The Grey Gown Photoshoot

I got together with a friend this week and had a little photoshoot. The goal was the get photo's in one of my vintage dresses but we finished quicker than we anticipated and decided to photograph a few additional dresses as well.

Luckily my friend and model, Elie, fit into everything I put her into, which gave me the idea of having her wear one of my dresses that hasn't had a proper photoshoot. It's the Grey Gown, which I made last year and only have photo's of on my dress form.

I'm in love with how these photo's came out and I'm so happy to finally have some good photo's of this ensemble! I love the soft linen and the simplicity of the outfit.

We had a visit from one of our cat's while we were shooting.

If you want to read more about the making of this dress, go here.

I'll share photo's of the other dresses we photographed in another post soon.

Making an 18th Century Inspired Dress Part 4 | Making the Petticoat/Skirt

Today I'm wrapping up my Making Of posts for my 18th Century Inspired Dress, talking about how I made the petticoat/skirt. In the 18th century skirts were usually separate from the bodice and were referred to as petticoats, or "outer petticoats".

The petticoat is made from 2 large rectangular pieces of fabric, approximately 50 inches wide each for a total circumference of approximately 100 inches. Once my pieces were cut I stitched the sides together with a 5/8 inch seam allowance, leaving the top 8 inches open for the side openings. 

I folded the edges of the opening over once, then again to hide the raw edges, pressed, then hand stitched to hem the opening.

After this I pleated the skirt (which unfortunately I don't have any photo's of at this stage). I originally wanted to do cartridge pleats on the skirt but when I did a quick test I found that I didn't have enough fabric and I ended up with my backup plan of knife pleats.

Next, the waistband. The waistband is created from two separate rectangular pieces. The shorter piece is for the front and the longer is for the back.

Folding the waistband in half lengthwise I pressed, then opened it up and folded the top edge under half an inch. This is for after I attached it to the skirt and to hid the raw edges of the waistband later.

I also folded and pressed the ends in by half an inch.

Opening the waistband, I placed it right sides together to the skirt and machine stitched.

I then folded the waistband over, covering the raw edges of the skirt with the folded edge of the waistband and hand stitched it closed. You'll notice that the edge of the waistband is longer on this part of the skirt. It's like this on the front waistband, but the waistband for the back sits flush with the width of the skirt. This is because I opted to go for a button closure, which isn't historically accurate from anything I've seen. I chose to do this because I liked the look and since I wasn't going for complete historical accuracy.

After attaching the back waistband the same way, I machine stitched button holes on the front waistband and stitched a couple of vintage mother of pearl buttons onto the back. And voila! The waistband was done.

Lastly I had to hem the skirt. Because of the bum pad worn under the petticoats the straight edge of the skirt was higher in the back (right). I had to cut the skirt so it was even all the way around before hemming, which I did by hand.

And that's it! I still haven't gotten any photo's of this dress worn, but hopefully I will soon.

If you haven't already, be sure to read:
Part 1 - Drafting the Bodice
Part 2 - Making the Bodice
Part 3 - Making the Stomacher

Making an 18th Century Inspired Dress Part 3 | Making the Stomacher

Today I'm continuing my Making of Post's for my 18th Century Inspired Dress with the stomacher.

Okay, so some of you may be wondering what a stomacher is. A stomacher is a V shaped bodice piece made of decorative fabric worn over the chest and stomach, most common between the 16th-18th centuries. Bodices that were open in the center front would often have a stomacher, which would be pinned into the bodice or dress. This was a style usually incorporated into more elegant dresses worn by the higher class.

For my dress, I contemplated a couple of different options: criss-cross lacing, spiral lacing, a plain stomacher, an embroidered stomacher. I wasn't able to decided until after I re-watched one of my costume films, Ever After (if you haven't see this film yet, you should really go watch it. It's wonderful!) and was inspired by the stomacher-like piece in Danielle's blue "Monastery" dress.

I really liked the gathered fabric on it and the rounded shape, though I knew my own would be straight on the top.

Onto the actual making! I drafted the pattern using a pattern from Patterns of Fashion as a guideline, but making sure it would fit the length and width of my bodice. In the end, here's what my pattern looked like.

