Starting to come together

Ok, I know that I said that I wouldn't touch my sewing until finals were over.  I really did try; honestly I did.  But, in reward for finishing my Microbial Physiology project a week ahead of time, I gave myself 6 hours to sew this weekend.  And sew I did!

I started by searching through my spare scrap box to see if I had an appropriate lace and I found JUST enough of the beautiful white lace that I used for the Sapphire and Snow gown.  I love this lace because it has a lot of character, enough weight that it hangs nicely, and I know that I can manipulate it without it looking funky.  I started by pinning it onto the dress.  I them looked at a few different options for the top edge of the lace.  The photo has a wide border made from the same fabric as the bodice.  I tried this out... ick!  Too much going on.  It really didn't work since the bodice has that beautiful embroidery; it just made it look very very busy.  I scrapped that idea and decided I needed about a half inch trim, probably somewhere in the off white to beige color range to play off the flowers, and I was originally thinking velvet would be nice.  But, no white-ish velvet trim to be found at JoAnn and I didn't want to scrap my hard earned weekend of sewing in a supply issue.  I did find a nice off-white braided trim that worked perfectly with the lace color, so I went with it.  It melded nicely with the neckline, matched the lace brilliantly, and was nice and easy to work with.  Here it is pinned on the bodice in the dress form.

With that decided I started sewing.  This all had to be done by hand with tiny little invisible stitches so that everything looked natural.  If I had done it by machine it would have been a disaster!  Both the upper and lower portions of the braided trim needed to be secured, but the lower stitches also served to anchor the lace to the bodice so it was sorta a two-for-one.

I found a nice way to finish the back portion when I had to work with this lace for the last gown.  Essentially, I cut out one of the lace pattern pieces and use that as an overlay so that the corner comes together nicely.  Once I had it lined up and pinned properly, using tiny little stitches I meld it to the pattern so that you can't tell that it was a different piece of lace.  It just looks like the pattern itself is more ornate in the back portion and it really does come together nicely as you can see.

 Once the lace around the shoulders was completed, it was time to sew all of the button holes.  I have an aversion to buttonholes mostly because they were a nightmare on my old sewing machine.  And there are 16 on this gown, each spaced an inch apart.  But my new machine, a Brother SE400 does keyhole button holes at a single push of a button.  It is fantastic, truly a life saver!  As you can see, the buttonholes are nearly invisible on the outside fabric of the gown, but there is no need to hide them on the lining fabric.

 See, very lovely little perfect keyholes!  This fabric did have some marks that showed up as I sewed the buttonholes.  I think that they way the fabric pulls caused this.  However, on a little rubbing they disappear.

Here is the gown with the lace secured and the buttons finished. I haven't yet secured the side of the lace on the front left, so it appears a little uneven here.  However, I will secure it so that it is a seamless transition between sides.  I also still have to sew a slightly lighter lace along the petal sleeves, but things are really coming together!  With classes over in 2 weeks I hope to accelerate this project since I have to make a second gown before our cruise early next year among other nifty projects.  It really is coming along though :)

Voila! A bodice!

With finals coming up, sewing is officially on hold.  I have worked my tail off this semester, so luckily I need not worry too much, but Microbial Physiology and Bacteriology are not easy courses.  This little hiatus gives me some time to catch up with where I am in my project.  A few weekends ago, I got the sewing bug and spent most of my waking hours working on the bodice.  The last few entries have been an attempt to show the process in enough detail that it is interesting, and also so that I don't bomb one HUGE entry and then take a month hiatus from the blog.  Honestly, that is how my sewing goes.  If I pick it up, I have a hard time putting it down.  It is always "one more seam" which then turns into 8 or 9 and voila!  It's midnight.  Before an exam.  That I haven't studied for yet.  Hence not letting myself pick it up at all.

 Back to business.  I didn't like the puffy ballgown sleeves that were included with the bodice pattern, so I altered it.  The sleeves on the original gown were petal sleeves, very delicate, very not... poofy.  Nice, flowing, not poofy lace trimmed sleeves. Very elegant.  

 So, I changed the pattern.  I kept the original pattern piece for the sleeve, but I drew the petal shape that I wanted onto the pattern piece.  I then cut it.  Yup, I guessed (and I was right!).  After all of that telling you to make a mockup and whatnot, I did this on a whim, just to see if it would work.  I guessed the shape that I wanted from looking closely at the photo, and I just went with it.  And guess what?  They came out very nicely!

