Where did March go?

Whoops. It's been a while. There's nothing much to report, the francaise is a bit further along than the last time I checked in, but I still don't have petticoat fabric and the swatches of potential fabric still haven't come even though I have now been waiting for them exacty 1 month. I still have a couple of weeks before the ball where I originally meant to wear the francaise but I'm not really optimistic about finishing it on time.

This is where I am now. Plant stands can be surprisingly useful while sewing. Presenting the decoy-me :)

The hem pinned on and the front pinned (a bit wonkily) closed. The petticoat is not final, still looking for suitable fabric.

The torso part here is a couple of pillows trussed up in the stays. It's considerably flatter in the chest than I am, but I mainly put this contraption together to pleat an pin the hem so it doesn't matter.

I have sewn other things though. Easter is a long four day weekend around here, so I really indulged myself and sewed like never before. I produced a dress, a spring coat and two pairs of shorts for dance.

Seeing double

It's definitely spring because I have so many projects on hold at the moment. The francaise, the Vernet project, a 1920s inspired dress for everyday wear, the red bonnet, a new pair of Regency short stays... But am I rolling up my sleeves and digging into any of those? No.

Instead I browse Pinterest.

And the other day it hit me. I've come across some extant pieces of clothing that aren't actually that unique. There are doubles. Two of the same. Or at least very similar pieces, in different collections.

Like these hats from the Kyoto Costume Museum and the Met:

These two are not exact copies but the style is very similar. (Source: KCI, Met)

Or these spencers, both from the Met:

The material, the decoration, the time period... They all match. These would be identical if it weren't for the sleeves.

And because I've been on a 1920s fashion binge all week, let's take a time-warping jump, 100 years forward:

Again, not an exact match, but remarkably similar. The dress on the left is from the Museum of Vancouver collections, the one on the right is at the Museum at FIT

These two are listed on antique/vintage clothing auction sites, here http://www.thefrock.com/FW_page6_main.html and here https://www.pinterest.com/pin/562527809682184862/

I'm sure there are other examples and I would love to see them!

Adventures in hatland

I'm procrastinating with the francaise, so I decided to try my hand at hatmaking. The hat still needs to be trimmed, but I must say I like the result!

 A big thanks to Sabine and Megan who generously shared their hattery wisdom and patterns!

I'm going to trim the hat according to the hats on the right on this fashion plate:

No idea of the source, sorry! If you know, tell me!

Apparently Regency is my go-to project period with which to regroup when I'm stuck with sewing projects from other eras. I also found new (and cheap!) Regencyesque shoes in the local supermarket which I can restyle for my dresses. I already have two older pairs of the same model in black and nude, and I was thinking that I could keep the new black shoes as they are and use the older black pair for my Vernet project shoes. The new white pair I might decorate or paint since I've never done that before.

I'm also waiting for a lace order to arrive so that I can really start with the Vernet project... Maybe next week!





But no worries, the francaise has a deadline in late April, so that I can wear it at a masked ball, so I'm not forgetting it and I'm going to finish it, I swear :)

Guess what I'm making...

Failures and new plans

Based on recent sewing attempts I think it's now been established that I cannot make a pair of long Regency stays.
You know, those corded, lightly boned, white and embroidered contraptions.

I had my doubts before taking up this project, since I had tried out the 1820s pattern in Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines a couple of years ago, falling on my face rather spectacularly with it. So many things were wrong with that project, from fabric choice to fit. So you'd think I had learned something. Apparently not.
I'm not going to show the second version to anyone, let alone post any pictures here, so just take my word for it, it's not pretty. Or well, parts of it are pretty (like the embroidery), but the fit is still wrong and weird, the cording pattern turned out annoyingly asymmetrical and it's very clear, and the stupid fabric which at first seemed like a good choice, stretched in odd places during the sewing and the cording. To top it off, I foolishly thought I could pull off trying my own pattern, but how wrong I was.
I think I might try to fix this some day when I'm not so annoyed and frustrated with it, but for now I've hidden it in the sewing cupboard and decided not to look at it for a very long time.

The primary reason for trying to make those wretched stays was that I wanted to finally make an 1830s dress. In retrospect the stays were all wrong, however much the museums and costume researchers try to convince me that these stays were worn with the 1830s dresses. I  mean really. Stays with straps, when your dress has a low, almost off the shoulders neckline and sloping shoulders. I know, I know, the strapless corsets didn't (apparently) come along until the 1840s but still. It seems a bit odd to me.

So bring on plan B. Or plan F, or M, I've lost count. I'm going to try and make a pair of stays/corset along these lines, maybe trying to use this pattern, slightly modified. I've also started a corded petticoat, which is slowly coming together, since I'm handsewing it. The dress itself is going to be some sort of combination of these styles:

I like the bows and the low neckline with chemisette. Source: Kyoto Costume Museum

This has always been my favourite 1830s dress. Source: Kyoto Costume Museum

Other sewing plans include an 18th century robe à la Francaise which hopefully won't fail like my first francaise attempt. I dyed the fabric for it last weekend and I love the periwinkle blue colour!

I'm also participating in the Vernet's Incroyables and Merveilleuses project, so I'll have a secret Regency project to post about over the whole of this year. I haven't yet got any supplies for that, but I guess I should start tracking them down soon.

