Carnivale Gown based loosely off of Felicity's Christmas Gown

After the Ball

The gown above is what I wore to the Mascheranda Ball during Carnivale in Venice.  It was one of the last balls (probably the last one this year) for the Carnivale season.  I had fun (even if I almost fainted at one point) and absolutely loved my gown.  It needs some small touches, but overall, it is one of my favorites so far.

The Inspiration:

The Couture Courtesan did a stunning recreation of the gown a few years ago that I got to see in person at one point. I really hadn't planned on making my own recreation but the silk taffeta I used was only €3 a meter and I cannot pass up a deal like that. Also, it is exactly the right color to make the gown. The silk taffeta begged to be made into Felicity's Christmas Gown. Since I've always been a fan of the pink front stomacher, I decided to go with that instead.

When planning out the gown, I wanted to keep it semi-historical as possible. I wasn't going to handsew the entire thing but I didn't want to get too anachronistic either. So, I decided to keep the colors and overall shape of the stomacher (more on that in a bit), the trim type (ie, the way it goes up and down the robings and is pleated), and the matching petticoat. When researching dresses with similar trims, I kept coming back to one thing:

Woman's Dress and Petticoat (Robe à la française) - LACMA

Robe á la Francaise- Nordiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

Robe à la Française - MET

They were all Robe à la Françaises and not Anglaise.  So, a Robe à la Française it is!  I may have bought uh....10 or so meters of the blue silk taffeta so I wasn't worried about fabric usage.  At all.

The stomacher on Felicity's dress is, of course, meant to kinda look right while also be expedient for making a doll's dress for little girls to play with.  The ombre pink ribbon with a twist in the middle isn't exactly period.  However, a very similar "look" was - this:

Portrait d'une femme en robe de satin bleu, 1760 Christian Friedrich Reinhold von Lisiewski

English American Stomacher - RISD Museum

Manchester Art Gallery

I kept with the three daggings meeting to make it look more like Felicity's dress, rather than add additional ones.  I used silver buttons, rather than pearls, mainly because I lost my beading needle and have no idea where it is.  I need to order a new one.

The materials:

The blue silk taffeta was really only €3 a meter at my local thrift store.  Once a season, they get in the "not quite right" fabrics from the designers in Milan.  These fabrics sometimes have something wrong with them - a spot here or a bit of undyed yarn.  I saw the orange stickers on the blue taffeta but I have zero idea what is wrong with it.  It looks fine to me.  

The pink shantung I got from Silks Unlimited on ebay for $17 a yard. They, luckily, have a pretty good selection and the color was exactly what I needed. I bought 5 yards and maybe used a 1/4 of that?

The silver trim is some trim I bought, I think, back in 2016 as part of a very large, very big bin of "just take it!" at a SCA shopping event known as Holiday Faire.  The entire bin (think enough to stuff a body in tubberware container) was $15.  And yes, I stuffed all the trims from that bin into my suitcase last year and brought them over with me.  Because...necessary.

The silver buttons were also stash.

The Pattern:

Technically, I used this:

To make a Robe à la Française.  Yes, it's not a Robe à la Française pattern.  In fact, my pattern, I seemed to have lost the sleeve too.  Basically, this was only a base and I went off from there.  I also drafted my own sleeve again.

The gown:

The skirt

The gown

The stomacher looking wonky 

Me, with the dress half off!  Ha!

It's not perfect, but I love it!  I still have some of the blue taffeta and a lot of the pink left.  I might make a very different gown out of it now that the Felicity one is out of the way!

