"To be honest, I don't know if I will ever make an entire ensemble by hand..."

I wrote that highly pessimistic prediction in a post here almost exactly a year ago.  And since then, I've made not one, but TWO gowns entirely by hand!  I've documented the process of making both of these gowns pretty thoroughly on Facebook, but I wanted to consolidate it all in one place so it's easier to see how everything went from start to finish.

First things first though - I realized I never actually posted pictures of the altered Uniquely You dress form here.  I cut and shaved off the gigantic pointy boobs, and replaced them with a pair of tights filled with lentils to make them squishable, more like actual breast tissue.  Here's the dress form with my stays on it, which is laced so that it has the same measurements that I have in stays:

This means that I can drape and pin onto the form and be pretty confident that whatever I've draped will also fit me when I'm laced in.

Here is the other main undergarment I made for this particular gown, a set of hooped panniers.  One could also use pocket hoops, which are separate and tie together at front and back, but I had the pattern for the single wide hoop as part of the pattern packet that came with the very first gown I made (, so I thought I'd give it a try.  These aren't nearly as wide as some fancy court gowns could get - it's a nice, formal width but not extreme.  It may be a little hard to see, but the front ties wrap around to tie at the back and the back ones come around to tie at the front, leaving an opening on either side to reach through to the pockets, which are worn tied around the waist just over the stays.

Here's a kind of artsy picture I took looking down into the pannier, showing the ties added to the front and back on the inside that help it maintain that oval shape:

These are boned with very long cable ties.  I poked holes in the ends and overlapped them and took a few stitches through the two layers to give each rib a little more strength:

Here is the back pleating in progress.  If I were really having this dress made by a mantua-maker to my specific body, the silk would have been pinned to me in my stays and pleated exactly to fit.  But the pattern I used for this gown (this one, from Larkin & Smith, which is essentially a dressmaking workshop you can purchase) still gives a pretty exact fit by designating the width of the back panel to cut for your personal measurements, and providing this pleating guide. 

Here I'm checking the mockup of the sleeve to make sure the fullness will pleat nicely towards the back.

I made the sleeves before finishing the back so that they'd just be ready to stitch on as soon as the bodice and skirts were done.  I don't have many pictures of the sleeve construction since I was making them while riding the train from DC to New York, but I will look for one and update this post.

UPDATE!  Here is a picture of one of the sleeves in progress - and yes, it's on the little pull-down tray on the train.  When I was working on sewing together the skirt panels (which is not interesting at all, just a lot of combination stitching down the entire length) I actually snagged a seat in the cafe car.  It was a late-night train so not a lot of people were eating, and I got a whole table to myself!!  It was awesome!

It's a little hard to tell here, but you might be able to see how one side of the linen lining is folded back, away from the silk on the inside (it's secured with a pin, in the far left of the above picture).  The seam allowance on the straight edge of the silk is folded under and stitched down to the other side, through both the silk and linen lining.  Then, the whole thing gets turned inside out, and the seam allowance of the remaining linen edge is turned under and whipped down only to the other side of the lining, not through all layers.  It's very elegant in that it hides all of the raw edges but maintains the clean appearance of the outer seam.  

About one inch of both the silk and linen are stitched independently of each other at the sleeve edge so that they can be turned inward and secured using point a rabattre sous la main, also known as the "underhand hem stitch" in the L&S booklet.  Here's what that looks like:

And here's video of me demonstrating this seam: 

Now we get to the body of the gown!  The bodice lining pieces, which had been fitted to me by my friend Jillian Henning, are used to guide the way the outer fabric is cut so that you know the final piece will fit the body perfectly.  

After pinning down the pleats twice or three times to get them just right, I pinned the back lining to the silk, and cut away the excess silk around it.  That part was terrifying!!

Here's the back with the pleats stitched down from the outside, which also secures the lining to the silk.  It's really quite clever how each step actually accomplishes several things.  