 Here is a view of the first sleeve finished.  The original poof sleeve did NOT have a lining included since there was a finished band at the bottom of the sleeve.  With this design, however, the inside of the fabric would have been visible.  So, I lined the sleeves with the same white satin as the rest of the bodice.  Honestly, I am really psyched about this design, I may have to use it again!!!  It allows a tight fitting shoulder to the bodice but enough room to move your arms up for turns and that sort of thing.  Ingenious!  It will be much easier to dance in.  It is one thing to look gorgeous, but these gowns are functional as well!!! Here are some additional images of the gown with the sleeves in (no lining quite yet):

Last post was about my little misadventure with the lining.  Luckily, I have lots of scraps of different varieties and I had a very  nice middle weight white satin leftover from the Sapphire and Snow Antebellum gown.  I was a little concerned at first that white might be too obvious, especially around the bones where the fabric tends to pooch a little bit.  But, as long as I was precise in my seams, everything would work out.  Once I had the lining matched, pinned and sewn to the bodice fashion fabric, I flipped it inside in and got to see the final product.  Until you press the newly sewn seams, it always looks a little awkward- the seams need to be pressed or sewn to settle nicely (or at least this is what I do).  By the way, when sewing the bodice to the lining, this is done with the two right sides facing, so essentially inside out.  You sew all around the outsides, but leave the arm holes not sewn so that you can turn it outside out, or inside in, or the right way (however you want to say it).

I, being a perfectionist, cannot stand seams that don't sit nice and flatly.  Hence, a little extra step which, when done correctly, makes a nice finished edge, holds the lining behind the fashion fabric, and keeps everything from shifting around.  The key here is to be VERY careful.  Since the needle of the machine has to penetrate the fabric, you don't want to have to rip anything out and do it over- the result could be needle holes in your fabric that are visible!  After all these hours of work, that is the last thing you want.  I start by very carefully pinning around the bodice.  I make sure that I tuck the lining slightly behind the fashion fabric so that none of it is visible (especially important here with the white lining!)  I then VERY carefully sew around the outside of the entire garment.  The result- a nice evenly stitched line that shouldn't be visible except up close.  I carefully match my thread colors to my fabric, so it is truly invisible except if you are up close and looking for it.  This really stabilizes the lining and the bodice itself.

Here is a view of the lining side of the fabric.  Note the nice, evenly spaced stitches.
Voila!  This is pretty much the end of the machine process.  I will have to sew the arm hole seams by hand.  Also, there have been very few trims that I have been able to do by machine, most of the time little invisible hand stitches are best.




So, where are we at time wise?
Cut and attempt to sew evil lining- about 1 hr
Recut and sew good lining- 1.5 hrs
Sleeve reconstruction, cutting and sewing- 2 hrs
Sew lining to bodice- 1 hr (takes forever to pin that sucker!)
Flat sew seams- about 1 hr (again, takes forever to pin that sucker!)
Total time this section- 7.5 hrs or so
Total time for the project: About 20 hours.

The price for the bodice so far is difficult to say because I had a lot of parts and pieces already.  But here are some guidelines:
Fashion Fabric- it was 18.75 a yard, and I used roughly 2 yards with carefully placing the pieces on the best of the embroidery and with the grain.  So, about $38.
Lining Fabric- I used about 1 yard since I didn't care as much about exactly location of pieces, but still kept with the grain. That most likely cost me about $10 a yard, so about $10 here.
Boning- since I already had this on hand from corset making and I buy spring steel bones by the roll in bulk, I will have to make a rough estimate here.  Between dividing the tools needed to cut the boning, the boning itself, and the tipping, I would estimate that this cost me about $20.
Thread- I buy the good stuff, so guess about $7 here.
So, total for the bodice so far: about $75.
The most expensive part of this whole thing is not the fabric; it is the trim!!!  And the massive yardage needed for skirts and overskirts is nothing to sniff at either!!  So, beware the low sounding budget here, the worst is yet to come!

