Natural Form Era Hat--a tutorial

Victorian dress is not my area but I ventured into that era as outlined in this post for our Maryland State DAR Founders Day celebration in October of 2015.  I chose a Natural Form Era outfit since no bustle was required and I like the line of the skirts--narrower in the front with the bulk of the fabric in the back.  Some  friends organized a Victorian Tea for this weekend so I had occasion to wear the outfit again.  I felt I needed a hat so I did some research and found some great links on Lynn McMaster's page.  There I found a link to the google books upload of the London and Parish Ladies' Magazine of Fashion 1881-1882.  There were pages and pages of fashions and I focused on several that showed closeups of possible hats and neck treatments as I also need a dickie or chemisette to fill in the low neckline of my bodice.

 The hats in the last picture looked like something I could make from an existing straw hat.  I also liked the chemisette in the left hand outfit.  I decided to make the bonnet type hat in the center of the above picture.

I found a nice plain straw hat at the thrift store for $3.

Some supplies I find helpful when working with deconstructing straw hats is wonder clips (found in the quilting notions at Joanns), Size 4 straw needles (purchased from Judith M millinery) and spray starch (also from Joanns).  You can also use plan Knox gelatin to size hats but it takes longer to dry.

One thing about natural straw is that you can use moisture and / or steam to completely reshape it much the way you do with wool felt.  The brim is about the right size on this hat but it needs some changes.  The crown, is too tall and needs to have more squared angles.    I cut the crown off and made it shorter, completely wet it and put it on a container that was the size I wanted.  The crown was bigger so I wrapped it with twill tape to mold it to the container and I left it overnight to dry.   When I took it off, I cut another half inch or so off of it.   

I looked at the brim and found it had a double layer of straw on the edge so I used a seam ripper to rip out the stitching for about 6 inches.  I wrapped the brim around the crown to check the fit and I ended up cutting a few inches of the brim off as I needed a gap in the back of the hat.

Once I determined the right size, I trimmed the ends of the hat into a curve and sandwiched the edges of the hat between the two edge pieces of straw--steaming with my iron to shape the straw.  I used wonder clips to hold the edge in place so I could stitch it on using regular sewing thread in a color that matched the straw.

I then had to block the brim to fit the crown.  I sprayed it with starch and steamed it, holding it in place until it took the shape I wanted.

Here is the stitched brim so far.

I used a running stitch to stitch the brim to the crown, putting the edge of the brim inside of the crown.

Next, I cut away a small arch in the back of the crown and cut a scrap of straw from leftover pieces of straw.  I curved the insert to a pleasing shape and clipped it in place, stitching it to the brim ends and the crown.

I had some leftover pieces of edging straw so I cut a piece and stitched it in place.

I ended up blocking this hat by saturating it with the spray starch, steaming it well and shaping it the way I liked.  I wrapped it with fabric to hold it in place to dry.

Next came decorating the hat. First I tacked some 2 inch wide double faced satin silk ribbon on.   I normally order ostrich wing plumes but didn't have time to get them from my usual supplier in CA so I ordered cheap ostrich drabs 20 for $20 on Amazon.  The feathers were sparse as I expected so I used my half inch diameter curling iron to curl the fronds and stacked 2 together then layered another group of 3 stacked together to cover most of the hat.  

Next I cut a 5 inch wide piece the width of my silk (54") and did a machine rolled hem on each edge.  I tied this into a multi loop bow and tacked the bow in the center so it wouldn't come untied.  I pinned the bow on the hat so I would have the option of using other bows or decorations as well.

I also glued some pleated ribbon inside to cover the stitching.

Here is the finished hat:  

To complete my outfit, I found a glorious piece of 14 inch wide French lace in my stash.   I decided to pin it to my corset and arrange it to make a temporary chemisette. 

The outfit was also upgraded with the addition of an overskirt.  I had ended up with 4.5 yards of silk left over from the original outfit and the overskirt just took three yards.  

We had a wonderful time at our Victorian Tea!  The food and the company couldn't be beat!

Fast forward 100 years . . .

