mandie_rw | Entries tagged with z:19thc:striped wool 1815 dress

I kept trying to pretend it wasn't my birthday, but my friends would insist on giving me things and wishing me happy birthday and I'm so horrible at graciously accepting those things! But I really really appreciate it, so I'll thank you all again here on LJ, because I can be more coherent in writing. (Don't bring up all those ridiculously wordy run-on sentences.)

(Or the ellipses. I do love me some ellipses. *snort*)

Anyway! Pictures!

There were only a couple shots of all the group together...some one is always behind the camera! Thanks to

madamekat and

dragoneyes19 for many of the pictures here...as usual mine are less than wonderful.

( Pictures! Words! )

Photobucket album here, and I've done a blog post on some spencer details too

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Gershwin; An American in Paris

Took me long enough, yeah?

Only pictures on Mabel as of today, partly because I'll be wearing it in less than a week, and partly because I didn't work today, so I've got Really Bad Day Off Hair.

( The striped dress in all its, uh, glory )
( The black spencer thus far )

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Philip Glass; The Hours (Film Score)

I mocked up a sleeve today, and I am going to finish sewing on the skirt flounce before bedtime tonight. That is all!

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: Rolling Stones; Paint It Black

Flounce is gathered up, half pinned on, and I'm in the process of sewing on that half.

If I got up earlier in the mornings, I could get a lot more done. So I keep telling myself...

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Handel; Water Music Suite No.2

Today I hemmed the dress - being clever and trying it on over my petticoat to ensure I didn't make it too short, before actually hemming it. I have a bad habit of making petticoats and skirts that don't play nicely together.

And cut and sewed together flounce number one for the skirt. It may well end up being the only flounce, actually...the design in my head calls for three, but I'm going to be sensible this time. I'm going to put one flounce on, then finish the dress (sleeves!) and make the spencer, then go back to flounces two and three if I have time. I'm not entirely sure I will (they're each 300" long. *flop*), hence this ostensibly Sensible Plan.

Anyway, I'm in the process of turning over the top edge of the flounce to make a channel for a cord, so I can gather the flounce up on the cord. Seemed the least labor-intensive way to go about it. Also not hemming anything, because it's cut on the bias. :)

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Led Zeppelin; No Quarter

At this point, the only way to sew any slower would be to start unpicking instead of actually sewing. And that I would probably manage to do fairly quickly...

I was off today but didn't have unlimited time for actual sewing, so I didn't get the sleeves mocked up like I wanted. The skirt is, however, now attached to the bodice so that's something. Here modeled, excitingly, on a hanger on the china cabinet. Note the teacups.

(Technically that's not even quite done, as I haven't finished tacking down the unruly gathers inside the bodice. But I wanted to post this before it got too late!)

Note the lovely Fun With Stripes - the waistband and neck ruffle are cut on the bias - that you can't even see! I was going to cut the skirt flounces on the bias as well, but I may not bother after all, since you can't see it at all once you're more than two feet away from the dress. It may be more fun to cut the edges into chevrons (like the flounce on my block print 1770s dress. And my dress of 1000 triangles. I'm sensing a theme...) but I haven't decided yet. May want to save that for the 1820s dress. Though I guess there's no law that says I can't do it on both.

Though I already have a width of fabric I've started to cut across the bias (see: waistband and neck ruffles), and that would be quite wasteful of fabric... Must ponder.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Gossec; Symphony in D major

I'm going to finish sewing the waistband tonight.

No, really.

Current Mood: ditzy

Today I cut the waistband for the striped dress (yes, a waistband, because of the closure), and, uh, put like three stitches in it. Progress! I really need to get moving on this dress, though.

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Beethoven; Piano Trio in D major

Today I finished sewing the ruffles on the neckline of the dress. Not that the neckline treatment matters at all with the giant derpy chemisette, which I tried on with the bodice this afternoon. It looks ridiculous. I'm still attempting to decide whether it's a good ridiculous or bad ridiculous...I think it's great for 1820s, but maybe a bit much for 1810s. Um.

