With the current corona lock down I’ve been enjoying wearing my 18th century middle class jacket and petticoat for walks much more than my normal clothes. So that got me thinking that maybe I should make an upper class or more fashionable ladies walking attire also to have more variety. That sent me down a pinterest rabbit hole of riding habits and redingotes, so that now I’m pretty much bursting with 18th century sewing ideas when I really should be sewing 1890s and edwarian! Well this ended with me deciding that I just had to make one now! I have a lovely white cotton velvet I found a few months ago when thrifting so I wanted to make something out of it first but I will have to visit this subject more later with other styles. So these ended up being my inspiration images:
I knew I wouldn’t want it full length because it being white that would take away quite a bit of the practicalaty aspect, atleast for forest walks. As I searched pattern ideas I came across this lovely hybrid polonaise thing and since I love the polonaise and think this is what the black velvet jacket in the painting is I went for it.
My version has a straight edge on the collar and is based off the collar in the pattern of fashion 1 1780s van dyked round gown. Also my sleeves are my own creation that changed along the way to a cuffed style. Starting out I had no idea what I’d use for the petticoat but looking at those pinterest pictures I liked the combo of white and purple though I normally steer clear of anything purple. I had a bolt of new old stock purple wool that I’m also using for my son’s new 18th c suit so I desided to use that for the petticoat. The collar needed to be lined as the underside of velvet is not so nice looking so I went for a contrasting collar lined with the velvet and covered buttons so that lead to it being logical to have contrasting cuffs too. I’m not sure at all if they are constructed in any accurate way because I still kept the slits from the sleeves in the painting along with the cuffs.
All in all I’m happy with how it came out other than that collar. The patterns of fashion one has a drawstring to pull in the edge in and then it is pinned to the top of the gown. I liked the idea of it but probably because the velvet underside is a bit stiff it doesn’t draw in as smooth as I’d like and the pins work their way out of it easily so I think I’ll go back and whip in on in the front gathering it to fit the neck. The other thing is I’ll need to find a ribbon for looping onto the buttons as with the forward thrust of the style the hooks and eyes gape a bit at the top despite the boning at the the center front seams.
and now for the goodies! guts pictures (sorry for the quality I forgot to charge the proper camera):
The Lining is my basic italian gown pattern, I still need to turn and hem the center back pieces and fell the velvet down to the pleats. sleeves are lined with kids old bedsheets, the bodice with an old linen towelhere you can see the pleats at the sides that are just top stitched downAll seams are felled down separately to reduce bulk and the back pleats are whipped together at the top to keep the velvet from shedding
I Think I need to still make the lace tucker from the portrait for this at some point and my hat still needs work, this was just quickly done the morning of our walk. Now I’ll leave you with the picture galore!
Till next time!
xxx
shoes are American duchessI really like how my hair turned out for these
After making my silk italian gown https://sewthroughtime.home.blog/2019/05/10/belles-italian-gown-construction/ I really wanted one out of cotton or linen to have an easily washable version for frolicking about with kids and for picnics and such were spills and other little accidents can happen. Sure I have my cotton caraco but I was never really happy with it eventually I did discover why, the style I had been after when I first desided to make 18th century garments was the polonaise not a caraco but more about that later… Anyways after making my daughters gown https://sewthroughtime.home.blog/2019/07/03/young-girls-18th-century-gown/ I had quite a bit of the duvet left eventhough I had bought the smallest one so I wanted to use that up. I am a firm believer on using as little resourses as possible for extra things like costuming, I don’t want myt hobby to have a huge negative impact on the environment. So when I buy something new I try to use it all and only buy things from sustainable sourses when ever I can.
Going through extants I completely fell in love with this one and how similar it seems to the ikea duvet. Sure the flowers and arrangement is different but the overall feel reminds me of it.
After reading the story behind the dress I just had to make it and luckily it was a round gown so I thought I could just eek one out of the leftovers making my costuming also more eco friendly with using up all the material I buy. If you don’t know Deborah’s story I highly recommend you read about it. She was an extraordinary woman who dressed as a young man to be able to serve in the continental army in the American revolutionary war.
