Amelia's Yellow/Wiggle/Alice 1860s Dress

Having completed my daughter's tan dress using the Elizabeth Stewart Clark's Sewing Academy Girl's dress pattern (https://www.thesewingacademy.com/shop/) I felt confident in undertaking a bigger project.

My husband has always been a big fan of Alice in Wonderland. My daughter loves Emma Wiggle (http://www.thewiggles.com.au/). I love original garment inspiration. So after a few months of discussion and planning we found a way to mix all three into an amazing dress.

 Stock Art Image of Alice from Google

Original Dress from the MET Online Collection

(https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/80030738?img=2)



 

I started with yellow cotton as the original inspiration is described. I was surprised as I expected it to have been made of wool. The braiding was hand sewn using a black cotton soutache braid.

 I started with the sleeve design as it was a simple loop. The ends of the braid were pushed into the seams and hidden inside the dress as can be seen with the sewing of the waist braid. Once the waist was decorated I then finished the construction of the waist by closing and hand stitching the inside waist closed. This means that non of the black thread can be seen inside the dress.

 It took me a few days to finish the waist as I was only working on this a few hours at night.

The completed top half of the dress.

 Once the rest of the garment was complete I began work on the skirt. This design was a lot more complicated. I created a design on tracing paper then transferred it to the skirt with invisible/washable ink.

 To help keep the braid smooth I used an embroidery frame while hand sewing. I began and finished the braid at the centre back seam, with the braid ends hidden inside the garment.

I chose to place the braid higher up as I wanted a deep hem on this dress as I am 6ft tall and expect my daughter to grow fast (which she is). I wanted this dress to have a long life.

**Edit - When my daughter turned 3 years of age she requested her first crinoline and that required me to drop the hem significantly, so I was very happy with this decision. She loves this dress and it has had an amazing amount of use.

 
Dropping the hem significantly.

 

 Playing indoor croquette while on holiday.

Enjoying the day with her apron on, a rare occasion.

  Homestead station vacation

(yes I know my collar/chemisette is missing.... All this toddler sewing has left my wardrobe looking sad and in need of repairs)

 

 

 



Tan Toddler's 1860s Dress

Nic was able to get some of Elizabeth Stewart Clark's Sewing Academy Patterns shipped to Australia through a pen pal of his in America. I am super grateful to Betty for helping us out with the patterns.  I highly recommend these patterns for children. They are easy to follow, customisable, multiple sizes and period correct for the 1860s

I made all the undergarments according to the pattern. Amelia was too small for the smallest size, but that is just a bonus for me. I moved the buttons inwards to allow overlap on her stays and stitched the straps further down to make them shorter.

I do not have many photos of her undergarments, but I do have this shocker at the end of a full day event on a very hot day over 35C after her dress had to be removed due to something that she accidentally poured on herself.

** Edit - now at 3 years of age I have put the straps and buttons back to the pattern location and she has had 2 years of wear out of the same undergarments. Hopefully she will still fit them in another year. I have also used the patterns to make her new drawers and chemises. I still love how easy this pattern is to sew.

Moving the buttons, shows where the buttons were when she was a toddler. The move gave her 2 inches of growth room.

 

 

The dress pattern has many options to customise it. I used the draw string neck toddler dress for 2 year olds. I was given some amazing vintage fabric that I thought looked perfect and added multiple 1 inch growth tucks. The dress also has a piece of vintage lace under the bottom pin tuck.

 

 

 at the Goldfields in the Barossa

 

 

 

 Ayers House Museum

 Afternoon tea at Kingston House

Anlaby Homestead 

 

In this photo you can see that we have now had to let out all the pin tucks. She is also wearing a super cute child's bonnet I made before I was pregnant.

 3 years old and now wearing her first crinoline attached to her stays under the same dress. The dress no longer has any pin tucks.

 

 

 

Miss Amelia May with Minnie May her matching rag doll.

A New 1860s Work Dress

I have been very busy with my university studies over the last few months. While I have slowed down on my sewing I have not stopped. I have, however, not been able to take many photos of my work as I have had to make the most of my free time. Normally, I use events as an opportunity to photograph completed items, but I have not been attending as many. As a result, I will probably just flood posts as I get a chance to photograph them. 

