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.

Getting Started - Eep!

Hello!

I love to sew, and lately I've been obsessed with the idea of making a civil war era ballgown, complete with all the appropriate undergarments.  I've finally gathered everything I need, so it's time to start!

I've sourced my supplies from a number of different places.  I found hooping wire at our local theatre shop, but since I didn't buy enough (and it's pricey!) so I also got some steel wire from the hardware store to use for some of the structure.  I found my patterns at Hancock Fabric, where they always have Simplicity patterns for 40% off.  Corset stays had to be bought online, since I couldn't find them anywhere in my mid-west capital city.

For fabric, I went through www.onlinefabricstore.net - I was able to get muslin for mock ups very cheaply, and I was astounded that I could get my real fabric for about $3.00 a yard.  I got a nice green cotton lawn.  I would have preferred to go with a silk organza, but silk is pricey and I wanted as much as possible to get a fabric that would have been available during the era (so no poly!).  My lawn is quite nice, should be easy to work with (though it will wrinkle easily) and is something that a middle class woman probably would have been able to afford for a fancy dress.  I got canvas for the corset at Wal-mart, and I had fabric given to me for the undergarments.

I also bought a Singer adjustable dress form; in college, our theatre department had the super nice, expensive, real dress forms.  Those are a bit out of my price range, and I never really learned how to pad them up to a new size.  I'm hoping the adjustable holds up - it seems a bit fragile, and the comments online have been mixed.

I've already cut out the undergarments, and I'm going to sew them first (even though I really, really want to do the dress first.  But that would be dumb.  Really dumb.  Because you need the undergarments before you can do the dress).

This is going to be a long term project (I'm an attorney, so life is busy), but I'm looking forward to it!