A quick short cape for Carnivale

One of my co-workers wanted to come with me to Venice. I told her, if she came, I would make her a quick cape or surcote - something that wasn't very difficult to put together but would look carnivalish. We bought 2 meters of poly/rayon white moire and 6 meters of orange cotton trim. She wanted orange because her mask is orange. :-)

The cape itself is pretty simple. I did a basic circle cape with a rectangle for the hood that was then gathered in the 18th C style. Really, since she wanted a short cape, I drew out the circle from the center of the fold of the fabric to 32", using my marker and my measuring table like a compass. Once it was cut out, I cut a small circle at the neckline area to give it a neckline and I cut the front opening because the fabric was a huge circle of fabric. With the leftover piece of fabric, I cut out a long enough rectangle to fit over the head. I think it was about 19" by 23" just so I'd have enough of a seam allowance. With the hood, I sewed one long side of the rectangle first by rolling the fabric over a couple of times so that the edges would be enclosed by I could get a ribbon through it. I put the ribbon through, gathering a lot of the material towards the middle but leaving the last 3" on either side ungathered. I then sewed up these 3~4" so there is just a small hole in the back where all the fabric is gathered. I then stitched the front so there were no raw edges as well.

I pleated the hood to the neckline and used some of the leftover fabric from around where the cape was cut as bias tape for the neckline. Again, no raw edges showing. I then hemmed the rest of the cape and added the orange trim. I had just enough to go down the front and along the hem line. I was hoping to have enough for the hood as well but, eh, whatever. She was very pleased with her little cape. :-)

Not Really Missing in Action

Before I get to the dress post, I wanted to explain why I haven't been posting this year.  Some of you already know but, I'm in Grad School.  It is eating up every last bit of free time I could possibly have.  I'm going for my Master's in Digital Forensics.  Hopefully, this time next year, I will be DONE.  

Second, it's Lent!   I'm doing the medieval Lenten thing again and have been eating a TON of olives, almonds, and rice.  I also have had a lot of salmon, various types of beans, and onions.  I'm mostly going with things I know that are quick to make because...grad school and work.

Third, the Francaise Dinner!   I made a new stomacher and petticoat for myself.  I didn't put trim on either because I just didn't have time.   I also finally finished my Mom' dress, which I'd like to share.

My sister in law is on the left in the green dress I made her last year. My Mom is on the right. I originally made this gown for her a few years ago but the shoulders were all wonky. I managed to take the shoulders, sleeves, and trim apart and correct the issue pretty easily. The sleeves just needed a gore to make those come out okay and the shoulders just needed to be let out a bit because I had a weird pintuck at the front. Once it was all done, Mom got to wear her pretty new dress, finally.

It's based on the dress above that Mom just fell in love with.  I didn't get to do the petticoat trim - not enough fabric- but I do think I got reasonably close to the inspiration image.  The extant gown is from the 1780's.  Mom wanted something with long sleeves and blue.  The above fit her qualifications.  :-)

I'll post my new stomacher and petticoat when I add trim to the stomacher. 

Christmas Projects!

This year, I made both my Mom's and my Sister in Law's Christmas presents. I noticed last year that my Mom really liked the Christmas Quilt I made my Sister in Law; so I thought to make Mom one this year. It's a very, very simple quilt but I really love the look of it - and so did Mom! She said it was her favorite Christmas present and she's been using it almost non-stop. (My brother has really bad allergies and it helps to keep the house cool so the rest of us just bundle up indoors.)

Mom loves cardinals and poinsettias - so those are the main themes of the quilt.  It's a bunch of 8" square blocks that I cut out.  I sewed five of them together to make a line.  I would then place the first line down on the quilt batting (which is something like velcro to cotton quilting fabrics, I swear!) and put the second line upside down on top of the first.  I then sewed down the bottom the line and flipped the second line down to create the first two lines of the quilt.   I hope that makes sense!   It doesn't make for a very neat looking stitched back but it does work really, really well for sewing down all the quilt blocks quickly.   

The back of the quilt is a lucky find - I saw this fabulous winter bird print at Joann's and knew it had to go on the back of Mom's quilt.   It's basically all her favorite birds in an already "quilt block" look.   The edges are a red stripe that matched the stripes in the backing.   

Mom thought this was professionally done until I told her I made it.  :-)  She wasn't sure when I had the time to make it (Grad school & work have been eating up time like crazy!) but it's not a complicated quilt and some of the squares I cut out last year.   