Yesterday I felt like reading, not sewing. Oops. Bad me. But I was determined to be productive today.

So, today I did this...

...and got this.

AW YISS now it fits.

The stripes don't line up nicely at the closure, presumably because of all that fiddling, but there's such a low contrast between the stripes and ground color that I'm not really going to worry about it. Now I'm in the process of hemming a mile-long neck ruffle. Fun!

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Gary Clark Jr.; Next Door Neighbor Blues

First, the new reticule. It's as exciting as a silk sack with a tassel can be.

The stripes look a little goofy, seeing as it's stripes on a circle, but I kind of like it. I haven't seen any striped reticules extant or in plates from the period, but I like stripes and I like my scrap bin, so I do not care.

And tonight I got the bodice sewn together to a try-on-able point. To keep things exciting just in case I was getting complacent, I somehow contrived to make it too small. Hmm. Probably since the mockup fit fine, and I even added an inch to the CF piece, to be sure I'd have enough overlap. Sewing is exciting!

(Hmm. Well, that doesn't fit. But the back is supposed to be that small!)

Step One will be to unpick and re-sew the back to the side-back pieces. I've got a bigger seam allowance there than I usually do (because of matching stripes); we'll see how much difference that makes. If that's not enough, and it probably won't be, I'll add in a small piece under the arms.

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Muddy Waters; I'm Ready

I'm cheating and posting this from the future, but labeling it from the past. Well I haven't gone to bed yet so it's still Tuesday to me!

I took a picture of the slightly-less-enthralling-than-hoped reticule yesterday, and once I get the basic bodice of the dress sewn together I'll take pictures of that. One more dart tonight and then that's it.

Oh CRAP, forgot to put the trash out. What, who doesn't drag out their trashcans at two in the morning??

Edit: Daaaaang, that is some foggy weather out there! Such a shame it didn't roll in earlier; I'd have gone for a ~~creep~~ walk in it! I love fog and we rarely get fog this impressive. This is Victorian-London-murder-mystery-fog-calibre! Glorious.

Current Mood: sleepy

I did indeed get the reticule hemmed last night, and a bit of the drawstring channel too.

Then today I finally got the bodice mockup fitted (that took entirely too long), and cut out the bodice pieces. I might've gotten more done but tonight was Downton night, so, nope.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Kinks; Shangri-La

I worked on mocking up the bodice for the striped wool dress a bit this afternoon. I was hoping to to get the thing completely fitted, but the armscye was being a pain in the butt and I ran out of time before work.

And since 11.30pm is too late, IMO, to put on stays, I'm going to see if I can get the reticule hemmed before bed. I'm about 2/3 of the way around but I am sleepy, so we'll see!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Led; Zeppelin; Hey Hey What Can I Do

I did indeed cut out the skirt panels last night and even sewed most of a seam; today I finished sewing the panels together. The next step would be to make a mockup, as I've not made a high-necked Regency dress yet. I have full faith that the Lizzie Bennett dress bodice will work with just a bit of tweaking - but that would have required actually cutting out a mockup and changing into my stays.

Nah.

So I cut out some silk for a reticule instead! The only one I have is a little too small for keys and a camera and money-holding bits - plus it's the rum-baptized one. High time for a new one.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Pink Floyd; Wish You Were Here

You do not even want to know how many times I've changed my mind about What To Make for the Feb. Regency outing in the past 24 hours. It's wacky.

(And as for the curtains, well, I got evicted from the sewing room-that-is-also-a-living-room about 3/4 of the way through the first curtain, so I was all too free to indulge my Regency fixation! What a shame.)

( 1810s pelisse! No, 1820s pelisse! No, 1815 spencer! )

And if I can stop myself from mucking around on the internet, I might even manage to get the skirt panels of the dress cut tonight.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Rosetti; Symphony in D Major