Making the Skirt and Sleeves | 1770's Robe a la Polonaise

Continuing my posts on the making of my 1770's Robe a la Polonaise, today I'll be showing how I made the sleeves the skirt. If you haven't read my first post about making the bodice, you can read it here.

After my bodice was constructed it was time to get started on the sleeves! When editing my photos I realized I didn't take as many photos of the sleeves as I should have, so I'll attempt to explain anything I don't have photo's of. Hopefully it will all make sense.

Like the rest of my bodice pieces, I cut the sleeves out of both my fashion fabric and muslin for the lining.

Once the pattern pieces were cut I made sure to mark the sleeve dart (below) onto the right side of my muslin pieces.

Once the pieces were cut, I stitched each of the sleeves individually, right sides together. Then, taking two matching sleeve pieces (lining and fashion fabric), I placed the lining inside of the fashion fabric piece with right sides together and stitched around the edge/cuff. Once it was stitched I clipped the curves and turned it right side out then turned the lining into the sleeve so that wrong sides were together on the inside.

At this point I top stitched around the edge of the sleeve. After that, I pinned down the dart, following the makings on the inside of the sleeve from my pattern. I top stitched along the top, stitching the dart into place.

Next I began working on the sleeve ruffles. Janet Arnold's pattern had large, frilly, ruffled cuffs with a scalloped edge with two layers for each sleeve. Below is the pattern I had drafted based on the one from Patterns of Fashion.

The fabric I used was a cotton voile I purchased in L.A. last year at Costume College. It's very light weight and has a wonderful drape and I knew I had to use it for this.

 

Once the pieces were cut, I began trying to hem the edges. Due to the round/scalloped edge it made hemming difficult and I quickly realized it would be more trouble than it was worth to trying and hem all four pieces and I decided on an alternate plan; a straight edged, plain ruffle. Easy and simple.

I started by cutting the ruffle pieces I had already cut down to straight strips. I cut two on the fold, an approximate length of 26" long by approx. 2.5" wide.

I hemmed the bottom edge with a 1/4", folded over twice and stitched down by hand. Then along the top I machine stitched a gathering/baste stitch.

I also cut another two strips for the cuff of the ruffle. With right sides together, I stitched the cuff to the ruffle, then folded the cuff in half, covering all raw edges, and machine stitched it down.

 Then with right sides together, I stitched the ruffle together.

After that, I hand stitched the ruffle cuff's into my sleeve's.

The skirt is made up of 2 rectangular panels, approximately 2 yards by 42" long each. My original plan was for each panel to only be about 1 1/2 yards long, but when I got my fabric and realized I didn't have enough for trims anyways, I used all that wasn't being used for the bodice and sleeves to make it extra full. This is probably a little more fabric that is needed, but I like how full it is.

With my two panels cut, I measured 3" down from where the center back seams would be and marked with pencil at an angle until it was even with the original edge of the fabric, creating a downgrade (hopefully this makes sense). This is because the center back of my dress dips down, and to keep the skirt even and to make it lay right, it needs to be that much shorter in the back and sloping on the sides.

Once that was done, I stitched the center back seam with right sides together, finishing at my 3" mark. After that, I hemmed the front edges of the skirt, folding the edge over 1/2" and over another 1/2" and machine stitched it. If I were to do this again I would definitely sew this part by hand because the stitching is more obvious than I thought it was going to be on the finished dress.

Now it was time to pleat the skirt. I attempted to measure everything out with math to calculate exactly how many please and what size they needed to be, but I wasn't able to figure it out and my head began to hurt from all the numbers (math and I aren't very good friends). Instead I did the pleats by eye, measuring approximately how long the bodice edge was and adjusting as needed. The hardest part of doing it this way is making it even on both sides. But after a couple of hours I got all tidy and even.

For some reason at this point I didn't base my pleats down and instead stitched them right into the dress. I usually (and would recommend) basting your pleats once you have them pinned the way you want before attaching it to the bodice. This is also a good time to iron them, before you stitch it to the dress, that way you can get them all nice and flat easily.

I stitched the skirt to the bodice by machine, using a 1/2" seam allowance from the edge of the bodice.

At the bottom of the center back of the bodice, I had to hand sew the tip. I chose to hand sew this section because I didn't want to risk getting any of the pleats in the wrong position with my machine, and you have so much more control when sewing by hand.

At this point I also attached the skirt loops, which in my case was a few feet of brown ribbon. I stitched them onto the seam allowance of the inside of the bodice. These are to hold the skirt up in the back by looping around buttons on the outside.

