1940's Swing Dress Inspiration

Vintage Aircraft Weekend is quickly approaching , which means its time for a new dress! This is my big event of the year, with a dinner dance on Friday night, and the airshow the next day; it's a great weekend.

I love dressing up and every year I tell myself I should make a dress, but somehow I never end up actually making one and end up wearing something either authentic vintage or vintage inspired. But not this year. I'm determined to actually make my dress this year even though my schedule has been crazier than ever. But it's 1940's, it should be simple enough, right?

While I'm busy scrambling around sewing, I thought I'd share some of my inspiration for the dress I'm making this year.

Before I decided on doing a 1940's swing dress, I threw around several different idea's and era's. I really love the elegant beauty of the 1930's and the full skirts of the 50's, so I was open to any of those era's as well. For a while I was throwing around the idea of a 1950's cotton lawn dress after I found the perfect pink lawn online. But I decided I really wanted to do a 40's swing dress since I usually ended up doing 50's.

Late 30's, early 40's Fashion.

1940's Day Wear

Early 1940's Fashion

c. 1942 Via

I cam across the below picture and I loved the bow neckline but I knew it would be too time consuming to draft up a pattern. But I loved the dress so much, so I kept it in mind.

c. 1942 via

Then I came across Katherine's dress on Mode de Lis and fell in love with the similar design to the one above, and I realized she had used a Simplicity pattern that I've had in my stash for several years now.

Katherine's dress

Like Katherine, I'm using Simplicity pattern 1587 for the bodice and drafting my own skirt pattern. I'll be sure to write more about that in a future post. But for now, it's time to get sewing!

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!

Project P19 | Bodice Emrboidery

I don't have a lot to share what I've been doing for Padme's Picnic Dress, or Project P19, at the moment because most of what I've done so far is embroidery, but I wanted to post about what I have done so far.

I finished drafting the bodice on my sewing form (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of that) and patterned it a few weeks ago. It's a pretty simple design, consisting of a total of 9 panels. I cut my pattern pieces of 2 layers; canvas for the structured layer and a crinkled nylon chiffon for the top layer. I will also be cutting these same pieces out of my lining fabric, but I don't have any on hand at the moment.

Once all my pieces were cut I flatlined the top layer to the canvas by surging around the edges. This was a little tricky with the chiffon since it's so light weight, but I was able to get it done fairly well considering I've never really worked with sheer fabrics before.

The next step was figuring out the embroidery pattern. Only two of the panels have embroidery on them; the center front piece and the two on either side have just a little bit of embroidery. Figuring out the embroidery and turning it into a pattern I could use was a little bit of a challenge.

I was originally planning on drawing the pattern onto paper then somehow mirror it and transfer it to the bodice, but I quickly realized that that was going to be really difficult. I pulled out Dressing A Galaxy and some tracing paper and started tracing the main embroidery. I simplified the pattern because there's a lot going on on that bodice and was able to use that for my pattern.

Once I had my simplified version traced I cut it into 3 different sections and spread it over my bodice to get an idea of the size. Luckily the size of the photo in the book is pretty close to my bodice piece and I was able to use my tracings for my pattern.

This book. It's kind of amazing.

As soon as I knew that this would work I copied the pattern to a second piece of tracing paper and made copies that I could use to mirror the pattern, which I then pinned to the center bodice piece. And then it was time to start embroidering!

Here's the part that I'm currently still working on. I've started by working the outlining stitching. While examining reference photo's I saw that the outline stitching appeared to be very small chain stitches from a very thin thread. I opted to use normal sewing thread for this part instead of using embroidery thread and I really like the way it looks. My stitching could stand to be a little smaller (okay, maybe a lot smaller) but considering I don't know that much about embroidery I'm happy with it.

Once I was done with the first phase of embroidery on the bottom section I tore away the tracing paper and voila! Pretty embroidery! There's still a lot more to do in this section, but tearing away the tissue paper and getting a glimpse of what it will look like is really satisfying.

Then it was time to move onto the next section...

And that's pretty much where I'm at right now.

My First Pair of Stays

I have wanted to make a pair of 18th century stays for a very long time. I'm not really sure what the draw to them was, because I wanted to make a pair before I was even interested in 18th century fashion. I think it had something to do with the structure and all of the boning.

So when American Duchess published Simplicity pattern 8162 for a pair of stays I made sure to buy it the next time patterns were on sale for $1, which ended up being a few weeks after I learned about the pattern.

I held onto the pattern for a while, not sure when I would actually get around to making anything from it. Then in July I was bored and decided "eh, why not start a completely new project?" So I did. I finished the mock up in a couple of days and the only major change I made was to the boning pattern to make the stays fully bonned. I also ended up cutting the pattern in the smallest size in order to be able to lace them closed properly.

Stays are very different from a Victorian corset and are a bit more comfortable because they don't reduce your waist as much. Overall, they're pretty straightforward to make, but sewing the seam binding was torture. I'm really not happy with my work on it, but it is what it is. I know better for next time.

I had the hardest time figuring out how to do the spiral lacing for some reason. I was finally able to figure it out thanks to this tutorial. My brain doesn't work well with numbers, so doing the math on this one took me a while.