Side bodice pieces sewn on.  This is another example where the construction is really quite different from modern sewing.  Instead of being placed right sides together and the seam stitched, the seam allowances on the side bodice pieces are turned under, and they're stitched down onto the back bodice pieces.   

Pleating the skirts!  Two full widths of the fabric went into each side of the skirt, so all of that had to be pleated in to meet up more or less at the edge of the bodice front.  It can mostly be done by eye, but of course I'm a perfectionist, and I pleated and re-pleated the skirt probably three or four times so that it lined up "just so" with the bodice.  There's a pocket slit in there, and if you look carefully, you can see that the pleats are oriented to go towards the pocket slit.  From the spot where the skirt starts at the center back, the pleats are stacked so that the folded part faces to the left, and then past the pocket slit, the folded part faces to the right.

Once I was *finally* happy with the skirt pleats, I stitched the bodice over them from the outside.  This is yet another way that shows how much you literally build these gowns by piling things on top of each other and just stitching them down.  It's completely period-appropriate for those stitches to show.  In modern construction we feel like we have to hide everything and make things completely tidy and pretty, but in extant gowns a lot of that work is unabashedly visible.

But (and there's always a but!) just like with the sleeves, the side bodice linings are added in such a way that the stitches don't show on the outside.  The seam allowances are folded under and the pieces are whip stitched only to the side back lining, without going through the silk.  I'm not sure why that is, but the costume historians' mantra is "never say never and never say always!"

The linen linings for the straps are stitched to the bodice lining pieces and then the gown is placed on the wearer (or in this case, the dress form) so that the sleeves can be attached.  

The sleeves are fitted and often attached, or at least basted, "in situ" so you can be really sure of the fit over the shoulder.  

The flaps that come over the sleeve head and get stitched down to the linen strap linings are called robings, and the piece that covers the raw edge at the top of the bodice and gets folded in is called the back facing.  Again, note how they are just kind of stacked over each other and stitched down.  The fact that every construction step shows in the finished garment is actually much more elegant to me than a piece where everything is buried in the inside and you can't tell how it's made.  It brings the process to life and emphasizes the individual wearer's unique body, and gives you an appreciation for the work involved.

The robings come all the way down and not only cover the raw edges, they hide the pinning that holds the garment closed over the stomacher.  These clothes rarely had "permanent" fastenings because a woman's body would go through many changes over the course of her life, with pregnancies and weight fluctuations from her menstrual cycle.  Being able to pin a garment slightly larger or smaller was a welcome feature when fabric was expensive and a woman might have only a few gowns in her wardrobe.

Here the back facing is folded over and stitched down to the inside.  

Here's the robing stitched down over the sleeve head and strap lining.  The order in which the facing and robings are stitched down, as well as the shapes created in the back, vary among extant gowns, so I just went with what was aesthetically pleasing to me.

Once the main body of the gown was complete, I moved on to the petticoat!  Unlike what we normally think of as a petticoat (an undergarment that provides warmth and/or support and fullness for the main gown), this is a decorative petticoat that is meant to be seen where the gown opens in the front.  Of course there are other underlayers worn with these gowns that are called petticoats, because costuming terms are confusing!  Yay!

I did a foolish thing and cut the silk oddly when I was making the main gown, so for the petticoat I was left with one full width at the right length, and a full width at a length that was too short.  So I had to do some piecing, and then I had to do more piecing on top of that.  But thankfully that could be the back panel of the petticoat and not show.  You see this in extant garments all the time, and they didn't even really bother with matching grainlines or even design motifs.  Like I said, we're much more conscious of things looking "pretty" nowadays than they were.  Fabric was expensive, and likely imported or woven by hand, so there was only so much yardage.  If you (or your Mantua-Maker) cut it wrong, you couldn't very well buy more, so you just made do!

Here's the petticoat mounted on the dress form, and yeah, you can see the seam where I pieced it, but like I said, it's in the back and it'll be completely covered by the gown.  Tra-la!

