1830’s little dandy

One of my big projects for this fall is making 1830s outfits for a Christmas event for me and my kids. And yes since it’s partly outdoors and we live in a cold climate that means outerwear aswell! I’m going pretty much full steam here and now my sons costume other than the coat and cravat are done. When we originally talked about doing the 30s with the kids my son got super exhited about the big pooffy sleeves at once and he wanted the biggest gigot sleeves out there. My daughter not so much so she is much more a challange to costume for this one but more on that later… We set off looking at pinterest and right away he found what he wanted.

these type of pants and jacket but the jacket cut higher was his wish

something like this for the outside look but a top hat more like the man than the boys one

Well with such a clear vision we went over to my fabrics and looked if we could find something there. He chose a lovely checked wool I had had for a few years after finding it at a recycling center but the piece being too small for anything for me.

Then for the jacket he wanted black velvet. Well I had a black velvet cloak I made in the mid 00s for fancy dress. Back then I couldn’t find anything but modern patterns for such a garment and the shape of it never really pleased me so it just waited for 15 years for me to do something with it or get rid of it. Well here was now that project. Sometimes it pays off to hoard things, lol!

it always had that wierd gap at the top and the hood shape was wrong but it was good quality velvet

The pants are patterned based on the 18th century breeches I made for him just made longer into pants and added the extra material in the front for those pleats and made the drop front smaller.

I pleated the front to the waistband on him. Very trying on 6 year old nerves 😀

The jacket sleeve is just a scaled down version of the round sleeve in work woman’s guide published in 1838 and found on google books, the best guide to period correct garments for this era. I also made him little sleeve pumpers based on my adult versions patterned based on the american duchess pattern they are kind enough to give for free on their blog and their sewing is hard youtube videos. I mocked up the sleeve and was happy with it from the first try.

Next came the body for the jacket. I used my daughters 18th century gown as my base (they wear the same size of clothing eventhough there is a 2 year age gap) and just adjusted to my liking. Again everything fit perfectly the first time other than the side back pieces being a bit large, I really am on a roll with my drafting this fall! This time around I cheated and sewed the jacket mostly by machine, the sleeves are gathered by hand and backstitched onto the jacket, the backs are lined by hand and all the edges finished by hand. Oh and buttonholes are hand sewn. Well actually I guess that makes it more like 50 percent hand sewn but oh well.

the fronts are lined in the same velvet and the back in left over ikea bedsheet from previous projects

here you can really see how tightly gathered this thing is all the way around the armscye

here is the sleeve plumper in place hanging by it’s tapes (there is a pice of bias tape at the elbow and one at the shoulder on the jacket and pieces of bias tape sewn onto both sides of the plumper and when tied on it keeps the pumper in place for your arm to go in and you not having to worry about them moving about as you do)

in this one You can see the pleats really well that form on the sleeve… well as well as you can on black velvet anyways

The shirt is just his 18th century one though IF I have time I will make him a regency/romantic era one also, the only real difference being a higher collar.

Well that’s all for now, I’ll be back with some romantic era under pinnings soon!

xxx

1780s Belle

Now Finally had time to get some real Disney Princess Belle pictures! I’m so happy with how this entire look came together. You can read about the idea more here https://sewthroughtime.home.blog/2019/04/08/historically-accurate-disney-princess-belle-the-idea/

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 gown

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… 🙂

Belle’s italian gown construction

Ever since I started down the 18th century costuming rabbit hole I’ve loved the italian gown, the fitted back that ends in that deep v with a slip rump to give your derriere that extra oomph. The reason why I decided to make Belle’s gown an italian gown instead of the sack back that would be from the 1740s when the book first came out was that fitted back and flowing skirt. As much as I’ve loved the francaise gown Belle costumes I’ve seen others make it lacks that one thing why I think the animators originally went with a 19th century ball gown instead of 18th century, that princess skirt twirl! You know the one every little child does as soon as they get that princess dress on. A francaise moves beautifully but those loose back pleats just do not twirl the same.

and here is the fitted back of an italian gown

I started mine by printing out the italian gown pattern in the American duchess guide to the 18th century dressmaking https://www.american-duchess.com/book/american-duchess-guide I scaled the pattern as near as I could to what I thought would be my measurements and printed it, then taped the pieces together to form a pattern and traced it onto pattern paper and muslin to make my mock up. American duchess blogged about scaling these patterns up to make a printable sheet and since her way seems much more accurate than mine I’ll just link that instead of explaining how I did it. http://blog.americanduchess.com/2019/04/how-to-scale-up-gridded-sewing-patterns.html

First mock up was slightly loose but otherwise ok

I sewed the mock up quick and dirty on the machine, marked any nececary changes on it and ripped it open and used that as my pattern pieces and as my lining on my gown

All the sewing I did by hand with silk thread using the instructions in the american duchess guide. All in all I’m happy with it but in the armpit area my stitches on the inside are pretty messy. Also I’m not sure how but somehow I goofed and managed to make the lining too small on the other arm so there is tiny bit of silk peeking out on the inside.

first try prooved that I had somehow managed to miscalculate and ended up making the back pieces too big. Here I have to give huge credit to hubby who patiently pinned this all in place for me despite his complete lack of interest in sewing

since the front didn’t need any fussing with I finished it off with a running stitch

Here is the side back seam with the lining sewed on to the front pieces

One last check before cutting the lining and sewing the fashion fabric on top

the fashion fabric gets sewn on top of the side back seam in a curve to give an illusion of a smaller waist

fitting with the back side seams sewn up

the front is still a bit floppy in this one but here I’m setting the sleeve, the front is smoothed out against the shoulder strap so that the extra volume that allows your arm to move gathers in the back

here you can see how the fabric gathers in the back of the arm to give full range of movement

the sleeve is first rather crudely sewn onto the shoulder strap lining

then the fashion fabric is pinned onto the shoulderstrap hiding all that messy stitching

I prick stitched the long sides and aplique stitched the short edges of the shoulder strap to the gown

Here is that messy inside bit at the armpit. I’m not too worried about it though because slightly messy is completely authentic though I think mine is a bit more than usual

Next came the pleating of the skirt part. I decided to leave the edges unturned as the selvedge gave a nice firm edge to it so I just sewed the skirt pieces together and started pleating. I used the stripes in my fabric as a rough guide and pleated it so that 2 pleats made up the width of one stripe. So always one opposide colored stripe ended up completely hidden, luckily this added up to pretty much the width I needed.

here the fabric is all pleated and pinned to correct size

in this one you can kind of see the color changes in the pleats, this proved near impossible to photgraph with the silk shining and the srtipes being so similar in color

I applique stitched the bodice to the skirt

after attaching the bodice to the skirt I ripped open the top and folded it down leaving the extra fabric to give the skirt more lift

after sewing the skirt on and opening the back seam enough to let the extra fabric to fold down I stitched the back of the pleats down a little under the seam to keep the pleats from opening up too soon

After hemming the gown so that the back sweeps the floor and the sides come up to my ankles I added bias tape loops to the lower part of the skirt and ribbons to the back waist so that you can lift the skirts up in differnt ways to keep it off the ground.

All finished! Well this post ended up so long that I’ll leave the action pictures for the next post except for thi one back view. See you then!