#mysewingadventures

Making a Modernized 1890s Skirt - Part 2/2

Last time, I finished off with the insertion of the zipper, so now it was time to hem the bottom. Since the Anne With an E dress was a little longer than what I would like the skirt to be, I didn’t add any seam allowances and decided to shorten it in this step. For that, I folded over the raw edges and stitched everything down. Easier said than done, as the skirt flares out quite a bit in the bottom so the hem ended up really bulky at first, but I was able to fix it by adding tiny pleats to the left side of the hem.

Ironically enough there aren’t any visible in this picture (unless you take a close look in the bottom right corner) but I added one pleat to every panel and two to the back one because it’s wider than the others.

Next, I wanted to add the decorative bands. Now this proved so much trickier than I had anticipated, and I still don’t really know what exactly it was that caused the problem.

So this is what I wanted to do. Three rows of bands, and I actually thought this would be the easiest part. Oh boy how wrong I was. The first, thickest band turned out alright, but the second one ended up being super taught, almost as if my thread tension was too high, except I didn’t change a single setting. So I ripped out the seams again (quite literally) and just left the bottom one. I didn’t bother trying again at this point because it was very time consuming and besides, to make the thinner bands I had cut a wider band in two and the edges were starting to fray quite a bit.

Lastly, I added a button to the back above the zipper and it was done! And… I did a little photoshoot.

I love how the color of the blouse matches the fabric, I actually had this exact combo in mind when I decided for a brown skirt. So yeah, hope you like it as much as I do, and I’ll try to post again very soon!

Making a Modernized 1890s Skirt - Part 1

I spend a lot of time making historical costumes but I’m just never really able to wear them. In my day to day life I dress rather modern, with a few puff sleeve sweaters and ruffled tops, but overall it’s chain store with a small nod at history. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to make some modernized clothes I can wear on a daily basis, without needing a specific occasion to not look completely out of place (and time). So I decided a skirt was one, super quick and easy to make and two, a perfect way to give my outfits that much needed ✨vintage vibe✨.

This idea has been in the back of my mind since I watched this video by Bernadette Banner, I haven’t rewatched it since but I would say it is loosely based on it.

The idea was that I’d use the skirt pattern from the Anne With an E dress, as it was taken from an actual 1890s skirt pattern that I just shortened. So immediately when I received my package, I started working on it.

I didn’t need a mock-up as I’d successfully used the pattern before, so I cut it out of the fashion fabric right away - I’d bought 2 meters for this but honestly could’ve done with one. But having leftover twill is never a bad thing, there’s so much you can do with it!

As you can see, there are three pieces. Two of them I cut on the fold, so they’re double the width, and the third one is actually two seperate pieces, same shape but mirrored, those will be the side panels.

Next I stitched them all together and cleaned up the edges right away. So much easier to work like this.

Now it was time to pleat the back. I eyeballed it, pleating the entire back panel with pins and then tried it on to add some pleats to the side panels as well so it looks a little better.

I then decided to stitch down the pleats so I could take all the pins back out; it was impossible to add the waistband with them in place.

For the waistband I just cut out a rectangle, pressed it and sandwitched the raw edges and pleats between it. It was a little finicky but thankfully once pressed the fabric stays in place pretty well.

Next up was the zipper.

This was actually the first time I used a zipper foot, up until now I either sewed it by hand or used a regular foot, but it worked so well and i’m never not using a zipper foot again.

And that was it for one day of work. I’ll be finishing up the skirt asap and maybe even do a photoshoot, who knows!

Making an early 1900s corset cover

Hey everyone, I’ve been absent for so long and that has many reasons, my studies are definitely taking up so much more time than I had anticipated. I feel like I should mention that I am not studying dress history, so like I always say - costuming is a hobby of mine but please be aware that I might not always be 100% correct about things. But I am minoring in art history where we do occasionally talk about costumes so… it’s something? Anyways, a while ago I made a corset cover that I forgot to take pictures of when it was finished, so now I’m doing that. But first, this is what I was roughly going off of:

Having made some more complex things before I thought hey, this can’t be that hard? It’s basically just a bodice shaped piece of fabric with ruffles on. And surprisingly, I wasn’t that far off from the truth. I still severely underestimated the time that it took to sew all of those six pieces of ruffles on. That being said, here’s where I started:

Please excuse the fact that it’s not ironed, I was making it kind of in a rush.

I did make a mockup first that I tried on and made sure everything fits, but didn’t take a picture. Here you can see the mock up parts cut out of fashion fabric. I got out my french curve for the first time and was totally expecting to fail but it worked out really well! I used it to draw in all the curved lines. The reason only the back is curved and not the front is because I wanted the back to sit flat while the front would be gathered with a string and tied in the front, to help create that pigeon breast silhouette without having the back be puffy as well. As you can see, for that to work I’ve had to adjust the length of the side edges in the front so they had the same length as the curved ones.

So then I sewed all the edges together and cleaned them up right after so I wouldn’t have to do that later when it’s done.

I then cut out some rectangular strips for the ruffles and folded over and stitched all edges but one - the one that would be ruffled. Instead, I did a running stich that I could pull on to gather it, and then machine stitch it to the rest. Here’s where I began to struggle: I didn’t really know how to attach the ruffle so it would look nice. I didn’t necessarily want the stitches to be on top, so I initially stitched it upside down to the fold it over but that didn’t work at all, so I had to take it all out again and just stitch it down normally.

I kind of just eyeballed where I wanted the ruffles to go, used a ruler to rougly make sure the ruffled pieces are the same length and tried putting them all about three centimeters apart. I do like how the ruffles curve up on the sides, I thought the finished piece looks so much better like this.

Like I said, I wasn’t super happy with the top stitching, and since I had some white ribbon left I used that to cover it up.

Then it was time to insert the string, aka that same white ribbon. I originally wanted to add a separate channel for that but I thought maybe I can just use the cleaned up edge for it. I used a bobby pin to get that ribbon through this makeshift channel but it worked.

So then I added the buttons and made little “buttonholes” out of thread and sewed five buttons in place.

Here’s the finished piece. And you know what the ironic part is? It doesn’t fit me over a corset. And I have nothing but my own stupidity to blame. Thing is, I made this in order to wear under a dress that I’m going to make at some point, and I’m not really planning on wearing a corset with it (I want to modernize it a little), so I wanted something to help with the silhouette. So I never took my measurments in a corset, and I thought if I leave a little wiggle room it’ll be fine. No, learn from my mistakes and take your measurments! It’s not that big of a deal though because I did make it specifically with that dress in mind and having it fit over a corset would’ve just been a nice plus. And if I really try I can make it fit, it’s just a tiny bit small.

So, long story short, corset covers are great and not hard to make if you don’t make these obvious mistakes.

Fixing my Robe à la Polonaise to make it more ✨historically accurate ✨

With every project I do, I learn more and more about techniques, sewing, and dress history as a whole. So there’s no surprise if I look at an older dress I made and find all kinds of mistakes that need fixing, and I know even in a few months I’ll look at my current projects with the same criticism. Just know that the obvious mistakes are something I’ve been very much aware of since I made it, I just added a fichu because I didn’t know how to fix it.

