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.

Portrait of a Gown . . .

There's just something about the transition from structured Georgian gowns of the 1770's to the free flowing Regency styles of 1790 - 1820 as illustrated in these portraits that I simply love.  This gown is called the Chemise a la Reine--so named because it was a queen who first wore it and turned it into a fashion trend.  The top portrait of Marie Antoinette was done in 1783.  One can find other portraits of society maidens wearing similar dresses and hats throughout the 1780's.

The Chemise a la Reine is typically made of lightweight, almost sheer cotton muslin with a lot of gathers and no boning.  It is worn over several white petticoats as was the custom in the 18th century as it was also typically open in the front.  The gathers were controlled by a large colored sash tied in a large bow in the back.  These gowns could have straight or puffy sleeves.  Puffy sleeves were new on the fashion scene at the time.

All of the portraits I've found of ladies in their chemises, also highlight the newest hairstyle of the time:  the Hedgehog!  Unlike the highly structured big hair with pinned rolls and such, the hedgehog was just a headful of crazy curls, often kinky with some long sausage curls hanging down the back.  No need for pomatum to hold one's hair in place with this style.  It would have been curled using rags which would result in very tight, almost frizzy curls.

The hats were larger too.  The Georgian hats tended to be of the Bergere style with a fairly flat crown and some simple ruched ribbon trim--though feathers were often added.  The hats worn in the portraits above had large crowns, big ribbon trim and large plumes.

One can see how this whole look--  hair, hat, gown-- transitioned into the Regency styles represented in the Jane Austin era.

I decided it was time to reproduce this look.

I settled on the chemise diagram from the Norah Waugh Cut of Women's Clothes book.  It was a one page diagram on 1/8 inch grid graph paper.  The basic shape of the gown is simply a large rectangle of fabric with some shaping at the top, a shaped shoulder strap and a sleeve.  I copied the top part of the gown onto 1 inch gridded paper as well as the sleeve and shoulder piece which I lengthened from the original 7 inches to 10 inches.

This was what I had to work with.  Because it has a lot of drawstrings, fitting wouldn't be much of a problem.  I decided that this would be entirely hand sewn. I used 56 inch wide cotton voile cut about 64 inches long--2 lengths plus a 30 inch wide piece which was in the center back.  These pieces were stitched together in tiny French seams. The front edges were hemmed with a hand rolled hem. I used silk thread for all stitching.

Then I added the waist and bust casing--using 1/4 inch silk ribbon, hand stitched in place.

This was probably the most time consuming part of making this dress.  Once this part was done, I folded the piece in half, laid it out and cut the contour of the top and the hem.

After inserting the 1/8 inch cotton twill tape drawstrings, I pinned the gown on my dress form.  

I used medium weight white linen for the lining of the shoulder straps. The straps in the diagram were only about 7 inches long and I knew that would be way too small so I made them 10 inches long for fitting purposes.  I sewed the lining on first then tried the dress on to see how it fit. 

As I suspected, the straps were too long.  I made a shoulder seam in them, taking them up 1 1/2 inches.  I then cut the outer strap out of voile to the corrected length.  I then stitched a French seam in the sleeves,  hemmed the sleeves then made two eyelets at the cuff and casing line in the center.  I did this so that the ribbon bows would show.  I stitched the silk ribbon in as a casing and I used the same 1/4 inch silk ribbon as drawstrings.  I stitched the sleeve in with seam inside the bottom and on the outside of the sleeve lining.  Then the outer shoulder piece was added and whip stitched to the lining, encasing the sleeve seam.

I decided that I wanted a neck ruffle so I measured each section of the neckline:  front, shoulder strap back.  I doubled each measurement and added them together to make a ruffle with 2 : 1 fullness.  The short ends and one long end were stitched with a tiny 1/16 inch rolled hem.

After the hemming, I made whipped gathers and fit the ruffle to the neckline, whip stitching it in place.  I was quite pleased with the final result.

The final thing to do was to do a hand rolled hem and make another white linen petticoat.

The sash was about 12 feet long and all edges were finished with hand rolled hems.  It was made from silk dupioni.

Step One completed! 

