Maternity skirt

While I am still waiting for the definitive list of ‘who is playing what in panto 2015’ I have a weekend of doing something (nearly) completely different.

I say ‘nearly’ because 24 years ago I was attempting my own foray into maternity clothing that didn't go too well.  In retrospect I am not sure if it was due to the pregnancy itself or lack of ability as I only managed to make one dress and have a complete breakdown over a pair of maternity trousers that were never finished (the fabric ended up being made into a party dress for eldest daughter).

But there has appeared an unexpected, but very welcome, baby bump on eldest daughter in the last few weeks (if you look carefully you can see how tight her Victorian dress was over the tummy!) and she is now complaining that all her normal clothes are too tight.

I had previously bought some cotton for a maxi skirt for her, so project number one is to make her a skirt but use buttonhole elastic on the waistband instead of a fitted one.  I am, of course, using my skirt from a rectangle pattern as there will then be plenty of fabric to cover the bump throughout the pregnancy (2 metres).

I made the skirt up but only put the elastic through the back half of the waistband.  The skirt will now expand through the back by loosening the elastic with the button.

I then measured 8 inches from both sides of the centre front and marked , then cut out two strips of fabric to make into ties.  At this point I would love to show you pictures of how I continued but my friend turned up and I forgot to take the photos being eager to finish the skirt before my daughter came to visit later on in the day!

However, I can show you how it looks when it is finished.  I sewed the ties into the waist by folding over around half an inch and sewing the ties into the fold at the previously marked points.

I made the the ties long so that the skirt can be loosened at the front allowing room for the bump to grow.  You can just see in the pic how the extra fabric folds behind the ties to make a pleat.

I promise you, there is a pretty bow at the front that has disappeared in the photo!

If she likes this style I may make another one for her in which case I promise to remember the photos.

First project completed I will also be having a go at upcycling some old clothes for her, so watch this space!

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!