Last you left me, I had written about my 1783 Chemise a la Reine.  My new project skips forward about 100 years.  I was asked to portray Ellen Hardin Walworth at our Maryland State DAR Founders Day Tea.  October 11 marked the 125th anniversary of the founding of the DAR and I was proud to be asked to play Mrs. Walworth who was a fascinating woman.  She lived from 1832 to 1915.  The DAR was founded in 1890.  I had these portraits to get an idea of how Mrs. Walworth might have dressed:

 The top portrait looks to be a natural form gown from about 1878 - 1882.  These gowns were called natural form gowns because they were not worn with bustles.  That period was followed by the bustle period.  The sleeves look to be of that period.  The second portrait looks to be possibly in the 1890's due to the big sleeves.  Really large sleeves were popular during that period.  The big leg of mutton sleeves were typical of that era.  Bustles were not worn during that period either.  I bought patterns from both of these eras and decided ultimately to go with the natural form one.  I greatly dislike those huge sleeves of the 1890s.  I like the shape of the natural form skirts better as well.  They are flat in the front and don't flare much.  There is a lot of fullness in the back.    I settled on Truly Victorian Patterns:  TV125 for the 1879 Petticoat, TV221 for the  1878Tie Back Underskirt, and TV420 for the 1878 Cuirass Bodice with evening options.  Research revealed that older women typically wore darker colors so I found a glorious Sienna silk taffeta at Renaissance fabrics.  It's one of those silks that changes colors in the light as the warp and weft are different colors.

 I made the petticoat first.  It was the most labor intensive of the three pieces.  I did not make the train.  This era is quite a departure from the 18th century and Regency garments I'm used to making.  The skirts of this era have all of their fullness in the back.  The back of the petticoat has an inner and outer back with tiered net ruffles between them--yards and yards and yards of net!  Fortunately I was able to get 10 yards of cotton netting on Ebay for a reasonable price.  The back of the outer back piece has a piece of cotton twill tape sewn on the inside about 8 inches above the ruffles with buttons sewn across.  This is where you would attach the train.  I added an extra ruffle figuring I can put the buttons on the lace trim if I ever want to make a train.

The petticoat closes in the center front with a hook and eye on the waistband.  It is made out of bleached muslin.  I used my ruffler attachment set to a 2:1 ratio to do the tiny pleats on the ruffles. There was just no way I was going to gather that much fabric. I concealed the raw edges of the top of the ruffles with cotton beading lace and blue ribbon.  Once that was completed I could work on fitting the other garments.

The skirt was very straight forward.  Just sew the front to the side fronts then the side backs and a large back piece.  There is an opening left between one side back and the back.  I chose to actually made a placket so my petticoat wouldn't show.  I pleated the back piece to fit the waistband then attached hooks and eyes.  There are ties attached to the inside seams where the side backs join the back.  These are tied pulling the front tighter and making the back fullness protrude more in the back, not allowing it to move around to the sides.

 The instructions for fitting the bodice were quite interesting.  You had to do several different calculations that you don't do with modern patterns.  However, upon making the muslin, it fit perfectly with a few alterations.  I refashioned the neckline so that it was a square in the front but with a high back--unlike the version on the pattern.  I also raised the neckline about 3/4 of an inch and it was still quite low.  I don't have proper Victorian underpinnings and a corset really is necessary to achieve the correct silhouette so I fitted the bodice using my modern waspie corset then I ordered one with a little more coverage and a larger hip spring.  Corsets of that time actually went halfway up the bust but I was able to achieve the right look using the modern corset.  I wore the outfit with American Duchess Tavistock button boots.  They really button with a button hook!

 I remembered that I had that little antique Victorian or Edwardian camisole.  It's a lovely little thing--completely hand made with the tiniest pintucks and feather stitching.  There are patches sewn on where the cami had worn.

The bodice went together without issue.  I did have to use plastic boning which I dislike as I didn't have any sprung steel bones in the correct lengths and time was of the essence.  Typically bodices were underlined (called flatlining) to give them more structure so I did this using unbleached muslin which allowed me to make my dart markings easily. Bodices were typically not lined.  Seams were just finished and typically a waist stay was stitched in.  Edges were faced with self fabric bias strips. Truly Victorian patterns have you make a bagged lining.  Given the ravely nature of the silk taffeta, I decided that I would go ahead and do a bagged lining using lightweight black silk.

I was able to find some nice wide vintage lace on Etsy in a sufficient quantity for this.  I have a huge lace stash but most of it is either narrow or Swiss embroidery, neither of which was the look I wanted.  I just hand whipped the lace in place making little pleats as I went along.

I went ahead and made machine buttonholes but at a later time, I'll go over them by hand.  I had gotten some 1890ish vegetable ivory buttons from someone in the Vintage Fabric Buy and Sell Facebook group which were the perfect shade.

I ended up with almost 4 yards of extra silk taffeta!  The yardage chart didn't list anything wider than 45 inches and my silk was 56 inches wide.  So I purchased an overskirt pattern to make up at a later date.  Ladies could change the look of their outfits by putting different overskirts on!

Our beautiful Maryland State Society DAR Chapter House where our Founders Day Tea was held was the perfect setting for a photo shoot.