Making an 1890’s Day Dress, the “Pumpkin” Gown, Part One

September 2, 2016September 2, 20165 Comments

Today I’ll be talking about making another 1890’s day dress from taffeta. But this time around my posts will be a lot more positive since i’ve already finished this dress and i’m really happy with the end result. The finished dress actually fits, and isn’t too long, which might be a first for me!

Before talking about construction I wanted to explain the design of this, because if you’ve seen the movie Crimson Peak it may look familiar!

If you read this blog post you’ll know my foray into 1890’s fashion was originally inspired by what Edith wore in the film, specifically this gorgeous coat. Back in January I bought fabric for a coat based on that design, and material for a dress to wear underneath it. Even though I really liked the dress Edith wore with the jacket in the film, I chose to create an original design instead.

And it failed horribly.

The design wasn’t the reason why that project failed, but I didn’t want to be reminded of it when attempting another project from this period. So I settled on a simpler design, which features the most common skirt and bodice design from the 1890’s, and the signature puff sleeves. You can see similar designs in Victorian Fashions and Costumes from Harper’s Bazar* which I had open while sketching this ensemble.

Since my last dress was very heavy I chose to leave this one free of embellishments and trim, with the only decoration being buttons down the front and a brooch. This was the only thing I intended on copying from the dress in Crimson Peak. But when I compared my sketch to the costume from the film, I realized they were pretty much identical!

This was made even more apparent because the fabric I purchased for this project is quite similar to what was used for Edith’s dress. But I like the design, and I like the dress from the film, so i’m okay with them being really similar, even if that wasn’t my original intention.

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As I said, I used Victorian Fashions and Costumes from Harper’s Bazar* as a reference, along with a bunch of things i’ve pinned and the gown from the film.

I purchased seven yards of an orange silk for this dress, and plan on wearing it with this beautiful moth brooch I got for two dollars on ebay. I’ve been wanting to include it in a costume for ages, and I feel like this is my chance – even though brooches this bold aren’t really historically accurate, ecspecially on a day ensemble.

And a more developed sketch.

I started off by draping the pattern. It’s a pretty simple design, but it took a bit of fiddling to get the amount of volume I wanted while keeping the shoulder and sides perfectly smooth.

Here you can see it transferred to paper with the seam allowances added. This picture was taken after I made my first mock up and some pattern changes. Those changes included making the waistband longer, taking the collar in by an inch, adding a dart to the front, and raising the waistline.

Just to be safe, since the fit of my first 1890’s day dress was so bad, I decided to cut out and assemble the lining of the bodice first. This would serve as a second mock up of sorts, and allow me to make minor changes before cutting into the silk. I’m SO glad I did this, because some weird issues popped up.

The collar was too big (I think I took it in by a full inch), the gathers at the front were gaping, and there was a lot of wrinkling and bunching in collarbone/shoulder area. The wrinkling was weird, since every other part of the bodice seemed to fit fine.

I couldn’t find a solution online, or in Patternmaking for Fashion Design* (which everyone says has all the answers) but luckily I found a handy diagram in one of the 1920’s textbooks from the Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences which my Great Aunt gave me.

I was skeptical about their solution, since the shoulder seam fit quite tightly, and if anything there was more excess fabric near the collar than the shoulder, but it totally worked! The shoulder seam just needed to be on more of an angle. I guess I’ve never run into this problem before since I don’t make high collar bodices very often.

In addition to that, I also took the collar in and sewed a strip of material across the front to control the gathers. In the future I would make a separate lining pattern that isn’t gathered, which would avoid this problem.

Here you can see the strip I sewed to the front. After this was done I tried the bodice on again, and it fit well enough that I felt comfortable with moving forward. So I sewed a few boning channels into the lining, then filled them with plastic bones.

It’s the wrong fabric and color, but it looks the way I wanted!

Now I cut the bodice out from silk. Here is the front panel before I gathered it down.

And here it is after being gathered!

And sewn onto the back panels – can we just take a moment to appreciate how the seams on this fabric are practically invisible? I was so worried about making a full dress from silk, since the last silk I used was a VERY finicky dupioni that puckered horribly any time a needle passed through it. But this fabric doesn’t have that issue, It sews beautifully and seams disappear after ironing.

