The Victorian ball gowns get worn at last

So it’s half term and just to ensure I stick to my usual holiday routine I have completely annihilated my back.  I first had an issue last week and spent Tuesday and Wednesday unable to go to work. It improved enough to return for the day, then off to the event on Friday.  With judicial use of a corset I got through the weekend with little problems until Sunday morning the back re-emerged to triumphantly reduce me to a snivelling wreck and I spent the next three days unable to move.

This morning I have movement again so I can at least get the laptop in motion to show the finished Victorian dresses.

This is eldest daughter in her dress that she proudly told everybody she had made herself.  It is the first thing of any substance she has made and is quite within her rights to be proud of it!  If you are thinking it looks a little tight you would be correct.  In the intervening period between measuring, cutting and sewing daughter has found out she is pregnant and that little extra growth has made things not as well fitted as planned.  The dress will now have to go away for quite a few months as it is unlikely it will fit for the foreseeable future!

The unexpected dress went well considering the lack of fitting!  I did have to put some tacks in the shoulder as it was too loose, but the rest fitted perfectly and there was no issues of popping out bits of body. 

I did manage to make two petticoats which helped poof out those skirts a little.  I would love to see them with proper crinolines so you may see me making them some time, just to have a look you understand!

Sadly, due to the weather, we raised little money for the charities, it would appear people don't want to dress up in the rain but I suppose it is the thought that counts and we did try!

Now we are just waiting to see who is playing what role in the pantomime and we can get started on the costumes.  This may prove interesting as eldest daughter still wants to be in it even though she will be extremely pregnant for most rehearsals and a new mum for the actual shows!  I suppose it helps to have a mother willing to make you a last minute costume once the bump has gone.

And the other one!

Eldest arrived as promised and her skirt was all sewn into place.  She just had a couple of seams to finish off so we decided to try it all out on her;

She didn't put the corset on and it is all pinned up at the back but I think she deserves to be proud of her efforts!

One Victorian ball gown nearly finished!

I had a day which involved a lot of huffing and puffing and became reminiscent of curtain making yesterday.  If you have ever made curtains you will know what I mean....metres and metres of fabric, sitting at a machine running it all through.

Then there was the metres of fabric being pleated to put into waistbands.  All in all it was just metres of fabric and somewhere underneath it all was a 'me' trying to get it all done by the end of the weekend.  

It's early Sunday morning now and I am waiting for eldest daughter to arrive to get her dress in the same state as the unexpected dress.  She phoned last night and was in the same state as me, metres of fabric being gathered into the waistband.  She did say however, that she was sure it would all be finished by Friday, but then she does have a couple of days free in the week and I dont.

I had left enough seam in the UD to put in the boning by hand so that was a plus.  This hadn't happened with DD and I was left with the job of trying to attach boning in a ribbon casing, without it showing on the outside.  It doesn't sit right to my eye and we will decide this morning whether to just take it out and leave that for another day, as eldest will be wearing a corset underneath next weekend.

I pleated the UD skirt into the waistband and then pleated another five metres of muslin/linen (I'm not really sure what it is as it wasn't labelled) into another waistband for the petticoat.  I then sewed five metres of cording into the petticoat and it does give it a bit extra 'poof'.  I did read somewhere (forgive me if it was on your blog/site, I did try to find it again but it is lost in the internet ether for now) to put a layer of net between skirt and petticoat to give extra poof but after all that pleating and gathering I had lost the will to live so there is no net at the moment, although it may happen later today if I get everything else done.

So here is a pic of UD at the moment.  It needs a final pressing, it needs fastenings on bodice and skirt (more hand sewing of hooks and eyes) but I do believe it is finished unless I measure the skirt for the third time and it really is too long in which case I have decided to make pin tucks in the skirt to take some of the length away.

I'm hoping to get an inbetween pic of DD today too, although the big pressing will take place after hooks and eyes so the best I can offer is pics of the finished dresses on the girls after the weekend.

