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Sarah's Online Diary The Re-Making Of A Middle Class Gown Click to view individual entries: August 2000, 2-03-01, 2-04-01, 2-11-01, 2-23-01, 3-07-01 Since everyone in the known world seems to be making online costume diaries, I was pretty sure I was not going to start one. However, some not-too-gentle prodding from my dear friend Melissa of Sempstress.com ( I believe her exact words were "Stop weaseling" ;) and it looks as though I am about to join the ranks of the online diary-keepers. At the time of this conversation, I was feeling rather inadequite as a costumer and longing to do something a bit different, more challenging, yadda yadda. Basically, what it came down to was that I seriously needed to get my butt in gear and get out of this rut I'd been in for the last 2 years or so. It was decided that I was going to do an online diary featuring a middle class gown, since no one except for a small handfull of people actually want to show off their middle class outfits. As an added challenge, I was also going to make an online diary of a man's costume, using my handsome assistant/boyfriend as the prototype. As things go, the plans kind of morphed over the next few weeks when I remembered my dear old gray wool gown that I had began to redo but somehow got sidetracked last September (internal bleeding is no fun). The poor thing was nearly complete and looking very neglected... So I siezed my oppertunity when the boyfriend went out of town for the weekend and, well, I've been sewing ever since. Unfortunately, as I was putting in some of the final stitches on my effigy corset, my good 'old Pfaff broke a needle and wound up landing itself in the repair shop. So as a bit of a forced vacation, I'm taking the time to start documenting this process which began back in August.
The Original Dress. It's rather pitiful, isn't it? Since this is written in retrospect, without much of any visual aid, you'll have to bear with me... Above is a picture of the outfit I started with. I made this when I was still relatively getting a feel for Elizabethan costume and it's really, really obvious. The skirt is unlined, the bodice is too narrow in the neckline, I used corduroy rather than velvet, the gimp is pretty thrashed from being machine stitched to the fabric... The list goes on. In retrofitting a garment, a very period practice, btw, you've got a lot of limitiations to work with, as defined by the design of the original outfit. For instance, unless you happen to have several yards of the same fabric lying around, years after the fact, you can't expect to extend the width of the skirt past the original X-amount of yardage. This skirt used about 3 yards, a full yard less than what I'd recammend as a minimum nowadays. Also, it was about 2 inches too short for an appropriate length, so I was already faced with two challenges right off the bat: How do I maximize the yardage in the skirt and how do I lengthen it? Before getting anywhere with the skirt, I removed all the gimp from the outfit. Something like 20 yards of it in all. It was starting to fray horribly, so I didn't feel too guilty about wasting it (like I ever feel guilty about sacrificing something in the name of art). Then I went back to the skirt... It was a mess, pure and simple. How was I going to salvage it? While pondering this problem, I takled the bodice. In the picture, you notice that the bodice is front lacing, has a square neckline and virtually no front point at the waist. These were the three obvious things I wanted to change right a way. I wanted an arched "French" neckline and a longer point, and it turned out that I wasn't really bothered by the front opening, I just didn't want it to be laced. So, I took the bodice and laid it down on a piece of newsprint and traced a line to show where I wanted the curve of the neckline to start and the point of the bodice. Once I had that figured, I took some heavy denim and created a backing to the bodice's front edges. This would be my base for the new curve and point. I had two triangular looking peices cut from the denim, each with half the rounded neckline that I attached to the gray bodice by simply handstiching them together. The ugliness of the stiches didn't matter, they would wind up being covered by the new trim. Then I began thinking about what kind of trim I was going to use. I didn't have to think too hard... My orginal desire was to use black cotton velvet for the banding on the bodice and skirts, but since I wanted to keep the original sleeves, which were trimmed with corduroy, I kinda was stuck with black corduroy. But it ended up being a good idea since I happened to have several yards of black corduroy on hand. With the bodice now mostly finished and edged in black cording, I turned my attention back onto the skirt. I decided that I'd just have to live with the width of the skirt because I didn't feel like inserting any particular kind of fabric to add width to them. But adding length was easier. I already knew I wanted to have wide bands of black corduroy along the edge of the skirt, so I got