1808 Ballgown - 'Caroline'

It got finished in time for the ball!!! 

Granted, it was finished the day of the ball after I had stayed up til 11:30 the night before working on it. 

All that trim.

So.

Much.

Hand sewing.

I have gained a new-found respect of seamstresses of old. 

The construction of the dress and open robe was pretty straight forward (it helps that I've done these patterns in the past). For the dress, I sorta came up with the pattern as I went since I was changing the Regency Simplicity pattern as I went. I wanted a drop-front gown so that I could dress myself and not have to worry about having someone else lace me into my dress. The open robe is an altered version of the spencer/pelisse pattern from Sense and Sensibility. I can't leave patterns well enough alone, can I? ;) 

After I finished the machine sewing portion of the open robe, I set that aside to do all the hand-sewing while watching TV, listening to sermons, taking my break at work, or sitting the resource room at school in between classes.  That dress was hauled all around town in my project bag along with my portable sewing 'kit' and the invisible thread. Oh yes, all that gold trim on the train is tacked down with invisible thread. That added a whole new dimension to things. Why did I use it? The trim is gold and the fabric is teal. I didn't want thread to show. There are my reasons. 

How many hours in the open robe? I have no idea. The day of the ball, I timed myself. How much time am I actually spending on this thing? Turns out it was about 15 minutes for 10 inches. Whaaaat? Multiply that by 5 yards 10 inches... I'm not going to do the math. All I know is that I love how it turned out. Just like I imagined it would be, even better than the sketch that I drew (because I don't draw very well). 

While I was hand stitching in the evenings and in spare moments, the dress was being machine sewn whenever I had a moment in the craft room. Rather simple and straight forward. Using sketches from the Hungarican Chick, I drafted pieces from my Simplicity pattern that would be transformed into a bib-front. After working out the kinks in my pattern, I chopped up the sleeve pattern (don't worry, it was a piece that I traced from the original) to make the slits and button closures work. And it worked on the first try. Since when does that happen? 

The final result? 

There is an insurance building across the street from the ballroom that had these fantastic pillars. We just had to use them as a backdrop for pictures. 

And the open robe has a loooong train. :Squee!: But how is one to dance with such a long train and not trip? I attached a strap to the hem so that I could sling it around my wrist to keep it out of the way. After I did that, I was going through some fashion plates from the era and realized that they bustled it at the waist (Regency waist - not actual waist) to look like a chunky flower. Kinda cool. But I had already done the work, so the wrist band was going to stay. 

As I was spending goodness-knows-how-much-time sewing all that trim, I came up with a name for the dress. I've decided to dub it 'Caroline' because it strikes me as something that Caroline Bingley would have worn to a ball. 

Until next time!

SG

1808 Ball Gown WIP

I apologize in advance for the lousy picture, but I'm so excited with how the open robe is turning out that I had to share a quick peak with you! 

TA-DA!!!

It's looking even better than I imagined it. For the October ball, this will be about as much detail as it will get because of time constraints, but there are other balls coming up later in the year that I would potentially add even more detail to it (read: embroidery).

As for the trim, I bought five yards. FIVE YARDS! And it still wasn't enough. My estimate at the cutting counter was off by 10 inches. Not bad for not actually measuring the train. 

Until next time!

SG

1808 Ball Gown Inspiration and Planning

The Netherfield ball is coming up, and I got the Regency sewing bug again. I could wear one of my other dressed inspired by the early-1800's, but who wants to wear a plain, cotton day dress to an elegantly-themed ball? Not I. It's time to pull out all stops and power sew to get this ball gown done in time. 

My main inspiration for the dress is a collection of actual dresses, paintings, and modern re-enactors.

I love the concept of a loooooonng train. But I don't want to be tripping over it while dancing. The solution I came up with was an open robe. From what I can tell, there seem to many interpretations of the same concept: a bodice of some sort, a stylish closure in the front, and an over skirt. I really like the idea of sprucing up the basic white Regency ball gown and adding the color pop of the open robe. 

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PS - Holly Madchen photography is INCREDIBLE!

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Next up comes the actual ball gown. Apron-front (or bib-front), is certainly my preferred style, but I'll need to alter the pattern that I have to make it work (because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to buy :another: pattern). So it will all depend on how much time I have after finishing the open robe. Next part of the ball gown planning is the sleeves. I really don't like how the puff sleeves look on me; my shoulders are wide enough without the added puffiness of sleeves, thankyouvermuch. But then I found this painting: 

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I adore those sleeves. I'll just be altering the sleeves on my pattern. 'Nuff said. 