I've been hoarding Christmas remnants from Joann's.  Since Joann's always has at least 50% off their remnants, it makes for a nice, cheap way to get a ton of gorgeous fabrics without spending a ton.  Whenever I saw a fabric I thought Mom might like, I just added it to the "pile".   

The other gift I made was a short cloak for my Sister in Law.  She's been coming to more and more events with me and loves it.   However, last year, I managed to make her dress but not any outerwear.  This year, she wants to wear the same dress - which is perfectly okay- but I figured I'd start on some 18th C esque outerwear. 

The cape is based on 18th C designs.  It's a full circle short cape out of sage green cotton velvet.  I lined it in that flannel backed satin -which, despite being dead dino with a bit of cotton, I love!   It does help to keep warm.   The cape is edged in faux white fur.  Even sewing it, it's the kind you have to come up and "pet" to know that it's not actual rabbit fur.   She loved it.  

...Mom almost stole it.  :-)  Really, if anyone wants a very simple but lovely project to try, I'd recommend an 18th C short cape.  This took a little over a 1 1/2 of fabric.  I pieced together the remnants (scraps) left by the circle to make the hood.  The remnants are vaguely triangular in shape - you just cut them into triangles, sew them together to make squares, and you have the two sides for your hood.  For the back, I saved the scrap from the neckhole of the cape and gathered that scrap around the edge.  I then used it to cover the small hole at the back of the hood.  I've seen this done with other velvets in the 18th C because gathering velvet tightly never looks pretty.  There was a small hole at the back of the hood - where I gathered the back "point" (upper edge, back) - and I covered it with the scrap from the neckhole.   

Two New 18th Century Day Dresses

My sister in law and I went to Fort Frederick Market Faire in Big Pool Maryland today. We met up with a bunch of other lovely people to include Stephanie, Maggie, and Jess. Since all my old outfits are now too small and my sister in law didn't have any day dresses, I had to create two new ones!

My sister in law is wearing what was a quilt and is now a petticoat as well as what was a tablecloth, we think, and is now a dress. :-) I got both the quilt and the tablecloth at a thrift store I go to all the time. I made the petticoat years ago - it's mine but it was cool and wet in the morning which is a no go for white linen/cotton petticoats. The dress I made last night. It's machine sewn but the lines are correct for the later half of the 18th century. It's a linen blend - we think. I probably should burn test the scraps....Just did! It's linen and poly mix. The dress is lined in what I'm pretty sure is a linen rayon (but one of the old more rayon than linen mixes). All thrift store finds and they all look good enough to use. Of course, I'll need to make her a different outfit for when it's not 72F and lovely, which it ended up being.

My dress is out of the Williamsburg cotton I know everyone has. At least five other ladies were wearing the same print! Mine is entirely handsewn and lined in cotton and linen (the sleeves). The sleeves are pieced. The upper part of one of the sleeves is pieced on. I had forgotten to cut out sleeves for my dress and, by the time I remembered, it was almost too late! I only had enough left over for a stomacher - I thought- but I managed to get enough out for two short sleeves. I then added linen cuffs, going for a 1770's look:

See?  White cuffs!

We both has a great time as did Abigail the pup. The pup was a huge people magnet and loved the attention. :-) Of course, she always tried to get either myself or my sister in law to pick her up when the pressures of instant celebrity got to her.

My Sister in Law's Green Dress

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/53.225.5/

My sister in law saw the dress above in the Dangerous Liaisons Met book and had to have it. I had asked her to pick out a dress so she could go to the Francaise dinner with me. The dress she choose, she loved the color and the look so...I had to make her everything for it - the stays, the smock, the pockets, petticoat, and the dress.

I ended up using a lighter colored silk - it looked dark on the monitor but it was the same price as the stuff in the store so... I'm actually really glad I bought the silk on the internet. The color was off but my sister in law still loved it. She said she liked the lighter olive much more than the darker green we originally saw. The fabric itself though was a dream to work with. It was more like a silk taffeta than a dupioni and no one could really see the slubs (there were a few but they weren't obvious). For $12 a yard, it really was a great buy.

