Swimdress is finished!

I've been meaning to make one of these for the past three years, and I've only just now gotten around to it! (I made one three years ago but didn't like the fabric that much, so I only wore it once).

I used the Modest Swimwear Pattern from Fashionably Modest Patterns. I found this particular swimwear fabric on eBay (search for 'swimwear fabric')... but I have a few other lengths of swimwear fabric (nylon/Lycra) that I purchased from Fabric.com.

The pattern calls for 2.5 yds of 60" swimwear fabric, but with careful layout I can use about 1.5 yards... I'll have to draw up a sketch to explain. I'll do that later. And it says it needs 1 yd of swimwear lining fabric, but I use less than that, too.

Lycra swimwear fabric is surprisingly easy to work with. It's a little bit slinky so you have to keep that in mind, and be sure to use a ballpoint or universal needle (I use the latter).

And no, the swimdress is not loose-fitting... it just looks that way because one of the adjustment dials on my dressform broke, and I cannot adjust it to my size, LOL.

Blueberry blossoms!

I checked on my blueberry bushes today... there are hundreds and hundreds of blossoms. The Tifblue blossoms are more mature than the Brightwell ones... the Brightwell should ripen mid-June thru mid-July, and the Tifblue are said to be "mid to late season". I'm not sure exactly what the late season is for blueberries; I'll have to look it up.

The dewberries also seem to be doing okay, they're covered with buds. I never did prune them this winter, yikes! But they're alive and well, as are the blackberries.

http://www.bottomsnursery.com/blueberries.htm

Tifblue:



Brightwell:



Austin Dewberries:

Sheer dotted swiss gown

I just finished it! I started working on it March 6th and didn't work on it on Sunday, so I think I made pretty good time. I hand-gathered the skirt yesterday and attached it this morning (by hand, whip-stitching every tiny little pleat- hundreds of 'em), and that took me 3 hours. My arm is tired, LOL. Every time I sit down to attach a cartridge-pleated skirt to a bodice I think, "Why am I doing this?"

I really do like this pattern... I would have liked to make a half-high bodice lining (meaning that the neckline of the lining is lower than that of the bodice, similar to Katherine's dress)... but I didn't feel like altering the pattern. Maybe next time... I have some more of this fabric in a medium blue print.

Pictures don't do it justice, of course. It needs ironed and like I've said before, my camera is getting old and worn out. I'll try to get more pics later.

And I still haven't cleaned up the room, LOL. I have an 1876 polonaise gown and a 1860's plaid gown (my project before this one) piled up on the couch there...

Bodice is finished

This went together a lot faster than the first bodice I made from this pattern.

I have the skirt pieces cut out and sewn together... what I need to do now is add the hem facing, turn the top edge under (tapered from 6" in the front to 3" in the back), run the gathering stitches for the cartridge pleating, and whip-stitch each cartridge pleat to the waist edge. I can get that all done tomorrow if I neglect my house-cleaning duties, ha ha. I am in no hurry to get this done, though, so maybe I'll just do one step each day.

And I have 2 3/4 yards of this fabric (50" wide) left over... enough to make a Regency gown. I don't know if I'll use it for that... but I can't think of any other uses at the moment.

New dress plans... another sheer

Once I get finished making the collar and undersleeves for my plaid dress, I plan on getting started on another sheer dress.

This one will be made from the same pattern as the last one I made (Past Patterns #812) but it is going to be made of sheer dotted cotton lawn... white with a printed pink floral pattern. It is beautiful fabric. It's currently in the washer right now...

I haven't decided if I'll put a ruffle on the skirt. I love the way the ruffle looked on my last sheer dress, and I have plenty of fabric (8 yards of 56" wide) but it kind of stressed me out the first time around. It was easier to do than I thought it would be... but do I really want to do it again?

My 4-yard dress

Okay, here is what I managed to get out of 4.16 yds of 60" wide fabric. Sorry if the pics are a little blurry.

I haven't worked on it in the last week because I felt too lazy to run the 2 rows of gathering stitches for the gauging. But doing that and attaching the skirt to the bodice only took 3 hours. :) It still needs a collar and undercuffs, as well as a couple hook & eyes on the waistband (which is currently being held closed with a safety pin).

Oh, forgot to mention... I used the now out-of-print Simplicity 4551, with the coat sleeves (but I left off the sleeve cap and cuffs).

4 yards... can I do it?

About two and a half years ago I ordered several lengths of fabric from a website that was selling out (changing ownership to another company). I don't remember what I paid for it, but it must have been a good price for me to order so many lenghts of fabric... seven!!

