Attaining that Edwardian Silhouette

It's been a while since my first post about the pretty pink Edwardian dress, but I've been making lots of progress on the project! I've been posting about it on my Instagram stories, so go take a look at my highlights if you missed them!) and taking lot's of pictures along the way, which I plan on using to make a couple of in-depth posts in the future.

Today, however, I want to show how I am attaining that ever so iconic Edwardian S-Bend silhouette, as well as a quick update on how the project as a whole is going.

The undergarments I'm using start with the corset. I made my corset from the Truly Victorian pattern a few years back. While it isn't particularly well made, it serves it's purpose.

Included with that pattern is a small bum roll and bust pads, which are all worn underneath the corset. Well, when looking at the silhouette, I decided it just wasn't s-curve-y enough. I'm pretty petite as it is, and I'm pretty much the opposite of curvy, so I need all the help I can get.

I was able to get a wonderful silhouette with adding one simple thing: a basic bustle/bum pad atop the corset.

The pattern was simply draped, and I made a quick tutorial which you can find on my YouTube channel.

Here's what the corset with all it's padding looks like from every angle. And below that is a before and after with the additional bumped underneath two petticoats. The difference is subtle, but I'm very happy with it. It still has a natural look to it even though it's definitely a very exaggerated silhouette.

After the undergarments were taken care of I was able to start on the actual dress! I started with the lining. I used the skirt pattern from Butterick B5970, which I also used for the main skirt but heavily modified. It's actually a great skirt pattern, so if you're looking for a classic Edwardian skirt pattern, this is a great option.

The pattern for my bodice is self made, mostly through draping, but I will talk more about that in a later post. For now, here's a peek into what the dress currently looks like.

Overall, I'm happy with how this is coming, even if my fabric wasn't quite what I'd hoped (but I guess that's what I get for ordering online from a fabric outlet). I have hit a bit of a block however with trim around the neckline. My original plan didn't work out the way I'd hopped, so I'm currently searching for inspiration.

The Making of Padme's Picnic Dress (P-19) - Part 1

Today I'm going over how I made Padme's Picnic Dress.

This costume took a lot of time to make, largely due to the extensive embroidery. And by a lot, I mean I was working on this costume, off and on, for about a year and a half. But I'm really happy with how it turned out and I'm super excited to share how I made it with you all.

Worn at Emerald City Comic Con 2018

I want to start this post out with talking about the fabric. The fabric for this costume was really important, especially for the cape. Because even if I wanted to, I don't have the tools or knowledge to embroider that pretty floral design onto mesh fabric (yikes!).

I got lucky, like really, really lucky, and found most of the fabric for this project second hand at Goodwill. The cape fabric is a curtain panel, and they had a 5 some-odd yard piece of yellow chiffon, as well as another curtain panel that was a crinkled yellow nylon (used in the bodice and petticoat).

When I found the fabric I snatched them up and that's when I started planning to make this costume. I think I paid around $15 for all that. The only other fabric I had left to buy was canvas to use as a base for the bodice.

The fabrics

The pattern was self drafted and draped on my dress form. Below is what the bodice pattern looked like.

There were a total of 3 layers for the bodice; the base layer (canvas), the fashion fabric (crinkled nylon), and the lining (muslin). Once my base layer and fashion fabric were cut I surged them together, flat lining them.

Before stitching anything together I started working on the embroidery of the center front panel.

The layers, pinned and ready to be surged.

Because I'm not a great artist, especially when it comes to abstract designs, I traced the embroidery pattern from a close up shot in Dressing a Galaxy. The overall proportions were pretty accurate, except for the space between them, so I divided the pattern into three sections and pinned them each onto my bodice separately to get the positioning right.

I started the embroidery by outlining everything in a chain stitch using normal thread that matched my fabric. This part wasn't supposed to be obvious, and mostly add texture and an outline to work within.

When I was done with each section I tore away the tracing paper. I also did some of the green embroidery of the leaves at this point too.

 

Once the whole outline was completed I filled in the places that needed it with various shades of yellows and oranges, and eventually expanded to the sides (I guess it's worth noting that somwhere in between here I stitched the rest of the bodice together).

I would recommend looking up tutorials on how to do this part instead of trying to wing it, like I did, because I didn't do a great job. I don't have much embroidery experience, so I was pretty much making it up as I went.

Once the embroidery was finished (a year later XD ) I added the embroidered flowers. Because I didn't know how to make/didn't want to make these, what I did was cut them off of scraps from the cape fabric and stitched them on. 

They were a pain, but not nearly as much as they would have been if I had had to sew them completely by hand.

At this point pretty much all that was left for the bodice was to add boning and line it. I boned each seam except for the ones under the arms, and in the lining added three bones straight up the center to give a little extra support to the silhouette. I'm really glad I added those extra bones, they made a big difference.

The bodice closes in the back with a separating zipper. I would have preferred an invisible zipper, but I was afraid that the thickness of the canvas would have been too much.

The skirt and chemise were less intense to make, but still challenging. I hardly took any photo's of the process of making them, so I'll do the best I can to explain.

I decided to make the "chemise"/blouse a separate piece from the skirt because I didn't want it to be pulled down by the weight, as well as conserve fabric. Plus in a BTS video you can see that it's seperate and hand stitched to the lining of the bodice.

The blouse is a pretty simple design; it has a wide off the shoulder neckline with extra long sleeves, which have fitted cuffs and spaghetti straps. That's really about it. 

