Old blanket + prom dress = LoTR inspired?

Hello all!  I attempted to make posts as I went along with this one, but the technology was arguing with me so I gave up.  And I made this one pretty quickly - three or four days (some are just evenings) over the course of about two weeks.

I'm helping my mom and dad move, and we had an old velvet blanket that my mom was using to cover a wall.  It had lots of holes in it from being made to fit the wall, and one burn spot.

I also found my prom dress from junior year.  And I had a pattern sitting around for a LoTR style dress.  Sooooooo . . . . that's what I decided to do.  Because clearly, that's what you do with velvet, satin, and organza.

The first step was prepping the fabric.  I had to puzzle out how to fit the dress pieces on the velvet, and I had to make the skirt and sleeves less full.  I also had to separate the skirt of the prom dress from the bodice, and then separate the organza from the satin.

Once I had the skirts separated, I took a panel out of the satin and sewed it back up.  I used part of the organza for the lining of the sleeves.

After that, it was a matter of following the pattern (except I altered it to make the center panel disappear since I was doing an underskirt instead.  It's way more accurate to both the LoTR movie dresses and the historical periods those dresses are based on).

Here's the finished product!  The underskirt is to the right - it tends to static cling to my dress dummy.  It's a lot fuller than it looks here.

The back turned out pretty well - I had some sewing issues with the panels for the eyelets, but it's not too bad.

 The sleeves are one of my favorite things about the dress.  You have a pointy bottom (always a favorite from childhood cartoons and historical periods) AND you get the flowing over-sleeve.  It's ridiculously fun.

The only items I bought to make this dress was the trim (on sale at Hancock Fabrics, and somehow I magically guessed the exact right amount to get - the pattern doesn't account for trim along the front like I have, because it doesn't do an underskirt - the color in the front is just a panel of the actual skirt. Yuck) and the gold lacing for the back, and a bit of interfacing since I couldn't find mine.  Overall, not too shabby!

Time to Dance ;)

The dress is done!  Well, except one small step.  I need to make button holes on the back of the bodice so it can lace up.  I need to get a new buttonhole foot for my sewing machine - I can't find mine.

The first step was cutting out the fabric.  I used the pieces from the muslin mock up as my pattern pieces.  Since the green lawn is SO thin, having the muslin helped with cutting since it gave some weight to the fabric as it was cut.  It was also faster since I didn't have to trace like I do with a paper pattern - I could just pin it down and cut.

I decided to line the bodice to add some weight and make the edges look better.  By placing the right sides of the fabric and lining together, sewing the seam, and then turning the fabric right side out, you instantly make a nice, clean edge to the garment.  Unfortunately, I missed parts of the bottom of the bodice, so I had to adjust and use bias tape to enclose the bottom.  It worked on the top though!

Overall I did pretty darn well with the finishing on this dress, which is one of the areas I really need practice on.  The one big exception was the bottom of the bodice - when I enclosed it in bias tape, this one little area wasn't quite long enough to catch, so I had to sew the raw edge down.  The lines of stitching aren't very pretty, but luckily they're only visible right up close.  A few feet away, and it doesn't look so bad.

The skirt was fun.  I cut out about 30 inches of width from the mock up because it was SO much to fit into the waistband.  I then put it up on the dress dummy so I could set the pleats the way I wanted them.

Here you can see the pleats in the back.  It took me probably an hour to do the pleats since I would set them one way, then decided I wanted more fullness in a different area of the skirt.  Once the pleats were set, I hand sewed them into place before I added the waistband.

Hemming the skirt was another challenge, but it was made much, much easier by having the dummy.  Since the dummy is set to my height and I had the hoop on the dummy, I was able to simply pin up the extra fabric so the hem fell where I wanted it to.  I then took the skirt off, basted (long stitch, easy to remove) the fabric in place so I could cut off the excess, and then removed the basting stitches to make a skinny hem on the bottom.  I may go back and put some bias tape on the hem just to give it some more weight, but it's sturdy and durable as-is.

Here's the finished product!  I've tried it on, and it all works pretty well.  Once I get the buttonholes set in the back, it'll be completely done and ready for dancing ;)

Is that mock up mocking me?

Here's a progress report on my sewing of the mock up for the dress.  For those who don't sew, the purpose of doing a mock up is to practice with the pattern before you cut your good fabric, and so that you can make any major fitting adjustments on the mock up. 

Mock ups are usually made of muslin, because it's easy to work with.  I'm staying true to form on that.  And I'm SUPER glad I did a mock up.

The very first thing I did was go through the pattern instructions and highlight the parts I actually need.  The pattern came with a lot of decorative additions that I'm not at all interested in, so I only cut out the pieces I actually wanted and highlighted the instructions I thought I would need.

