A Hand-Sewn 18th Century Jacket In A Day!

On Saturday, I had an 18th century event I wanted to attend. . . And on Friday, (yes I mean the day before!) I decided that I should turn this fabric:



Into this jacket:



In just the one day, and with doing the entire thing by hand - no machine involved!

Well, this is how far I got on day #1:



Not too shabby! I was able to get up the next morning and finish it enough to be able to wear it. . .





I really feel like this went pretty well, considering that I did not make a mock-up before cutting in to my fabric! I should have probably shortened it overall just a bit, as I'm pretty short-waisted and there's wrinkling there telling me it wishes to be shorter, but it's nothing too extreme. . . Really, I think the only things I need to fix are to move the shoulder strap, and rotate the sleeve. The pattern (which is the JP Ryan jackets pattern) had me lining up the sleeve so that the sleeve seam lines up with the bodice seam under the arm. This is not correct! If you do that, the nook for your elbow will be sticking out of the side/front of your arm. And that's why you see the end of the sleeve being all wrinkly on me! So, I'll need to rotate the sleeve a bit, and then I think it will be just about perfect.

All in all, I'm super happy with it! And now I know that I can hand-sew an entire 18th century jacket in less than 24 hours. In fact, I kept a little log of all the time I spent on it, and it actually came to 13 hours and 6 minutes! It actually should have taken a little longer than this because I didn't finish the second half of the jacket as nicely as I did the first half, and I've yet to make eyelets. . . Just for kicks, when I go to do all that, I'll have to track that time too!

New stays are getting there. . .

Last night, I finally stopped procrastinating the part where I overstitch the panels together by hand, and sat in front of a good movie and went to town. It's almost done! Just a little more to go on the wedge-shaped pieces.



And then, I even remembered to wash out the markings before going to bed, so that it would be dry today in order to put boning in. . . Which is what I need to go do right about now! ;)

New stays!

So I went a little crazy the other day and decided I needed new stays for an event I'm attending a week from Saturday! And that I also need other things, such as an apron, a flat cap, and maybe even a new jacket. . . What can I say? The 18th century sewing bug has bitten - and hard! It was around this time of year many moons ago when I first started falling in love with reproducing 18th century, so every year around this time I start getting obsessed with 18c all over again, and I'm sure that is helping me feel inspired to take on so much just now. ;)

As much as I'd love beautifully period-correct, hand-sewn stays out of fine fabrics, with a deadline like that, I had to be sensible and take short cuts. That said, I also want those period-correct stays some day. So here's my happy medium, so far:



I did thus far by machine. This is a different construction method than I typically use. I'm used to constructing cover layer and lining layer separately, sewing them at CF and CB, and then flipping them, and sewing boning channels. What I've done here is turn the raw edges for each panel inwards, and sewn the cover layer to lining layer, and sewn all boning channels. . . (And the blue you're seeing is the washable marker, which I'm about to wash out - not stitching lines. I was boring and did the stitching in white. But hey, my previous stays are cream, and then pink with white, so I had no boring white stays yet!) So now, I'll whip the panels together by hand. . . And then I just need to wait for some missing boning lengths to arrive, and then it's just binding and eyelets. (Neither of which technically need to be done in order for them to be worn, so even if that boning arrives at the eleventh hour, I should be okay!)

Oh, and for the record, this is the newer JP Ryan stays pattern (the one that has straps).

On a roll with the web site updates!

I figured I would just "get started" with setting up page templates for the events I need to add. . . But then I ended up going ahead and adding the event pics themselves!

Newly added:

- Pictures from the Regency Picnic 2012
- Pictures from the Library Stroll & Tea (Okay, those weren't newly added, but I seem to have uploaded the images right after the event, just never linked to them from the album page!)

Still to add:

- Pictures from Dress U 2012
- Pictures from Costume Con 2011

Belated Spring Cleaning. . .

Just doing a little housekeeping on the web site today. . .

- Updated the Dolls section to include the three newest additions.
- Added a "Patterns" section, which now links to the free 1910s bra pattern. Moved the Corded Petticoat tutorial over there too, because that seemed to make sense.
- Consolidated the "News" and "More" sections into one "Info" section which now has all the biographical and link info in one place.

Still to do in the near future. . .

- Massive update to the Events page. (How did I get to be almost an entire year behind on posting pictures from events?!?!?)
- Finally begin to upload some of the pictures I took of my antique clothing collection.

Changes for Felicity

It's been way too long that this project has sat, unfinished! Twenty-one years is a LONG time to long for one particular dress! ;) I'm presently on a little bit of a "summer vacation," and am dreaming of wearing this dress in Williamsburg this fall (I hope!) and so, I've picked back up where I left off. Which is, with an almost perfectly patterned bodice/sleeves/stomacher, and a partially made petticoat.

My goal here is still to find a happy medium between faithfully recreating the doll's dress, but also achieving some historical accuracy. One of the reasons I stalled on this project for a long time was because the doll's dress has the bodice back pieces and skirt back cut separately, yet every extant example of a dress from this era with a stomacher that I could find had the bodice and skirt cut in one, and then pleated down. I wasn't sure if I wanted to lean more towards the doll dress, or historical accuracy with this detail. In the end, I've decided to go with the separate bodice back and skirt pieces. I hope I'll some day find at least one surviving example supporting this, but even if not, I feel it is plausible that someone who was sewing a dress at home would like the stomacher-front that had been in fashion, and mix it up with the new fashion for cutting the bodice and skirt separately. And in the story, this dress is indeed homemade, partly by Felicity's mother, and then finished by Elizabeth's mother. That the dress was made by two different seamstresses helps my case for the possibility of the two styles being blended even more. Yes, I am a dork. ;)

So far today, I have cut everything out, and shortly will begin sewing it. . .

And now with a hat!

Today I attended a stroll and tea which required a hat as part of the dress code, so of course I started mine last night. ;) This is just a cheap party store straw hat, which got soaked and shaped and left over night to dry - which it didn't! So this morning, I spent time going over it with my hair dryer, which got it mostly dry. Then I took a long strip of fabric and fashioned it into something bow-ish. It's not perfect, but hey, it worked! And, being ever so slightly damp meant I was able to shape it a bit more once I had it on. Here it is in the picture below, worn too far off to the side, because during the course of the stroll, I discovered this hat is definitely a two-hat-pin hat!