Front

      Back

The petticoat is shaped to hang evenly over the panniers in a really clever way.  The two panels are just cut as widths of fabric with straight edges at the bottom, and you get the longer length over the sides by folding down the fabric in the middle of the top edge and gradually decreasing the fold out to the edges, then pleating it up and attaching ties.  So you've drawn up the middle to be shorter and essentially left the sides the original length, and you don't have to have to try to hem an uneven bottom edge.  It's brilliant!

The petticoat is also an adjustable garment, and like the panniers, the front ties go around to the back and the back ties come around to the front.  And there's still that handy-dandy opening to reach into one's pockets.

Here's the stomacher, which is just a piece of the silk stacked over a piece of identical linen, the seam allowances folded in and the whole thing edge stitched.

The stomacher is sadly unembellished right now, but here's a picture of an extant stomacher that I'm going to use as my inspiration for this one:

Here's one of the sleeve ruffles in the process of being whip-gathered to fit the sleeve opening.

Aaaand...the mostly-finished gown!!

This hem is so awful, but I'm sharing it because sometimes costuming is quick-and-dirty, get-it-out-the-door-I'll-fix-it-later!!

So, that's the olive green taffeta robe a l'anglaise!!  I kept hoping to finish it in time for various events, and I just kept on missing those deadlines!!  Having a few other gowns I could wear made it hard to feel a sense of urgency.  Then I was invited to a house party given by Carolyn Dowdell (The Modern Mantua-Maker), a researcher and historical costumer originally from Canada, who was unfortunately moving back home after about four years in DC.  She's really quite high-profile in historical sewing circles, and she had become known for throwing these awesome themed costume parties in her gorgeous house, so for the final hurrah, she declared a free-for-all, any period, any style, so I said, okay, this time I mean it, I'm wearing the olive green anglaise to this party!!

These two photos were taken during the party by Mike and Gloria of In The Long Run Designs.

The party was back in June, and I must confess, this gown is still not really complete - the sleeves need one more taffeta ruffle and a gathered band, plus organza ruffles; I need to embellish the stomacher; and I need to fix the janky hem that I did in a hurry.  I have several perfectly good excuses for not having finished it yet, including 1) immediately diving head-first into the making of the next gown, and 2) Jane Austen Festival, for which I decided to make Ziva her own little Regency gown to wear (which was totally worth it, because she loved it and looked adorable).

Overall I'm very, very happy with this gown and really proud of myself.  I learned SO MUCH in the process of making it, and I can honestly say that I did every single stitch on it myself, completely by hand.  I found that concept quite daunting when I first set out to do it, and it took me a really long time because I was learning as I went and I'm just a very impatient seamstress, but breaking it down into bite-size projects, taking parts of it with me when I traveled, and just seeing it all come together was extremely rewarding.  Having a truly authentic ensemble to wear as Abigail, and to understand even just a fraction of what dressmaking and the wearing of clothes looked like and felt like in the 18th century, makes me a better interpreter, and makes for a better experience for my audiences.

Next post: the LACMA purple and white striped gown!!

Making the "Uniquely You" dress form actually "Uniquely Me"

For Christmas of 2012, Eamon got me a "Uniquely You" dress form. I was really excited about it, but the name turned out to be quite the misnomer, mostly because it had these ginormous, 1940s bullet bra pointy BEWBS:

Yes, they really were that bizarre. It was a bit of a shock taking it out of the packaging.

The idea behind this type of dress form, unlike the hard plastic ones, is that it's made of a squishable foam. One benefit of the material is that it allows you to pin directly into it, for the purposes of draping a garment from scratch or making alterations. It is also supposed to be moldable to one's exact measurements and shape so that you truly have a double of your own body. It comes with a cover that you put on and rip seams and pin as necessary, then take it off, make the needed adjustments, and squish it down over the form. I haven't tried to do that part yet, but I have read a lot about how people have made other, much more dramatic changes to the form.