Here’s the dress. You can immediately tell that something went terribly wrong with the neckline, but there are also some issues with the undergarments that I’m going to deal with.

I made the mistake to cut the neckline straight when it should have been slightly rounded, that’s why it slopes up in the middle. For that, I’m taking out the boning in the front (and later replacing it with actual synthetic whalebone) and folding that slope over to make it rounder. This will however create an even lower neckline which is also one of the many flaws of this dress, so that’s what I dealt with next. Another problem that I had was with one of my sleeves. The right sleeve (left in the picture) wouldn’t lie flat on my shoulders. I have no idea how that happened as I cut both sides the exact same but it’s something I needed to fix so I folded this part over on the inside and stitched it in place.

I did this on both sides so I could raise the neckline as well.

Then I noticed that the front of the bodice wasn’t laying flat, and I noticed that it’s probably too long. I folded the bottom seam over until I felt like it looked flatter and stitched that in place as well. It does look a bit awkward and is not the historically accurate way to fix it, but you can’t really tell from a distance so for the sake of facing my mistakes to practice it was good enough.

The gown still has many more issues that I’d need to make a new one to really make it work so I only tackled the most obvious parts.

There was this big fold in the back that I planned on fixing by resewing the side seam but for some reason after fixing the front it wasn’t so bad after all so I left it as it was.

Now to the petticoats. They’re fine overall, but I didn’t use bands for the ties, I made a tube out of the same fabric, which made it super bulky when tied. And since you have like, two or three of those underneath the actual gown it could make it look a little bulky in the waist area, which I wanted to avoid so I bought some cotton bands about a centimeter wide and replaced all the ties.

This is the fixed dress for now. The back is very boxy so I might resew the side seams after all but this is it for now.

Like I said, to fully fix it I’d just have to make a new one and I will eventually but probably in the distant future as I have many more projects that I want to do. But all in all I can say that I’m really glad I fixed this dress as best as I could because like I said, every project is a big learning experience and fixing something even more so. This way I can make sure I won’t make the same mistakes again!

Hi there! I really tried not to disappear again for over a month but I’m in the midst of moving at the moment and it’s been super stressful. I really thought I could start the new project before but it was impossible. It’ll take a while now to get settled and get everything sorted and by the time I do I think I’ll be starting uni again, but my deadline for this one is June next year so I will definitely have to start it at some point. So I decided to post a quick little sneak peek while I’m sorting out my sewing stash -

This will hopefully be made into a beautiful early 1900s gown, with some alterations to bring it a little bit into this century so I can wear it to a wedding and not feel completely out of place. I might add that the bride is very extravagant in her clothing as well and she granted me permission for this so I definitely will not outshine her. I’ll tone it down a notch too, so don’t worry. She said as long as it’s not white I can come up with whatever I want.

That being said, I’m basically going to be following (or trying to) this pattern from Patterns of Fashion 2:

It’s not going to have the massive train and the flounces at the sleeves, and I don’t think I’ll be wearing a corset with it, much rather just a corset cover for the shape and put some additional boning into the bodice itself so the silhouette will still be there, roughly. The rest I think I’m going to make up as I go. It is also completely possible that I’m going to scrap this project last minute and buy a dress from the store. If it turns out nice, I’ll wear it!

This is it for now, and I’m truly hoping to start working on it this month but realistically speaking, I don’t know. Hopefully soon though!

Making a 1906 Corset (Part 5/5)

And finally, I am happy to say that I finished this project. There was very little left to do from where I left off in my previous post, I just needed to add the eyelets, the binding and the lace. Something that’s quickly done, right? .

While I did finish it all in one sitting, it was quite a hassle to add the eyelets, for some reason moreso than with my previous corsets. But first, I decided to do the binding.

Finishing the raw edges like this is super easy, you just whip stitch a band in place and you’ve got a nice clean edge. But I’m also pretty sure this was my last one layer corset. It is really hard to whip stitch when you only have one layer, I had to constantly go back and fix some stitches because you could see them on the other side.

Next up were the dreaded eyelets, and now let me start this by saying that not only did pretty much nothing work the way I wanted it to, the eyelets are also of really horrible horrible quality. And I didn’t have anything to make holes in the fabric so I had to improvise.

Last time I made a corset, I figured out that if I just hammer the holes in it’s easier than trying to get the fabric to stretch using a nail. So I tried to hammer some holes but it ended up being super uneven. Long story short, it was back to the nail, then pencil, using a bigger utensil every time to widen the hole. Hammering the eyelets in also only worked up until the plastic handle broke, so then my dad made some makeshift eyelet pliers and we went from there. I think I spent about two hours on the eyelets alone, if not more, but then I was finally able to move on to my favorite part of the day - the lace.

Adding lace to a corset is pretty much the easiest step in making a corset. Much easier than adding the lacing. If you have a thread that’s the same color as the lace, it’ll be barely visible and you can pretty much just sew it on however you feel like. I just did a really quick hand stitch and it did the job. Super refreshing after spending so much time on the eyelets!

So here is my final product - it’s not perfect, in fact once I tried it on one of the steel bones kept poking out and I’ll have to fix it, but it fits me perfectly and gives me an incredible silhouette!

I don’t have the right padding just yet, but here are some photos where you can see what I’m talking about -

Now let’s talk crazy myths about tiny waists.

This corset makes me look as if I had a really small waist, especially in the third picture. Even when I looked into the mirror I was incredibly fascinated, and I got my measuring tape just to see what was really going on and what was solely due to the sheer shape of the corset. And guess what? My waist was just about 2cm smaller than it is without a corset. That’s not even an inch. But that just proves that corsets weren’t meant to shrink you down to nothing, I was perfectly able to breathe in it, in fact I wore it for about two hours, I did my hair in it and obviously took all the pictures and didn’t feel like I had to take it off at all when I did. At first it was a little restrictive, as it always is, but once I wore it for a few minuted it actually got really comfortable. Sitting down I noticed it put a lot of pressure on my stomach, normally I wouldn’t have cared but since I have stress related stomach issues at the moment I found it to be a little uncomfortable. But other than that it felt like a tight hug and didn’t hurt at all. This is probably my second most comfortable corset after the Pretty Housemaid! But is that really a fair comparison?

Hope you enjoyed my sewing journey and hope to see you next time when I actually start working on the ✨mysterious dress✨

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4

Making a 1906 Corset (Part 4/5)

It’s been a few weeks but I’m back with an update. Sewing each and every ribbon on top of the boning channels by hand took so much longer than I had anticipated, but I am so glad I can move on to the rest of the corset and don’t have to hand stitch the ribbons anymore.

It was very therapeutic though, not gonna lie, but after a while I just wanted to be done with it. The corset was supposed to be just a warm-up for a bigger project coming up soon, but who knew it would end up being a month-long project on its own.