Plus it has a gorgeous two tone look to it, and the weight is perfect – light enough that it is easy to manipulate, but heavy enough that I didn’t have to interface or flat line it. I want to own this fabric in every color and use it for everything, it’s wonderful.

I sewed up the shoulder seams and added the waistband. Notice how the front and back panels have the same sheen to them? That’s because I paid attention to grainlines this time around…

And a quick test on the dress form to make sure the gathered looked okay.

Now it was time to add the closures. I chose to make the dress close down the back, and decided to go for something that would be decorative and functional: buttons and loops. I don’t think this is historically accurate, but i’ve wanted to make a dress with this type of closure for years and this seemed like a perfect opportunity.

To make the loops I cut out one inch wide strips of silk on the fabrics bias. Then I sewed them into tubes with a quarter inch seam allowance.

When it came to turning the tubes the right way out, things got tricky. I tried to turn the first one by hand, with the help of pliers. Which worked, but damaged the fabric and took ages – like three hours to finish one thirty inch long tube. It was ridiculous. For the other two I used the safety pin method of pinning it to one end, then threading it through the tube and pulling it out the other side. This worked way better and took less than ten minutes, so I should have done that in the first place!

I ended up cutting the tubes into two inch lengths, then ironing them into the shape seen below. These were pinned onto ribbon, then sewn to the ribbon by machine.

The ribbon was then pinned onto the back of the bodice.

And sewn on by hand. Not my prettiest hand work, but I went over each loop several times to make sure they are really secure.

With the loops on, I went ahead and sewed in the lining.

Now it was starting to look like something!

But it was still missing all the buttons, which meant I had to make some. I bought a tool for covering 5/8″ buttons, along with fifty loop back sets. These were purchased on etsy for a grand total of nine bucks.

A few hours later I had an adequate number of buttons. Though I had to make more later for the sleeves and skirt.

Buttons were sewn onto the back, which unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of, and the front, which looks like this!

The gathered front of the bodice has a tendency to flop over and hide my beautiful buttons, so I’ll have to do something to fix that. But aside from that I really like it! I love how clean it looks, with the focus being on the color and buttons. It’s interesting working on something that is so bold (a lot bolder than my usual projects) yet really simple by comparison.

Speaking of that bold color, i’ve nicknamed this the pumpkin dress because of it! The color probably reminds me of cheetos more than pumpkins, but I think “pumpkin” is a slightly more glamorous name for it.

And that’s it for this post! Thanks for reading!

Making a Grey Taffeta Kirtle

July 27, 2015February 28, 201616 Comments

This is another project that came out of nowhere. I was about to go to bed and thought “I should make a dress based off that painting pinned on pinterest a few months ago”. I wrote the idea down so I wouldn’t forget in the morning, and seventy two hours later I had a dress!

This dress is actually an ensemble that consists of a kirtle, undershirt, hat, and eyepatch – that last one might sound a little odd, but it will make sense in a minute. I based this costume off of this painting, it isn’t the most exciting painting or costume but I thought it was very striking when I first saw it, and it’s obviously stuck with me. The subject of that painting is Ana de Mendoza who was a countess, duchess, princess, and prisoner at various points of her life. She wore an eyepatch after an injury left her blind in one eye (she may have lost the eye as well – sources disagree).

She has far more elaborate costumes shown in other paintings, but I decided on this one. I love the hat, the color scheme, and the simplicity to it. Plus I could make it (almost) entirely out of things I already owned, the only thing I had to buy were materials (interfacing, denim, and feathers) for the hat!

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Today I’ll be showing how I made the most major piece of this costume (but not the most striking – i’d say that award goes to the hat) which is the kirtle. I made this from six yards of polyester taffeta which I got in NYC at the beginning of last year. It was four dollars a yard and is dark grey in color.

I decided to make this kirtle the “proper” way with stiffening in the bodice. My last kirtle (made for my tudor project) didn’t have any structure, instead it was worn over a pair of bodies. That led to problems later on and I didn’t want to make the same mistake this time!