I thought I had taken a picture of all the underlayers, but apparently not. The smock was a basic a line tunic with short sleeves out of a linen cotton blend I got at Joanns. If you can find their linen/cotton blend (with no unnatural fibers) at your Joanns, get it. It's fabulous stuff. It's cheap (particularly with the 50% off coupons I get all the time) and it is correct for most periods. I use it all the time in my renaissance and medieval chemises.

The stays I used gray linen from Ikea. Ikea has the heavy, course linen in very drab colors. However, it's great for making stays or using as an inner lining. I machine sewed the channels with a green thread and used green bias tape along the top of the stays. The eyelets were also green - as it is my sister in laws favorite color. They are front opening stays using a spiral lace. I used a mix of cable and duct ties for the boning.

The pockets:

This was before I sewed it all together but after I completely the embroidery on one. I had a large piece of purple linen in the scrap pile. Although I know my sister in law loves green, I thought the purple linen with green embroidery would work well - turns out, it's her favorite color combo. :-) I drew out the embroidery design using the Frixion markers the dreamstress spoke about a few weeks ago. I love the markers. They are perfect for everything. Need to mark a seam? Eyelet placement? Buttonhole placement? Mark out your embroidery pattern? They work on everything. For this particular project, I used the yellow marker on the dark purple background. I learned that if you leave it out overnight to dry, the marker will get brighter. This was insanely useful as I would draw the pattern I wanted at night and finish it the next morning.

Once you are done with the embroidery, just iron over the project. The lines really do disappear. I've so far found the black marker is a bit harder to iron out than the rest but I bought all the colors so it's not a big deal at all.

Photo courtesy of In the Long Run Designs

Courtesy of Mom :-)

The final dress! And my sister in law with her camera strap. :-) I was going to do her hair in a hedgehog but when the curls fell out like that, I just put a big green ribbon in her hair and called it done. The curls were too cute to play with. I sewed together the same trim I used to make my Elizabethan Ruff a couple of years ago to make the cuffs on my sister in law's dress. Despite it being a different color, I wanted it to match the original dress as much as possible. Once I sewed the raw edges of the trim together, I half pleated/ half gathered it to the cuff of the dress.

The final verdict: My sister in loves her entire outfit so much, she's been wearing it when her friends come over now to show of her "favorite" sister in law's work. :-) Okay, so I'm her only sister in law but still! She loved the dinner, loved talking to everyone, and is super excited now to go to Fort Fred. I'm going to teach her how to make her own petticoat since she wants to learn how to sew. However, I do need to make her her own jacket. :-)

Historical Sew Monthly Challenge: Tucks and Pleating

The Challenge:  Tucks & Pleating – make a garment that features tucks and pleating for the shape or decoration

Material:  Silk Taffeta

Pattern:   My own, I think.  I don't quite remember as I cut it out two years ago and never sewed it together.  

Year:   1760's

Notions:  The gold trim and the purple cording I got at Jomar's many years ago now.  The metal findings I got at Hobby Lobby and Michael's.

How historically accurate is it?  The dress itself is entirely handsewn.  The petticoat I made when I cut out the dress and it's machine sewn.  The stomacher is a mix of both - all the "showy" stuff is handsewn but the inside channel and the inside seams along the edges are machine sewn.  

Hours to complete:  Two years?  So, I cut this out in 2013 and just never, ever got to it.  I had to recut it a bit since I've lost weight since then.  Really, it took maybe a couple of weeks to get this done.

First worn:  Francaise Dinner 2016

Total cost:  I remember paying about $120 for the silk taffeta, I think.  I got it in New York.  I think the cording was only $3 for the entire 48 yards and the other trim was about 50 cents a yard - I used three for the project.   The bodice is lined in linen and I used scrap fabric for the inner lining of the stomacher (a small piece of fabric that was once part of a huge bolt of about 25 yards that I got for $5 for the bolt at the thrift store so I doubt it would even be considered to be more than a couple of pennies).  The metal findings were about $20 or a little over that. 

