I love this dress so much I named this blog after it. :)

Anyway, because life in general and motivational problems in particular tend to get in the way of my sewing plans, I still didn't make a bustle dress until 2009, when I needed something to wear for my first historical ball. I literally had no idea what I was doing, and of course the gown was a mess and my mom had to sew me into the bodice so it would stay shut.

Mom in a surprisingly beautiful rental dress and I :) .
The velvet part of my dress looks black but it's actually a rich shade of royal blue.

I know it looks fine on the picture, but believe me, you wouldn't want to know how the bodice looked on closer inspection. Not to mention that it is actually far too small, and that I wanted a lot more trim on the dress.
I disassembled the bodice right after the ball, and to my shame I have to admit that to this day I still haven't put it together again. That's another plan for this year, but there will be a separate blogpost.

Back to what this is actually about: plans for a new bustle dress. It's not going to be the purple dress, because I must use some of these ridiculous amounts of fabric I own before I can justify buying any new, and at the moment I couldn't afford it anyway.

So I decided to tackle another dress I've been admiring for some time, and I already have suitable fabric for it in my stash. It's the left one from this fashion plate from Illustrirte Frauen-Zeitung Nr. 22 from November 16th, 1883.

Image from http://www.laetacara.pytalhost.de/

I just love the combination of dark blue shades with white or cream (see my bustle ball gown). On the fashion plate it looks as there are even some  grey and green hues in the blue. I was very lucky to find a suitably coloured wool mix fabric at a bargain price a few years ago, which was such a good deal I actually bought the whole bolt.

Fabric and possible fur trim

It has woven stripes, which in my opinion makes it even better, although the stripes are not that conspicuous when not photographed with flash.
Below is some fake fur I might use for the fur trims. I'm still not sure if it looks too fake or if it is fine, but I decided not to worry about it prematurely.

Fake or fine?

I'll start with Truly Victorian patterns 261 (underskirt) and 460 (bodice) and work my way from there.

Robe de style: some construction details

I still have to get myself used to taking pictures during construction. I only have a few in-progress-pictures, but I took some of the details of the finished dress.

For the pattern, at first I tried to adapt some of the freely available ones (to be exact, this one and this one) but couldn't quite figure out how to get rid of the darts. So I made my own pattern. Usually I try to avoid this, but it turned out fine. After weeks of fiddling with the muslin I came up with this:

I also had a pattern piece for the little triangle that belongs in the neckline, but it went missing.
I uploaded the pattern in maximum size, so if you'd like to use it just click the picture and a large version should appear. The cutting mat has an inch grid.

This is the dress on my dress form. I only included these pictures for the sake of completeness, it really looks a lot nicer when on a person.

The fastening. I totally copied this from Katherine from The Fashionable Past. She mentioned that the snaps tend to come undone, so I added some hooks and eyes. However, my snaps still came undone, but I blame the cheap snaps I used. I will eventually change them to black ones anyway, and make sure they are top quality.

Detail of the neckline inset and the sari border. There are small pencil marks on the outside of the inset, because I sewed it in the wrong way around and then was in too much of a hurry to change it. Whoops. :P

The dress inside out. This picture illustrates quite well how I assembled the whole thing. I cut the bodice pieces from dress fabric and lining fabric, basted them together, then finished the edges with facings. Then I sewed in the neckline triangle by hand, and then sewed on the trim, also by hand. The stitches of the trim show on the inside, which I could have avoided but I had to do it quickly. Well. I don't mind that much, there are so many extant dresses around that look terrible on the inside. I will just classify it as period. :)
After I finished the bodice, I attached the ruffled skirt. I sewed it only to the dress fabric of the bodice, and then folded the lining over the seam and sewed it down with whipstitches.
By the way, I used four widths of fabric for the skirt. My fabric was 110cm wide.
After the skirt was done,  I added the pocket hoops. I sewed them only on the seam allowances of the skirt seam, so the stitches don't show outside.

Different views of the pocket hoops. They could probably be a bit bigger. They only make a subtle difference, but I guess that's enough. In case you are planning a robe de style and brooding over the size of the hoops as I did: I made mine exactly after the pocket hoops in Corsets & Crinolines by Nora Waugh, but only half wide. The length is the same as in the book.

I tried to take detailed pictures of the embroidered trim, but I obviously lack the necessary photographing skills. I hope you can at least make out some details. There is bullion embroidery on it, which I love. It makes it look antique and precious, doesn't it?

A Robe de Style inspired by Jeanne Lanvin (HSF '14 Challenge #2: Innovation)

After months of contemplating and cluelessly staring at the muslin I finally finished my robe de style in three days of frantic sewing, because I wanted to wear it to a special event. Of course I already knew about the event when I started the dress in November last year (!), but you know how these things go.
However, I learned that the simplest solutions are often the best, and that it would have been really smart to make the muslin out of a fabric that has a similar stand as the dress fabric. I tried numerous variations of the bodice with the muslin and wasn't satisfied with any of them, until I was forced to make a decision because my time was running out.
So I chose the easiest version. No hidden darts or any other gimmicks, no special seam placement, just a more or less fitted front and back piece that somehow resembled my inspiration dress. In the end the simple pattern turned out to work perfectly with the silk I was using, and I am very happy with the outcome.