 

All of the eyelets are hand sewn and I ended up sewing the seam binding by hand as well, to save my sanity. I opted to hand sew eyelets for two reasons. 1) They're historically accurate. 2) Metal grommets are a pain in the neck for me. I've tried them before and have yet to master them.

Because of the amount of hand sewing I ended up doing on this project I realized how much I actually love sewing by hand and want to do more on future costumes. It's very relaxing

Here's the inside of the stays. I wanted to use a fabric with some color for the outside, but I didn't have anything that would have been period accurate, so I ended up putting the color on the inside. But I ended up with pink seam binding and purple eyelets, which I really like.

The Making of Alice | The Dress

Whew, it's been a while since I said I was making this post. I haven't been working on costumes during the last month because of NaNoWriMo, and I finally decided to edit the photo's for this costume!

This post is about how I made the dress, and I'll do another post on the apron soon. I drafted the pattern for the dress myself. I originally wanted to do princess seams on the front and back, but I was having trouble draping it so I went with darts instead.

For the basis of the pattern I used a drafting tutorial for making a basic bodice block and then made a few modifications for it to fit my costume. For the sleeves I just drafted up a quick pattern. Nothing too complicated since they're gathered, measurements don't need to be precise for puffed sleeves (which is why they're my favorite kind of sleeves to sew! lol)

The fabric I used was a blue broadcloth that I bought at Jo-Ann's. I purchased 6 yards but I only used about 4 yards. I'm hoping that I'll be able to make Belle's blue dress with the remainders since the color is perfect!

Anyways, on to the skirt! I used my circle skirt pattern that I drafted up back in 2011. I used THIS tutorial to draft it. Since I had already made a skirt using this pattern I didn't bother with a mock up, but ended up adding 2 inches to the bottom of it.

Because of the width of the fabric I was able to cut the full skirt in just 2 pieces. Below is my pattern, the left side of the fabric is folded so that this piece forms half a circle. I cut two pieces like this for my skirt. I cut the second piece down the center to make it into 2 pieces for the zipper.

 Next I zig zagged all the edges of the skirt to prevent them from fraying. After that I stitched the skirt together with 1/2" seam allowance, leaving about 5 inches open in the center back where the zipper will go. Then I stay stitched around the waist to keep its shape.

Here's the un-hemmed skirt on my dress form with my petticoat. I ended up pulling the petticoat up higher and adding a 2nd petticoat to get a better silhouette.

Next up, the bodice. I cut all my pattern pieces out of my broadcloth as well as muslin to flatline the bodice, which gives it more support.

I zig zagged my flatlining onto my broadcloth to hold them together and to also keep the edges from fraying.

Then I marked and stitched my darts, and I sewed the front piece and the back bodice piece together at the side and shoulder seams.

Next I started the collar. I cut 4 pieces in the broadcloth and 2 pieces in muslin to use as an interfacing. I didn't bother to serge my collar pieces since no raw edges were going to be visible and neither of the fabrics frayed that bad.

I basted the muslin onto my bottom collar pieces...

Then with right sides together on the broadcloth pieces, I stitched the front and back layers together on each collar piece...

After that I clipped the corners and around the curves. You do this so that it will lay flat and not pucker. It basically helps the fabric be more flexible.

Then I turned them right side out and ironed them and set them aside for the time being.

This is what my sleep piece looked like. I didn't do any sort of flat lining on the sleeves, as I didn't feel like they require it. After zig zagging the edges, I basted around the top edge where I would gather them when I set the sleeves in the bodice.

Then I stitched the sleeve at the bottom seam before pinning the sleeve into the bodice.

At this point I gathered the top part of the sleeve and fit it into the arm hole, matching the bottom arm seam on the bodice to the sleeve.

 After the sleeve was stitched in, I hemmed it. A trick I started using is to draw with a fabric pen where you are folding the sleeve. It makes it easier to fold the fabric over where you want it opposed to ironing, especially when you are working with small sleeves.

I marked out 2 lines, 1/2" and 1" where I would fold the fabric.

 I pinned it, then stitch it, leaving an opening under the sleeve about an inch wide. This is where I put the elastic in.

To thread the elastic in I fold the elastic over at the end and put a small safety pin on the end. I usually don't cut the elastic until after it's threaded all the way through. It makes it easier to pull it through when you have more than you actually need.

After it's pulled all the way through I cut the elastic to where I want it, then stitch the two ends together. Then I folded the ends flat and stitch them down once more. This keeps it more secure and less likely to come undone, as well as makes it lay flatter.

Now I attached the skirt and the bodice, using a 1/2" seam allowance.

Here's the back, where I left the skirt open for my zipper.

 Next I stitched my zipper in. For this dress I used an invisible zipper.

Back to the collar... Here's my pieces after being ironed.

I decided to attached the collar with bias tape. I made the bias tape from my broadcloth so it would match, even though you shouldn't see it. This was my first time making bias tape, and it's actually quite fun! I'm looking forward to the next time I need to make some for a project. :)

The collar pinned onto the bodice...

With the collar pinned to the bodice, I took the bias tape and pinned it right side to right side of the collar and stitched it, stitching along the fold line of the tape (which I think was 1/2")

After that I understitched the bias tape to keep it flat on the inside. Then I laid it flat to the inside of the bodice, and whip stitched it down by hand.

After that I hemmed the skirt and TA-DA! One Alice in Wonderland dress done!

See how to make the apron HERE.