The bodice was the first part I pieced together, and I'm torn as to whether I should line it or not.  On the one hand, lining is an easy way to make seams look nice.  On the other hand, the pattern anticipates the lining being used for . . . who knows what purpose.  The way they have you use it would not result in those nice seams I want. 

Once I got the bodice on the dress form, it was obvious it needed some fitting.  So I put in a few darts here and there, and it looks like it will fit better.  My dress form isn't identical to me, so when I get the full mock up done I will find someone to help lace me into the corset so I can try the dress on and see how close I've gotten and make any last minute adjustments.

Of course, I was SUPER smart and started making my darts on the outside of the dress instead of the inside . . . so I got to take them out, flip the bodice, and start over.  Oh well  - that's why we do a mock up.

This is what a dart looks like on the inside.  On the outside, it just looks like a line in the fabric.

Here's a view of the back - it also laces up, like a corset, since they didn't have zippers and such back then.  They had buttons by the 1860's, so I could probably also have it button up the back.  Either way, you need someone to help you get into it.

I think some women may have had dresses that button up the front, but this pattern would be difficult to do for that.  My original sketch has buttons on the front, and I may still do them for decoration (which I have seen in period pictures of simpler dresses).

After doing the bodice, the next step was the sleeve.  Let me tell ya, the pattern sleeve is awful - both in looks and in how complicated it is to make it.  The pattern sleeve is on the right in the picture.  The pattern piece for the sleeve lining, though, makes a nice cap sleeve (on the left side).  For the final dress I'm just going to use the "lining" to make simple cap sleeves.  (See why we do mock ups?)

See the difference in the sleeves?  Right side = hot mess of weirdness.  Left side = simple and pretty.

The skirt is MASSIVE - it winds up being 175 inches wide, which will all need to be smushed down to match my waist size.  The pattern calls for a complicated method of pleating, but when I started pinning it on the dress form to store for the night, I realized I can probably just pleat the final dress on the form, pin them, and then sew them.  WAY easier than what the pattern calls for, and fewer marks to transfer.

Overall, this pattern is way too complicated.  It leaves me scratching my head, even with my experience sewing garments.  And it has way too many extra steps and do-dads for what I want.  While I want this to be a ballgown, that distinction comes more from the size of the hoop and the skirt than from the fanciness, and I want to have it hold up well through vigorous dancing and over time, so simpler seems better.  I'm also not a huge fan of lots of frills thrown on top, and I'm going for a more middle-class look than high society.

It's still a lot better than trying to make my own pattern though!

I'm not worrying with a lot of the finishing steps on the mock up, since I just have to take them apart anyway.  I may also sit down with the instruction book tomorrow night and type out my own instructions to follow when I start to make the real dress so I don't spend as much time scratching my head trying to figure out their instructions, and so I don't forget what I learned by making the mock up.

Corset time!

Yesterday and today I made the corset, which was the trickiest piece (as I predicted).  I've lamented for a long time that sewing often requires taking something that is curved and somehow making it flat just long enough to sew it, and the corset was the epitome of this.  Especially when piecing the early seams.

My poor sewing machine deserves a rest - I broke at least three size 16 needles trying to do the finishing.  My sewing machine did NOT sound happy on the last few seams; not sure it's really meant for something this heavy.  If I do another project with duck canvas, I'm going to get size 18 needles and see if that helps.

 After sewing together most of the pieces of each half of the corset (if you've never thought about it before, you never realize that a corset is often actually two separate pieces, held together in the front by a busk and by lacing in the back), the next step was to sew (with very, very narrow seams) twill tape over the seams and in a couple of other areas to make the channels for the boning.

 The next step was to add the center-back piece on both sides, and then add the grommets.  The hardest part about adding the grommets was actually getting the holes to be the right size - my awl wasn't quite big enough, so I had to use scissors to enlarge the holes.  Then I had to hammer the grommets using the little grommet tool (sorry neighbors).

 Here's how it looks with all the grommets in place - not exactly perfectly straight or even, but not too bad overall.

 Here's how the corset looks before finishing the top and bottom and adding in the boning.  You can see how the duck fabric is stiff enough to already give the garment a lot of shape, even without the boning added in.

 Finished product!  It took me roughly ten hours, which isn't bad considering it's a pretty complicated project and I've never made a corset before.  Since my dress form can't "give" like a real body, I'm not trying to lace it up too tight.  Just enough to keep it on the dress form.  Sadly, I can't actually try it on by myself - I'll need a friend to help with that!

I might start on the muslin mock up of the dress tomorrow, but I should probably try on the undergarments and corset and have someone lace me up and help me take measurements first.  I'm pondering ;)  I can also just make the mock up and then try it on over everything and have someone help me with fitting from there.  Once I have my size in the corset I can reset the dress form and that will give me a pretty good model for fitting the dress, but the form doesn't go up quite big enough in the hips for me, and doesn't have the same shape/squishiness of a real body.  It's better than nothing though!