After I was done with the ribbons, I wanted to go ahead and do the binding but I almost forgot I hadn’t put in the spring steel boning yet! Turns out we don’t have bowl cutters, so cutting them was quite a challenge and I ended up almost twisting my wrist and still had to wait for my dad to cut it for me. If you ever want to attempt to cut through spring steel, be careful or use a bowl cutter.

In the mean time, I decided to add the waist band. For that, I just transfered the markings from the pattern onto the fabric. I didn’t really measure it on myself since the pattern fit me pretty well and I figured it was fine to just transfer it. While I was at it, I decided to stitch my initials onto the band as well. Super extra of me, but they would sometimes stitch the brand name onto the waist band and I wanted it to be a somewhat personilazed.

Then I also added my markings for the eyelets and I’m serious when I say do as I say not as I do. For some reason I decided to mark them on the front thinking they’re going to be covered by the eyelets anyways so it’s not a big deal. Well, guess what happens when you make a mistake? It’s clearly visible. I’m gonna have to see if I can somehow get rid of those wrong markings. Maybe I’ll just try to erase them. At this point, it doesn’t matter how I do it.

Finally, I was able to insert the spring steel boning. It was my first time using it and I’m surprised at how sturdy it is. I guess it’s to be expected as it is steel but I just expected something similar to baleen. I only inserted two of them per back panel, so four in total.

To keep the sharp edges from poking through the fabric we sanded them and then I put some teflon tape around it and put it into the channels.

This is what it looks like now.

I am very excited to finally finish this piece and move on to the bigger project. I will have to make the proper bust improver and a bum pad as well as a corset cover at some point to really finish this corset but I think that’ll have to wait because I’m too excited to work on the upcoming dress. However, I will need the corset cover for the dress so…. I might make it soon? I don’t know, we’ll see! For now, I’m gonna try to finish this corset this week and then we’ll see.

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 5

Making a 1906 Corset (Part 3/5)

I just want to start this post by saying do as I say rather than do as I do. I am incredibly impatient as it seems so I decided to just screw everything and jump right in and wing it. But the correct way to do it would be to make yet another mockup (or fix the existing one, whatever works!) or, if you’re lucky enough and your mockup fit perfectly by now, you’re good to go and start sewing the corset.

In my last post I was describing issues I had where the corset fit me, but didn’t have that effect that Edwardian corsets usually do. So what I did now was, I reprinted the paper pattern and went up a size in the bust and hip area, leaving the waist as it was. I would much rather pad it and have the shape that I wanted than have it be closer in size to my actual body. I know it probably doesn’t make sense, but Edwardian corsets were kind of made with that logic. Edwardians knew that their body wasn’t perfectly hourglass shaped (or s-bend shaped) so they mainly focused on the waist and kept bust and hips to scale in proportion and padded out what needed to be padded. Like this, it gave the illusion of a tinier waist because the rest was simply bigger in comparison.

Long story short, I skipped the mockup this time as I, like I said, am a very impatient person and frankly could not be bothered to make that. Obviously, I’m only doing that when I’m making my own garments, I would never skip this when I’m making someone else’s. So I cut it out of my cream twill and am now fixing the markings (half of the pieces don’t have markings because I cut two panels at once if that makes sense?).

Then I stitched all the pieces together and inserted the front busk. I made sure to cut four panels of the busk panel and the back panel to be able to insert the busk and have some added support in the back.

Then it was time to secure the busk. I still cannot understand how people machine stitch busks. I tried it this time and, surprise, it didn’t work. I didn’t break the needle this time but the stitches were very uneven, so I ended up hand stitching it. My seams are somewhat uneven as well but that’s okay. I feel like the front is acceptable for my skill level but the back is very uneven, I don’t really know what happened there. I even used one of those rotary cutter spike thingies that mark your seams and maybe I used it wrong but I wasn’t really able to follow the markings as they disappeared after a few minutes.

Then I made the boning channels and started inserting the boning. For the first time I used synthetic whalebone and I’m genuinely surprised. It’s pretty similar in texture to zip ties but it’s slightly sturdier, though much easier to work with. I could easily cut it with my fabric scissors and sand it. I used water blocking tape to secure the edges so they weren’t as sharp and inserted them.

This is what it looks like now -

It’s still lacking a few boning channels for the spring steel boning but I forgot to add them as I don’t have it right now, I’m going to the fabric store tomorrow to get it. But overall, I’m super impressed with the shape and I really hope it fits now! It’s crazy to me how small the waist looks even though it’s not. I knew this in theory but it’s mindblowing seeing it with my own eyes.

Part 1|Part 2|Part 4|Part 5

Making a 1906 Corset (Part 2/5)

And once again, I am facing some issues. So when I made the first mockup, I was super happy with it and thought it fit pretty well but then I thought that can’t be right, there is no way a standard size fits me so well, and… I was right.

For stupid reasons (laziness being one of them) I didn’t take my measurments beforehand figuring since I’ve made so many things before, I know all my measurments, it’s fine. But now that I’ve decided to put some eyelets in and actually try it on I noticed what I had already anticipated - it’s too big. I can lace it up completely, no gap and I still feel like I could lace it up tighter. I’ve had this same issue before and a corset like this is completely unwearable. If the instructions say you have to take your measurments, you take your measurments.

Turns out I’m right in between two sizes, so according to the instructions I’m picking the smaller size for the waist and the bigger size for bust and hips and I’m going to have to redo the mockup. I’ll also have to lengthen it a little which seems weird to me now because I felt like it fit so well but I’m learning from my mistakes and following the instructions.

A tedious day later I have my second mockup:

I am going to be completely honest with you guys. I am slightly disappointed. We’ve all seen these beautiful s-bend corsets and how they trick your brain into thinking the waist is super tiny when it’s in fact completely average and the rest is just padded out. I have completely tight laced the waist while keeping the back gap parallel and padded out the bust (couldn’t get any padding into the hip area) and I just don’t see this effect. Maybe I was actually hoping for a five centimeter waist reduction which didn’t happen. Maybe I was hoping to look like one of those silent film actresses in photoshoots which I know exactly have been manipulated to make their waists smaller. Maybe it’ll look better when it’s actually made from the twill (I said coutil in my last post, it’s twill I’m sorry!) and has the lace on it and the correct padding. I think I’m going to go back up a size for the bust and hips to really have this s-bend shape that I wanted. Making mockups sucks, because you’re essentially making the corset over and over again, wasting so much fabric and thread. But I really wanted this to be the first project to actually turn out perfect. I’ve sewed a couple of things by now but every single one is flawed. I know I’m still learning and things don’t have to be perfect but I just want to look at something I made and be like damn, this actually turned out amazing! And I don’t want to spend time months later fixing some stupid mistakes I made.

But that’s what this blog is about - it’s the adventure, you never really know what you’re going to get and you’re learning on the way. With every piece I make I learn something new. Hopefully, I can make a piece that is actually perfect someday.