Last night I dug into my fabric stash with the intent of making a couple dresses from this fabric. (I'm losing weight right now... currently between a pattern size 18/20- modern size 14/16- and I want to make a dress in each size between my current size and my goal size of a 12- modern 4/6... okay, so that's only two dresses, in sizes 14 and 16). One of the fabrics I pulled out is a plaid shirting that has a cream background with a plaid design of blue and green with a teensy stripe of yellow... almost reminiscent of a Stewart Dress Plaid, except for the blue & green instead of red & black, and the plaid design is identical both vertically and horizontally. I'm too lazy to take a pic but here is a picture of the fabrics from when I bought them... the one I'm talking about is the one in the upper left corner.

I was very sad to discover a label on the fabric, from the online retailer, that said it was 4 yards long. Four yards??? It's 60" wide fabric... but why did I order only 4 yards? I can get a good dress out of 5 yards and I can squeeze one out of 4.5 yards, but 4? Ouch. I pre-washed it in hot water and threw it in the dryer on high (to shrink it) and then I ironed it out... when I measured it I saw that it was 4 yards and 6 inches. Yikes. After a lot of careful thinking, I decided that I will make the dress with narrow coat sleeves, which can be cut vertically (one above the other) out of the side of one of the skirt panels. I can cut the waistband that way too. I cut out the bodice pieces (front bodice and back bodice) and that took 20" of fabric. That leaves me with 130" of fabric. That'll give me three panels that are about 43" long each. I then took half of one of the skirt panels and cut the sleeves out of it, which left me a strip of fabric 4" wide by 43" long, that I can use for a waistband. Two 60" panels and one 30" panel will of course leave me with a skirt that is 150" wide. And if I use my last roll of hoopsteel to make a 90" cage, I can get away with skirts that are 43" long (I need 45" long panels to fit over my 108" cage). I could make it a dress for active work situations, which means I'd need to be 40" or maybe even less than that... but it's such a pretty fabric that I'd rather use it for an "everyday" dress.

Out of all the fabrics I bought, only one of them ended up being more than 4 yards... and that's the teal blue one in the center bottom in the photo. It's 5 yards. And it's my least favorite, LOL. I'm not even sure if it's suitable for 1860's use... it's an uneven plaid with a large repeat. I have no idea what else I'd use it for, though.

The plaid I'm using right now, other than the color, isn't too terribly different from the extant dress at the top of this page... though that one is wool barege, and mine is cotton shirting (very fine herringbone/twilled weave... I'm not exactly sure what type of fabric it is. I just know it's cotton and pretty).

Grant... that's just too funny!

I am working on my husband's shirts now. Today's tasks involve making the collar and the front facing, and attaching them.

The collar pieces are cut lengthwise, so the stripes of the collar are pretty much horizontal (shirt stripes themselves are vertical). I paid attention when cutting out the pockets to make sure they would line up with the stripes on the shirt, and I didn't pay much attention to the collar... I only checked that the pattern piece was straight with the stripes on the fabric.

So I just got done making the collar, and was getting ready to attach it to the neckline of the shirt. Then I noticed that Ulysses S. Grant's image is on the end of the collar... so when my husband wears the shirt, Grant is going to be sitting just above the lapel on the right-hand side!

Should've paid better attention, I guess. I don't have any more fabric to cut it out again! Maybe he won't notice, or maybe he'll like the shirt so much he won't care. Maybe he'll find a nice Bonnie Blue Flag pin to stick right in the middle of Grant's face (he doesn't like Grant, for no good reason other than his anti-Union bias... but if he was living up north instead of here in Texas, he'd probably like Grant).



UPDATE

I'm mostly done with the shirt now (just hemming and buttonholes/buttons left to do) and it looks both interesting and odd with Mr. Grant's face there on the corner of the collar. It looks deliberate!

Looking at silk fabrics

I'm not seriously thinking about buying any of these, as it'd be about $100 worth of silk for a dress, and I don't have a reason for a dress right now. But, they're fun to look at anyway, and I'm comparing them to original gowns.

First up, a gold and red "vintage" style plaid taffeta. Compare it to this original 1860's green plaid dress. Close-up view of the fabric is here.

Next is a beautiful gold plaid and satin stripe taffeta I found. Wow! Then I came across this this original blue and brown plaid/stripe dress... they're not the same, but I can see some similarities. Original fabric close-up is here. And here is another original dress that reminds me of this silk. Oh, here is another lovely silk. They're both gold, and I have no idea how that would look with my strawberry-blonde hair and ruddy complexion!!