When sh*t goes pear-shaped

So far, in most of these posts you have seen how nicely things come together when everything wants to behave.  I have been lucky, this is usually the case because I do lots of planning and measuring and I generally make sure that everything will come together OK.  But, sometimes there are surprises.  Sometimes things don't go as planned.  I have found a few reasons for this, but the number one reason that stuff goes wrong for me is cheap fabric.  As mentioned in a previous post, I shop at Sew What and I avoid JoAnn like the plague (and, as a microbiologist, I mean this literally).  JoAnn seems rife with cheap, sub par fabrics that just don't sew well.  If you buy cheap fabric, you are just setting yourself up for failure.
Great example- I recently attended a Regency Ball commemorating the safe return of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  I looked at the Regency patterns and decided that they looked infinitely more simple than the Victorian stuff.  Should be easy.  And, since this was a first time thing, I didn't want to drop big bucks on a gown.  I purchased some pretty sheer eyelet fabric at Sew What that I was really happy with that was not exactly inexpensive.  So, I wanted a liner fabric that was inexpensive, light and airy, and a fun pastel color.  Well, finding fun pastel colors in the middle of December is tricky at best.  So I ended up with this light teal green cheap rayon type fabric that I mainly purchased because it was so darned inexpensive.  What was the harm?  Ug.  What a mess.  It pulled funny through the machine, it moved and didn't want to lay flat, it was a nightmare!!!  I love the overdress portion, but I will have to re-cut the skirt and fix the thing at some point because I was embarrassed to wear the thing.  Matt's costume was fabulous, mine was awful.
For those of you that know me well, you know my memory is rather... short.  If it is not vitally important to me, my life, my work, or my well being I tend to just let it go.  You can only pack so much in there.  When I was done with the Regency dress, I took the leftover evil fabric, folded it up nicely, and threw it in one of the plastic bins that hold my fabric under the bed.  Out of sight, out of mind.

I began my most recent Victorian gown and I realized that I hadn't chosen a lining fabric.  What did I do?  I went hunting under the bed for a good lining.  What did I find?  That darned evil green fabric.  By this point, I had forgotten the trials and tribulations of the other gown.  It was just lining, how bad could it be?  Ug. I think after this little adventure I will have to institute a "donate evil fabric" policy.  The photo sums this disaster up quite nicely- that seam should lay nice and flat and even. Instead, this fabric doesn't sit flat, and it has little pulls where the needle grabbed the rayon.  The seam looks awful!  I wouldn't put this in a gown, lining or not.  So I scrapped it and started from the beginning with the lining using a nicer grade white satin that I had used before for my Sapphire and Snow antebellum gown.  MUCH better.  Even seeing that seam now makes me cringe!

As you can see, the final lining product came out fabulously!!!  No pulls, no weirdness.  These photos are of the lining being paired with the bodice itself.  Careful pinning ensures that there is no slipping since it is a satin.  Also, it pays to be especially careful here because this bodice has 1/2 inch seams and the boning begins 1/2 inch from the outside of the fabric.  It is REALLY easy to break needles on boning, and it is SCARY when it happens!!!

So, I suppose my little adventure with the evil fabric didn't set me back much time or, in this case, money.  But I figured I would share since most people only get to see the final product and not the little incidents along the way :)

More architecture than New York

I am a huge proponent of doing the "hardest/worst/most obnoxious/tedious/insert negative descriptor here" stuff first.  I am freshest at the beginning, I don't have a project's worth of frustration built up, and it makes the second half of the project just fly by.  In the case of Victorian gowns, I start with the bodice.  These things aren't always easy: to fit, to make, or to edit.  A small change in details really makes a huge difference in the fit of a bodice.  If it is too short, it rides up and looks funky; too tight and you can't get it buttoned; too large and you fall out of it.  You get the idea.  This is why I always make a bodice mockup, but even then the fabric and the thickness of all those layers can make a difference in fit.

All of that beautiful embroidered fabric would last maybe 15 minutes in a tight fit bodice without proper backing fabric.  In this case, I had leftover lightweight canvas from a pair of fall front breeches I made for a Regency event, and it proved the perfect weight.  I carefully pinned the "fashion fabric" to the interlining and sewed them together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance (well outside of the 1/2 inch seam allowance called for on the pattern pieces.  Those are then treated as one piece of fabric.  I then began to piece together the bodice per the pattern directions.  Once that is pieced together, all of the seams are pressed open so that everything lays nice and flat and you don't get any weird bunches around seams.  The seams on the left of this photo are not pressed yet, the seams on the right are pressed and ready to go.