creative and used these bands to lengthen the skirt by a full four inches in the back. Placing the banding at an angle, I managed to create a small train as well. To the front of the skirt I made a strip of banding about two inches at the top, widening to about four inches at the bottom, extend down the length of the front. The hem banding met the front strip on either side to produce a continious strip of black all the way around the hem and up the front. Echoing the bodice, which had two strips of banding down either front side, one wide and narrowing as it followed the point and the other an inch below and about an inch wide all the way around, I added a second strip of corduroy banding to the skirt. This gave the skirt a very Germanic flavor. Then I wound up in the hosiptal and the whole thing sat in my basement for the next five months, until yesterday (2-2-01). So, without further ado... I managed to get the skirt cartridge pleated and stitched to the waistband yesterday and hung it up to let it do its thing before I hemmed it. Only after the thing had been there a day did I actually try it on, only to discover that it was about three inches too small in the waist. So now I must take the pleats out and redo them... I love costuming, really. However, I have to say that the skirt is really very pretty... It is quite heavy now that I've added the heavy cotton lining to it, and the banding adds enough weight at the hem so it hangs in very pleasing, round pleats. I got around to looking at the bodice and realized that it was needing some new hook and eyes... The ones I had originally put in were popping off all over the place. I'm debating on different closures right now... I could go for some normal hook and eyes, rather than the flat "dress" hooks I've been using. Or I could do a hidden lace... But that's rather complicated to deal with at the moment. Chances are, I'll leave the flat hooks and just get them stitched down better. On a side note, I finished my effigy corset (yay!) and I am suffering from severely raw fingers as a result of handstiching through the leather binding. It's a lovely corset, though... It's made from a pale "grass" green linen table cloth I got from the Salvation Army and boned with some kind of reed that was on sale at Michaels a while back. I honestly can't remember the name of the stuff, except that it's a bit thicker than broom straw and is pretty long. The whole thing is bound in pale yellow leather... Okay, it's really a chamois I bought from Target, but hey, it's still leather and it was cheap and readily available, especially since the local Tandy outlet closed it's doors about a year ago, leaving me without any access to quality leather. At least I know this stuff is waterproof! Whatever oil (why do I keep thinking it's coated with Emu oil?) it's coated with, though, gave me a viscious headache and made my cat keep licking the chamois. She's a weird animal, so it might not be the oil, but just her. At any rate, the corset it extraordinarily comfortable and I can actually get a deep breath in it. However it's not at all like any other corset I've ever made or worn, so the style is taking some getting used to. But back to the task at hand... As I was finishing my corset, as luck would have it, my trusty Pfaff broke down. Well, actually, I broke a needle on the corset and this caused the machine to make this horrible clacking noise whenever I used it. So it went to the repair shop first thing today and wouldn't ya know it, it's going to stay there until Monday. Something about string getting all wound up in it's gears, or something. I'm praying this isn't going to be expensive to fix... So with the Pfaff out of commission, I finished up the machine stiching on my mom's Brother (it's nice to have a back up) and then took the oppertunity to finish all my hand sewing projects (read: the corset). Once the corset was finished I put it on and then tried the gray bodice on over it... I was a little dismayed, but that's to be expected since the bodice was made long before the corset came about. I still might be able to make it work, though. Once I tweaked the corset a bit to give me a bit less waist, the bodice fit better... That is, until the hooks began popping off. Sigh. As for the skirt, well, that's getting taken appart and re-thought out. I spent some time looking over Melissa's newest diary that includes some nice pics of the cartridge pleated skirt and decided to see if I can get the same results out of my meagre 3 1/2 yard skirt. The biggest problem is that the skirt looks weird when worn over the bumroll... I know how to eliminate the wrinkles across the front, but I'm thinking I might get better results if I encorporate a pleat on either side of the front. Melissa did this and it really made a big difference in the drape of the skirt... In Period Costume For Stage And Screen: 1500-1800, Jean Hunnisett uses a similar method to pleat a skirt for a Tudor gown. I'll have to play around with this and see if it makes the skirt hang right over the bumroll. Bumrolls and I have never gotten along... The proper size always looks massive