I figured since I already had a pattern fitted to my measurements making this would be so easy and straight forward that I could do it easily in a weekend. Well yes kinda it could have… but wasn’t. 😀 Is it ever? First of all the back needed to be refitted to the side. I thought I must have just made a mistake drawing the back into 4 pieces for this one instead of the 2 my previous dress had. That really should have been my first clue that there is something wrong here. Well then my second mistake came from fitting this over my old stays that were of an earlyer siluette and weren’t well fitting on me. I was making new stays at the same time but I figured I can finish the gown and then sew the stay pieces together. The third was that I pleated the skirts half way around the bodice for the back and pleated the rest onto a linen tape that then ties at my waist before pinning the gown on leaving pocket slits at the side and the front bodice to dip lower than the skirts. Sure the basic idea is good, it’s how many extant round gowns are made but with the shape of my bodice the sides come slight higher than my narrowest part atleast in these new well fitting stays so there is gap at the sides. The problems that came with fitting the gown over the old stays were that these new ones being 80s stays already have some forward thrust at the chest when the previous ones were straight. That ofcourse means that my gown is very tight in the chest and very hard to pin on. The other problem came when I tried those new stays on. Somewere between measuring myself for the stays and making them I had lost weight, 2 inches off my waist! 2 inches completely changes the fit of things. Well I got the stays salvaged luckily but ofcourse this meant my round gown is now also too big in the waist, so I’m left with hardly any overlap at the top and with a huge overlap at the bottom so at this point I realized that that first mistake I thought I made in drawing the pattern wasn’t actually a mistake but a clue that something had happened to my body. So for that first picnic I wore stays that were missing the binding and my gown was not only pinned in the front like normally but also pinned at the sides to keep the front up so that the waist tape and my stays wouldn’t show.
I made this hat specifically for this picnic, I’ll post about it soon 🙂
I did like the gown though so I ripped the front part of the skirt off the waist tape and sew up those side seams completely and after studying some extant gown pictures I made new pockets slits by cutting the fabric further forward just at the line were the bodice dips for the front then hemmed the slits and pleated the new back pieces into the bodice and sewed them on. Then the front got repleated and sewn onto a new tape as the old ones got destroyed when ripping it out.
the taking it apart bit was not fun at all my tape had a fairly loose weave to it like many modern cotton tapes do and it just kept on braking
To make my life easier I just left the front as is with it’s problems and just put lacing strips on the inside so that I can pull the gown into shape and just pin it to smooth the edges. With the gown finished I wanted to add the sleeve ruffles as the picture of the original has. I used the american duchess guide book for the construction just made them wider.
This time my interier of the gown looks much better than on the italian gown, sure it’s rough but only the historical accurate roughness no goofups on my part.
The gown is lined in a lightweight shirt linen and a very thin linen table cloth at the shoulders for added durability to keep the dress a really light summer dress for hot days. It is constructed using the american duchess book instructions for the italian gown with the added front bit to make it a round gown and the lacing strips.
The gown is hemmed even so that it can be worn without any rump or with the small rump from the patterns of fashion 5 that I posted about in my previous post. It gives a nice lift and that 80s junk in the trunk siluette but without the added pasteboard it really doesn’t require any extra hem length.
Now with all the fixes I wore it again this past weekend to a living history event at a apothecary museum and gentry home were we performed a few dances and brought the past to life for the guests. I have to admit the front bugged me a bit but I still haven’t made up my mind as to fix it or not. I think I’ll leave it as is for now since summer is almost at an end anyways and see what the situation is next summer. Since I didn’t do anything to make the weight loss happen who knows what weight or size I’ll be next year.
with the rump, my shoes are true edwardian and with the luis heel make a decent stand in for late 18th century pumpsand here is the side profile without the rump just my natural junk lol
I’ll hopefully go out tomorrow to trake some stylized pictures with the hat and then post about it and my cap more. For now here are some pictures from the picnic and the museum for you to enjoy.
till next time! xxx
my hair is padded with an early 1780s type of padding made from the american duchess beauty guide book
The outfit consists of a italian gown and a quilted petticoat with a embroidered pocket. If you haven’t already read about my making them they can be found here https://sewthroughtime.home.blog/2019/04/13/quilted-petticoat/ and here https://sewthroughtime.home.blog/2019/04/26/tale-as-old-as-time-pockets/ Ofcourse I am also wearing a shift (the undies of the 18th century), stays (18th century version of a corset to get the conical shape) and split rump to get that big butt action of the late 18th century, these are all from a previous project from before I started blogging.
I made this outfit for an 18th century masquarade ball this spring and there I did my hair in a more historically accurate style rather than going full on disney Belle.
Then this week when all the spring flowers bloomed we went to take some pictures in true Disney princess style with my hair done up more accurate to the movie look.
And now on to the picture galore! If you look closely at my gown skirts you can notice I’ve tied them in several different ways for the pictures, each giving a slighty different effect.
this pleating is really my favorite part of tghe italian gownthe quintessential princess twirl
And one last one with hubby, more about his outfit later. Now I’m off to making the kids some 18th century garments for a picnic coming up soon… 🙂
Sew through time 