aka "The 15 Hour Dress"

The speed with which I made this outfit amazes even me. It actually came closer to 19 hours of straight sewing, from 4:30 in the morning before the day I was hoping to wear it, to 11:00 pm that same day. Believe me, I paid for it dearly by Sunday, after the exhaustion set in.

Basic Overview:

I need a new outfit like I need a hole in my head, but that's never stopped me before. I've been working at Cuthbert's Tea Shoppe at the Great Dickens Fair in San Francisco for the last three weekends (and enjoying the heck out of myself, I might add), and while I have a perfectly acceptable outfit I'd been wearing, I wanted to make something new for the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild day at the fair. Even though I'd be stuck in the tea shoppe all day with very little time to interact with my GBACG peeps, it's the principle of the matter. I was also sick as a dog the whole week before, so perhaps I was already a bit delusional when I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Friday, December 10th, and started sewing this outfit.

The gown is made from a cotton/poly plaid I picked up at Joann's last weekend. I'd been passing up this plaid for weeks before I finally caved in and bought 7 yards of it. The bodice and sleeves are lined in light blue cotton/linen. The whole thing is washable, which is what I was most concerned with, since my other Dickens dress isn't washable.

I used Past Patterns #702 for the bodice and pagoda sleeves, although I altered the pattern to come to a double point in front and to button up the center front, rather than hook and eye closed. The ruffles on the sleeves are my own addition. Once again, Past Patterns has proved to be effortless to work with. The pattern fit me with very little alteration (such a rare thing these days) and went together smoothly and swiftly. I think if it hadn't been for the pattern, I probably would not have gotten this outfit done so quickly. Three cheers for Past Patterns!

The skirt is just a four yard length of fabric knife pleated into a waistband. It is made to be worn over a small hoop and three ruffled petticoats, but in the pictures I'm only wearing two petticoats, which is why my skirts don't look that full. I have to be able to maneuver about the shoppe, so big skirts are out of the question during working hours.

Thoughts:

This outfit received dozens of compliments both days that I wore it. Everyone seemed most charmed with the sleeves, which I have to admit are pretty cute.

My one and only problem was with the button holes on the bodice. For some reason, I managed to botch almost every single one in one way another. I'm going to have to go back and hand do them to fix them.

I'd also like to state for the record that no one should ever try to make an outfit in less than one day, while sick. I was fine all day Saturday, but the exhaustion caught up with me on Sunday and my cold flared up again and put me out of commission for half the day.