Part 1 |Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

Making a 1906 Corset (Part 1/5)

It’s been a while since I’ve been on here and I apologize, uni has taken up so much more of my time than I had anticipated! As of right now I’m on my semester break so hopefully I’ll have some time to at least complete some of the projects on my to-do list. I have a much bigger project coming up but I still have to figure out the design so until then I decided to use some of my scrap coutil and make an Edwardian corset.

I’ve been wanting to make one forever but while I love Edwardian clothing I also feel like they are some of the most difficult ones to make so I always put it off. But now that I’ve found a free pattern from araneablack I’ve decided to give it a go!

This is the one that I’m going for:

(Apologies for the horrendous quality! I screenshotted that from a De Gracieuse magazine)

And this is my paper pattern.

I decided to go for size E which has a waist of 65 cm, I certainly do not have that waist size but I figured if it’s made for 5-10cm waist reduction maybe we can work with it. So I really hope the mockup fits, because let’s be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing.

First, I’m going to separate the panels again and cut them out of some old bedsheets. Up until now I’ve always sort of eyeballed the seam allowances on my mockups but for this one I wanted to be more precise. I know it’s gonna be less work in the long run!

I stitched everything together and quickly sewed some boning channels and inserted some cable binders. I didn’t cut them because i didn’t wanna waste them as I finally ordered some fake baleen and to my surprise found out that it is much cheaper than cable binders. I’m so sorry for ever recommending cable binders as a “cheap alternative”, I hope you were smarter than me.

Anyways, I tried it on to see if the length was alright and I think it is, then I pinned it onto my mannequin to see if the back fits and even with the padding inserted it seems to be fitting perfectly!

So I didn’t have the right padding and no bum pad (is that even what it’s called?), but I’m going to be making it. I inserted this makeshift padding just to see if it even works at all and it seems to be working out great! I’m obsessed with the shape and the silhouette and I can’t wait to see the final product!

I also didn’t have a front busk so I put in some cable binders as place holders but I’m gonna be ordering that soon!

Obviously, the mannequin is not a real body so I’m not sure how it’s gonna be when I actually pull it tight, I’m a little worried it might still be a little big. I might insert a couple of eyelets and test it out on the mockup but to be completely honest, I don’t want to waste sewing supplies so I might just go with it and hope it works out. I haven’t decided yet. I know the smart thing to do would be to insert the eyelets now and see if it fits. Oh well, I’ll decide tomorrow.

As for the final product, that’ll be one layer cream coutil with some coutil or canvas lining on the front and back pieces just for extra stability, the boning channels will be on the outside and I sort of want to do light blue coutil strips but I’m not sure yet. I have some blue lace I bought for a dress and never used and I really want to use it for this project. I don’t think I will be doing flossing just because it is so freaking tedious and I don’t think I saw it on the original, but maybe I’ll add some details if I feel like it. I’m also not entirely sure if I’ll add suspenders, it is the historically accurate way to do it but I don’t really have a costume to use this corset with so I think I could just add them whenever I need them.

That is it for now, I hope my supplies arrive soon so I can continue working on this!

Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

For the longest time now I’ve been stuck in a creative block, so much so that my semester break passed without me even planning a sewing project. But a couple of days ago I was browsing the webs for some fabric because I wanted to redo my robe à la française when I stumbled upon some perfect silk taffeta for a time period I’ve never tackled before - so, needless to say, since I got a great deal on the fabric I decided to jump head first into an 1830s project.

I’m not sure what this dress is going to look like, I’m not even 100% set on which half of the decade I want to do. On the one hand, when I first started historical costuming, I was really fascinated by the early 1830s silhouette, but when I got familiar with the later styles I also really fell in love with those smocked/gathered sleeves that are more 1837-38ish. Here they are once again in comparison:

Personally, I think I like the late style slightly better, but at the same time I feel like I’m betraying the 1830s by not going for the more iconic and well known look with the huge sleeves.

I really like this dress for example even though it’s a little lowkey for the time.

At the same time I’m also obsessed with this one. I even had a dream once that I got this exact fabric to recreate it.

Also, it seems like silk was more popular earlier in the decade. There is also the possibility of making two bodices, one for day and one for evening wear. I think I’ll have to think about it and actually do some proper research in the next couple of days. But yeah, I think this whole project is going to take a while as I have to make all the undergarments as well and have no experience whatsoever in this era. I hope the construction is similar to 18th century gowns, that way it won’t be that difficult. I also have to make this happen in between uni classes, so please bear with me! I’ll probably document the entire mock-up process so I’ll have something to write about in the meantime. If you’ve made anything from this era before and/or have any tips and tricks, please let me know!

Making an 1890s Symington Pretty Housemaid Corset - Part 3 (final)

So… I’m done?

I was going to post an update before and then do the finishing touches but I was on a roll and just finished it this week end!

But yes, let’s get into the actual sewing adventure that led to this beautiful finished product.

Before my eyelets were delivered I took advantage of the time before I got them and added the lining on some panels, doing the back ones first so I could insert the eyelets once I got them. It was therapeutic once you develop a steady rhythm and accept the fact that it’s going to take you a while. For some reason I just love hem stitching… It makes everything look so authentic!

I decided not to line the busk panel as it already had the busk in and the lining wouldn’t really have had any effect at all so I just hemmed the raw edges. I was a little unsure whether I should line the side panels as I had messed up my stitches when making the side boning channels but in the end I tried my best to line it anyways. I also thought I would add some hip padding but I left that out, for comfort reasons and once I tried it on I also wasn’t too pleased with how bulky it made me look. I made the padding though so if I need it for structural reasons I can just quickly sew it in place.

I had done most of the lining on one side and only the back on the other when the eyelets got delivered so of course, I had to put them in to be able to try it on!

I added thirteen eyelets just like in the original and it was a process but I finally figured out the right method to punch the holes and then I got pretty quick at it. Then I could finally wear it for the first time, and let me tell you… it’s *chef’s kiss* so freaking comfortable! It’s hands down the most comfortable corset I own, and even as someone who constantly annoys people trying to educate them that corsets weren’t torture devices I was still very surprised by this. But it makes so much sense - it’s a Pretty Housemaid Corset. It was made for working women so it had to be comfortable. It provides just the right support in just the right places and I honestly didn’t wanna take it off again. But I also wanted to continue.

Next, I finished the rest of the lining and then I could move on to the binding. Binding is probably my least favorite part of making a corset, it is so time consuming but I decided to hem stitch it this time because I wasn’t going to use my sewing machine anyways so I might as well save some time hand stitching it. I actually made the binding out of the twill lining, I’d never made binding before but (this particular) twill made it pretty easy because once you press it with an iron it stays in place, which I really appreciated.

Then it was time for the lace trim! I fell in love with this lace the very first time I saw it back when I didn’t even have a project in mind but I just knew it would be perfect for a corset.

