Another HSM Challenge complete (almost!) - Girl's 1850s/1860s underwear

This project took a little longer than anticipated but, after a few mishaps and frustrations, it is (almost) finished. Designing and making children's costumes has been on my list for some time as I love miniature things and the idea of creating a tiny outfit with all of the features of adult 1860s dress, just shorter and cuter, really appealed to me.

I was particularly inspired by photographs, fashion plates and originals like these:

From Pinterest - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/276760339577371220/

Borrowed from Val's post about little girls dresses at Time Travelling in Costume

An original costume from the FIDM Museum found on Pinterest - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/54746951697569668/

Modes de Paris 1855 found on Pinterest - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/321303754637425981/

However, not knowing any little girls who could wear the costumes, it has, for a long time, been just one of those ideas that gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. But, the opening of my Etsy shop encouraged me to start experimenting with some girls' dresses - I may not have little ones to dress up bit hopefully others out there do!

The first step was therefore to create some underwear for the correct silhouette and these are my prototypes pieces. I learnt quite a lot along the way and made a few errors (that I can happily avoid in the future) which I will detail below. As a result, I am not planning to sell these garments at the moment but now that I've got the construction sussed, the new and improved versions will be available soon on Etsy (fingers crossed).

GIRLS' 1850s/1860s UNDERTHINGS - Drawers, Crinoline and Mock Corset Bodice 

For this challenge I have created three undergarments for a girl aged approximately six years old. There are a pair of split drawers, exactly like an adult version just a lot smaller, a hooped crinoline skirt, and in order to support this and make the ensemble more comfortable to wear for a young child, a simple bodice stitched to resemble a child's corset. The crinoline buttons onto the bodice which allows the shoulders to support any weight and prevents any discomfort around the waist. This may not be 100% authentic but, as I am developing these pieces to be worn by modern little girls, I want them to be as wearable as possible.

The Challenge: 
Procrastination. As I mentioned above, tiny little dresses have been something I've thought about sewing for a long time but I never really had any reason to. I did get started on this project just before Christmas though - I had all of my patterns and fabric and so on all ready to go, but then sewing Christmas presents and other general festivities got in the way. When I saw the theme for January was procrastination, I knew right away that this was one of the projects that I wanted to get finished.

Fabric:
The split drawers are cotton lawn with cotton broderie anglais trim. The mock-corset bodice is a stiff cotton twill and for the crinoline I used a remnant of poly cotton broderie anglais that, quite handily, had a deep decorative border on both selvages. Given that the skirt is so short, this meant that I could cut the front and back alongside each other using the borders as a hem on both pieces.

Pattern: 
I used Butterick's 5901 pattern for inspiration and also as a guide for children's sizing as this is something I don't have any previous experience of. I worked quite freely though, only really using the bodice pieces to ensure the correct fit and cutting the other sections myself. I used my own methods for construction and didn't refer to the pattern instructions hardly at all. I also altered the numbers of hoops from three to two, changed the arrangement of tucks on the drawers and created my own system for attaching the crinoline to the bodice rather than having a separate petticoat underneath.

Year: 
Mid-Victorian 1850s-1860s

Notions:
Thread, bias binding, boning tape, 1" flat cotton tape, a shoelace for the drawstring on the drawers, 4 mother of pearl buttons on the bodice, 6 tiny antique buttons for attaching the crinoline to the bodice and boning*.

* A note on polyester boning: This is something that I have always avoided in the past, never believing that it could possibly be strong enough to hold its shape. And I was right! I had decided to use it on this occasion as I thought that it would be both lighter for a young child and more economical. I also, mistakenly, believed that the small size of the crinoline would compensate for the lack of strength in the boning. How wrong I was! The plastic boning was a complete disaster, failing to hold its own shape even without any form of skirt placed over the top of it. I thought at first that adding the second and third bones would help but in actual fact this made matters worse as the bones bent and twisted in different places and tangled themselves up in ways that didn't even look physically and scientifically possible. What's more, when I draped a thin circular cotton skirt over the top to see if balanced weight on all sides would correct the problem the whole thing collapsed!

Badly behaved boning - and that's only one hoop!

Fortunately I had some spiral steel boning on hand for a corset so I removed some of the polyester boning and tried the metal with much better results. The steel held its shape and is not as heavy as I though it would be as what I had was 7mm spiral steel rather than the wider spring steel I usually use for crinolines. I have therefore learnt my lesson and will be replacing the polyester with the steel as soon as I have cleaned it up. Unfortunately I didn't realise it was dirty until I had threaded it through the boning channel and found grey smudging all around the openings, one of the reasons that I will be keeping this set of underwear as a prototype. Especially as my sewing machine helped out by adding some oil to other seams! So once the boning has had a bath in some white spirit I will be able to replace the bones for a sturdier crinoline.