Next was time to finish up the bodice, starting with the rest of the bottom edge. I did a small rolled hem, trying to keep it as close to a 1/4" fold as I could and then stitched it down by hand going just past where the skirt starts.

I did the same thing with the bottom edge and then the center front edge, though with a slightly larger seam allowance at 1/2" folds.

After that, all that was left was to sew on a couple of buttons and hem the skirt (which unfortunately I didn't get any photo's of, though it's pretty simple), which I did by hand with an invisible stitch.

And that's it!

After I figure out what to accessories this with (mainly figure out what to do with my hair) I'm hoping to get photo's of me actually wearing this soon.

Making the Bodice | 1770's Robe a la Polonaise

Today's post is about the making of the bodice of my 1770's Robe a la Polonaise. In general, 18th century dresses had much more simple bodice shapes, which makes construction a little more simple and the actual construction of this dress went pretty quick. I'd like to note that I did not take a historical approach to sewing this dress. This was partially due to lack of knowledge as well as lack of time. The majority of the dress is machine sewn but in order to make it look a little more authentic I chose to top stitch most of the seams by hand.

I draped the pattern for this dress myself, based off of a pattern from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen's Dresses and Their Construction C. 1660-1860. Below is the final mock up. After I was satisfied with the mock up I patterned it and was ready to get started on the real thing.

The fabric I used was this wonderful reproduction cotton print from Colonial Williamsburg, which I bought online. I purchased 5 yards and used up all of it.

I cut out all the pattern pieces from my fashion fabric as well as my lining fabric, which was a basic cotton muslin.

After the pieces were cut I drew the boning channels onto the muslin/lining. There was two on the front bodice piece and one on each of the other two bodice pieces on the side seams.

For the boning channels near the seams, I made sure to mark them 5/8" away from the edge so there would be enough room for my 1/2" seam allowance and a little extra. Once the channels were marked I laid my boning channels (I used bias tape) over top and stitched them down by machine.

I then proceeded to sew all of the bodice pieces together, using a 1/2" seam allowance, and ironed it all flat.

I proceeded to sew the fashion fabric bodice pieces together, again with a 1/2" seam allowance.

Once all the seams were sewn, I ironed the bodice. Instead of pressing all of the seams open flat, I ironed them toward one side, towards the front, with the exception of the center back seam. I did this so when I top stitched the seams it would appear to have the bulk that would be there if I had actually sewn it by hand.

After that I pinned and stitched the lining to the fashion fabric with right sides together all the way around the neckline.

Once it was stitched I clipped all of the curved edges so it would lay flat when turned right side out.

Once I had turned the bodice right side out, I ironed it flat and began my top stitching by hand around the neckline. I did this with a basic running stitch, making sure my stitches were small and had a small amount of tension so it looked like it was actually holding something together.

 It was also at this time that I top stitched all of the other seams on the bodice as well. Looking back, this would have been better to do before sewing the lining in so the stitching wouldn't be visible on the lining.

At this point I placed my boning into the boding channels.

And that's it for this post! I'll be sharing another post about the rest of the Polonaise soon.

The Completed 1770's Polonaise Teaser Photo's

My 1770's Robe a la Polonaise is done, minus a few accessories and a good ironing. Yay! I'm working on editing photos, writing up blog posts about the making, and sorting through video footage, but I really wanted to share a few photos before then.

Next for me, figuring out how to achieve giant 18th century hair...

1770's Polonaise Progress Report

My Polonaise is coming along and it finally looks like something wearable! I can't say how much I love this fabric, which is a reproduction print I bought online from Colonial Williamsburg. Isn't it fantastic?!

This has been a fun project so far, and even though I'm not taking a historically accurate approach with my sewing methods (I machine sewed most of it and did a topstitch by hand to make it at least look a little more accurate) I think it's looking pretty good and I'm down to just a few more steps before it should be finished.

Here's what I have left:

• Hem the skirt
• Add ties and buttons to hold up the skirt
• Add the sleeve ruffles
• Add trim

When I went to cut my fabric I realized I had forgotten to purchase extra for trim. *facepalm* I'm not quite sure at this point what I'll be doing to remedy that, but since there's so many colors in the fabric I should have a lot of options. I'd also like to add a ruffle to the hem of my green petticoat, but alas I had less fabric than I thought and don't have enough to trim that either. Clearly I thought this out really well...

I've been photographing and videoing the making of this dress, so as long as the photo's/footage looks good you should be seeing what has gone into making this sometime after it's all finished.