The last part was the flossing. I was going to do the same design as was on the original but I forgot to stock up on thicker flossing thread so I used regular thread but quickly came to the conclusion that it would take me forever, so I used the rest of the cream colored embroidery thread that I had leftover from the Anne With An E dress, but I didn’t have a huge amount so I looked through google pictures and found this design that I really loved.

But yes that was the sewing journey and I’m really happy with how it turned out and especially with the fit! It doesn’t cinch my waist by a lot, but then again it’s not meant to, it’s a corset specifically designed for work. A little padding or a bum pad can certainly help with the illusion of a small waist.

Here she is in all of her glory.

I might post pictures of me actually wearing it sometime in the near future. If the pictures turn out good. I already wore it over my late Victorian skirt and it’s awesome. I might just need a petticoat to cover the edges…

Part 1|Part 2

Making an 1890s Symington Pretty Housemaid Corset - Part 2

Last time I only had half of the corset “done”, or better, sewn together, so now I had to do the other half. Surprisingly, it didn’t take me nearly as long to do it as it did the first time, probably because I realized I wasn’t using the sewing machine properly. So now I’m hoping that my thread will look much better and won’t create any bumps in my future projects! The more you know.

But anyways - as promised, I then took care of those side seam boning channels that I did wrong the first time. For that, I cut out two bands on the bias, pressed them and sewed them on top of the already exisiting channels. Of course, when I measured the width I didn’t keep in mind that I had to have some sort of allowance for the stitching but after an hour of pushing the boning in with all of my strength I finally got it into the channel. The second one I made slightly bigger. Lesson learned!

Then it was time for the boning. I still have more than enough cable binders so I’m using those but I’ve looked into buying actual corsetry boning, maybe if a future corset explicitly requires steel I’ll try working with it.

I always clip the cable binders with nail clippers into the right length and keep the raw edges rounded so they don’t poke through the seams. Then I usually wrap the raw ends in insulation tape, or what I called insulation tape in my stays post but recently found out it’s actually sealing strip. It’s much better and easier to work with than actual insulation tape, but I ran out of it halfway through and used insulation tape on some and nothing on others when I felt like the edges weren’t too sharp.

Then I had to put the busk in. And let me tell you… Don’t be like me. Just… please learn from my mistakes, it’ll save you so much time! I had already sewn the front pieces to the rest of the corset, which I shouldn’t have done. You need to be able to turn your fabric inside out to sew the edge by machine. But I didn’t, so I ended up spending a long time trying to sew that seam from the outside. in the end it looked alright but it’s so time consuming and it’s the exact same effect.

But you’ll have to sew the busk in place by hand or you’ll be really really careful and slow doing it with a sewing machine. My needle got on the busk after three stitches and broke, so then I decided to just hand stitch it all.

And then it was done - two halves of a corset.

Now I’ve continued working on it, but I’ll write about it in my next update. But I’m doing the canvas lining and eyelets next. I’ve had to order the eyelets because this whole time I was under the impression I still had enough but turns out you need double the amout for both sides, and I only have enough for one. So whenever that gets delivered, I’ll make the next update!

Part 1|Part 3

Making an 1890s Symington Pretty Housemaid Corset - Part 1

A good while ago I made a mock-up for this corset I found in Jill Salen’s book called Corsets, and then I worked on different projects, and then I bought the fabric but I never actually sat down to make it, but now I’m feeling motivated and I feel like it’s a great next project.

So this is the original corset:

and this was my mock-up:

Unfortunately, I lost the paper pattern but I remember making adjustments to the mock-up, so I decided to just take the mock-up apart and use one half of it as a pattern.

Here are all the panels I cut last night, I’ve got a total of 28 panels (it’s going to be 14 more), but so far I only cut the layers that are going to have the boning and the cording sandwiched between them. I was originally just going to have these two layers, but I decided to line it with a layer of cotton canvas so you can’t feel the boning and cording as much on your own body. The original is made of “drab twill lined with fawn coutil and interlined with hessian”. Mine is going to be made of two layers of twill (since I couldn’t find coutil anywhere), plus the canvas or maybe I’ll change my mind in the last second and make it out of regular cotton or linen, and I am skipping the hessian interlining as I’m not going to be wearing it a lot anyways and I think the twill will do a great job at making it sturdy enough for those few times I’m actually going to put it on. For the front I’m using a spoon busk I already had from when I accidentally bought one instead of a straight one. At least I’ll be able to use it now.

As you can see in the picture of the original, it’s mostly corded and has only very few bones. The description doesn’t mention whether the boning is baleen or steel, but I’m assuming it’s steel as baleen was harder to find and thus more expensive at that time.

Nevertheless, I’m using my good old, completely historically inaccurate cable binders. It’s a good cheap alternative for fake baleen and I still have more than enough of them left from my stays projects, so I’m using them.

Now I’m going to mark where the cording and boning will be so it’ll be easier to sew the channels afterwards. For that, I’m looking at the original pattern pieces in the book and calculating the ratio (there’s a lot of math involved… please let me know if there’s any other way to do this).

So.. I’ve run into a problem. Each panel seems to have 6 cording channels, but that seemed like a lot to me, so I measured my cording and realized that I can fit 4 at most. I was going to use my 8mm boning but I think I’ll use the 5mm ones to at least save up some of the space so I can at least fit 4 cordings, even if that’s not ideal.

Now on to the cording.

After many, many hours of work - I completely underestimated it - I’ve finally finished all of the cording and boning channels. It was a tiring process (probably because I had to constantly switch back and forth between the zipper foot and the regular one) but somehow got quite therapeutic towards the end, but at the same time I’m so glad I finished and I never want to do that again! (I probably will sooner or later… just me being dramatic!)

I know, it doesn’t look perfect and I’m very upset about all those stupid irregular entanglements that make it look messy, I’m going to try to clean that up as best as I can but I just wanted to show you (half of) the finished panels now. The boning hasn’t been inserted yet. Damn, I wish I’d bought the same color of the thread as the fabric then it wouldn’t be so obvious I messed up, and it would look nicer in general. Well, you learn something new with every project. It’s just unfortunate that I didn’t realize this sooner.

Now, it’s time to sew them together. I did what I always do and put them right side facing together and pinned along my markings. The front and back panel were very difficult to pin to the test because of the hip piece. It’s difficult to pin a straight piece to one that‘s not.

Anyways, this is half of the corset so far.

I… am just realizing something. The boning on the side, it’s an extra channel and not within the panels itself… I’m just going to have to put another channel on top of the existing one. Ha. Patience is key.

I’ve only sewn half together, the other half will have to wait. In total, this took me two days of work or about 13 hours. I hadn’t expected the cording to take a lot longer than sewing boning channels, but compared to this corset, making a fully boned pair of stays was a walk in the park, in terms of time.

Next I’m going to have to properly insert the boning and do the other half - I might also insert the busk. Then I’m going to have to switch to hand stitching and I’m dreading it, but I just hope it’ll be worth it in the end! Patience. Very important lesson I’ve learned making this corset.