How historically accurate is it?
Overall the shape and silhouette are accurate. The drawers are just a miniature copy of adult split drawers with the exception of being longer and showing beneath the dress, a style that is often seen in period photographs, especially on younger girls. Similarly the crinoline creates the correct shape and the bodice does echo the shape of some extant children's corsets that I have seen. However, it is not actually a corset (I simply stitched lines to imitate boning channels) and I am not sure about the system for buttoning the crinoline onto the bodice. Having said that, many children's corsets did button rather than lace and it doesn't seem impossible that the crinoline would have been attached to the corset in some way as this was not unheard of in adult dress and would have made life easier for the child. As for the materials, the use of cotton for the bodice and drawers is accurate, but the broderie anglais poly cotton is not. This was a more commercial choice on my part in order to make the ensemble prettier without spending hours adding tucks and lace and so on. However, in future I will be looking at creating completely accurate ensembles as well so that people have the choice based on what they need the costumes for. It should also be noted that for a more authentic look a chemise should really be worn underneath these as well as a modesty petticoat.

A close up of the buttons and the stitched mock boning channels

Hours to complete:
In total probably about 6 or 7 but this involved a fair amount of thinking, figuring things out, experimenting and fighting with boning as well as tracing and drafting pattern pieces.

Tiny tucks and lace on the hems of the drawers

First worn:
I haven't yet found a little model this size and I don't have a child-sized dress form so the dress has only been modelled by my wastepaper basket! This is a trick I have used before when sewing an 1850s skirt for a young lady with a 24" waist. This was far too small for my mannequin but I needed to pleat the skirt directly onto a waistband placed around a body form. The only thing that I could find with the correct circumference that I could balance on my mannequin stand was an upside down wastepaper basket. And it actually worked quite well for modelling this dress. The twill bodice is quite stiff and the decorative stitching helped reinforce it to stand up by itself so I could get some good pictures.

My mannequin - a wastepaper basket balanced upside down on the feet for my dressform!

Total cost: 
All of the materials that I used were from my stash, with the exception of the steel boning. My estimated cost for these if I had to buy them is around £15, although I haven't yet completed my official calculations for pricing the items.

All in all this has been an exciting project and I'm glad that the procrastination theme encouraged me to get stuck in with this one. I can't wait to start designing and making dresses to go over these little ensembles and I am also planning to experiment with drafting more authentic ensembles with chemises and proper quilted or corded children's corsets. Watch this space!

Happy New Year!

It's 2016 and I can't believe I've actually done it! I wanted to have all of my past costumes uploaded by the New Year and this is the last one. I saved the best 'til last and it seemed fitting to have a ballgown for New Year.

This is my latest ballgown that I completed two summers ago. I wanted a new gown as I didn't want to wear the same dress as the year before to the same event but I also wanted a project that wasn't going to break the bank. Since the ball was in the summer, a muslin dress therefore seemed the obvious choice.

The bodice was made using the same Truly Victorian pattern (TV442) as my first Victorian ballgown, but instead of using the bertha I applied some beautiful wide cotton leavers lace to the neckline. I didn't use a pattern for the skirt - this was simply a huge rectangle of fabric cut from three widths of fabric, pleated onto the waistband on my dress form. To add a little weight and structure to the hem I made three deep tucks at the bottom. This really created a beautiful swirl when dancing as the whole skirt lifted up when I twirled - such fun!!

I also made two different sashes and flower posies to pin at the neckline so that I could wear the dress to more than one ball. One was of fushia coloured satin in a simple bow and the second was a dark green and blue tartan sash stolen from a later 1870s pattern, that created a waterfall look at the back - unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of this so that will have to be saved for a future photo shoot.

So there we have it - I am now up to date and ready to start sewing and posting in real time as I begin some new and exciting projects.

Wishing everyone a very happy New Year and especially happy sewing...

Countdown to New Year No2: An 1860s picnic outfit

This outfit was planned for a Victorian picnic on the Isle of Wight. As mentioned in my previous post, I had chosen to make a Garibaldi blouse to wear with a crinoline skirt. I felt that this 1860s fashion was perfect for the relaxed atmosphere of a picnic as well as being light and comfortable for wearing outdoors in hot weather. I used Truly Victorian's TV441 1861 Garibaldi Blouse Pattern to draft the blouse and then added my own touch by hand embroidering the front yoke panels.

To do this I took another piece of the same cotton, wider than the pattern piece and created rows of tiny vertical pin tucks. Between these I removed some of the vertical threads to create drawn-thread embroidery. I then cut out the pattern piece from these prepared pieces of fabric and basted them to the plain cotton piece for support and made up the blouse as per the instructions.

 I finished the neck, yoke edge and cuffs with cotton tape that was box pleated with the edges of each pleat caught together in the centre to create a three-dimensional effect. This was based on some trimming ideas that I came across in an 1860s magazine. It took time and perseverance to complete but was well worth the effort in the end.