The next step was to cut out my fabrics. I used a duck canvas for the base layer to give it some strength, and cut two pieces of my pattern from that, which I then basted together around the bottom and side edges.

I stitched my boning channels between the two layers. For boning I just used plastic zip ties because they're cheap, easy to cut, and happened to be scraps from other projects.  You can see my boning channel pattern below. Nothing fancy, but still sturdy.

Next it was time to prepare my fashion fabric. I've had this cotton with a light print on it in my stash for forever. You can't really see the pattern in the pictures, but it's a delicate cream cotton.

I took a large rectangle piece, I didn't measure so I don't have measurements but it was about twice as long as the width of my stomacher. I stitched 3 rows of gathering stitches parallel over the entire piece.

Which I then gathered and pinned to my stomacher. I trimmed away a bit of the excess on the bottom half, because there was a bit too much fabric, before I basted it in place.

Around the bottom edge I ended up rounding it a bit when I stitched the top layer down, which I then trimmed to cut away the excess fabric.

Next I cut out a single piece from my pattern of a plain cotton, which would be for the lining. I pinned it to the other piece, right sides together, and stitched along the edges, leaving a bit open on the top edge to flip it around and put the boning in.

Before flipping it all right side out, I clipped the corners and the curved edges so it would lay flat.

All that was left after that was to insert the boning and hand stitch the top closed with an invisible slip stitch.

All done!

And that's that! The stomacher itself gets pinned into the bodice with straight pins to hold it all in place.

If you haven't already, be sure to read:
Part 1 - Drafting the Bodice
Part 2 - Making the Bodice

Making an 18th Century Inspired Dress Part 2 | Making the Bodice

Today I'll be talking about how I constructed the bodice of my 18th Century Inspired Dress. If you missed part one where I showed how I drafted the pattern, you can read it here.

With my pattern drafted, I cut out my pattern pieces from my fashion fabric and lining. My fashion fabric was a wonderful gray linen and for my lining I just used bleached muslin.

Fun fact: the linen fabric I used was actually from two curtain panels that I bought from Goodwill for $10. Second hand stores are a great place to look for cheap fabric if you know what to look for.

My notions consisted of 1 inch single fold bias tape and a couple of pieces of spiral steel boning. I usually use plastic boning/zip ties, but I had a couple pieces of spiral steel laying around from an old corset I took apart and they were the perfect length.

On my muslin lining I traced where I wanted my boning channels along the center front and stitched the bias tape on to create the boning channels. Below is what it looks like on the wrong side and the right side.

Then I stitched all my bodice pieces together out of both the muslin lining and my fashion fabric pieces. Once they were all stitched I ironed the seams flat.

Then, with right sides of both my lining and outer pieces together, I stitched with a 1/2" seam allowance along all of the outer edges, leaving a small opening (about 5") in the bottom of the center back so I could turn the bodice right side out.

After it was stitched I trimmed the corners and clipped the curved edges.

Once the garment was turned right side, out I folded the edges of the opening in the center back in by 1/2" and used an invisible whip stitch to close the opening.

The finished back edge.

Next, it was onto the sleeves! I also cut the sleeves out of both the fashion fabric and muslin for the lining. The first thing I did was sew them each separately along the seam line with right sides together. Then, placing right sleeve lining inside of the right sleeve with right sides together, I stitched along the cuff and turned it right side out.

After a quick iron, I top stitched by hand around the edge of the cuff.

I seem to have forgotten to take photo's of it, but the sleeves each have a small dart just above the elbow that helps shape the sleeve. If you want to know more about that you can read my post about my 1770's Polonaise which used the same sleeve pattern.

After this, I pleated the sleeves towards the back and set the sleeves into the bodice by hand.

At this point, I put the jacket on Trisha (below) for a quick look at how it was looking. I decided that the front needed to be top stitched, but other than that it was looking good.

I'm still happy with how it turned out, but there's a few things I wish I had done differently, like:

• Pulled the side seam further back so it was visible in the back.
• added more boning or flat lined with a stiff fabric.

And that's it for today's post. I'll be posting about making the skirt next week.