Several costume bloggers (like this one: American Duchess) have removed their dress form's boobs all together, and deployed a neat trick so that it has boobs that act like boobs. You put beans, rice or lentils into the feet of stockings and hang them around the neck of the dress form, to create a naturally shaped and naturally behaving bust that can be manipulated in stays and corsets. Pretty cool!

As I mentioned, Eamon gave me this dress form in December of 2012. Those of you who remember dates really, really well will note that in January of 2013, I got pregnant! So, as my body become dramatically less similar to the dress form over the next few months, the whole project came to a standstill. My body still has not fully returned to its pre-pregnancy shape (which I'm mostly okay with, for the record), so this poor gal has just kind of stood vigil in my sewing room, waiting to be put to use. I don't think I ever even named her!

Now that I have a ton of sewing projects in the pipeline that are specific to my Abigail Adams persona and therefore limited to a set range of years, it's really time to get this dress form into shape - literally! I want to be able to use her for draping and fitting for mid-18th century to early 19th, and I honestly don't do that much other sewing that would require a more modern shape, so I am going to mold her to my measurements in 18th century stays.

I started the process last night, shaving down the bust so that it is almost completely flat. Perhaps this wasn't the best task to undertake while bawling my eyes out watching the "Call the Midwife" Holiday Special, but I think I did okay. It just looks a little hacked up because I used a serrated knife.

Next will be to confirm my measurements in 18th century stays. A sewing friend of mine is actually working on a "moulage" for me (a fabric sheath, also made to my exact measurements in stays) that I'll be able to use as the starting point for 18th century gown bodices. So with the dress form and the moulage, I'll have everything I need to be able to make gowns precisely to my shape, check the fit of garments, and use historical sewing techniques for things like setting the sleeves and pleating the backs of the gowns.

I hope to have made more progress on the dress form in a day or two!

An olive green silk taffeta gown for Abigail

I'm excited that I have a plan for this one!

I've been trying to decide what style of silk gown to make for 

Abigail Adams - Historical Interpreter, circa 1776.  John and Abigail were not wealthy at this point in their life together (in fact it would be closer to the truth to say that they struggled with money for their entire marriage).  So although she would in all likelihood have owned at least one or possibly two silk gowns "for best," I can't really see her having an extravagantly fancy silk gown.  

The other factor that is affecting this decision is that I almost always interpret alongside Martha Washington, and the woman who portrays her at most of the events I attend usually wears a center-front closing peacock blue gown, with gathered self trim around the neckline and cuffs, plus lace engageants (sleeve ruffles).  So I want there to be a clear contrast shown with our gowns demonstrating the difference in wealth and "showiness" between a Virginia plantation owner's wife and a Boston lawyer/farmer/Congressional delegate's wife. I bought 7 yards of a drab olive green taffeta when I was in NYC for Mother's Day:

It was $22/yd and I love it!  It has really nice luster.  But it's just been sitting there waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. Well, I think I've *finally* found my inspiration. It's this Brown/greensilk brocade gown in the collection of the Chicago History Museum.

There are some oddities about it, like the very high front neckline and gathered/ruched (???) collar. 

The lack of pleating on the side fronts of the skirt also caught my eye.  In most gowns from the second half of the 18th century, the pleats carry from the back all the way around to the front.

It looked to me like it had the hallmarks of an earlier gown that had been restyled.  I shared all of these thoughts with a group of 18th century enthusiasts and experts on Facebook, and they confirmed that this dress was remade from a fancier 1760s gown.  If you zoom in really close to the front bodice, you can just barely make out straight up-and-down pleats that have been unstitched, indicating that it used to be an open-front gown with robings which would hide the pins fastening the gown over the stomacher.  I believe the sleeves originally had cuffs, as well.  

It's really encouraging that my olive silk is close to the color of this one - well, mine is a little more green than brown, but it's definitely in the same family.  And the inspiration is a brocade and not a plain silk, but it still feels good to be in the right ballpark. I like that the gown is made to be worn with panniers, but isn't ostentatious. In fact it's almost under-adorned, so I would probably add some floof here and there, but again, not a huge amount.