I wore the blouse with a very large pleated crinoline skirt. I miscalculated when I was cutting the skirt and accidentally made it up with four panels ( cut from the full width of my cotton-rich curtaining fabric) when I only really needed three. The result is a luxuriously full skirt that really captures the size and scale of an 1860s skirt even when worn over a smaller, round crinoline. It is heavy to wear but I enjoy the look that it creates. I finished the waist with a sash sewn from pleated cheap pashmina scarves.

And doesn't it look beautiful set against the sea...If only this photograph was a painting!
Perhaps something like this by Eugène Louis Boudin

The Beach at Trouville, the Empress Eugénie

by Eugène Louis Boudin

• Date painted: 1863
• Oil on panel, 34.3 x 57.8 cm
• Collection: Glasgow Museums

An 1858 Walking Dress

Photograph by Jenny Edmiston

My second ever costume was this 1850s walking dress. It's was all very well having a beautiful ballgown, but it's of little use during daylight hours! So, as the festival I was attending lasted over a week with lots of outdoor events during the day, I wanted to be able to make the most of these opportunities to dress in costume.

I would have liked to have a few more changes in my wardrobe, but I only had very limited time to get my dresses finished and by the time the ballgown was complete I only had a few days to come up with some suitable daytime attire.

I went for the quickest and simplest option with the skirt by cutting three rectangles from the full width of my fabric and pleating them directly onto my dress form as per Truly Victorian's instructions on the ballgown pattern. This method is rather prickly as it involves a lot of pins but I have used it since and find it works quickly and effectively every time.

Then for the jacket I used Simplicity's Civil War Pattern (3727).

Simplicity 3727
Image from sew'n'sew patterns on ebay

I absolutely loved the pagoda sleeves on this pattern and also based my trimming on the fringe you can see in the picture. I flat-lined the jacket (but not the sleeves) with stiff cream cotton curtain lining and hand-stitched steel boning from Vena Cava Design to the seams. The collar and the engageantes were made separately, trimmed with a broderie anglais edging and tacked to the sleeves and neckline.

I found that the jacket went together really quickly and I enjoyed working with the flat-lined pieces which are very easy to handle. The hard work was the trim which I sewed on by hand - I think this probably took longer than the rest of the sewing put together! Not helped by the fact that I baulked at the price of velvet ribbon and economised by buying cotton velvet fabric instead and cutting it into strips myself.

But I think the result was worth it:

I accessorised the dress with a black lace parasol and fan from Vena Cava Design, white cotton gloves and a bonnet that I made by cutting a small section out of the back of an ordinary cheap straw sunhat and decorating with ribbon and artificial flowers.

I love wearing this dress because the fabric is actually very light and it moves beautifully. It also makes my laugh because my brothers call it the "cowgirl jacket" on account of all the fringe!

Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of the sides or the back but the peplum is shaped into lovely points like the ones at the front.

Photograph by Jenny Edmiston

An 1858 ballgown with petal skirt, part III (more pictures)

And here are some more pictures of the dress at the festival. As I only had the one evening gown, I wore it to two balls.

I also entered it into one of the best dressed competitions (Costume Cavalcade for Original Costumes and Reproductions from authentic patterns) and was delighted to be awarded first prize.

However, as a result of wearing the gown outdoors in the midday sun for the competition (which a well-mannered Victorian lady would never do!) I ended up with a lovely sunburn in the exact shape of the neckline, complete with petals from the roses on the shoulders. Not very authentic at all, but in the pictures from the second ball I have a decidedly rosy glow!

One of my "official" portraits from the ball - unfortunately I hadn't realised how creased the skirt was until I saw the photograph. However the sepia tone does disguise my sunburn!
Photograph by: Jenny Edmiston

First and Second Place in the best dressed competition. I think we make a lovely pair and I was so pleased with my tiny trophy. It was really lovely to be chosen as the winner especially as this was my first ever costume.

On the steps - this is here for no other reason than the fact that I love the shape of the skirt in this picture. I enjoy the feeling of going down steps in a crinoline too - it feels so elegant.

And finally... in the line up for the competition. I'm not quite sure why I look like I'm giving a speech though!

An 1858 Ballgown with petal skirt, part II

Having chosen my patterns it was time for a little research - if you can  really call drooling over fashion plates research!

I also looked at a few extant garments and was delighted to find that, although my fabric wasn't silk, the colour at least was very authentic.

An 1860s pink dress in almost exactly the same shade as my fabric! And it even has the moiré effect.

Pink seems to have been very popular, especially for evening gowns, and after looking at a number of fashion plates I noticed that pink combined with white and a touch of green seemed to be a common combination.

Flowers also seemed to be a recurring feature, so I went with a flower garden theme that fitted well with the petal effect of the skirt pattern.