Youngest daughter is away again this weekend and I still haven't done the hem on hers.  I was hoping to be able to pin the hem with her in the dress but it looks like it will now be a case of sew it and see as I am not going to attempt it after Tuesday when she returns!  I have just realised I don't have the petticoat for her so sometime today I will have to go through the boxes of costumes to find the hooped petticoat!  Arghhhh!!!!

Victorian bodices...so far!

I think we are doing pretty well.  Me and eldest daughter spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, and more over Sunday, trying to get the bodices finished.  While we didn't quite manage that (there was a road trip declared in the afternoon to go and get Burger King for some reason) we did get them 'mostly' finished except for the necklines and bottoms.

Here is eldest daughters bodice, she has never made anything before except a cushion at school and the odd straight lines on a machine when I pass her the fabric and I think she has done really well! I promised to do the neck trims and did that after she left but the bodice and sleeves were all her own work with a little direction from me.  She has taken the fabric with her for the skirt and has been instructed to gather and hand sew it to the waistband.

The unexpected bodice has not got as far as the neckline still has to be finished to be at the same stage.  I was impressed when I put it on daughter that it did actually all fit which goes to show that if you know the body you are making things for it makes life much easier in the fitting department.

I did my first ever double puff sleeves on this and they have worked out well, daughter seemed pleased with it and as she doesnt go in for really pretty things I breathed a sigh of relief.

I will get back to work on these over the evenings this week and then another full on sewing weekend to get them finished for the week after!

Victorian dress from corset pattern!

I got up nice and early today and drunk copious amounts of coffee in preparation for a BIG sewing day.  At some point eldest daughter will turn up to start sewing her own dress so I at least want the ‘unexpected’ dress (I shall now call it UD to distinguish from the dress daughter will be making at the same time, hereby called DD) to have the bodice cut out so that I am at the same point with UD that daughter is at with DD.

I am hoping to have enough fabric to make two bodices, one day dress and one evening for UD.  The downside of all this is that I do not have the daughter around to get measurements so I am just hoping that I have enough knowledge of her body that it will fit. Luckily I come from a world where when a daughter asks for a Wonder woman corset I make her one and I therefore, in the bottom of my pattern drawer somewhere, have a pattern drafted to fit her that I can use for sizing and drafting a bodice. I do have a preference for hook and eye fastenings and would have preferred to do that, but due to the lack of the body UD is supposed to fit I will do lacing at the back of the evening bodice.  

After Googling frantically last night I have decided this simple dress will be the first bodice;

As the fabric is semi sheer I will also have to underline it for the evening gown, I have loads of white muslin so that will have to do (Q. Why is so much of what I do based on what is available in my stash? A. I don't know but it proves I need one so who cares!)  

Both DD and UD will be underlined and this involves cutting out two sets of pattern pieces, one in the fashion fabric and one in the lining fabric.  These are treated as one and sewn together.  It is a relatively quick and easy way of giving a lighter fabric some substance or, as is the case with UD ensuring you are not making a completely see through dress that your daughter will refuse to wear on modesty grounds!

The day dress will not be underlined as it will be based on this. 

I can see two advantages to this: First is that it doesn't have a fastening so if evening dress doesn't fit daughter will definitely fit in this one!  Second, I can tell her to bring along a strap or tank t-shirt to put under this if I don't have time to make a chemise!

But back to this morning...

I have taken the front pieces of my corset pattern and pinned it to my board.  To start with I left the side front as it was the one which dealt with the majority of daughters curves (there are quite a lot of them!)

I was basing this on the ‘Patterns of Fashion (2) 1860-1940’ pattern of an 1861 evening dress.  I know there is seam allowance added to my pattern so we are good to go! 

I drew round the pattern pieces and joined the middle front to centre front, then added the shoulder pieces.  I will check the measurements for the shoulders with other daughter when she arrives as she is similar size in most areas except the boobage!  I shifted the middle front piece over and re-drew in red.  The corset had a high top so I lowered the neckline to the centre front and also raised the sides as the corset went over the hips.

At this point I would love to say I made a toile, fitted it to my daughter and made minor adjustments to ensure it all fitted correctly.  Unfortunately I can’t say that, what I did do is sit staring at it and wonder if I had done anything wrong. 