And no dress is complete without accessories! I really wanted to make a pineapple reticule, but my knitting skills are very lacking to figure out the pineapple bag pattern on Ravelry. So sad. But then, the Dreamstress did an inspiration post and sewed her own. I shall be making a pattern for that too, apparently.  

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Then it came down to scouting out materials to actually make this dress. 

I already had left over peacock teal chantung in my stash (left over from an 1860's ball gown), and there would certainly be enough to make the open robe with that. Random side note: I think I have a thing for deep, saturated teals because that color is starting to dominate my ball gown selection. Now, I know that chantung is no where near historically accurate, the material is too nubby. A smooth fabric would have been a better choice. But, honestly, I'm not aiming for a perfect look. Yes, I do want to look the part, but you can't argue with a stash-busting project that can certainly do a fine job of things.

For the actual dress, I found a simple dotted Swiss at Joann's (of all places) that would do the job credibly and pearl buttons for the fancy sleeves. 

The sketched out result from lunch breaks, blog hopping, and Pinterest cruising.

All that being said, I should probably get sewing. ;)

Until next time!

SG

Throw-Back Thursday: 1860's Ball Gown

For the Victoria and Albert ball, it was black tie required. What's that? Since when in the Great Northwest did we ever have a black tie required? Oh well. It's a grand opportunity to get all gussied up in your finest to dance the night away. My only problem was that I didn't have a mid-1800's ball gown. But since the ball was still months away, I had time to plan. Rather, deliberate and be indecisive. I didn't know what I wanted my ballgown to look like. Now, keep in mind, this was before Pinterest became my favorite website, and I was relatively new to the whole historical fashion scene. Actually, I'm still pretty new, come to think of it. 

But I digress. After much wrestling with myself and no clear direction of what the dress should look like, I just let the thought sit for a while. A long while. Then, while helping my sisters clean off their bookshelves, I found a coloring book of Godey's fashions. After perusing the book, I found a skirt that I really liked. The rest of the dress then fell into place. I drew up a sketch that looked something like this to get the idea onto paper.

The it was onto color work. I'm not the hugest fan of pastels; part of that is that they make my face look absolutely drained of all life. Pastels do bad things to me. I tend to gravitate towards richer, more saturated colors. But those can look... drab. Do you see the conundrum that I was in? I wasn't able to find much inspiration in the colored pencil box either. :sigh: What's a girl to do?  Checked Joann's. Nothing (not a big surprise). I couldn't make it to the gigantic fabric store on the far, far side of town. A friend suggested that we look at a fabric store in her area. Okay. We'll give it a shot. 

Guess what. We walked in and saw the fabric right away. There it was, a gorgeous shantung in a rich shade of peacock teal. But what could you contrast such a strong color with? We meandered around the store and found a couple of options - a metallic gold shantung and some sheer cream with floral embroidery. We layered the sheer over the gold to tone down the shiny-ness of the metallic. 

I loved it. 

I had my dress! 

Just had to make it. ;) 

  Embellishing it was probably my favorite part of the entire sewing process. All those fabric flowers! I should have counted how many individual flowers I made to go on that dress. Ribbon flowers, flowers made from the scrap fabric, flowers with gold buttons, and flowers with pearls, cream flowers, teal flowers, gold flowers, light brown flowers, tiny yellow flowers. So many flowers! I just worked on them while watching TV in the evenings. After getting a garden's worth of florals all made up, I tacked them onto the dress and stepped back. 

:SQUEE!!!: It was better than I had imagined. And it was finished the night before the ball. 

The chair tried to eat me...

The ballroom

We even had live music for the dances!

That was all in the fall of 2011. Has it already been that long since that wonderful evening? 

Now, there's a 'Kings and Queens' ball quickly approaching, and I'm wondering if I should pull out the teal ball gown. After it's first wearing, I noticed a couple things that needed changing:

- The lace on the sleeves = no go. That will need to be delicately chopped off. 

- The skirt needs to be attached to the bodice so it doesn't twist around. Nothing that some hooks and eyes can't fix!

There is one snafu... The venue is a gym, yet there's no good place to get changed. Since there's room for my time travelling wardrobe, I'll have to get completely ready at home and drive to the ball in complete 1860's attire. It's one thing to drive with panniers; it's a completely different challenge to drive while wearing a hoop skirt. I'm sure that would be a first for the police officer. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm going to need to you walk in a straight line and do a breath test. ... What are you wearing?" "I'm sober, officer. I just can't see anything below my waist." Now, to be completely honest with you, I have yet to be pulled over for a traffic violation, and I would like to keep it that way. 

Until next time! 

SG