1830s sewin'

[mandie_rw]

Ballgown: bodice is pretty much done. Still needs hooks/bars to fasten it, but I'm leaving that til after the skirt's attached. I had a fun time trying to make the front drapery look nice - and by fun I mean I had to recut the top piece after I screwed it up the first time. Good thing I didn't skimp on buying yardage!

I didn't take a pic of the bodice all together, but here's the front piece with the draperies:

I think it looks pretty nice on - the lining is the same as the green voile dress, just with the front neckline trimmed down 1.5". Which may have been a little more than needed to be trimmed, but hey, it's an evening dress!

I also FINALLY finished the stupid puffers. They are very stupid, indeed.





They're basically a tiny pair of sleeves on the inside, with a feather bolster sewn on. xD Someday I'll do a nice Blogger post on my Romantic unders and give a little more detail (suuuure), but there's really not a whole lot of detail in these! I very much made them up as I went. The tapes on the top will tie to matching tapes in the armscye of the dress(es). I know a lot of museums display supports that seem to attach to the stay straps, but 1/ I'm still wearing my 1844 strapless stays with 1830s, and 2/ it sounds so much harder to wedge a pillow through those tiny armscyes when there's an arm involved too! There are tape ties in at least one Costume In Detail dress, so I went with that option.

Stuffing them was precisely as messy as I anticipated, so I'm glad I waited til I could do it outside!

Pillow of DOOOOOOM

Arm-pillow of DOOOOOOOM

The pillows I bought were 95% duck feathers and 5% duck down, which was perfectly acceptable for their intended purpose...the same percentage of goose feathers/down was $10 more, and the arm pillows don't know the difference! (And a higher percentage of down was even more expensive, so those weren't even really considered.) And while I could cram a surprising amount of feathers into these puffers, I've still got a lot left, so I think a muff may be in order this winter...

And there are now feathers all over the front lawn. And the neighbor's front lawn. The local birds are probably confused and suspicious. xD

Comments

[theladyrebecca.livejournal.com]

I think it's so cool that you actually stuffed them with feathers! I just used batting in mine, I think. Aren't sleeve puffers fun? ;)

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

They are fun - so silly! Feathers are quite a different animal to stuff with...I think they took twice as long to stuff, just because they don't hang together like fiberfill does. They go EVERYWHERE!

[madamekat.livejournal.com]

Cute sleeve puffers! You could make 'em for your shop. It's just the sort of thing costumers would rather buy than make

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's an idea - they're definitely a bit of a pain to put together, haha! Out of curiosity, what price range would you consider for something like that?

[madamekat.livejournal.com]

Like $25 (but I wouldn't expect feathers. poly batting is good enough for the likes of me). Probably not enough for it to be worth your while!

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, not really, haha. Even machine sewn (which mine weren't), there's still a fair amount of time put into them that doesn't make them very cost-effective. I will say the joann's petticoat net works excellently well in a pinch, though! ;)

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're glad to finish the sleeve supports.

Do you have any favorite references for how to put together 1830's dresses? I'm looking at making one in the reasonably near future and need to start reading about how it was done.

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

Such silly little things, yet so annoying to make!

That's an excellent question...and one I don't have a good answer for. There seems to be a dearth of specific construction information in between Regency and Civil War, at least that I've been able to find. Most of what I know is gleaned from those little drawings in Costume in Detail - if you have that there's a decent selection of dresses 1828-35ish.

[danabren.livejournal.com]

I am always impressed by your work. Thanks for the photos!

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

I do have "Costume in Detail" so I'll look at it some more. I've been looking around and hadn't found many sources, though I know 1830's construction is mentioned in passing from time to time in the Sewing Academy forum.

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

My primary takeaway from CiD was PIPING. ALL THE PIPING. SO MUCH PIPING. I hate piping but I really can't get away from it if I'm doing Romantic stuff!

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

Piping is what it is. I had noticed the plethora of it myself - why are even the sleeve seams piped? Who knows?

Out of curiosity, what kind of petticoats and how many do you wear under your 1830's dresses?

[mandie-rw.livejournal.com]

I've been happy so far with just two petticoats. The first one is my corded cotton petti - it's corded with mid-weight hemp in tucks from hem to about mid-thigh. And over that is a lightweight linen-cotton petti with a small flounce of eyelet. (I actually haven't seen any examples from the 30s with flounces, the few I've come across are plain. But I wanted to use my pretty eyelet!) And the corded petticoat is gored; the linen-cotton one isn't.

I've been meaning to do an underwear post, but then I decided to wait til the corset was done...which it almost is, so that'll be up soon! Ish, heh.

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm working on two petticoats to go over the corded one so it sounds like that should be sufficient!