I then made a cup of coffee and pondered it a bit.  I sat staring a bit longer, drank the coffee while staring, stood up and looked out the window, sat down and stared.  Contemplated cutting out the fashion fabric then stared a bit longer.  Looked at the fabric, reminded myself it was only £1 a metre (oh yeah, it was only £1 a metre so if it goes wrong no great shakes).  

Then realised that the skirt wouldn’t go wrong so if nothing else she could wear a shirt with the skirt and look ok for the event.  Second realisation was that I also had the other bodice to make that doesn't need to fit exactly.  Then realisation number 3 that I could check the measurements against the book for back up! Lucky I did that!  As I measured I realised that I had reduced from 3 pattern pieces to 2 and not taken away the seam allowance!  So back to the drawing board and removed those seam allowances from the pattern.

I then had an even more brilliant idea!  I still have the Wonder woman corset!  I put the corset on the dummy and pinned the pattern to it.

Daughter has more boobs than the average Victorian and this was always the issue when trying to make this bodice. All of a sudden I could see where the pattern was wrong!  A quick snip with the scissors and another piece of sticky tape and the pattern fitted the corset perfectly (lets hope the corset still fits the daughter perfectly).

Well the front of the pattern was ready...all I needed to do to the back was add the shoulder straps.

All done!  Then I get a text from daughter saying she is coming over tomorrow so I will have the body to work from!  Although after all that effort I may just go for it later today!

And I thought I was prepared!

I was feeling quite pleased with myself you know, getting that dress finished meant I had all weekend to devote to helping my eldest do her dress.  I know satin wasn't my first choice of fabric but daughter loves the dress and I suppose that's all that matters.

I had arrangements with eldest to come over on Saturday for a big sew in with the thought that I could finish off anything she doesn't finish with a weekend in between the dressmaking and the charity event, loads of time!

Until today when I find out that I now have daughter number three coming with us as well and therefore need to get a dress for her to wear too.

A quick look through my stash and the navy satin is discarded, firstly because I am wearing navy and secondly because there is no way I was going to have a go at another satin dress at the moment. It really does make things harder with all that slipping around and I dont think it looks quite Victorian, more '80's bridesmaids dress!

That left the choice down to some gorgeous taffeta in an orange/red two tone and a lovely striped embroidery throughout.  Of course daughter didn't want that but I did have that ear marked for a bustle so not a problem.  The other option was lilac cotton gauze that was waiting for a summer day dress to be made from it.  So lilac it is but what do I make from it?

This is even more complicated than the green one, at least I spoke to youngest daughter about it before starting and she had picked her own fabric!  This is a case of telling her what fabric she is having and her saying 'make it pretty'  I probably won't even see her before she is putting the dress on, luckily I have made plenty of dresses for her before so know her body shape and size.

I have come up with this very basic style;

I'm not sure I have enough fabric for the layered skirt but will see how that goes over the weekend.  I may yet find something I like more but at the moment this is what I am going with so wish me luck!

Victorian dresses

Some weeks ago I showed you where I had cut out a bodice for Victorian dresses and then it went into a bag and stayed there.  This weekend I decided to get the dress made and finished so that I can devote next weekend to helping other daughter make hers.

The fabric for this was picked out over a year ago and was intended for my youngest daughter’s prom dress.  She then decided she wasn’t going but would still like the dress...when I had time. 

Fast forward a year and we are getting things ready for an event where we rent out the panto costumes for charity.  The theme this year is Christmas so us girlies decide this is the perfect opportunity to dress up in Victorian dresses and sing carols to raise extra funds (just because we can!).

So I made up the bodice of the dress daughter had originally wanted (not historically correct) and we try to decide how to make it look Victorian in a way that can be removed so she can wear the dress as it is.  Then daughter says, forget it, just make it Victorian - do what you want with it!

I then had the choice of sticking with the original, perfect fitting bodice, or change it so that the shoulders were lower as would have been historically nearer!  I stuck with original bodice, looked for a square neck period dress and found one.