I'll be using the Larkin and Smith English Gown pattern to make this dress.  This is my first time using this pattern for a gown, but obviously not my first time making this style (I loved working with the Nehelenia pattern, but I think I'm ready to try ).  Larkin & Smith is essentially a workshop in an envelope, providing years of expertise and knowledge with the pattern, including fully historical sewing instructions and lots of ideas for embellishment for the different classes. I have all of the necessary undergarments except a set of panniers, and I'm working on those right now.  

Details on the panniers will go in a separate post!  

Another event under my belt, and speaking of accessories...

It's been almost three weeks since Ziva and I got back from Washington State, and while I've been getting a lot of housework done, I've kind of been taking it easy, too.  My last day at the preschool was August 3rd, the day before we left on our trip, and my new job - Librarian for an independent prek-8th school - starts next Monday the 27th (yay!!!).  This timing was not entirely by design; I kind of tempted fate by buying tickets for a nice long visit to WA before I knew one way or the other about the new job, but it all worked out, and I wanted to make the most of the time I had in between to do some serious organizing and cleaning.  My "home office," such as it is, needs to be in much better shape in order for me to feel like I can bring work stuff home and be able to find it again.  And my sewing area was in GREAT need of weeding, clearing out, and tidying so that I don't have anything I don't need, and can locate the stuff I do need.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  "Sarah, how could you possibly get rid of anything sewing-related?  How could there possibly be no use for something that's in your stash?  Isn't the whole point of fabric shopping to be prepared for whatever projects you might think of in the future??"  Technically, yes.  But I've learned a lot since I started doing period costuming, and refined my sense of what is historically accurate and what isn't, and I have more fabric than I could ever hope to make into gowns or outfits, at least not at my current rate (which is a snail's pace).  So a Great Purge needs to occur before I can even begin to start organizing everything, and I will need a few more key pieces of furniture to store it all and have a place for everything, but still make it all accessible.

With my work starting before Ziva starts school, I asked my mom if she could come for a visit to fill in the interval, and she said yes!  Thanks Mom!!!  And while she's been here, she has been extremely helpful with decluttering and clearing out of excess stuff.  

The reason for wanting to get my sewing area squared away is twofold.  For one thing, it's an eyesore.  I almost can't believe I'm sharing this picture, but in some ways I think it will help keep me honest:

It's such a mess!!  I basically need to find a way to store things against the walls to keep the floors and tables clear.  I don't want to line that back wall entirely with storage, but I need some way to contain everything.  The shelf that is in the back corner is an IKEA Billy bookcase with the half-glass doors (this one).  So depending on how much there is to put away once I've gone through everything and decided what to get rid of, I think I'm going to get another Billy just like that to flank the door on the left, and then a double Billy with all-glass doors (this one) to go on the back wall.  I think being able to see all the way into those shelves will help keep the space from being overwhelmed.  I'll also put a floor lamp under the soffitting, near the costume rack, because that corner needs a lot more light. 

The second reason for this organizing frenzy is that I have set myself a very ambitious goal for attending events in 2018-2019.  The best part about starting a school job is that I will have summers O-F-F.  Sure, after my first year as the school librarian there will be a lot of follow-up and catch-up to do, but I will not have to hoard and carefully count vacation days and hours like I have had to in the past. 

Here are all the events I am planning to attend:

Revolutionary War Reenactment Festival, Mount Harmon MD, Oct 27-28

The Revolution, Huntington Beach CA, February 9-10 (our wedding anniversary...of course!!)

Colonial Heritage Festival, Orem UT, July 4-7 (I'm assuming those are the dates, not yet confirmed)

Jane Austen Festival, Louisville KY, July 12-14

Costume College, Woodland Hills CA, July 25-29

Northwest Colonial Festival, Port Angeles WA, August 8-11

Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) Annual General Meeting, Williamsburg VA, October 4-6

Whew!  That's a lot.  It's good to write it all down though, it makes it feel like I'm signing a contract with myself.