Now comes the difficult part.  These things require some serious architecture to maintain their shape, even with the canvas interlining.  Every seam except the center back seam is boned.  I have done a bunch of corsetry and I have coils of boning, both German spring steel and straight steel varieties, lying around in my sewing collection.  I also have all of the tools required to hand cut and finish the boning: tipping fluid for the straight steel, steel tippers for the spiral steel, industrial grade wire cutters etc.  I could order the stuff pre-cut and pre-finished at measured intervals at a GREATLY marked up rate, but honestly I am too much of a perfectionist to accept something that isn't custom.  I measure the length of each of the seams carefully, twice, and then I cut and finish the boning.  I then need to case the boning- if the metal tipping falls off it can wear on the fabric and ruin a bodice!  Also, the metal boning is not the cleanest stuff in the world and it tends to leave a metallic residue on your hands, so touching the fabric after cutting boning is a major No-no!  So, I use either double fold bias tape or twill tape depending on the location of the bone and how much pressure will be put on it.  Twill tape for the bones under lots of pressure, double fold bias tape for the rest.  For anyone with interest in corsets or the tools needed to make them, I think Richard the Thread is one of the better suppliers out there:  http://www.richardthethread.com/

Once the boning is cut and cased, it then gets sewn VERY CAREFULLY into the seams of the corset.  When I case the boning, there is a tightly sewn boned side, and a tab about as wide as the bone itself that is just the fabric.  It is that fabric portion that gets sewn to the bodice itself.  I carefully pin the tab along the seam and try to make sure that no pins are in the way of the machine.  The trick here is that I then flip it over so that the pins are on the bottom (I know, crazy!!!) and sew carefully up the center of the seam, making for invisible stitches sunk into the seam itself.  I go painfully slowly making sure each stitch sinks nicely into the seam crease.

Once I finish the seam, I flip it over and make sure that I got the entire length of the boning sewn into the seam since I had to sew it blind.  This works exceptionally well IF and only if you pin things incredibly well.  This is a very slow part of the sewing and it does not pay to rush this portion.  If you do, inevitably something goes wrong and it is really hard to rip those seams out without damaging your fashion fabric!!!  In this photo, the white bars along the seams are the twill cased boning pieces I sewed into the side and side-back seams.
Once all the boning is sewn in, it feels so much more solid than it does before.  The bodice cannot bunch, ride up, or otherwise be funky.  It also helps everything to pull evenly when it is buttoned tightly, as was the style at the time.  There were no loose fitting garments, even for pregnant women!!
So, where am I at?
Sewing bodice pieces together: 1.5 hrs
Boning- 6 hours to cut, case, and sew in boning.
Total for this portion: 7.5 hrs
Total for this project: 12.6 hrs

These are a few of my favorite things

You always hear people say "you have to have the right tool for the right job" and that is just as true in sewing as in any field.  I was lucky- I acquired a lot of cool sewing tools from my mother, who is a quilter.  While that was never my calling, a lot of the fun implements are similar, if not exactly the same. I started sewing with a lot of crappy tools- scissors that doubled in the kitchen, cheap pencils, things like that.  And honestly, all they did was frustrate me.  If you don't have tools that work, there is no point.  I FINALLY got a beautiful set of Gingher Scissors for Christmas this year from my mother and I must admit, these have made a HUGE difference!  I wasn't quite sure at first about the weird little thread nipper that she included with the set, but this has become my best friend.  This little guy does everything!  Check out Gingher's website if you get the chance: http://www.gingher.com/  They have some pretty epic tools.

 I already introduced you to my little rotor cutter friend.  I wouldn't be able to get anything done without it.  What the Ginghers cannot handle, this little guy plows through.  4 layers of cotton duck?  No problem.  Whisper light gauze?  No problem.  Someday I will probably replace this with a nice Gingher brand one since those are more ergonomic, but in the mean time this serves me well.

These little work horses have saved me more times than I can count.  The one on the left is a Sewline pencil.  It works just like a regular mechanical pencil, the type that you add the lead into and click to dispense more.  This one takes special white 'lead' (for lack of better word) and its purpose is to mark dark fabrics.  The little eraser on the end even takes out most marks.  Those that are missed by the eraser can be easily fixed with water and a sponge.
The pen on the right is a Water Erasable Fabric Marking Pen.  This guy has a tip like a sharpie marker, and it makes a nice, even, light blue line on light fabrics.  It is also great for marking multiple fabrics off the same pattern because it will leak through the top layer into the bottom layer so I know everything is lined up perfectly.  Sometimes, if you mark darkly, the first round of water 'erasing' doesn't go quite as well as you would like.  I had a fun time of that when I was making my husband's War of 1812 British Officer's Uniform- I blotted out the marks and then, low and behold, they came back!  Unfortunately, at that point we were already at the ball, so not much was to be done.  And I truly doubt that anyone but me could see the marks: they were around the button holes.  Either way, I was a bit mortified.  So, I mostly use this pen now if I know that I will be putting things through the wash first :)  Still a great tool, just its power needs to be wielded carefully!!!