I used an altered version of Norah Waugh’s bodies pattern. I made the basque waist wider and shorter, lowered the neckline, lengthened the straps, and took it in slightly. I cut the altered pattern out from canvas, which will be the base layer of the bodice.

I marked out all the boning channels and backed the fabric with cotton. Then I stitched all the channels and filled them with quarter inch wide plastic boning.

I pinned taffeta over both pieces. The curves got clipped and folded over the edges, then whip stitched down. This was really hard, taffeta does not have a lot of give to it and it did not want to go around those curves.

The interiors looked like this! The cotton layer was just to back the boning channels, so a lot of it got cut away to remove bulk.

Then I pinned a thin muslin layer to the interior, which will function as lining. I sewed this in with a whip stitch as well. But I used black thread for this, so it didn’t end up looking very pretty on the inside.

I decided I couldn’t stand how puckery the taffeta looked around the the arm holes, but at this point there was’t a lot I could do without ripping everything apart. So I cut strips of wool and sewed those over the arm holes. I think this looks quite nice, even though I doubt it’s historically accurate.

I also bound the pieces together instead of sewing them with seams. I did this because it worked better this the pattern and reduced bulk at the shoulder, which is always good!

I also started sewing the eyelets on the back side seam.

Here you can see the lining job I did (I told you it’s ugly) and how the bound edges look from the interior.

I stitched a gathered strip of lace around the neckline. Historically this would be attached to the chemise, but it’s such a pain to get the lace of an undershirt lined up with a boned bodice and I wanted to avoid the struggle. So I sewed it directly onto the bodice.

Then I added the pearls. These were once again, something I already had around. I bought these from my red and silver “Renaissance” gown (aka my totally un-researched slapped together costume that had a sleeve fall off during a photoshoot) but never used them. I sewed these around the shoulder of the bodice but didn’t put them on the back, since the wig would likely get tangled in them.

You can also see how my eyelets progressed!

For the center point, where the strands of pearls join, I put a brooch. I bought this for my birthday last year, It was a total $2.24 on ebay and suits this costume perfectly.

And when I say “perfectly” I mean it looks really pretty, not perfect from an accuracy standpoint.

With that attached, the bodice was complete and it was time for the skirt! I actually made and cut this skirt out in the middle of the night, so my photos are lackluster at best and nonexistent at worst. But here is my skirt “pattern” there are six panels which get progressively longer towards the back. Once they were all cut out and sewn together I cut the hem into an arched shape instead of the blocky/triangular one this pattern creates.

Two of the panels cut out…

And those are all the photos I have of the skirt being cut out. I told you it was bad! But you can probably imagine the rest, they all got sewn together with the wrong sides facing each other, then the seams were trimmed down to a quarter inch and sewn into french seams.

After the hem was shaped I folded the edge over by a half inch and basted it down.

Then the hem was brought up by an inch and a half and pinned in place.

I sewed it down with a cross stitch.

I knife pleated the top of the skirt down to twenty five inches.

After I sewed across the pleats I pinned the skirt to the bodice. Then I cut a seven inch slit in the skirt, which continues down from the opening in the side back of the bodice. To finish the edge I used more strips of wool.

All that got sewn on, then I pinned a strip of one inch wide bias tape over the frayed edge on the interior of the bodice. I stitched that down and it was done!

Isn’t it pretty?

I’m very happy with it! I was going to wait until Friday to post worn photos but here is a sneaky one since i’m eager to share!

Thank you for reading!

Making Brown Taffeta Breeches

July 20, 20155 Comments

With Cinderella done I can go back to my twice weekly updates! I’ve spent the last month trying to get my youtube videos on a schedule, and coordinating blog posts with those. I think that’s caused me to neglect blogging a bit and i’ve ended up with really long posts once a week instead of shorter ones twice weekly. That has caused a huge backlog of blog posts about projects I haven’t been filming and it’s a bit of a mess!

But i’m going to try and get it sorted out. And i’m starting with a project I began more than six months ago.

In November I made a Beaded Doublet from a variety of brown materials, lace, and pearls. I was quite happy with the finished doublet, but lacked the motivation to make the rest of the ensemble at that time. I started work on the matching pants in January and finished them in April. The tunic was finished a month later, and the hat was made two weeks ago (about an hour before I decided I wanted to photograph the costume that same day).