on me and makes my torso appear extremely short. This is why I usually wear one about half the size of the standard bumroll, but this time I'm determined to make it work, dammit! The Headache From Hell continues. I woke up this morning and it was still going strong... Needless to say, I'm not feeling 100% chipper at the moment. If only I could unclench my jaw... Anyhoo. Today is Skirt Day. I think I've figured out a way to let out enough of the cartridge pleats to fix the front of the dress without having to take them all out. The task right now is to get my corset on the dummy so I can use it for the pleating process. I love my dummy, but it seems as though I'm forever doomed to be disatisfied with it... See, it's shoulders a quite a bit wider than mine, which makes fitting all of my bodices a bit of a chore. I wish someone would realize that reducing the size of a dummy doesn't just mean reducing the bust and waist measurements, but the whole thing. I've got enough trouble to deal with when I sew... I shouldn't have to constantly play a guessing game with my patterns when I'm trying to fit them on something that is supposed to be an accurite representation of my body. Dummies are supposed to make you life easier, not complicate things! Argh. Okay, enough of my bitching. I got the corset on the dummy and was pleasantly surprised to see that it fit. And it not only fit, it actually gave the same measurements as when I'm wearing the corset. This is quite a nice development. The skirt, bane of my existance at the moment, is a different story. While the waistband fits, the pleats are off. As I'm looking at it, I suspect that I pulled the second and third row of stitches too tight, throwing off the angle of the pleats. I also left too much unpleated space in the front, which causes the pleats towards the center front to pull forward. And lastly, there is that ever-present issue with the flat front of the skirt and how to get it to hang, well, flatly. I don't have a whole lot of room to play around with due to the fact that the skirt was originally hemmed without a bumroll, so I'm fearing I might come up an inch or so too short in the front. I can probably fix this with a little creativity with my new hem, but I'm waiting until I see how much length I'm going to lose after I take the horozontal tuck along the front of the skirt before I jump to any conclusions. I'm guessing right now that I might wind up losing an inch to an inch-and-a-half which is not too big of a deal since I'm not planning on wearing a farthingale with this outfit. This will cause the hem to just graze the top of my foot, which will make walking around in the dress a bit easier. I am now going to take a little break to get ready for belly dancing class... It's picture day and I am not feeling at my personal best. That, and I have to track down several independant pieces of my costume that decided to wander off... C'est la vie, non? Okee, I'm back and I lived through pictures! Anyway, back to work. I took out the cartidge pleats and played around with making two pleats on either side of the front before deciding that one pleat on either side was enough. I then tucked the top of the skirt at CF and that eleminated the horozontal creases down the front of the skirt. I realize now that I could have circumvented this whole process had I cut the top of the skirt at CF with a slight downward curve. But I didn't and now I have to live with it. Ah well. The upside is that the skirt looks normal now. It doesn't hang weird over the bumroll anymore. Yay! I think that's enough for today... 2-10-01 The good news is that I'm alive. The bad news is that due to the fact that I was sick with the Flu From Hell all this week, I didn't get a fraction of work done on the dress that I was planning on. Yesterday I finally felt well enough to sew six pairs of pewter clasps to the front of the bodice before crawling back into bed. Today I am debating on whether or not I should attempt to hem the skirt while under the influance of cough medicine. Do sewing machines count as heavy machinery? OH MY GOD!!!! I GOT MY DIGITAL CAMERA SOFTWARE TO WORK!!!! YEE-HA! Ahem, sorry about that. Anyway, today dear readers, you get to finally see what I've been talking about this last week or so. Check out the pics! Okay, the quality leaves something to be desired, but who is gonna argue with a cheap digital camera as long as it works?
The front. The bodice closes center front with 6 pewter clasps that I bought from Hedgehog Handiworks. NOTE: It suddenly occured to me that I've never actually seen any documentation for English bodices to fasten up the front with metal clasps. I've seen plenty of buttons, pins, toggles and bows, but never actual metal clasps. Regardless, I think they look really swell, so I'm keeping them on. RE-NOTE: The shoulders of the bodice don't quite lie flat against the shoulders of the dummy, due to the bulk of the shoulder pieces in the effigy corset. This is not a big deal, though... I'll either take the leather pipping off the edge of the corset, or see if I can't learn to live with the gapping a little.