This was my design sketch:

A quick pencil sketch of my design, looking a bit worse for wear after being shoved into various bags for trips to the fabric shop! I had quite a few of these on various bits of paper and the corners of notebook pages. I was so excited about making the dress that any time I had a moment spare I would make a little sketch of it!

And, once I had all of the necessary materials assembled, after a few days of very hard work and late nights, this was the final result:

A nice picture of the dress as it appeared at its first ball - and before it got creased!

I was very happy with the way that the dress went together. I found the pattern instructions for drafting the bodice quite easy to follow (with a bit of help from my Mum for the fitting) and I was really pleased with how well the bodice fitted when finished. The different size pieces for back and front was as system I had never come across before but it worked really well for me.

It was also my first attempt at boning. I used finished lengths of steel boning from Vena Cava Design in channels that I stitched from the lining material then attached by hand. It was a bit tricky at first but made a real difference to the smoothness of the bodice and made the whole thing feel very secure when it was on.

The skirt was very heavy to wear due to the weight of all the fabric and the layers and I didn't manage to neaten all of the underside of the petals where the white pleated ruffles were attached before the ball, but that didn't stop me from dancing the whole night long! I had never danced Victorian sequence dances before but I absolutely loved it. I was very glad of the fan though as it got very warm inside there!

I wore the gown with a pair of peach ballerina's demi-pointe shoes, which were the closest shape I could find to 19th century dance slippers, white cotton gloves (the gloves that my Grandma wore to her wedding) and a headdress that consisted of a white lace snood decorated with ribbon to match the dress and artificial white carnations.

All in all, I was very pleased with the final effect and very proud of my very first Victorian costume.

An 1858 Ballgown with petal skirt

Given the choice, I am always attracted to beautiful clothes over the more practical ones and this was no exception. As I was making the costumes to be worn at a festival that lasted over a week, it would have made sense to begin with a gown that could be worn outside in the daytime. But my love of sumptuous evening gowns and the lure of a real Victorian ball was too great to resist. So my first real costume project after the underthings was a ballgown.

When browsing Truly Victorian patterns, I immediately fell in love with their 1850s petal ballgown skirt (TV246) which teamed perfectly with the 1860s Ballgown bodice (TV442).

TV246 Petal Ballgown Skirt
 From: www.trulyvictorian.net

TV442 1860s Ballgown Bodice
 From: www.trulyvictorian.net

These two patterns therefore formed the basis of my inspiration for the design of the dress, along with a roll of salmony peach-coloured fabric with a watered effect to resemble moiré silk that I acquired very cheaply at a closing down sale at a local curtain and fabric store.

To be continued...

The Original Outfits - The Underthings

My first two Victorian gowns were made to attend the Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival. I only had about three weeks to finish everything so I could only manage one day dress and one ball gown and the necessary underthings.

As I have always loved the silhouette of cage crinoline skirts, I decided on the late 1850s as my time period and started my project by stitching open drawers and a camisole (which I now realise should be a chemise!) from a McCall's costume pattern (3609).

The pattern

It was a pattern that I already owned, having bought it some years previously in a fabric store and it made up very easily. However, I would probably not use it again as I am not entirely convinced by the historical authenticity of the camisole top, even if it does allow one to show off one's drawers! In fact, I expect I bought it because the model on the left looks like the girls in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers when they sing and dance in their underwear. Nevertheless, so far none of my research has found any examples of camisoles replacing the longer chemise under corsets so I suspect that it may be a Hollywood interpretation!

Aren't they sweet!
via: sallycooks.com

Still, I was quite pleased with the finished results and they provided a perfectly acceptable first layer for my costumes.

The fabric and trimmings all ready to go...

The finished camisole

Some very frilly knickers!

Unfortunately, for the next layer I had to cheat a little bit. I had never made a corset before and given the limited time available wasn't sure about attempting one. However, I knew that I would never be able to carry the weight of the cage and skirts without a corset so I had to make do with the closest thing I could find to a Victorian corset. And while it may not be exactly period-correct I have to admit that I do love my What Katie Did corset.

What Katie Did - Storm Overbust Corset

 

The real thing



The next step then was the all important one: the cage crinoline. I chose Truly Victorian's cage crinoline and was amazed at how easy it was to put together. Admittedly, I did need my brother to help me cut the steel boning and to slide all of the bones into the casings but following the instructions carefully it was simple to join everything together and I didn't have to do hardly any adjusting to get the hoops straight.

The kit purchased from Vena Cava Design

Gertrude modelling the finished cage



A nice view of the extra fullness at the back

For the underthings then that only left the petticoats which I made up from Truly Victorian's Free Hoop Petticoat Diagram (sorry - no picture) and I was ready for the next step - the gowns.

Next installment - An 1858 Ball Gown