This last guy should look familiar- it is your typical tomato-shaped pin cushion that originally had a little pin sharpener shaped like a strawberry attached to it.  I love this little guy, but he is getting a bit...worn.  I know how to sew, and really I should just make a new one; it would take me maybe, what, 15 minutes?  But I have a tendency to use stuff until it wears out beyond repair.  As you can see from the photo, the little strawberry is nowhere to be found.  Funny story on that one- my husband and I have 2 cockatiels: Punky and Donnegal.  Both are fully flighted (we don't clip their wings, we also have 3 cats!) and Punky has an annoying habit of flying up to the top of a quilt that I have on the wall downstairs.  I don't particularly want her up there because my mother made me that quilt and I am very fond of it, and we like to encourage them to return to the cage when the fly.  Usually, if she perches there, I can pretend to throw something at her and she returns to the cage.  Well, she got wise to that, and then I had to pick something up off the table and make the motion to get her to return.  One day, I was downstairs working on some hand sewing and we went through this little charade.  I picked up the pin cushion and pretended to throw it at her but I was only holding onto the tomato portion.  I guess I have a realistic fake throwing motion because I somehow managed swing the little strawberry part so hard that it flew off of the top of the tomato and landed with a thump right next to her on the wall!  She flew back to the cage, looked at me like I was absolutely nuts, and didn't fly back up there for a few days.  Poor Punks!!!  So, that is the story of the little Strawberry that apparently could.

Lady, you're crazy!!!!

Now what am I going to make this thing out of?

I'm  like a kid on Christmas; patterns are one of my favorite things to receive in the mail.  Usually TV gets them to me fairly quickly, but still... I get so wrapped up in these projects that any waiting drives me a bit batty.  I usually peruse through the patterns, seeing what needs to be changed and if that will affect the total amount of fabric needed.  I put together the totals and head over to one of my favorite places: "Sew What" which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest fabric shops for historic-type sewing.  She mostly does decorator type fabrics which is awesome- they are heavier, better quality, and made to last.  These dresses cannot be cheaply made or dainty- they get dragged around a ballroom and brush against a million other skirts and uniforms!  Her prices are also very fair- I NEVER go to JoAnn's if I can avoid it, the prices are ridiculous for the quality!  Here's the website for her shop, she's got some fun stuff!!! http://fortfabrics.com/.  Here's what I am greeted with:
How does one choose?!?  Seriously?!  I usually wander around and day dream about all of the beautiful things that I could make until something really catches my eye and then the building beings.  What if I choose this blue fabric, then what will I pair it with?  Would that be just the bodice, or would it be the over skirt?  How much does it cost?  A lot of these gowns take nearly 15 yards of fabric, I really don't want to fall in love with something that costs $25 a yard!!!

This last trip, I wandered a bit until I found a beautiful, pale green, embroidered satin that I knew was perfect.  $18.75 a yard was doable if I made the underskirt of a different fabric, I was vaguely thinking a cream color.  The photo here doesn't really do it justice- it is somewhere between jade and sage with cream and cinnamon flowers.  PERFECT!!!  So I got 7 yards of it, just in case.  Turns out that later I needed an additional yard and a half because I decided to do the pannier over skirt in the same fabric, but that is a story for another day...

So, I have the pattern, I have the fabric.  Now what?  Well, if you are spending THAT much on fabric per yard, you want the thing to be perfect the first go round.  So I ALWAYS make a mock-up muslin from the cheapest fabric that I can find.  And, in the case of Sew What, I can get $2 a yard drapery lining that isn't half bad.  The purpose of the muslin is to work out the bugs and kinks BEFORE you spend beaucoup bucks.  Usually, there aren't many changes to be made to the TV patterns because they seem like they were made for hourglass figures like mine.  Sometimes there are some re-works, and that is fine.  I usually take the time to put on my corset or whatever other undergarment that I will actually wear with the gown to make sure everything fits.  I also put it on my dress form, which is adjustable to my size, and make sure everything looks good.  If it gets the ok here, then it is time to cut the true fabric.