As you can see, I've started putting out feelers and trying to build a network here in the DC/Maryland/Virginia region.  I'm really hoping to attend events and make appearances locally, some on my own and some as a team with Jack (he's particularly interested in getting back to the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, which opened last April on the 242nd anniversary of Concord and Lexington).  I've also become acquainted with Katherine Spivey, a woman who has been portraying Dolley Madison for twenty years, and we have talked about doing "Historic First Ladies" programs together.  All of this will depend on a lot of factors, and it will take some time to build credibility and make my mark (though I do have business cards which I'm very proud of!).  Not surprisingly, historic sites here tend to stick to a specific "cast of characters," only hosting costumed interpreters portraying people who were actually present or have a historical connection to those sites.  It makes sense that they don't want to confuse visitors about who was where and when.

Attending all of these events is going to mean lots and lots of SEWING!!!  I still really only have two gowns for Abigail: the floral one I made, and the striped one that Barbara Klingberg made for "1776" - and neither one is 100% historically accurate.  To be honest, I don't know if I will ever make an entire ensemble by hand, just because I don't see myself having the time (and I'm SO SLOW at it).  But I do want to make an effort to learn historical hand-sewing techniques and incorporate them into improving the clothes I have and to making new clothes using more accurate fabrics and more accurate stitches, etc.

Costume College is really the kicker.  It's a five-day swirl of classes, workshops, and dress-up opportunities.  It's attended by fashion historians, historical costumers, cosplayers, fantasy costumers, and everything in between.  The Gala is the Main Event, the one everyone pulls out all the stops for, and from what I can tell by looking at various bloggers' pictures over the years, it's impossible to focus your eye because there's a visual feast in every direction.  Plenty of people pick a different era or decade or style for each costumed event, while others stick to a theme.  Since Abigail Adams really needs gowns for different kinds of social occasions (and I want to have some ensembles from later in her life than I've been portraying), I'm going to kill two birds with one stone.  I'll just make a whole wardrobe and go 100% 18th century for Costume College.  I finally have fabric for all of these new gowns, too!  I will devote a separate post to all of those plans because I want to get this one posted!!

In the meantime, here are pictures of some new accessories I made for this year's Northwest Colonial Festival.  I made a pair of fingerless mitts in green wool, and a new apron.
Here are some in-progress pictures of the mitts:

Thumb opening clipped and stitched down seen from the inside.

One thumb stitched up and openings hemmed.

 It's hard to tell the difference here, but in order to tell which thumb to sew on which mitt, you check to see whether the "meat" of the thumb is mostly covered by the longer part of the thumb piece.  It's correct in the picture on the right.

Finished!  The "points" which go over the hands are lined with a sueded silk.

These are not completely historically accurate, since the only surviving wool mitts and descriptions from the era indicate that they would have been knitted rather than made from woolen fabric.  But they are made entirely by hand (the stitching is so fiddly that you could never do it on a machine anyway!).  Also, cold is cold, and many historical re-enactors compromise and use wool fabric, so it's not without precedent.  The other thing is that the lining would probably have been taffeta rather than sueded silk, but that's what I had on hand (no pun intended).

And here's a picture of me wearing them, which also shows off my new apron: 

The apron started life as a $2.99 single curtain panel I got at the local thrift store.  I love the subtle woven check and floaty lightness.  I didn't take any pictures while I was making it, because it was a pretty straightforward process - gather up along the long edge and stitch on a waistband!

This picture is one of many taken by the incredibly talented Cindy of Cindy Marie Photography.  She did such a fantastic job and I would hire her again in a heartbeat if I were back in Washington State and needed pictures taken!! ;-)

That's it for now - I will write another post shortly wrapping up my thoughts on NWCF and talking about Abigail's new clothes!