From the back. Notice how the bodice gaps at the waist? Don't worry, I'm going to fix that. I'll be attaching hooks and eyes to the waistband and waist-edge of the bodice to control this. BTW, the cartridge pleats are beginning to sag due to the fact that they were more or less hastily stiched in last week and gravity has begun to take it's toll. Fixing them shouldn't take too much time or energy, so I'll deal with them later.
A full length frontal, unfortunately slightly out of focus. Not much to say here except that the skirt finally hangs correctly, thanks to some rather creative pleating.
A 3/4 view with the sleeve pinned to the shoulder. I'll be adding piccadils at the shoulders to add a bit of style to the bodice and to hide the sleeve cap where it laces to the shoulder of the bodice. Also, the sleeves were originally designed to hang open, so they're a bit longer than I'd normally make for a regular closed sleeve. Controlling the excess lengeth should not be a big deal, though. NEXT TIME: PARTLETS AND CHEMISES! Ok, I lied. I haven't gotten around to working on the partlet and chemise... In fact, I haven't gotten around to working on the gray dress at all since the last entry. What happened was I reached a sort-of burn out state which was perpetuated by a friend of mine who brought her pictures of Northern to class about a week ago, sending us both into a really violent fit of nostalgia. In my case, this manifested itself in a burning desire to make a costume with very little attention to authenticity, so I dug out an unfinished bodice in red velvetine, bought five yards of purple swirly cotton print (gasp!) and proceded to break out the metal grommets and design a totally unperiod chemise. Well, I got the bodice finished when the old muse fired up again and I started looking longingly at a bolt of dark orange (tawney) linen I'd been hoarding for a few months and before you could say "Society For Creative Anachronism", I was at it again. I'm very commited to the orange linen at the moment, but failed to take any pictures of the process. As it is, I'm done with the bodice (except for the lacing holes) and am now working on the skirt. I've just gotta figure out a way to pleat 6 yards of material into a 27 inch waistband... Anyhoo... I'll be turning my attention back the gray dress as soon as this "weekend special" is hemmed. Really, I promise... ;) I would have updated this page a week ago, but my demo version of Dreamweaver 4 expired so I had to wait for the software to make it to my doorstep before I could do anything. In that space of time, I had all sorts of interesting things to comment on, but as luck would have it, I forgot pretty much all of it as soon as I loaded the software. Feh. Anyhoo... I did finish the chemise and I'm really pleased to announce that it's just about perfect. I used the T-Tunic chemise pattern generator off The Elizabethan Costume Page and it worked wonderfully. Pictures will be forthcomming in a day or so... It all depends on how much crap (ie. school work) I have to deal with in the next 24 hours. On to the other stuff. I finished the orange kirtle about a week ago, so that's over and done with. The gray dress still needs to be hemmed (can you tell that I hate hemming skirts?) and I've kinda got a partlet going. I'm still debating on whether to make it with a ruff or without one... And, characteristic of my inability to focus on one costume project at a time, I started work on a belly dancing outfit for the Middle Eastern Dance Convention (Rakkasah) in Richmond, CA comming up at the end of the month. It's a choli top with a simple wrap-around skirt in black burnout vetlvet with metalic gold accents. As near as I can tell, it approximates a cheetah print. It's cute, quick & dirty and will serve it's purpose quite nicely (I'm dancing in a troup this year... With swords... Somebody shoot me the next time I'm tempted to volunteer to do this sort of thing). So that brings us up to date pretty much. Again, pictures will be up within the next few days, so hold yer horses. I know everyone is DYING to see them... ;)
Hey, check it out! Does the dress look kinda familiar to anyone? Ironically, I actually have material that resembles the red striped sleeves and forepart, but I doubt I could wrest it from the clutches of my mother, who has claimed it for an uphulstry project. But it's not about copy-catting, afterall. |