Pattern layout is SUPER important- all of the pieces will have grain lines on them and it is imperative that you get those lined up correctly or everything will end up wonky.  I pin my pieces fairly heavily; better to have a few temporary pin holes than cut something incorrectly!  I also try to fit them as closely as possible to minimize waste.  Here is how I laid out the lining pieces on some leftover white satin that I had from a previous gown (I try to re-use fabrics for linings since you can't really see them anyway).

I then use my trusty roto-cutter to cut out the pattern pieces.  I NEVER USE SCISSORS, that just turns into a cluster... Seriously, though, if you are going to sew, you need this tool.  The blades need replacing on a semi-regular basis, especially if you are working with satins, silks, crepes etc.  I pay special attention to the little triangle marks on the patterns that show you where pieces should line up together.  Don't just cut through those, they are useful!

Once the pieces are cut out, I transfer all of the markings.  I will have to do an entry at some point on my favorite tools.  It's the little tools in sewing that make sewing worth doing!  But that is a discussion for another day...
With our pattern pieces all cut out, marks transferred, we are ready to get moving on this project!!!



Time spent at the fabric store perusing and choosing fabric- about an hour
Time spent making the muslin mockup- about 1.5 hours
Time spent trying on the muslin mockup- 20 minutes
Time spent cutting out fabric, lining and interlining pieces- 2 hours
Time spent transferring marks- 15 minutes
TOTAL TIME SPENT SO FAR: 5 hours 5 minutes.

Patterns

Once I have decided on a gown, then there are a few considerations that are super important.  I can't fabricate a gown out of nowhere, I need a pattern.  Honestly, most of the time I augment the patterns so that they are only vaguely recognizable as the original, but I need a starting point none the less.  Finding a pattern for a Victorian gown is not as difficult as you would assume, but it is more difficult than driving down to JoAnn's, looking through their books, and walking away with a suitable pattern instantly.  I do a lot of online shopping, and here are my favorite sites:

1.  Truly Victorian (www.trulyvictorian.com)-  These patterns are EPIC.  They are hand drawn, and their sizing fits me very well.  Also, they come on nice paper, not the usual tissue stuff that rips the second you pin it.  They have multiple patterns per Victorian style, starting in the Romantic Era (1840s) straight through Edwardian (early 1900s).  AWESOME site.  Usually, if I can't find it here, I seriously consider how badly I want to make the gown.  Downside- not many men's patterns.

2.  Past Patterns (www.pastpatterns.com)- I haven't used these too much, but they are great for men's patterns.  

3.  Mantua Maker (http://www.mantua-maker.com/catalog.html)-  These guys do clothing for all eras, but I am not wild about their patterns.  The only thing they do REALLY well is corset patterns. 

4.  There are a bunch more sites but these are my go-tos for the most part.

To piece this project together, let's use my current gown idea as an example:

Once I find the gown, I try to piece it together as closely as possible.  For example, my current project has a few details that would have to be patterned.  The first detail- that lovely train is usually called a butterfly train.  The bow looks a bit like a butterfly's wings.  I know that T.V. has a pattern for that detail. Good.

I also know the gown is natural form, meaning the bodice will be cut differently because it doesn't have to accommodate a huge wire bustle underneath the back of it. T.V. has a pattern for an 1879 Curiass bodice.  This is smack in the middle of the natural form era, and so it is not designed to fit over a bustle.  Perfect!

Now we are getting a little deeper into the gown, and I have to start doing some research or making guesses.  From looking at a LOT of historical fashion, I can usually piece together what is going on underneath all of that fabric.  I know that Fantail Skirts were very popular during the natural form era- the hint of ruffling in the rear of the skirt harkens back to the early bustle era, but you can tell that there is no architecture supporting it.  Luckily, T.V. has an 1878 Fantail Skirt pattern that is perfect.

Lastly, if you look closely at the fashion plate, you see some horizontally ruffled fabric that appears to come around hips from the front and tuck under the butterfly train.  Again, from my research, I know that overskirts that were designed to look like panniers were popular during this time.  It must be my lucky day because T.V. also has a pattern for that!

So, once I have assembled my wish list for patterns, I go ahead and order them.  Yes, they are expensive but totally worth it.  I wouldn't be able to create such beautiful pieces without them!!!

Where do ideas come from?