A while ago I fell in love with the sleeves on this dress from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Mainly I really love the sleeves. I like that this dress tailors in the top of the bishop sleeve to streamline the look more.

For our second wedding anniversary Nic purchased some beautiful blue cotton to make a new dress for around the house and the fabric seemed perfect to make a dress with these sleeves. It took longer to make than anticipated as I had to toile a new bodice from scratch. While I was unable to take construction photos, I have some completed photos showing the fastenings.

 For this dress I decided to use a dog leg closure. I also intend to add pockets at a later date to make it more usable and practical. This is also the first time that I have put the hooks under a placket and the eyelets into the seams. I copied this form of closure from some originals on 'All the Pretty Dresses' blog, which is an excellent and drool worthy resource.

 The sleeve cap was fairly simple to draft as it is fitted into the arm hole. It is piped on the top and the bottom and is lined in white cotton to provide strength and assist it to sit nicer with the weight of the bishop sleeve under it. 

 The bishop sleeve is a basic bishop sleeve that has been drafted straight on the top and curved at the wrist (to create the puff as the bottom) and is box pleated into the sleeve cap (for lack of a better descriptive word).

 It was then gathered into the wrist band. I went a little extravagant and used some decorative metal buttons I found in my stash. Sometimes its nice to have a little bling... even in the 1860s.

 The skirt is hung from the waist and attached by whip stitching into the back of the piping. I have pleated it into double knife pleats (a second smaller pleat behind the larger one seen from the front. The raw edges of the skirt fabric has been left untreated.

Finally the back of the dress. It sits a lot smoother on me than my mannequin, unfortunately it is in need of some serious re-shaping. I have made this dress a little bit bigger than I normally fit my dresses. As it is for around the house I wanted it to be comfortable. It is also shorter in the skirt, so that I can wear it with a 90" crinoline (if I ever find the time to make it), but mainly with just petticoats. As with all my skirts the bottom is hemmed with cotton herringbone tape on the bottom edge and bag lined in white cotton.

Photo taken by Darren Williams of Mandi and Myself.

If you have read my previous posts on events this dress has passed the usage test. So far I have sawed logs and been camping, which involved cooking over a camp fire, dishes and laundry. I also wore it when pulling down the encampment. 

 Sawing wood at the Barossa Goldfields

 The back at the Goldfields

Cooking at Taminick... not the best photo, but Nic only took 2

Finally, I am very happy with how the dress turned out and I look forward to wearing it more in future.

1860s Mourning Dress

For some reason unknown to me, we often get invited to participate in funeral reenactments. It was because of this that the first outfit I made when I first started sewing was a mourning dress. Unfortunately it had a lot of problems. The bodice is too big, the neckline to big and its clearly a Simplicity pattern. There was not enough fabric given to me to make a skirt, so I was given a skirt made for me very generously by one of the ladies that would help me temporarily of a polyester that works amazingly well as a microfiber cloth as I walk through my house. I have come a long way in my sewing since then and therefore decided last May that it was time to finally upgrade my mourning dress.

 My first dress.

After looking around for awhile online I finally found this dress from the Metropolitan Museum.

Metropolitan Museum Mourning Dress ca 1867

While I love silk  dresses, I tend to like simpler cotton dresses. There are already many women in the group I am involved with that have many beautiful silk dresses, that I find it nice to focus more on the cotton and working/middle class impressions. Although I do still like a nice dress every now and then. Either way I loved the shape and design features of this dress. 

I started making this dress in May of last year for an event. Unfortunately I started making it a week before a funeral event and I never managed to complete it in time. I was able to finish the toile, construct the bodice and attach one sleeve. It then remained on my mannequin for the next 6 months while I was occupied with my studies.

The other day I decided to sign up for the Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenges. For the second fortnight the challenge is to complete a UFO. I can not think of another UFO more deserving of being completed than this one (other than Nic's 1830s frock coat.... which I'm current out of love with once again as I have to draft and fit the sleeves).

