HSF Challenge #1: Make Do & Mend - complete!

First HSF challenge finally finished! It is almost two week past the deadline, alas, but the half-robe is finally entirely complete. And I am happy with it. I just need a gown or petticoat to wear it over, now!

On the far left, above, you can see the under-bodice closure. It is an extension of the linen lining that is attached in the back, and it just overlaps and pins in the front. The front has two drawstring closures (neck and waist), and is a bit too full, but I haven't the time to reduce the fullness now, so I'll deal for a while. The side creates... a bit of a poufy profile, but I kind of like it. And the back looks a bit ill-fitted and awkward in this picture, but it fits better once it has been adjusted by my moving around for a bit (all my undies are a bit quickly wedged, under there.) 

I took a few pictures of the short-gown put on inside-out, because I love seeing the insides of other people's garments. You can see the draw-strings tying the bodice shut on the far-left. The interior bodice has a little skirt added (similar to this half-robe) - I took this from the previous skirt lining of the original dress that I hacked to make this piece. As you can see above, I faced the sleeves in self-fabric, like the half-robe documented in Costume in Detail (shown in my last post.)


And here are the details: 

The Challenge: #1: Make Do & Mend

Fabric: 100% cotton quilting fabric for the shell, courtesy of good ol' JoAnn Fabrics. The pattern is a bit non-period, I think. But the fiber content is pretty accurate! The bodice and sleeves are lined with linen, which is also fairly period-correct. 

Pattern: Self-drafted. Ish. Modified a dress that was previously made from a self-drafted pattern eight years ago. 

Year: 1798-1800

Notions: Twill tape (I used black twill style-tape - the kind you use to mark out style lines on your dressform for pattern draping. Should have used ivory twill tape, but hadn't any on hand.) 

How historically accurate is it? Erm... it is a bit of a mish-mosh. I'd like to say 60-70%? There are a couple of historical accuracy issues in the pattern shapes (most notably the back panels are too wide). There are also machine-stitched bits here and there, in the spots that I didn't pick apart. And the front is probably a tad too wide, a bit too much gathering going on there (maybe I'll fix that at a later date, but I will deal with it for the time being.) 

Hours to complete: Probably something like 30 hours, including picking apart. I hand-stitched everything that was edited for this challenge, so that took a while. Was fun, though!

First worn: Not sure when I'll get to wear this... not many events happening in these parts. Probably I'll pack and wear for the next Locust Grove Jane Austen Fest. 

Total cost: Almost this entire project was made from the original dress, so I would say it was free. I added a couple of twill tape ties from my stash. 

Almost there!

Today, I'm putting in the hemstitches on the half-robe/shortgown (I really need to figure out which is which. Or if they are the same). Then, all I have left is the linen lining! That has a little piecing to be done so that the front overlaps properly, and then it is set. I might add a little skirt to the bodice lining, too, but that is optional and might not make it on before the deadline.

The past few days, I've worked on sleeves. I hate sleeves (insomuch as one can hate an element of design.) I mostly hate drafting patterns for them; I have no aversion to wearing them. I cut out and basted on three muslin sleeves before cutting my final fabric. I don't have much of this fabric left (only the lower half of the skirt, and a few scraps here and there), so I couldn't afford to fly by the seat of my pants like I usually do.

I had originally intended to add a 2-piece sleeve to this garment (as per 1790s), but I found more research than not which indicated that the sleeves for this type of garment should be cut as one piece. I found this (below) example in my Costume in Detail book:

Bradfield, Nancy. Costume in Detail: 1730-1930
Costume & Fashion Press/Quite Specific Media; 2nd edition, 1997

My pattern ended up looking like this:

Which mocked up like this (pardon the splatters all over my bathroom mirror. I had no idea it needed a cleaning so badly! I guess bathroom mirrors are like glasses - it takes a startlingly long time to notice that they are actually dirty, but then it is fairly appalling...):

Must say... this short gown does not exactly emphasize a slender figure.
And I don't have a terribly slender figure to begin with, so I look just
rather broad. Oh well. I still quite like it.

It was a LITTLE snug over the chubby part of my bicep, but I just fudged a little into the pattern when I cut it out of final fabric. I had to piece together my sleeves, and I added a linen lining with the lower part pieced in as fashion fabric (as per the Costume in Detail half robe). If you look closely at the picture below, you can see that the outer sleeve is pieced just above the wrist, and there is a little triangle under the arm. I'm actually pretty pleased that this garment will be so pieced, as I feel like this sort of thing would have been scrapped together back in the day.

LEFT: right sleeve and lining turned right-side-out.
RIGHT: left sleeve and lining turned wrong-side-out.

Penelope, my 100lb Lab/Pit Bull mix faithfully lay next to me as I cut and basted and cut again. When I say "next to me," I mean directly in-between myself and anywhere I needed to go. That is her habit. But I love her too much to make her move out of the way (it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to know that she always wants to be nearby, so I leave her be).

Not QUITE progress...

So, nope, I didn't manage to make the pattern for my sleeves last night. However, I did do a little reading, and found a shortgown in Costume in Detail that is kind of similar to mine, and I determined that the sleeve should be a 1-pc sleeve (I was going to make an older-style 2-pc sleeve). That is a little bit of progress, right?

I also pulled my picture from my last post into Illustrator today to work out where I want my armscye to be. While I was there, I mocked up an embroidery idea for the CB panel - I can't actually change where my shoulder and side-back seams are, but I can maybe create the illusion of a proper narrow back with some chain-stitched embroidery (similar to what is seen on the back of this dress.)

Also... the width of the front is now really bothering me. I think I will have to chop it out! (you can see about how much I would take out as delineated by the white block on the picture below).

Lots to do tonight!

HSF 2014 Challenge #1: Make Do and Mend - Part 1

What do you know, I think I am actually on track to finish the first HSF challenge of 2014, on time! I am so excited! I still have to keep up the momentum through the week and finish up the sleeves, but hopefully that won't be a problem. My darling boy volunteered to cook almost every night, so that will free me up in the evenings. I've just got to bang out that sleeve pattern tomorrow night!

I tried on the dress one last time, and almost couldn't chop it up. Too many good times in this dress! However, I had already pulled off the sleeves to (unsuccessfully) re-vamp them, and I've been bothered by the various period-incorrect bits of this for a while now. So... after taking these pictures, I sat down and picked apart all the seams.

Bodice off, 2/3 length cut off of the skirt, and trimmed a bit off the lower
skirt to even out the skirt-front into a nice, tidy rectangle. 

I don't have a lot of in-progress pictures (oops), but today I got almost everything thing together but the sleeves. I popped it on the form and noticed... a couple problems.

The front is pretty cute. The top-front is gathered separately from the bottom-front (as observed in extant short gowns and jackets). There is a bit of awkwardness going on at the side-front bodice - I think my drawstring might be going back about 5"-6" too far, allowing some awkward gathering of the bodice shell. Hopefully tacking the drawstring down at side-front will even that out.

The shape at the side skirt dips in a bit, probably because it is a straight-up rectangle. And the pleats hang kind of "chunkily." However, I am pretty sure my skirt shape is correct, so I won't be correcting that.

All that remains is to trim the armscyes to form a more period-correct back shape, and pop on the sleeves. Then there are a few finishing bits like the hem and under-bodice, but that shouldn't take more than an evening.

I am so ready to have a completed project!