So where do I get my gown ideas from?  I don't consider myself to be a particularly creative person, and more than anything I enjoy reproducing pieces that were or may have been in existence.  The first place that I usually look are old fashion plates from magazines of the era.  There were not pre-made clothes.  If you were upper class and needed a new gown, you looked through fashion plates and found one you liked.  Then you went to a tailor or dress maker and had them create the gown for you.  A lot of these old fashion plates are published, and honestly I own a TON of these books.  I usually browse through until something really catches my eye- either for color, or style, or just fun.

Here are 2 examples of fashion plates.
The left is from an 1884 plate for "Ball Toilettes by Mme Coussinet, rue Richer" listed in "La Mode Ilustree", a very popular French fashion magazine of the time.
The right image is a gown that I am planning to sew for the Victorian Cruise next spring.  It came from a January 1877 issue of Godey's, a popular American fashion magazine.  Occasionally, you can find images in color- they would have been hand colored on rare occasion, but most are black and white like the image on the left.  They were usually accompanied by a description of colors, fabrics and trims.

I do, on a rare occasion, look at extant examples of gowns and then work off of those.  Honestly, that isn't as much fun for me.  I really enjoy taking a flat, drawn image of a gown and making it live in 3D.
So far, my most successful fashion-plate-to-gown has been my Sapphire and Snow Antebellum gown that I love so much!  I found the image using a google search and fell in love with it instantly!  I HAD to have that gown!  Here is the fashion plate and the gown I created from it (I also made my husband's Civil War Officer's Uniform, but that is a discussion for another day).

I don't know why, it just jumped at me.  It was one of the more challenging projects I have undertaken- from conception, to altering all the patterns to create what I want, to acquisition of the fabrics it was rough.  But, I have now worn it to balls about 5 times and I get huge compliments and I truly enjoy wearing it.  It was worth the hard work!

My husband and I will be going on a Victorian Cruise to the Caribbean next winter, and I hemmed and hawed about what to do about packing.  I like to pack light.  Bustles, hoops and petticoats are NOT light.  There are a total of 3 balls on this cruise- the Captain's Dinner Ball, a Sapphire Ball (everyone wears something blue), and the last night's ball is a Old West style event.  I can't fit hoops in a suitcase, and my bustle folds flat but is still huge.  So, this necessitated some new gowns in a style I have not sewn before: Natural Form.  (I will do a later post on the 'eras' of Victorian clothing because there were some really interesting HUGE swings and counter-reactions that are interesting to discuss).

So, I searched through my fashion plates in the sections that I rarely pay attention to: 1878-1883 in America, slightly earlier in Europe.  No bustles.  Longer bodices.  Very different from the fluffy, bustled confections I usually like to sew.  I chose 2 gowns to create- the lovely blue and white gown at the top right for the Sapphire Ball, and this gown.
See, very different from the antebellum (think Scarlett O'hara) era, and very different from bustled gowns.  Oh, and not in that color- I don't really do pink as a rule.  Should be an adventure!!!

There must be a beginning...

Where to start.... perhaps a brief history of my world?  Or, perhaps better, a start at the beginning of my sewing career and where it has taken me up until now.  The gown above is the first thing I ever sewed, other than a few quilt squares here and there.  I was terrified of the sewing machine.  But a chance to play dress up at the Colorado Renaissance Festival while simultaneously doing public outreach for the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program (where I have been a volunteer since 2005) proved to be a fire under my ass.  I had to learn to sew if I wanted something half decent to wear.  So, a quick trip down to JoAnn's fabrics yielded my first pattern: Simplicity #4488 Renaissance Costume Collection.  I learned a TON working on this project- namely that I could not, in fact, put my fingers through the sewing machine no matter how hard I tried!!!  All in all it worked.  And now that dress is a part of RMRP's collection of costumes available for volunteers to wear since I have moved on to, well, more piratey things.
During February 2008, my Aunt Sheila and Uncle Paul introduced me to a new hobby and passion: Victorian Costume Balls.  She made my first gown for me, I was too terrified of all the bustling and fabric, the task just seemed too daunting!  But my husband and I had a blast, and were instantly hooked.  Since then, I have mastered my fear, found some AWESOME pattern companies that I are absolute lifesavers, and have had a boat load of fun in the process!  I will chat a little bit about some of the already-made gowns in the coming posts, and I will most likely intermingle that with my new project(s): two 1880-ish natural form gowns :)