In undertaking this dress in May I was in love with the challenge of the simple yet beautiful features of the pin tucks and decorative darts. I believe that it took me about three tries with the calico to get it to a stage where I was happy. It also took a bit of work to then translate the effect correctly to the voile that is a lot softer and stretchier. I am very grateful to Jessie for all her help in getting the fitting and details perfect. I feel sometimes I must be a trial in my need to make everything perfect. I love how the Met Museum has the zoom feature on their dresses so that I can indulge in this bad/awesome habit.

It really has been easy to finish as there is not much detail left, everything was cut out and ready to sew. The only difficult part was the hanging  of the skirt from the waist with the two layers of fabric. This was overcome with a little patience and a lot of pins. The bodice and skirt on this dress are two separate pieces. I was going to make it as a one piece dress, like most originals and drawings of this period, however I noticed that on the MET photos you can see the skirt waist band and separation between the skirt and the bodice on the back view. Therefore, I made them as a two piece and added waist hooks to keep the bodice attached and sitting flat.

Unfortunately, I do not have any construction photos due to the speed that I was sewing, my lack of remembering to take photos and as I cannot find the photos I took when drafting and fitting the bodice originally.

 Close up of the front of the bodice.
The pin tucks are stitched down only on the voile. The darts are only pressed flat, as I could see no stitching on the original. The lining is in a skin tone cotton and has none of the features of the voile (It is a plain lining with normal fitting darts).
The front is closed using hooks and hand sewn cotton thread eyelets. The closure is center front with a longer waist band that closes further to the side, as on the original.

 Close up of the back of the bodice.
This was constructed the same as the front.

Close up of the sleeve. The ribbon I made using a strip of silk that I folded over and tacked down by hand. I also used silk organza to make the ruffles on the cuff.

 The front and back of me wearing the dress after finishing walking in the Australia Day Parade in Adelaide. The skirt looks too long in these photos, as I did not realise I was standing on an incline. On flat surfaces it has a 1" (3cm) clearance on the front and 1/2" (1.5cm) on the back.

The Challenge: UFO
Fabric: Black Cotton Voile, Skin Toned Homespun (lining), Black Silk Dupion (sleeve trim) and Black Silk Organza (sleeve trim)

Pattern: None - drafted and fitted from a previous fitted calico pattern.
Year: ca. 1867

Notions: steel hooks, skin toned tape for under hem

How historically accurate is it? As accurate as I know how to make it, I referenced the photos on zoom and a similar dress in Nancy Bradfield's Costume in Detail pg 221 and photos I previously took of originals in a friends collection.

Hours to complete: about 18 hours. The original construction of the bodice 6 months ago took a lot longer as I had to get the pin tucks and visible darts correct.
First worn: today to take the completed photos

Total cost: I believe that the cottons were about $8 per meter on special and I used.... ummm about 9 meters of each as I am very tall (6 foot) and need a lot of fabric in my skirt drops.... so about $150. The threads and silks were scraps from previously finished garments.

As this dress was very quick to finish and while going through my other UFO's I found/had a moment of pure inspiration.....

To be continued......

Regency Christmas Picnic

Well today we had our Victoriana Society annual Regency Christmas Picnic. I also finally got some photos of my completed long sleeve dress and linen gloves. We simplified our plans this year as we had way tooo much food the year before. We also found some different Regency picnic food recipes to try including scotch eggs and quail eggs. Very yummy, I now have the intention of trying to convince Nic to let me get some quails for my new avery when I build it in January.

Nic is away, at work in the Perth office, atm. It is amazing how much more difficult it is to attend events without a man. Thankfully, I had some friends to help me prepare and to take the following lovely photos.

 Mandy, Derek, Dave and Wendy

 Group Shot

and finally a photo of the completed dress. Not bad after 2 years of hand sewing on interstate trips. I hope my next dress does not take so long. I do get the feeling wearing it that I should have a few children hanging from my skirts. Maybe one day.

 and my linen gloves, also hand sewn while on interstate drives. Its amazing how much hand sewing can be completed in a car. Thankfully, Nic does the driving to assist with this.