Part 2|Part 3

Making Anne’s Green Dress from Anne With An E - Part 5 (final)

First of all, before I start to talk about the dress I would like to say thank you to all of you who are following this blog. I just saw that I hit a thousand (a whole thousand!!) followers and I am soo excited and glad that there are people out there who share the same passion as me or just find it interesting! When I made this blog back in March or April I honestly expected to be shouting (or writing) into the void but it’s been so amazing to actually have the feeling to have something interesting to tell. So, the biggest thank you to all of you!!

Now, before I get too sappy, let’s move on to the dress.

I left off still not having finished the sleeves and having to finish all the seams. I thought it wasn’t going to be a lot of work, but I tend to severely underestimate the final parts of my projects.

So, first things first, I tried to attach the embroidered part of the sleeve to the upper puffy part and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out why it wasn’t working and what I was doing wrong. So the thing is, the circumference of the embroidered sleeve is smaller than the puffy sleeve, which I did on purpose to add some nice pleats to the stiped fabric. But I couldn’t get the exact measurment right while the sleeve was round, so I needed to reopen almost an entire seam so I could make the striped sleeve lie flat in order to add some pleats so I could then put the embroidered sleeve on top and attach them. Then I could close that opened seam back up and I was left with the top part finished and the bottom part opened because I was going to add hooks and eyes to close it later (spoiler: I ended up just stitching it shut in the end). Then I attached the embroidered collar; I tried machine stitching it first but because I wanted a very small seam at the bottom some of the fabric from the dress must’ve slipped away and it made a mess so I ended up doing it by hand.

Then it was time for the back seams and the buttons! For the back seams I just folded the edge in once and I plan on cleaning that seam up at some point in the future but for now I just needed a clean edge to work with. Then I did the front buttons. I had some small buttons left over from a skirt I made once so instead of buying ones that you can and are actually supposed to cover in fabric I decided to cover regular buttons in fabric. It worked to some degree but I really think I’m going to have to order some different buttons and redo it because now that I’ve tried it on and put it on the mannequin it feels like the fabric is gonna come off anythime soon. But I’m still going to show you how I did it.

First, I just attached the button as normal onto the dress. Then I took a piece of fabric that I wanted to cover the button with and drew a circle that was bigger than the button. I don’t know how much bigger, I totally eyeballed that, but it has to cover the entire button so I’m guessing double the size? Anyways, I stitched around the circle and then cut it out around the stitching. Then I put it over the button and pulled the thread. I also put some more thread around underneath the button to make sure the fabric stays in place and doesn’t fray. I did this with the thickest thread I had because you have to pull it rather tightly so I had to make sure the thread could withstand that pulling without breaking.

Then I did the same thing in the back and added some button holes with the machine.

Now I only had to close the rest of the sleeves and add another seam to the bottom of the dress so it looks like it’s made out of two pieces of fabric. As I already mentioned, I ended up sewing the sleeve together instead of adding hooks and eyes simply because, to be completely honest, I hate sewing hooks and eyes and I also couldn’t imagine it staying closed throughout the day when you’d wear it. I think Anne’s dress had hooks and eyes, if I’m not completely mistaken it was visible in a closeup but I just opted for the “easy way out”, which, ironically enough, took me about an hour on each side as it was so difficult to sew from inside of the sleeve without catching any other piece of fabric in between. But this is the result which in real life is even less visible as the color of the thread matches the fabric pretty well.

And lastly, I had to sew the final bottom seam. I just folded a bit of fabric over and machine stitched on top of that.

And this is the result of the finished dress-

It’s been very challenging this time, but I’ve also learned not to ignore lining and the importance of beautiful, neat seams on the inside! (The inside is a complete disaster, hence why I’m not posting pictures of it). But overall it looks really nice, I’ve been a little self-critical about it but I think it turned out okay in the end. It’s just frustrating that I decided not to line the skirt and now I’m regretting it because it’s just laying so flat! I think I might make a petticoat for it. It would’ve been worn under that dress anyways. But in all honesty, I think that with every project I get a little bit better because I make all those mistakes. Now I know that I should always line my fabrics no matter how lazy I’m feeling or that I should leave enough seam allowance to fell my seams.

Some projects are more challenging than others but maybe those are the ones that I can learn the most from.

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4

Making Anne’s Green Dress from Anne With An E - Part 4

I’ve finally made enough progress to post another update so here we go!

First, I made the sleeves, at least the puffy part as the bottom part has the embroidery and is made from a different fabric. First problem: Everything. If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know that I have mad respect for making sleeves and anyone who actually can make some functional sleeves. I’ve always worked with gores before but that is a very old and outdated technique and it makes the sleeves look very odd. For my white Robe à la Polonaise I tried regular sleeves for the first time and they worked… well, let’s say I made two identical sleeves and one works and one doesn’t. Still don’t know what happened there but let’s say I was a little anxious to start making the sleeves now. But one thing I expected which was then confirmed to me was that the puffier the sleeve, the more forgiving it is.

Anyways, I did a quick research on how to make puff sleeves and came across a super easy tutorial which basically just told me to

1. take a pattern piece for a regular sleeve and make parallel cuts from the top down to the bottom, but don’t cut the pieces off - they need to stay together at the bottom of the sleeve.

2. fan it out and glue it to a piece of pattern paper

3. cut that out and boom - you just made a puff sleeve pattern.

The result looked like this:

To be safe I tested that pattern on a mock-up and when it worked, I was ready to transfer that onto the actual fabric! I had a little bit of trouble pinning the sleeve to the bodice but I had this idea to pleat the top of the sleeve first and then attach it like a regular sleeve instead of pleating it as I was attaching it, and it worked out perfectly! Here’s the pleated sleeve which I then attached to the dress:

And theeeen… it was time for the embroidery. I completely over- and underestimated the time I would spend embroidering. I did the collar embroidery first which took me about an hour for each side at first which was so much quicker than I had expected as I was embroidering for the very first time! However, I made the second side exactly the same as the first one and made them very far apart thinking in my mind I was going to make them separate pieces but when I saw the embroidery a while later I realized that 1 it was going to be one collar piece and 2 the second side needed to be mirrored and not exactly the same! So I had to redo one side.

I was able to get a pretty good glimpse of the sleeve embroidery in episode 3x1 but you could only really see one side of it, I saw glimpses of the other side in other episodes so I was able to kind of, sort of get something that could be somewhat similar to the original. But now, having finished the collar embroidery relatively quickly I was confident I would be able to finish the sleeve embroidery very quickly as well, but I ended up spending an entire evening making one side. But now it looks like this and I can say, I’m happy with it. I’m trying not to be too self-critical as I’ve never done it before.

So this is the current state of the dress.

I still need to fix the back, make the buttons, add the buttons, fix the bottom seam and obviously add the embroidered pieces. I was hoping I could finish it this weekend but I’ve also been busy painting Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring (my first successful attempt at portrait painting!) and I’m trying not to make sewing into a duty but to just do it when I’m motivated! But at this point I just reeeally want to finish it and finally wear it!