So after eight months of work I finally have my menswear ensemble! And now I want to make another one. Maybe if I start now it’ll be done before 2016?

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Today i’ll talk about the pants or breeches, if you want a more historically correct term. Much like the doublet, this costume is really lacking in the accuracy department. It’s based off of paintings that I liked and has elements from a slew of different centuries. Going along with that theme I didn’t research or make these the historical way at all.

I started with a home made pattern. I can’t remember how I got to this point (it was a while ago). I think I used a pattern I drafted last year as a base for the crotch slopes, then altered the length and amount of fabric in the hips. I’m pretty sure I made a mock up first and ended up removing a lot of material from the hips.

This is what the lining layer looked like once it was cut out and pinned to the brown polyester taffeta, which will be the front layer of the pants.

I cut the lining and front panels out together to make sure everything was the same size, but they were assembled separately. The taffeta layer was done first. I marked the darts out with chalk, then sewed them.

I’m pretty sure mens pants didn’t have darts in the 1600s, but men probably weren’t working with a twelve inch hip/waist difference either.

Here are the darts sewn and ironed. At this point I realized that I got a good batch of polyester taffeta. Some poly taffetas are like tarp material and will not take on any shape without becoming a puckered mess. This stuff was really thin and pressed very nicely, which was great! Especially since I only paid $8 for the two yards.

Here you can see the taffeta layer and the cotton side by side.

I left the front seven inches of the crotch open. Instead of sewing that part closed I turned the edges over by a half inch and covered the raw edge with a two inch wide strip of fusible interfacing. Eventually I’ll add eyelets to each side of the opening, which will be used to close the pants once they are worn. The interfacing will prevent the fabric from warping as badly and make the eyelets more durable.

I attached them with the wrong sides facing each other so the frayed side seams are hidden. I did that by machine sewing them together at the waist and cuffs. At the front opening I whip stitched them together by hand.

I sort of cartridge pleated the cuffs. I use that term loosely because it was really just two rows of large basting stitches that I pulled on until the cuffs were the correct width. I did use a strip of flannel to bulk up the taffeta and make the “pleats” look a little nicer.

At this point they started to look like pants! And I could try them on!

Not a flattering angle for me and taken shortly after Christmas snacking, but the fit was good! A little volume in the sides, no wonky crotch, no saggy butt. Not perfect but compared my previous pant making ~~disasters~~ experiences I was happy.

I sewed eyelets into the front panels. Looking back I realize these should have been much closer together. They are a whole inch and three quarters apart, what was I thinking?!

But other than that they are fine.

I cut out a waistband from the jacquard I used for part of the doublet. This is a simple two inch wide strip with interfacing on the back to make it a little sturdier.

I turned the edges over and whip stitched it onto the pants. Then I added two eyelets to either side so it could lace up as well. I did this step a few weeks after the worn picture above and by this point they were a little big in the waist! So I gathered the center back down just the tiniest bit before attaching the waistband.

When it was finished I cut a strip of cotton and pinned it over the raw edges, this will serve as lining.

I repeated this same process – though on a smaller scale – on the cuffs. They got the same jacquard band and cotton lining treatment.

And I had a completed pair of pants! I probably could have made these in a day or two if I had really tried, but the timeline doesn’t matter, what matters is that I did finish them and they actually fit.

I don’t have any pictures of the way the crotch and waistband looked (it’s all hidden by the doublet) but here is a side shot.

And the back. Okay the fit in the back isn’t great. The gathers at the waistband make it look wedgie-ish than they are. They were actually pretty comfortable to wear on the mile long trek we took in the woods to get these pictures.

More photos soon along with the post about the hat and tunic. I didn’t do a very good job documenting the process of either of those things, but I’ll try to cobble together post about them.

Thanks for reading!

Angela Clayton's Costumery & Creations

Tag: taffeta

Making an 1890’s Day Dress, the “Pumpkin” Gown, Part One

Making a Grey Taffeta Kirtle

Making Brown Taffeta Breeches