I fashioned a hat out of straw millinery blank.  I stitched teal silk bias around the edge of the brim.  I then cut a circle of the same silk and layered sheer white silk chiffon over it, gathered the edges and covered the crown with it.  A wide bias strip was cut with pinking shears and I fashioned it into a loopy bow, stitching the loops in place.  Two ostrich plumes and a couple of peacock spikes were added and stitched in place.

Step Two completed!

Now the hair!  I had bought a tacky Lioness wig from Whilshire wigs in a color that matched my own hair.

It definitely had that 80's biker chic thing going on!  Fortunately I had the tool of the trade!

I sectioned off the bottom, curled it around a 1 inch dowel and sprayed the curls.  The rest of the wig got teased--a lot!  It took over an hour to do all the teasing.  I had to trim some of the longer teased pieces.  

I ended up with one big hedgehog wig of win!  Love it!  The hat was the perfect proportion for the big hair!

The gown was worn over a Regency shift, fully boned strapless 18th century stays, a small bum roll and 2 white linen petticoats.

I made this ensemble to wear to an 18th century wedding at an 18th century country church--no electricity!  It was a gorgeous day.  Here's the final ensemble:

If the dress fits . . .

I've been cleaning through my vintage clothes and I came across this dress that I made for a contest in the early 1990's.  The Martha Pullen Company held a contest for heirloom sewn by machine garments.  Heirloom sewing is that style of sewing that you see in those lovely white lacy Victorian garments of the past and it was done by hand.  Rows and rows of French cotton lace and ruched fabric strips stitched together are very typical of this style of sewing along with details like pin tucks and hand embroidery.  To make it more complicated, the lace and fabric strips are typically joined together with entredeux which is a tiny strip about 1/8 inch wide (sometimes less) that looks like faggotting.  These rows are typically hand whipstitched together.  It includes tiny hand rolled and stitched hems.  However when sewing by machine, one must use very tiny zig zag stitches that fall in the little holes in the lace and make tiny rolled hems with the machine to replicate the hand stitches.  It takes some practice, but I enjoyed this type of vintage styling and made a number of dresses for Emily when she was little.

My inspiration for this dress was a single piece of 14 inch wide Swiss embroidered cotton lace that dates to around 1900.  My brother, the antiques dealer, had gifted me with a Hefty garbage bag full of old store stock French Val and Swiss embroidered laces from that time period.  I lovingly restored all of them and I've enjoyed using them over the years.  This one piece though was simply spectacular. The lace, while white, did not match the stark bleached white imported Swiss batiste that I bought so I had to tea dye that then lightly bleach out the dye until I got the right color.   I don't like to wear pure white so I chose a cream color Swiss batiste to use as an under layer.  The sleeves were kept sheer, using only the white batiste.

The dress had some spots on it so I spent a day carefully removing them and gave it a light hand wash.

I've always treasured this frock.  It was a lot of work.

Front and back views:

Closer views of the bodice.  The wide lace inset at the center front, dropped waist and cuff was also vintage.  The insertion lace with the ribbon and the edging on the collar and cuffs was new.

Hand pulled thread and shadow embroidery done with silk floss.

Collar detail--The front and back are white batiste, the pointed shoulder piece is the cream colored batiste.

Cuff detail

Detail of cuff showing the tiny stitches connecting the different rows of lace.

Detail of sleeve seam showing the entredeux used to connect the sleeves to the body of the dress.

Inside of bodice showing entredeux seam and French seam.

Waist inset

The gorgeous piece of lace that inspired the dress.  

Skirt details

Knotted ribbon rosette--I loved making these.  Ems wore them in her hair all the time as a little girl.

I dressed up a straw hat to wear with this dress which I really liked at the time.  I'm thinking that I should remove the ribbon trim and make a cloche styled or Edwardian type hat and put the ribbon on it.  I have to figure out the period I want.

I wore this with white leather flats.  Now I have the perfect shoes--Seabury Edwardian pumps by the American Duchess with clocked Edwardian silk stockings!

I'll have to keep this frock handy to wear to one of my teas or other functions.  It's just too pretty to sit in the closet!