One of my favorite silks so far is this red/brown/gray/black/white plaid taffeta I found, which sort of reminds me of this dress. View the close-up here.

I found a lot of checkered fabrics on the Pure Silks site, too, mostly in lighter shades of gold, green, blue, gray. Here is one, and it reminds me of this original dress, which looks more like a horizontal stripe until you see a closer view. I like the trim on the sleeves, it looks military-inspired.

They have a couple of pinstripe taffetas too, comparable to this original bodice. I wish more detailed pics were available of that dress.

I absolutely love this multi-colored plaid but I'm not sure if the plaid is too big... and I can't quite tell if that is green or gray. If it's green I might look very Christmas-y. I also love, love, love this black & white plaid from their eBay store, but it does seem a bit big. Or does it? This plaid dress and this one have very large patterns. Oh, why don't they make silks like that last one anymore? (DROOL!!!!)

Oh, and I just found one more, a that looks ever-so-slightly like this circa 1865 gown.

Maybe I can treat myself to a length or two of silk when I reach my weight-loss goal. 45 lbs down, only 60 more to go! (Sigh)

I wonder if this will make a good shirt?

My husband's birthday is coming up in a little over two weeks. I need to decide what to get for him. I've already bought him an 8G Sansa Clip MP3 player, which I plan to load up with Bobby Horton albumsI downloaded off Amazon.

My husband has really been focused heavily on Scouts lately, and I'm trying to remind him that Civil War reenacting is a whole lot more fun that Scouting. And involves the whole family. ☺

Anyway, I bought some Civil War "150th Anniversary" fabric online a few weeks ago. I didn't have a plan in mind when I ordered the fabric- impulse buy!- but I've been wondering if I could make two nice shirts with it. Somewhere in my pattern stash I have a copy of Simplicity 5581.

I don't know anything about quilting, so that's not much of an option with my time constraints. And if I had been planning to do a quilt, I would've gotten a couple more of the coordinating prints, which are now all sold out from the website I got them from.

Set of 1860's clothes

In the past 2.5 weeks I have made a chemise, a corset, a cage (hoopskirt), a petticoat, and a dress. I intended to make some drawers today but I totally messed up, and gave up on them. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll get some made by the end of the week, but that's a big maybe.

So, here it is, photos of all the items one at a time. I laced the corset onto the dressform and I didn't want to remove it to photograph the chemise by itself. Sorry. And, once again, please excuse the messy room. That's one of my next projects, cleaning all that up...

• Chemise: free pattern drafting instructions from The Sewing Academy
  
• Corset: Simplicity 7215 (out of print, available on Etsy.com and eBay)
  
• Cage: Originals by Kay 7-bone cage kit (okay, I used some hoopsteel I already had, and the instructions from my old kit)
  
• Petticoat: free pattern drafting instructions from The Sewing Academy
  
• Dress: Past Patterns #812 Sheer Muslin Dress (added the ruffle myself)

Corset and chemise:


With the cage:


And the petticoat:


And the dress, with the corset peeking out:


And, finally, the dress. In person it's just possible to discern the slight shade of pink underneath the dress, but it doesn't really show in the photos. I didn't think it would show at all! Ah well.

Bubble-gum pink corset

I started this over a week ago, what a chore! The pink twill is a bit heavier and stiffer than what I'm used to using (even after I pre-washed it) so it took me longer to make than usual. I used the now out-of-print Simplicity 7215 corset pattern, which works best for those of us with curvy figures. You'll notice that I have a pink satin ribbon at the top of the corset... I drew it through the top binding, so I could pull the bust area of the corset in some (these hard plastic dressforms do not quite fill these corsets up properly. Ahem.)

It doesn't look as good as I'd hoped because needles that were sturdy enough to go through the fabric punched a hole in it, and I never could get the tension quite right (it's tough when you're going through 4-6 layers of this twill). I've used this pattern twice before, but with lighter and softer twills, and it works great for those.

And I had to use two pairs of shoelaces (tied at the top and bottom) because I did not have any corset lacing! And if I ever use this pattern again, I might put the eyelets 1" apart, instead of the 3/4" apart they currently are... 18 pairs seems a little excessive. To me, anyway (I also don't like placing the eyelets so it'll save me a few minutes of time).

Click for larger images.

Front view:


Side view:


Back view:


Full-length view. Chemise is made from Elizabeth Stewart Clark's free pattern.