Although the shoulders should be lower the rest is as near to the original fashion plate as I could make it and when she is wearing it the shoulders are lower than on the dummy.

She wanted the lace up back so I kept that instead of hooks and eyes and she also wanted light boning to the front to which I also obliged.

The puffed sleeves should have been muslin but I stuck with the very stiff satin so that I didn’t have to interline.  I get the feeling at some point DD4 will change her mind and all the Victorian stuff will come off and go back to original bodice!

The skirt is cartridge pleated and hand sewn on and although here it is shown without a petticoat I do have one ready for her in the caravan of costume.  The event takes place on a field and we just have to hope it doesn't rain!

I finished this dress while daughter was away for the weekend so it was fingers crossed that it all fitted her and she liked it lol  She tried it on when she returned last night and swirled around the room asking in her best mickey taking voice ‘Daddy, do you love your princess?’, so I am assuming this 17 year old likes it lol I just need to sew up the hem now and she asked me to put some more black lace around the waist or I do have some 8" wide lace which will make a very pretty sash, we just need to decide which to do.

Here is a pic of the dress I made myself last year which I will be wearing.  It was based on one of the dresses in Janet Arnolds ‘patterns of fashion’ and I spent ages hand pleating all the ruffles.  I also made an underbust corset to go with it, my theory at the time was that it was being worn for a school event and I wasn’t sure ‘the girls’ would look appropriate in a full corset, so I wore a bra up top just to be sure.

We went to Gressenhall for the school visit, really worth a trip if you are in the area.  I was really pleased when one of the ladies that worked there noticed I had a corset on and said ‘oh well done!’ So it really does make a difference to the proper Victorian look to have the undies correct too.

The passion of sewing

Yesterday I saw Vivienne Westwood being interviewed on BBC breakfast when she said (and I am paraphrasing here) that people going into fashion design industry did not necessarily have the talent to make a career out of it.

Now I am absolutely not disagreeing with her on that, as we all know it is not that easy to pluck a design out of thin air that will have the whole world gasping in amazement as Ms Westwood has done on many occasions.  But I do think there is another element involved that she obviously has in droves...and that is a passion for design and (dare I say it) sewing.

You could almost see the passion exude from her as she talked about the design of Dita Von Teese wedding dress and how she had been personally involved in its design and making.  She looked so proud as she told how it was all made from one piece of fabric except some extra in the back to add volume and this dress certainly screams out quality (I am growling at Microsoft word at the moment as it is trying to tell me that I should have typed ‘accept’ not ‘except’, NO MICROSOFT I KNOW WHAT I MEANT!). 

I thought no more about it until this morning while sitting in a staff meeting.  One of my colleagues is a dance teacher and she was sitting stitching some costumes for her students with grunts and groans of complaint.  Meanwhile, I sat next to her resisting the urge to grab the needle and thread from her as I desperately wanted to do it.  I find sewing challenging, frustrating and sometimes downright annoying.  But on other occasions I find myself sewing away as if in a meditative trance and come out the other end relaxed and happy.

I don't care if the needle is attached to a machine or held in my hand I find an almost cathartic release from all my cares and worries comes with it. Keeping me away from sewing makes me grumpy and irritable.  I love doing the pantomime costumes as I get to play around with fabrics and patterns.  I can spend hours just messing around with trims and things, sewing beads onto bodices or hand pleating bits of fabric just because I think it will look pretty.

I like to think that the majority of people who sew these days are passionate sewists as it really isn't a cheaper alternative to shop bought clothing.  People who sew do so because they WANT to not because they NEED to.  This is why when you go in a sewing shop you can see the excitement on their faces as their hands stroke the fabrics and a strange glint enters their eyes as they consider what they will make with this beautiful piece of material.

So while us normal types may not be as creative as the likes of Vivienne Westwood, I do think we are just as passionate and to this end we should all be proud of our own little works of art (for that is what they are).I am writing this as I still await our auditions, just under two weeks to go now, and that fabric is bashing away at the cupboard door to be let out and made into something amazing! 

Well I can always hope, maybe this is the year I will create something so outstanding it will be reported in the national press! 

Don't hold your breath!