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 5

Making Anne’s Green Dress from Anne With An E (Part 3)

So… I never found the pattern piece for the back. I recently donated some bags of clothing that were right behind my sewing stuff and I hope that it didn’t end up in there somehow. But anyways, I decided to just take the paper pattern and change it as well as I could and hope for the best, and yes, I could have made a new one but I have zero patience (kinda bad when you sew) and so I just used what I had. It worked pretty well too so I guess it wasn’t a horrible idea, but I forgot to take pictures!

Next up was the skirt; I’ve made an 1890s Victorian skirt before so I dug out my notes/pattern sketches and transfered them on paper.

In the first picture the last panel is wrong, that’s why I changed it in the second, it was too narrow at the top and I couldn’t pleat it properly.

I had worked with just the sketch before without an actual pattern and making a late Victorian skirt is super easy so I could have just done it this way again but I thought if I ever wanted to make another skirt like that again it would be easier to just use a pattern so I made one. I had to shorten it because Anne’s dress isn’t full length and a little bit short for a 16 year old girl in 1899 but I just kept it as it was with all the little historical inaccuracies. So I shortened it by 30cm keeping the front 7cm shorter than the back. I believe Anne’s dress was a little longer in the back too but either way it’s historically accurate so it’s fine with me.

I then sewed all the pieces together and pleated the back panel (and forgot to take pictures.. again). I made the back panel 3x the width that it was supposed to be in the end (¼ of your waist) to have enough room for pleats. Normally I just go for double the width but I did that and it didn’t really work for the skirt . So if you’re trying to make a Victorian skirt go for at least 3 times if not even a little more to get the right amount of pleats and the fullness it requires. In retrospect, lining the skirt would have given it more fullness which I would have preferred but at this point it’s done and I don’t feel like redoing it again.

I attached the skirt to the waistband and… voilà:

For the next part I’m gonna be making the sleeves and embroidery… I’m particularly nervous about embroidering as I’ve never done it before except for some flossing on a corset (which doesn’t even count as embroidery) so that’s gonna be nice… But I imagine it being fun. I just hope I can get the design right, it’s so pretty!

Part 1|Part 2|Part 4|Part 5

Making Anne’s Green Dress from Anne With An E (Part 2)

I now had a few days to think about it and decided to redo the pleating - taking @familiarpatterns and @ellas-cottage’s tips into account and I’m actually really happy with the way it looks now! To sum up what I changed, I tried to do a mix of pleats and gathers and made sure they’re even on the top and bottom side and took 6cm off of the height. It’s still a little puffier than the original but I’m okay with it. I’m all for the pigeon breast silhouette, honestly. Here you can see it pinned to the rest of the panels but you’ll see some better pictures further down.

I decided I was going to use the full width of the belt, last time I eyeballed it and when I saw the much thinner original I folded it in half so that’s what you see in the older pictures but I actually prefer this look so I decided to change this up a little as well. I sewed it to the pleated front piece to have the front piece secured to something already, even though I machine stitched twice on top of my hand stitched seams to make sure everything stays in place.

Then I wanted to attach the two top panels but decided to line them with a layer of white cotton. I’m leaving the front piece (and the skirt later as well) unlined because I didn’t want it to get too bulky and the cotton I’m using is quite stiff already so I think I’ll be fine, I just might revert to overlocking the raw edges because I wouldn’t know how else to do it. This is not how it would have been done historically, I’m very positive that all pieces were lined but I’m running out of my lining fabric and didn’t feel like doing the extra step when I don’t think it’s necessary.

I pressed the seams and then sewed it to the pleated front piece!

I was going to do the back as well but I somehow lost my pattern piece for the back side in the past few days and I’d have to change it up a little so I need the fabric piece, I tried it with my paper pattern but it’s very difficult to make it work on the mannequin. So I’ll look for it and if I really can’t find it I’ll have to make a new one. But until then, this is what I have

Yes I’ll manage the weird looking sides at some point

Thank you again for the tips, I don’t think I would’ve done it this way without you and it turned out so lovely!

Also it’s so weird because I look at it irl and I love the shape and everything but in the pictures it just looks meh so please keep in mind that it looks better irl haha.

Part 1|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

Making Anne’s Green Dress from Anne With An E (Part 1)

Every time I scroll through pinterest or google pictures I get this weird sense of yearning and I realize that I love historical, especially late Victorian and Edwardian clothes so much but they look so difficult to make. If you’ve read my post about the historical accuracy of Anne With An E you’ve probably caught me raving about her green birthday dress,

and right after I wrote that post I went out to buy everything I needed to make it, but… I never made it. Until now. Well, I started making it but that’s better than nothing.

I made a halfassed pattern and a mock-up an eternity and a half ago and I was going to test it all out using my mock-up fabric again but then I realized I have a whole bedsheet of green striped fabric so even if it doesn’t look right at first I’ll still be able to fix it.

So at first I tried to see what I did when I made the mock-up for the top half of the dress, especially that puffier front bit because I didn’t really know how to do it properly so it’s not too puffy but also doesn’t lie too flat.

I checked the original picture again and realized that the bottom was wrong - it wasn’t carefully pleated but more just gathered in tiny pleats just like I had done the top side. However, the back half of the bodice was looking pretty good.

So then I decided to use my paper pattern that I had made from these pieces of fabric and cut it out of my green fabric, to then carefully handstitch the top and bottom side to put tiny pleats into the fabric. I couldn’t machine stitch this because I wouldn’t have been able to pull the thread and create the pleats.

I then put it on the mannequin and that’s when the mess started…

I made a little waist belt part out of that same fabric to have a placeholder for the waistline and so I could see where the puffy front piece would end as it turned out it was a little too puffy. So I improvised a little and pinned those two things in place together with a mock-up panel for the top part that would be laying flat. Like this I could pull the pleated top down as much as I wanted to find the perfect shape.

Buuut… as you can see, it still didn’t look right. And maybe that’s because it’s not finished or because the fabric, while being similar is still very much different, or maybe it was just because of my incompetence… But I hoped for the first as I tried to assemble the parts that were left of the same fabric, at least to pin them to the mannequin to see if it looks right.

For the skirt I just took the entire bedsheet and pinned it to the mannequin just to have that color pattern so I could see what was off. I even added a belt to it to make it look more like the original but I can’t tell. It’s definitely the puffy front that looks off but I can’t pinpoint exactly what to do to make it better. It’s maybe still a little too puffy. I don’t know. It just has that DIY look that I hate, but then again it is literally just pinned to the mannequin. Maybe the sleeves will add that missing something once I’m at that point. This is again one of those things I’m a little embarrassed to post because I messed up and I don’t know how to fix it and it may turn out horrible but it also may turn out great. But then I reminded myself that I made this blog to document my sewing journey or, well, my sewing adventures and that includes failures and mishaps because sewing is hard sometimes. But I’ll figure it out because I want that dress it’s so beautiful!

Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

The longest time ago when I finished my Robe à la Polonaise, I promised a photoshoot but then Life™️ happened and I never did. So today I got up the courage to actually venture out into the world and take some photos! We used to come here a lot when I was younger and I totally forgot this place was so beautiful until we went there for a walk a couple of days ago so I had to come back.

So here’s the long overdue photoshoot of me with my dress. Let me tell you it was nerve wracking to go out like that but thankfully nobody said anything… I just got a few stares but oh well, I can’t blame them. I also forgot my cap at home so please ignore my flat hair. Another note about the hairstle though, I actually copied Jenny’s hairstyle from Outlander and I really think it can pass as a “peasant” or lower class style, hair wasn’t super pouffy all the time! And a Robe à la Polonaise would have totally been worn by middle/working class ladies so it’s not completely off. And I need to finally make a bumroll. I keep putting it off but panniers weren’t really worn with this style

Anyways, sorry for all the rambling, here are the photos!

Making a Robe à la Polonaise (Part 4 - final)

Aaand my gown is complete!

I have to admit, I pretty much already finished it on Sunday, but I had some final touches to make which I did today so now I can finally officially say, it is complete.

First of all, if anyone remembers my seams from my other 18th century gown, please forgive me but also know that thanks to this blog, my sewing has gotten so much neater and I love it so much! If I’m sewing just for myself, I usually don’t care about the little things but I think I will now because it makes such a big difference! It looks so much more professional.

But anyways, I left off in my last post with just the bodice finished, so now I had to add the skirt - my favorite and the easiest part. I cut a rectangle of 180cm+110cm (the 110 obviously just depend on your height from the waist down to the floor, but make sure not to forget the undergarments and a pannier/bumroll! It will add a few cm). I cut it out with a very useful technique I learned from watching Bernadette Banner’s videos, which involves pulling out a single thread from the piece of fabric at the point you want to cut it. This way you can cut the straightest line across! I only use it when I have to cut very big panels that aren’t that easy to just measure evenly and draw a line across.

I did it by cutting a tiny bit into the fabric where I’ll pull out the thread and then I used some tweezers to pull out the thread. You have to be really careful and patient, the thread might break a few times especially if you’re doing this for the first time but you’ll get the hang of it!

And then I finished all the seams except for the bottom one.

After that, I measured around my waist to the points in the front where I want the skirt to end as it doesn’t close all the way in the front. Technically you should follow the edges of the bodice but I didn’t think of that so I just measured my waist but it still worked. Now I knew when I would pleat the top edge of the skirt, how small it had to become when pleated. In a weird way, I made tiny pleats of maybe half a cm all the way across and it was close enough to the length I needed it to be, so I left it as it was.

I then secured the pleats by stitching over them. You don’t really have to do this as they’ll be secured enough when you sew them to your bodice but I just didn’t want the mess of having so many pins to take care of that would just be in the way so I just did this real quick.

Afterwards, I pinned the pleated fabric to the bodice right sides facing together and stitched it up to the waist seams. I made a point of not going further because I wanted the front piece of the bodice to lay on top of the front piece of the skirt. I saw that in photos of extant garments so I’m just assuming that’s one way to do it. So I tried to lay the bodice on top of the pleats so I could now stitch the edge of the bodice to that skirt to have it visibly be on top.

The dress was now way too long on me so I folded the bottom over by a few centimeters and finished the seam.

I generally like wide bottom seams. I know it’s not really a thing but I just like them that way!

Now came the challenging part. Originally, I’d given up making that one gray gown into a Robe à la Polonaise because I could not figure out how to drape it properly. But thankfully, while I was researching something completely different (that I’ll hopefully make a post about soon, as soon as I can gather enough information about it), I came across an article explaining that they would attach small rings to the underside of the skirt to pull a ribbon through it. I didn’t really find anything that could work, but from making my 1890s corset, I still had some eyelet plates (idk what they’re called), they were a little flat but they would work while I would be looking for something more fitting. So I measured exactly where I wanted to pin the skirt up and sewed six rings to each side, each 19cm apart. Then I put the band through.

Sorry for my orange nail, it stained from dying my hair red)

Finally, the hooks at the front of the bodice and I was ready to wear it! To be completely honest, yes, it has some flaws but it still felt like I was wearing something straight out of the movies, or another world. I have to use a fichu, not just because it was actually fashionable back then but also because my stays are a little visible at the neckline. I do have another pair of stays, maybe it works better with those, I haven’t tried them yet.

But anyways, here she is - my ca. 1775 (stays are 1750s) Robe à la Polonaise.

The photoshoot I talked about is going to happen at some point in the future. It’s very hot at the moment and I’m barely venturing out in shorts, I’ll have to wait until it’s more bearable to wear all those layers! (Also, I have to build up the courage to go outside in 1770s wear.)

All in all I’d say that this is definitely my favorite thing I’ve ever made. I’m still so in love with that fabric!

Making a Robe à la Polonaise (Part 3)

After being very nervous about starting to make the sleeves to the point where I dreamt that my grandmother told me they were really easy to do and I was stressing out way too much, I finally made the attempt to make a pattern.

Of course, I couldn’t just use one from the internet because I love making things more difficult for myself. Besides, I still had to fit it and I didn’t feel like doing it, so I just looked at the general shape and tried to use my long forgotten high school geometry skills to figure out how to transfer my measurments into an actual drawing, and surprisingly, after some trial and error, it actually worked!

I then proceeded to make a mock-up and pinned it to the bodice to check if fit and after confirming that it did, I could finally cut it out of my actual fabric and lining. I messed up and cut the lining too short (aka I forgot the seam allowance that I’d decided to make 1 inch (2,5cm) which is much bigger than what I usually do so it does make a difference), but I decided that maybe it would be alright if I could somehow fold the bottom edge of the front facing fabric over the raw edge of the lining and conceal it that way. (Spoiler, it worked!)

Anyways, I sewed the lining to the fabric, right sides facing each other and turned it inside out. Then came the pinning to the bodice…

It took a while to get it right, especially the little pleats at the top, but I finally did and attached it to the bodice by sewing very dangerously close to the edge. I don’t think that would’ve been possible with my old 50s sewing machine! With every project I appreciate my new modern version more and more haha.

So then the sleeves were finally attached to the bodice! For a moment I contemplated whether or not I should fell the inside seams on the sleeves as that’s not really something anyone ever gets to see but I finally decided to just do it, to be honest part of the reason I ended up doing it was so I wouldn’t be embarrassed to post my terrible seams on here! To make hand felling easier, I put a water bottle inside of the sleeve. I don’t know if it really does anything as I didn’t even try it without the bottle, but I saw this tip somewhere a while ago so I just thought it might help.

To finally wrap up the day, I finished the bottom sleeve seams by folding the floral fabric over the shorter lining and machine stitched it real quick.

And then, the bodice was complete!

I still have trouble putting it on the mannequin and I might have to change a little bit of the neck line, depending on how it sits on my actual body, but so far I’m very pleased. I’m also super excited because I’m planning on going into the woods and doing a little photoshoot wearing this gown once it’s finished!