The skirt was also fairly simple too, it's made of several "A" line panels and is gathered into a waist band and closes in the back with an invisible zipper. I put the gathers to sides and left left the front mostly flat. The shape of the original skirt is interesting and I'm still not sure what shape it was, probably a circle skirt of some kind, so I did my best to imitate it by choosing where to place the gathering.

I made two layers for the skirt, one in chiffon, and one of the crinkled nylon to add a little bit of volume and thickness. To finish off the edges I surged both layers separately and then folded the edges of the chiffon layer under once and used a narrow hem. I left the other layer alone since it was shorter than the other and wouldn't be seen.

This wasn't my original plan, but I ended up using an extra cotton petticoat underneath. I used a light 19th century petticoat I made several years ago to add just a little bit of volume to the skirt and I'm happy with the end look.

The embroidery on the skirt is really simple. It was straight stitches with sequins sewn on every few inches. At first I attempted doing a chain stitch, but it was too bold so I went down to plain straight stitches and it looked much more subtle, which is what I wanted.

The sequins are four petal sequins and are identical to those used on the original costume. It took me a while of searching online to find them, but I was finally able to find a vendor on ebay. Unfortunately I don't have their information any longer so I can't leave a link.

Lastly, the accessories. The shoes I wore were these silver flats, which I found on Amazon. They look nice, but they weren't very comfortable for walking around for several hours.

I also made the head piece, headband and ear muffs included, which I will be writing about in a separate post with a full tutorial soon.

And that's all for todays post. Like I said, you should be seeing a tutorial on how to make the head piece soon. But for now, here's some more photo's of the finished costume at Comic Con.

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.

Making an 18th Century Inspired Dress Part 1 | Drafting the Bodice

Last month I had the inspiration to make something of my own design in an 18th century style. Like everyone else, I love the costumes from Outlander designed by Terry Dresbach, even though I've never watched the show. I particularly love Claire's outfit with the plaid skirt and embroidered stomacher, which I believe is from season 1. One of my favorite part of the Terry Dresbach's designs is the use of texture and all of the beautiful fabrics, so when I found a wonderful gray linen I knew I had to make something 18th century/Outlander inspired.

I did a couple of sketches before I came up with something I liked. I wanted something simple and not necessarily historical accurate, but with a historical feel, which I feel I accomplished.

As you can see, the dress changed a little bit between the sketch and the finished product. I didn't necessarily want a bodice that laces up like in my sketch, but I didn't know what I wanted to do until later in the process.

I want to walk through my process for drafting the pattern, as it's a step that a lot of people seem to skip over, but is a very important part, and that's what today's post will be focusing on.

The first step in making this was to draft up my pattern. I based my bodice very loosely off of a pattern from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen's Dresses and Their Construction C. 1660-1860. The patterned I used as a reference is an "Undress" jacket. 

For this costume I decided to use two 18th century petticoat's over top of an 18th century bum roll to get the right silhouette. It's important that you have the proper under garments on your dress form when you're drafting so that your pattern will lay properly with all the layers. I didn't bother put my stays (18th century corset) on the dress form because my dress form is solid and they wouldn't do anything.

This method of drafting is done directly on the dress form by pinning ribbon onto the dress form where the seams will be on the garment. You only have to draft on one half of the dress form since the pattern will be the same on both sides.

I'd like to note that the front lines of my bodice is a little bit more defined and sharp than it is in the finished bodice. I was going for a different shape when I started and didn't change that line until after I finished drafting the pattern.

Once I had my seam lines tapped, it was time to start drafting the muslin. This pattern consist of 2 bodice pieces, so I cut out two separate pieces of muslin a few inches wider than the widest part on the dress form and a few inches longer.

The front panel -  I pinned it straight down the middle to hold the muslin block in place. I smoothed it out the best I could around the arm and over the side back, pinning it tight just past the side seam tape marking. There was a bit of excess fabric around the bust, which I pinned into a bust dart which I would remove on the pattern.

After everything was laying smoothly I proceeded to mark over the ribbon seam line with my sewing pen. Once all the line's were marked I removed the muslin from my sewing form (but left my bust dart pinned) and traced a half inch seam allowance around every seam and cut it along that line.

The back panel - The back was done in relatively the same way, except before I started I drew a straight line 1 inch away from the back edge in pencil (this should have been done on my front panel, but I was rushing and forgot), which served as my center back line. Even though the back was two separate pieces with a seam in the center back, I needed this as a guideline to lay my muslin on straight.

Once my muslin block was pinned along the center back, I smoothed out the rest of the block to lay flat against the dress form. Once there were no wrinkles I traced over the ribbon markings, removed it from the sewing form, added a half inch seam allowance, and cut it out.

I pinned the pieces together at the seams to see how everything was fitting. Overall it fit well with the exception of the neckline *sigh* and the back neckline where it met at the front shoulder piece. I made a few adjustments to fix these things, leveled the bottom edge hem, and traced it onto paper, creating my pattern.

In the end, my pattern ended up looking something like this. The pattern I used for my sleeve's is the same pattern I used for my 1770's Polonaise, which you can read about here.

I'm still learning the art of pattern draping/drafting, but I hope this was helpful.

More posts about the making of this dress will be coming soon, so be sure to check back!

What's your favorite method for drafting patterns? Let me know in the comments!

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.