The dress is finished! Kind of.

I must ask that you please ignore the messy room. :)

I finished the dress on Saturday evening. I was so happy to have it finished... until I realized that the skirt is lopsided! You can't really tell in the photos, but it is one inch longer on one side than it is on the other. D'oh! What happened was that I didn't fold over the top edge of the fabric on the left-hand side (the wearer's left side) before I gauged it. Grr. I'll fix it at some other time. It's a pattern size 12 (34" bust, 26" waist) and it's gonna be a while before I'm there, so I have time to get back to it later.

So... I paid $4.95/yd for this fabric. Took me 7 yards to make the dress. I thought I was getting a decent price. However... the fabric went on sale for $1.99/yd last week! Unbelievable! Just my luck. Of course, the lovely plaid wool I bought for my Halloween costume at $4.95/yd also went on sale for $1.99 three weeks ago. I can't win! (But that's okay, there isn't a lot I can use that wool fabric for anyway... too heavy for a dress...)

Here are some small pics, they're big files so they might take a few seconds to load. Click on the image for a larger view.

Front view:


Side view:


Closer view of the bodice:


Close-up view of the gauging (What is gauging?):

Cage and petticoat... finished.

I made a cage crinoline today... this type, 108". I used to have a 90" one but it wasn't quite big enough for nicer dresses... and, I threw it out when we moved. It had been misused and abused.

I made most of the petticoat last Wednesday, and needed to wait until the cage crinoline was done before I could set the petticoat on a waistband... so I could adjust it for length. This cage is 3" longer in the back than it is in the front. The petticoat originally had 7 half-inch tucks in it, but when I put it on the cage today I noticed it was too short! So, I took out the two bottom tucks, lengthening the petticoat by 2". I need to give it another good ironing to try and remove the evidence of the previous tucks, and give it a light starching.

Wow, do I need to clean my sewing room!! Or then den, I should say.

Front View, click for a larger image:


Side View:

Bodice construction nearly complete

Today I finished constructing the bodice. I'm really trying to get the hang of stitching down the gathered fronts, but I can't quite get it. Each attempt looks better than the first, but I'm not sure I discovered the trick to it yet.

I finished the sleeves day before yesterday. Tomorrow I just need to cut some bias strips, put them around the armscyes, neckline, and waistline, add piping, then sew the sleeves on, and stitch the piping/binding on the inside. I messed up on my first attempt (a plaid bodice) so hopefully I'll do better this time. The plaid bodice can be salvaged, but since this white one is for a talent show, I want it to look really good.

Click for a larger image.



I need to make a cage/hoopskirt before I can make the skirt! I'm still waiting for my husband to cut the hoopsteel for me. I'll have to work on the chemise and drawers in the meantime, and as far as I can get on a corset while waiting for the busk I ordered to arrive.

Oh, and the corset is going to be pink cotton twill. :)

Tucked petticoat almost done!

Today I started on a tucked petticoat... 3.5 panels of 36" wide muslin (122" when seam allowances are taken into account). I made it long enough that I could put seven 1/2" tucks into it. I have it hemmed, all the tucks added... and it only took me 3-4 hours! (I kept taking breaks so I don't know exactly how long I worked on it). All I need to do now is make a hoopskirt, and I can measure it on the front, sides, and back, and trim the top off the petticoat to make it the proper length, and gather it onto a waistband.

Tomorrow... I'll work on either the dress (I'm done with the sleeves and need to do the bodice), or on the chemise/drawers.

New fabrics...

Yes, I am crazy.

I ordered some new fabrics today, semi-sheer cotton lawn. They were a great price, less than $5/yd.

I've had the Past Patterns Sheer Muslin Dress pattern for quite a while now, and I'm wanting to make a gown from it. I think it will look rather similar to this one (by the way, I have that exact fabric in my stash somewhere! I paid $4.95/yd for it... and found a lady online who ordereed some at the same time I did, and is trying to resell it for $14/yd. Ouch).

I'm writing a book about some reenactors who fall in love (the full story, I think, sounds pretty cool) and I want the heroine to be wearing a dress similar to the one in the link above, the first time the hero sees her. I'd have her sitting in the grass, reading a book, but she might get grass stains on that lovely white cotton...

So, here they are. These swatches are 10" wide, so just imagine them being more than twice the size they are on-screen. The first one is an embroidered swiss dot... I don't know how accurate it is for 1860's use, but if any of these fabrics turn out to be incorrect for that era, then I can use them for some really awesome Regency dresses.