Inspiration:

For the trim inspriation, I was heavily influenced by styles like this:

Royal Ontario Museum

Notice skirt opening is lined in one trim and the wavy lines are outside of that to the sides.

Palais Galleria

This one from the same time period (1750's) has one trim to the inside and a larger self trim to the outside.  The self trim is edged in what looks like may be the same trim to the inside.

Using these any many more images as my inspiration, I did the metallic trim to the inside of the dress and the self trim to the outside and up the robings.

The pleated self trim is to the outside, lined in a wisteria colored cording.  The metallic trim also has some of that wisteria color in it.   Neither are natural materials but that look good on the dress.

I continued the self trim up the robings as well.  In this picture, I tried on the dress before adding the sleeves to make sure it fit.  

For the stomacher, my inspiration were the extant metallic stomachers like this:

Or the drawings of them like this:

http://images.collection.cooperhewitt.org/38880_2bef664bc0f73522_b.jpg

I wanted something that would match the necklace I would end up wearing with the dress so I used a lot of "gold" findings.

Some images of the final dress thanks to Angela!

New 18th Century Stays

18th Century Stays at the MET

I've looked at the above stays for a while. I really, really like them and wanted to make a similar pair for at least a couple of years. Once my beat up old ones finally became completely unwearable and popped a seam, I got off my duff to make ones similar to the above.

Front of my new stays

Side View

Back View

Mine aren't perfect by a long stretch but I'm really happy with them.  First, the fit.  The dress dummy they are on is a size 8.  I used a cotton twill flocked with black velvet I got at Joanns fr the fashion fabric.  The bias tape is black silk taffeta scraps I had lying around in the scrap pile.  I used linen for the lining and cotton duck from Ikea for the inner lining.  The boning is a combo of both cable and duct ties - some of the channels were too thin for the larger duct ties so I doubled up the cable ties instead.

My point on the stays is much broader than the extant pair.  The front upper edge is curved - it's just hard to tell on this dress dummy.   Like the original, I spiral laced the back.

I wore the stays this past weekend - although I hadn't finished binding the bottom edge fully- and they fit!   I just really, really need to go get longer laces!

New Zone Front Dress

So the last photo is showing where I had to piece the skirt together for this Zone Front style dress because, unfortuantely, I didn't have quite enough fabric.

The full story: The amazing thrift store I go to had this blue and cream cotton for $3.90 for the entire length of it. It ended up being roughly 3 yards although it was hard to tell because it was someone's remnant and they had cut what looked like another dress out of it. I knew I had enough fabric to eek out a dress if I tried.

I used the Pegee of Williamsburg anglaise pattern as a base and worked out from there. I made the back into three piece (center back, two side backs) and had the center back still attached to the skirt back. I used my own sleeve pattern - the same one I created last year for my 18th Century jacket. The front of the pattern I cut out normally for the blue silk satin stomacher part and I flipped it up to created the angle for the zone front out of the cotton.

The bodice is lined in linen but the sleeves are lined in a stripped cotton (which you can see a bit because of the elbow flap).

While sewing the dress, I decided to come up with a new term - Visually accurate. Basically visually accurate pieces are ones that fall into the old SCA 10 foot rule - if it looks accurate from 10 feet away, it's good. It differs from historically accurate as you might be using a sewing machine or the fabric isn't exactly correct for that time period (who doesn't use silk dupioni?) or something else of that nature. If someone of the time period saw you from 10 feet away (sightly over 3 meters away) and wouldn't bat an eyelash about what you were wearing - ie, it would look normal from that distance to them- then it's visually accurate.

I did a lot of the interior seams of this dress on the machine. However, any visible seams (ie, the hem!) are hand sewn. Really, the only things machine sewn are the sleeves, the side skirt seams, the front line of the bodice and...that's it. The back seams? I sewed them using a historical method. I used cotton thread on the cotton dress - the pattern is accurate for the last quarter of the 18th century. Because I used the sewing machine, I'm calling this highly visually accurate.