Here you can see the inevitable fitted-but-without-darts-puckering in the back. I hated it on the muslin, but it looks a lot better with the dress fabric. I like the diamond shape :)

Yes, I should have used black snap fasteners. ;)

Where is my second foot? o.O

I like my neighbours garden gate. :)

Originally, back in November '13 when I started to work on this dress, I planned to finish it for the HSF '14 Challenge #2: Innovation. That didn't work out, but I like the HSF "fact sheet" so I'm including it here:

The Challenge: Innovation

Fabric: 4,50m black Shantung silk for the dress, a piece of cream colored silk taffeta for the neckline, fine light pink silk twill for the bodice lining

Pattern: my own

Year: 1926

Notions: black thread, hooks and eyes, snap fasteners, embroidered vintage sari border

How I historically accurate is it? Good question. I'm not sure if I already know enough about the 1920s to evaluate it correctly. I think the pattern is fairly correct. There are no darts in the bodice, and I have seen similar puckering in the back of extant pieces. The silk fabric is probably correct, although it maybe should have been silk taffeta instead of shantung. I finished the neckline and armholes with facings, no idea if that was done in the 1920s. Also no idea if anyone used vintage sari borders to embellish a dress then. The dress closes with a combination of hooks/eyes and snap fasteners, which I have seen on several extant dresses. All invisible seams are done by machine, the visible ones are done by hand (which is never wrong, I guess)
In my opinion, the overall look is coherent with the 1920s, the materials are more or less accurate, and the only thing I'm not really sure about is the general construction and the facings. I give it 70 %.

Hours to complete: ~ 35, including the patternmaking and the muslin

First worn: Boheme Sauvage Vienne, April 26th 2014

Total cost: The fabric came from stash, but I vaguely recall that I paid € 10/m, so € 45 for the black silk. I don't remember the price of the other two silks, but let's just round it up to € 50 for the whole fabric. The sari border was € 12, the fastening materials and thread came from stash. So in total I paid around € 65 for the whole dress.

By the way, Laurie from Teacups Among The Fabric had the same idea for Challenge #2, and she did get it done. I like her dress very much, especially that it is shorter in front and has a differently coloured visible lining. Also, the light pink she used is lovely on her and emphasizes the playful nature of this type of dress.

HSF '14 Challenge #9: Black and White

I finally completed another challenge!
It was an easy one - create something that is either black or white, or black and white. Click here for a detailed challenge description.

I chose to make a basic black 18th century petticoat, which is going to be part of a black fantasy 18th century outfit. The project would have been ideal for Challenge #6: Fairytale (there's always an evil fairy), but as I have to admit that the HSF is going waaaay to fast for me I'm now aiming to finish the rest for  Challenge #21: Re-Do, which is due in November.

The facts:

What the item is: a black 18th century petticoat

The Challenge: Black and White

Fabric: black polyester jacquard, I think it is actually upholstery fabric

Pattern: http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/howto/frauen/rock.shtml

Year: 1780s-ish

Notions: thread, cotton tape

How historically accurate is it? Fabric: 0% (poly), Construction: 0% (machine sewn), Pattern: 100%, so I give it around 30%

Hours to complete: getting the pleats right took me ages, so I think about 6 hours

First worn: not yet

Total cost: all of the materials came from stash (yay!) so I don't know exactly, but I think the fabric cost me around €10


The pictures: 

Front view

Side view. I have no idea why the shape of the bum pad looks funny in this picture. It looks fine when I'm wearing it.

Back view. I like the pleats.

Did I mention I like the pleats? They turned out quite even, which makes up for the messy waistband. :P  

1920s slip

Before I started to work on the robe de style, I decided to warm up with the slip that I planned to wear underneath. A slip is a necessary undergarment that protects the skin from the material of the outer dress, e.g. scratchy wool, and also protects the outer garment from sweat or skin oils. Furthermore it smoothes the line and helps the dress to hang correctly. Plus, it's the perfect excuse to use all that whimsical lace. ;)

1920's Cream Lace Chemise with Hand Embroidery from wearitagainsamvintage.com

French silk/lace slip, 1920s. Can't find the original source, sorry :(

A beautiful vintage slip from wildrosevintage.blogspot.com

A more conservative slip from the Metropolitan Museum

A black 1920s silk slip from the Metropolitan Museum

So I went trough my stash, actually in hope of finding some suitable silk, but then I came across a rather firm but smooth black and completely opaque rayon which I deemed perfect for the task. It has little spades woven into it and feels wonderful on the skin. I guess it's the stuff that is normally used for the backs of modern waistcoats.

front view

I used this pattern (or rather, these instructions) from realhistoricalpatterns.tumblr.com (which is a great blog by the way, thank you so much whoever you are!)

The pattern/instructions worked really well. The fact that my slip has a seam at the waist which isn't supposed to be there is just because I'm an idiot who can't accept that cutting fabric after midnight is not a good idea. I had no more fabric to cut it again, but then it's not that terrible a mistake. The slip is still doing what it's supposed to, and nobody is going to see it anyway.

side view

I admit, the lace I sewed on the hem looks a bit forced. I could probably have used it in a more graceful manner, but I didn't have an awful lot of time to finish the slip. Moreover, I was angry at the lace and wanted it to be gone quickly. I ordered it as stretchy lace on ebay for a totally different project and received this one, which is about as stretchy as hemp rope and for which I absolutely didn't have any other use, so it ended up on the slip.

back view

All in all, I am very happy with this garment. Stupid mistakes aside, it was easy to sew and I made the right fabric choice - smooth against the skin and against the dress fabric.

I made something!

First of all:

Sorry for the radio silence, life got in the way of sewing (again!). However, I'm fiercely determined not to let this blog die. I'm still here!

Now for the good news:

The robe de style is finished!

As always, after I was pondering for months over how to construct a perfectly fitting bodice without the use of darts, it came down to three days of frantic sewing before the event I wanted to wear it to. I'm just terrible at time management, and apparently didn't learn anything over the last 10 years.
Anyway, it's finished now and I love it. I'm afraid there are no pictures yet - I forgot to get it photographed at the event, and since then something always got in the way.

I promise to post pictures as soon as possible, as well as a detailed description of the whole process!