Version of a Fitted English Gown, Part 2
Same story - copied from my LiveJournal post
I don't think I actually said in the previous post (although at least a couple of people realised without my making it explicit) that I am making something for everyday wear, not SCA, etc. The reasons for this are that although there is an SCA here, I am not part of it, and I'm not really into group kind of activities of any kind (although I am considering it) and I'd like to be able to wear regularly what I put all this effort into, and I just want to make these historical clothes, to see what they are like, and how they are made, and then to wear them because I am bored of modern clothes. Plus, I find it amusing to have strangers compliment me on clothes based on those worn 500 years ago. There are fitting issues, as we have observed, although I do intend to wear this sometimes over my kirtle (although it also fits poorly, being a first try) and sometimes over modern clothing, so there is a bit of a problem there, regarding style. So that is my motivation (basically I love clothes and have an odd sense of humour), hopefully it was not too boring.
Although I mocked-up the bodice, I just cut the skirt straight out, because skirts are easy. However, all was not well with the skirt - I had spent a lot of time trying to work out the way to shape the top of the front skirt to fit the curved point of the bodice. Although I was following the pattern in the Tudor Tailor book, I am a different size and shape so was not following it exactly. In particular, my butt is 1-2 standard sizes bigger than my top half, and the curve over the hips normally needs to be adjusted too, so I didn't want to copy the skirt too closely, instead modifying an existing flared skirt pattern. In the end however, I'd done the curve that joins the bodice completely wrong. On the left is the wrong version, and on the right is the corrected version.
I needed to make the curve on the skirt shallower, taking off an increasing amount the closer to the centre. Although it looked ok with the lining (the good side is slanting in the pic due to the seam allowance not being folded back evenly) I saw it was still slightly off in the finished product, but a lot, lot better. The idea being, of course, that the front opening of the skirt hangs straight down perpendicular to the floor, not buckling or slanting any direction.
After I'd made the pattern, and cut the lining, I decided to actually check how much material I had in the plaid. It's lucky I didn't want to gather the back of the skirt. After locking the cat out and laying the pattern out on the material various ways, I managed to make it fit, with exactly this much material to spare.
You can see the largest leftover pieces laid out there, with piles of scraps.
Amazingly, I had cut the pieces in a way that enabled some pattern matching to be done. This was at least 75% by accident. I had sewed the lining by machine, but to match the outer layer better, I decided to hand sew it. I started with sewing the skirt pieces onto the bodice pieces. First I hand-basted along the seam lines, then ironed the seam allowance of the skirt over on the seam allowance, and sewed it onto the bodice from the upper side, using something that I guess is like a whip-stitch except you're not sewing two edges, but an edge onto a flat piece. You can see the process, but not the stich, here.
I think I may have basted it with running stitch to hold it in place, and THEN sewn it securely, and then removed all the bastings. You can see how it matches up near the pointed front, but as I move along the seam it matches less, presumably because the two pieces are curved. However, I was happy :)
After joining the bodice and skirt, sewed the skirt pieces together - and now I admit I am just showing off. See this picture? This is the back waist seam, and the skirt also has a seam down the middle.
The waist seam is not perfect due to the angle etc, but I am impressed with how well this worked out. This whole garment was like magic - it astounded me the whole way. I sewed the centre back seam in the skirt by ironing back the seam allowances and then whip-stitching the edges together. This let me see the stripes as I sewed, making it a lot easier to match them. The seam was then pressed completely flat.
So by this stage I had sewed the body and skirt of the 2 garment layers. This is the two of them put one over the other on the dress mannequin. You can see the interesting effect of the interaction of the plaid with the shape of the skirt pieces. I'm not sure why the mannequin appears to be leaning over - I swear she isn't like that is real life...
I don't think I actually said in the previous post (although at least a couple of people realised without my making it explicit) that I am making something for everyday wear, not SCA, etc. The reasons for this are that although there is an SCA here, I am not part of it, and I'm not really into group kind of activities of any kind (although I am considering it) and I'd like to be able to wear regularly what I put all this effort into, and I just want to make these historical clothes, to see what they are like, and how they are made, and then to wear them because I am bored of modern clothes. Plus, I find it amusing to have strangers compliment me on clothes based on those worn 500 years ago. There are fitting issues, as we have observed, although I do intend to wear this sometimes over my kirtle (although it also fits poorly, being a first try) and sometimes over modern clothing, so there is a bit of a problem there, regarding style. So that is my motivation (basically I love clothes and have an odd sense of humour), hopefully it was not too boring.
Although I mocked-up the bodice, I just cut the skirt straight out, because skirts are easy. However, all was not well with the skirt - I had spent a lot of time trying to work out the way to shape the top of the front skirt to fit the curved point of the bodice. Although I was following the pattern in the Tudor Tailor book, I am a different size and shape so was not following it exactly. In particular, my butt is 1-2 standard sizes bigger than my top half, and the curve over the hips normally needs to be adjusted too, so I didn't want to copy the skirt too closely, instead modifying an existing flared skirt pattern. In the end however, I'd done the curve that joins the bodice completely wrong. On the left is the wrong version, and on the right is the corrected version.
I needed to make the curve on the skirt shallower, taking off an increasing amount the closer to the centre. Although it looked ok with the lining (the good side is slanting in the pic due to the seam allowance not being folded back evenly) I saw it was still slightly off in the finished product, but a lot, lot better. The idea being, of course, that the front opening of the skirt hangs straight down perpendicular to the floor, not buckling or slanting any direction.
After I'd made the pattern, and cut the lining, I decided to actually check how much material I had in the plaid. It's lucky I didn't want to gather the back of the skirt. After locking the cat out and laying the pattern out on the material various ways, I managed to make it fit, with exactly this much material to spare.
You can see the largest leftover pieces laid out there, with piles of scraps.
Amazingly, I had cut the pieces in a way that enabled some pattern matching to be done. This was at least 75% by accident. I had sewed the lining by machine, but to match the outer layer better, I decided to hand sew it. I started with sewing the skirt pieces onto the bodice pieces. First I hand-basted along the seam lines, then ironed the seam allowance of the skirt over on the seam allowance, and sewed it onto the bodice from the upper side, using something that I guess is like a whip-stitch except you're not sewing two edges, but an edge onto a flat piece. You can see the process, but not the stich, here.
I think I may have basted it with running stitch to hold it in place, and THEN sewn it securely, and then removed all the bastings. You can see how it matches up near the pointed front, but as I move along the seam it matches less, presumably because the two pieces are curved. However, I was happy :)
After joining the bodice and skirt, sewed the skirt pieces together - and now I admit I am just showing off. See this picture? This is the back waist seam, and the skirt also has a seam down the middle.
The waist seam is not perfect due to the angle etc, but I am impressed with how well this worked out. This whole garment was like magic - it astounded me the whole way. I sewed the centre back seam in the skirt by ironing back the seam allowances and then whip-stitching the edges together. This let me see the stripes as I sewed, making it a lot easier to match them. The seam was then pressed completely flat.
So by this stage I had sewed the body and skirt of the 2 garment layers. This is the two of them put one over the other on the dress mannequin. You can see the interesting effect of the interaction of the plaid with the shape of the skirt pieces. I'm not sure why the mannequin appears to be leaning over - I swear she isn't like that is real life...
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