No pattern? No problem! A hoop made from math.

Today I made the hoop slip, and considering that I did not have a pattern I think it turned out DARN well.  I decided the best way to make the skirt would be to make a pattern piece that, when four were sewn together, would make the circular skirt.

I originally measured out my muslin pattern piece for a hoop that would have a 100 inch circumference at the bottom.  After looking at the hooping of that size, though, I thought it looked too small so I did some more research online.  Turns out that 100 inches seems to have been a standard size for day dresses, dinner dresses, etc, but for a ballgown the hoops were more like 120 to 135 inches.  So I revised my pattern by cutting out another smaller piece that would go between the bigger ones for eight total pieces of fabric sewn into a circle.
 
This is my original measurement/sketch sheet - I had a couple of different ideas.

Muslin laid out on the table to sketch my pattern piece - I measured the length and the width I wanted at top and bottom, then did some math and made guide points so I could draw the angles.

I sewed the eight pattern pieces (four big, four small) together, alternating the large and small.  I decided to make the seams flat felled, and I'm very glad I did.  This needs to be strong, and it REALLY helped with having the inside of the pockets be smooth for the hooping wire.

I then put a big hem in the bottom for the bottom hoop.  For the other hoops, I used my iron to make a crease to follow and sewed a pocket into the skirt.  This seemed easier than making separate pockets to attach, and I was right.

I then cut the hooping to the right length (I missed my guess a bit and the pockets wound up being a couple of inches shorter than I predicted, but that's ok).  And by cut, I really mean "mangle with my small wire cutters until my hands are sore and I sort of break it apart."  Hooping wire is actually two wires set in a balsawood (at least, it looks like balsa) and fabric structure, which is what makes it hold shape so beautifully.

 
The finished product!  The only problem I have is that the top hoop is too close to the waist, so I think it's going to be a very sudden jut out.  If I decide it's too weird, I can take the hoop out and move the loop down.

Chemise

Hello all!  After a few busy weeks of no sewing, I've finally been able to get moving again.  I'm part way through making the chemise.  I have to say, it's a good thing I figured out the whole flat-felled seam thing because the pattern has called for almost all the seams to be flat felled.  And I see why - they're strong, tidy, and they're not going to ravel.

The chemise is now done; it took about 8 hours total.  At least an hour of that involved me doing, redoing, redoing, and redoing the yoke at the top because there's SO much fabric to get gathered in that no matter WHAT side I sewed from I was catching the other half of the fabric and making strange bubbles and darts.  Even as I was doing a final look-over after I did the hem I found another one - somehow I managed to catch half of the underarm on one side and gather it up.  SO annoying.

I did make one change from the pattern; it calls for the addition of a facing on the inside of the underarm.  I understand the idea behind it - extra strength, and you hide a bunch of ugly seams - but I'm not so obsessed with hiding the inner seams, just making sure they're strong and won't ravel.  And since the goal of this project is to have a dress I can wear dancing in August . . . more fabric in the underarms is probably not a good idea.

 This pictures shows the neck gusset, which is that small triangle of fabric sewn on to the top of the front.  The purpose of the neck gusset is to make the front, back, and sleeve join properly and allow for a nice oval shape that will match up with the yoke.

 As you can see, there's a LOT of fabric in the chemise.  Here, the front, back, and side panels have all been attached.  The front and back together are already big enough to go around me, but the side panels add even more volume.

The chemise was the universal undergarment for many periods of history.

The sleeves were surprisingly easy to make . . . as long as I gathered the correct side.  The bands are a little tight on me, but hopefully the fabric will ease a bit and my arms will lose some circumference.

The finished garment!  Well, almost.  I need to get buttons to make the closure at the top, but that's a ten minute job (Sew on button; sew fabric loop for closure).  Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even if the stupid gather at the top was a royal pain and involved way too much fix-it time.

Underpants!

Today I sewed the underpants!  It took me about three hours, but that was with me being distracted by the TV and having to figure out the instructions (for those who haven't used commercial patterns lately, the instructions are waaay too brief and leave out key information).  Even with the amount of sewing I've done, I always have a few fits and starts and mistakes because I can't figure out what the instructions are telling me to do.

I also learned a new construction technique - flat felled seams.  Since (again) the instructions are really bad, I messed up both seams that were supposed to be flat felled, but the very top of one came out correctly and I had an "AHA!" moment when I saw it.  So now I know!

 This is NOT a flat felled seam.













This is also not a flat felled seam.  But riiight at the top there, that's what it should actually look like.  Now I know!

Top: Civil war underpants!

Side: hanging on the dress form.  If you look, you'll see that the pants don't actually close.  That's because civil war gals had to deal with big skirts, which meant they had to basically just be able to lift everything up and . . . go, when they needed to use the bathroom.