The yellow riding habit

I began this project sometime in the early summer and have been working on it on and off until November. I got the riding habit bug from Sanna of the Rococo Atelier and by some bizarre lucky alignment of stars I even managed to find fabric in the exact colour I had envisioned (when does that EVER happen??).
For some reason, yellow has become one of my go-to colours and what better time period for it than the 18th century. From what little research I've done, yellow seems to have been the height of fashion throughout the 18th century, owing to the popularity of all things Oriental during that time (yellow, after all was the colour exclusively reserved for the emperor of China, among other things). Riitta Pylkkänen's Dress of Gentlewomen in Finland in the 18th Century mentions yellow as the most fashionable colour. Annoyingly, I can't give the exact quote because I don't own a copy of the book (it's fiendishly difficult to find, having been published in the 1980s) and the city library is closed for the whole of December. Also, The Diary of Mantua Maker writes about the popularity of yellow in her posts about 18th century colours.

As many others before me, I used the riding habit jacket pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. I had to alter the pattern to fit me (obviously); for example I drastically shortened the bodice and the sleeves. The finished garment is OK, but I would do things differently if I ever used the same pattern again. I think I maybe cut the jacket hem piece slightly too narrow, and the pleats aren't exactly as I'd want them to be. I think the habit fabric is very nice, it's medium thick cotton twill that feels almost woolly and it's very hard wearing and was generally nice to work with.

I pad stitched pieces of sturdy cotton on the insides of the front pieces and lined the whole jacket with cotton. the jacket fronts became very sturdy due to the interlining, lining and lastly all that trim I stitched on. The inside front edges, the sleeves and the jacket skirts are lined with taffeta. I'll maybe finish a waistcoat of that same taffeta at some later date. It doesn't really show unless you look very closely, but to add a little variation I used the reverse side of the habit fabric on the collar and the cuffs because it's the teeniest bit darker and the weave of the fabric looks different on the reverse side. I trimmed the jacket with antique gold coloured gimp trim and some antique gold coloured buttons. I might change the buttons later, either to metal or deathshead, depending which comes my way first.

The riding habit petticoat is your standard petticoat, with pocket hoops. I debated for a long time whether or not to cut the petticoat to accommodate the hoops because I think they're ridiculous, but in the end I decided to go for it and now I kind of like the look.

The  habit fabric is fairly heavy so towards the end of the day it was hard work to wear the whole get-up with the heavy skirts pulling at the paniers (and my hips and waist), walking around the fortress islands on original cobblestones...

I also made a tricorne hat out of a floppy 70s-esque felt hat, trimmed it with petersham ribbon and a cockade.

I wore the habit a couple of weeks ago in Suomenlinna Christmas event, which consisted of a day event for the general public, with 18th century military and gentlefolk re-enactors and of a private ball in the evening for re-enactors and other properly attired people.

The photos of the riding habit were taken by Sanna and Mia.

I had a curled pigtail, but the sleet and rain took care of that...

No, those are not THE cobblestones that I mention above... They're round, uneven and cover all the roads on the main island. Can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like to drive a horse-drawn wagon or cart on them.

At the Ehrensvärd Museum. They had just closed for the day when we got there, but kindly let us take a couple of photos in the yellow room.

I really, REALLY can't pose. Whenever anyone takes out a camera and proposes to photograph me, my face does weird things. I look like I had a lazy eye in nearly all of the photos taken in the museum...

With Ehrensvärd, and Sanna of Rococo Atelier; she's wearing her gorgeous new anglaise.

Soldiers who took part to the Christmas opening event, practicing their drill.

King Gustav III, I think. He was very strange.

The soldiers, doing their drill

Mia and Sanna checking over some photos at the Ehrensvärd museum. Mia borrowed my flowery anglaise and red petticoat for the event.

The evening ball venue, Tenalji von Fersen, which used to be a bakery in the old days.

Pretty much the only picture of me in my ball do. I did a separate post of this gown. Oh, and that's Merja aka. the Aristocat in black and white :)

18th century saree round gown

I've often used vintage sarees for my costuming projects, here's yet another one. I bought the saree earlier this year with this one and it's been sitting in the cupboard, waiting for the opportune sewing project to come along.

I decided to make an 18th century roundgown, mainly because the saree had a gorgeously embroidered pallu end and I wanted to make the most of it.

I used the round gown in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion as guidelines and used my anglaise bodice lining pattern as the bodice pattern for this gown too. I would have wanted to make another en fourreau gown, but due to the fact that I was working with a saree, I could not have cut the en fourreau back out of it. I opted for making the bodice and the hem separately and joining them in the end. I didn't really like that and still think that an en fourreau back would've looked better. Ah, well.

The fabric was annoying to work with, it's very drapey, soft and--I'm now convinced--part liquid. Also, the metal embroidery is fairly heavy and while that's nice on the finished gown, while sewing it added a level of difficulty.  I lined the bodice with cotton and bound all the edges with bias tape inside the bodice to give it a modicum of stability. The hem was scream-inducingly hard to pleat and level (due to fabric quality and that metal embroidery) and I actually ended up asking help from Sanna (Rococo Atelier ) and other friends in attaching the hem to the bodice before the Christmas ball in Suomenlinna where I first wore it.

I trimmed the gown with gold lace, which is probably not as common as white lace in extant gowns but I managed to find some examples browsing different museum databases.

After the Christmas ball I realised that I didn't have any good photos of the gown so today I decided to dress up and snapped a couple.