The petticoat is another matter. It was once a bedspread. I cut a pocket slit, bound that with purple bias tape, cut out the batting from the top 2" of the petticoat, pleated it, attached silk waistbands to the front and back and...instant quilted petticoat! The hem was already bound because it had been the edge of the bedspread. This is more necessary garb low visually accurate. The lavender went well with the blue (much better than the orange!) but none of the materials are accurate. They did have quilted petticoats in the 18th century just not out of poly satin. ;-)

Overally, I'm happy with the dress. I'm going to add buttons down the front - I bought bone roundels to make fabric buttons for the dress. I just didn't have the time yesterday nor the proper materials to make them. I think the petticoat might need some work though. I pleated it wrong- not a big deal for today since both the dress and the cape hid anything. I also don't like the ties I cut out four months ago for it (did I mention the petticoat was a UFO...for the past two years?).

Super Secret Project Revealed!

For the past couple of months, I've mentioned a super secret project to some of my friends. I was really excited to try something "new" and something I hadn't seen in person before. I made a yarn wig. I was heavily inspired by Rocking the Frock's Steampunk yarn wig. It involves elements I know how to do - mostly knitting, crocheting, and sewing with nice big yarn strands.

First, I created a knit cap. I cast on 64 stitches in the round on size 7 needles. The yarn I used was really stretchy. I tried to cast on 72 or even 80 and...way, way too big. I did 2x2 ribbing around the edge for an inch and then just did knit all the way around, increasing the stitch count to 70 to accommodate my own hair. Once it got to 7" in height, I decreased once in the middle of each needle and at the end of each needle. On the sides, I added "mini" side burns to cover up my hairline well. I tried on the hat, put pins where my ear started and where the hairline went back up under the hat. I basically put ten stitches to each needle and the knitted triangles - with the right angle towards the ear- before the ear.

I then put the hat down and wanted to wrap some yarn around one of those long hot dog balloons to make curls. My original plan was to wrap the yarn, pour a water glue mixture all over the yarn, and then pop the balloon once the glue dried. That ended up not happening because the hot dog balloons were one to a mixed bag at the dollar store and not a single bag I bought (all three!) had a usable hot dog balloon. Either the balloon had a hole or it just wouldn't blow up. It might have been me - I'm sick with pneumonia (medication for the win!)- but I could get the regular balloons to blow up just fine. Anyway, then plan went bust. So, instead, I took some cardstock, rolled it up tight, taped it, and then wrapped it in plastic wrap. This served to wrap the yarn around and make the curls.

Above is one of the curls after I cut it from the rest of the wrapped yarn (I just measured about 3 1/2" and cut the yarn at that point) and shimmied the curl off the cardstock.

While I was letting the glue dry, I started to cut a lot of yard long strands of yarn to add as "hair" all the way around the bottom of the hat. I also added a second line of hair around the original bottom of the hat where the triangles were and the back of the hat. This gave an added amount of thickness. I didn't have to add any hair to the top since my own hair - which is about a yard itself- would be adding the height and stability to the hat.

The hat after the round of strands were added.  It looked a bit ridiculous.

The above are pictures of all the strands pushed back and around. It's already starting to look like...hair!  However, I still needed to add some pieces.  First, I took about 30 strands that were slightly longer than the distance between my ears across my forehead.  I braided these and put the braid right at the edge of the hat, draping the strands over it.  This gave a bit of volume right at the front of the wig.   I then carefully sewed the front strands to the hat - and more to each other than the knit hat really- to help create an even look.  In the back, I sewed a few of them down but also sewed the curls to the back of the wig.  I also added a braid to the back to give it more of the look I was going for.   Because it looked plain, I added a little "cap" to the front with a pink bow.

The nice thing about this wig is you couldn't see my hair at all.  Also, it was warm -which was lovely considering it was snowing when I left for the event.  Just flurries but still, it wasn't exactly warm outside.

The wig has a lot more volume on me and I'll try to get some photos up of me wearing the wig soon.