Truly Victorian natural form part 3 TV423 TV324 TV221

 Back to my Victorian natural form journey. This outfit was to be worn for the Victorian Festival fashion show but with all events cancelled it now hangs in my closet.

I used 3 different colors of silk taffeta. The main gown is Mandrake (deep eggplant), contrast is Mandragora (golden olive green) and a small accent of warm grey lavender. The first two fabrics were bought from Silk Baron and the accent fabric was from my stash.

I decided to push my skills a bit and added a back accent based on a gown at the MET, The Mrs. F.M. Carroll dress. It's lovely gown and the back of the bodice is very interesting and unusual.

TV423 Two Toned Bodice:

I already reviewed this lovely pattern so I'm just sharing some of my process on copying the back of Mrs. Carroll's dress. I would like to say I did some fancy math and sketched everything out in 100% perfect detail but.....Nope. After looking at the picture and counting how many bow shapes I was going to need I cut out the 2 back bodice pieces in muslin and started to sketch out the pieces on the back. I used iron away ink so if I made mistakes they would disappear. :-)

The interesting thing about the Carroll dress is if you zoom in you can see that some of the back bow shaped pieces aren't perfectly even. Nice to know that even such a beautiful gown has little discrepancies like that since my stuff is never perfect either.

Here is the back cut out in muslin. You can see I traced out shapes down the back. Once the shapes were traced out I laid a piece of tracing paper over the back and traced the bow shapes. I added 1/2 inch seam allowance to each bow shape. Once the pattern making part was done I cut the shapes out in fabric and lining. I also made the contrast piping. I made a practice bow and realized sewing them RST on top and bottom and trying to turn them RSOut was a problem... The centers were too narrow to pull the wider ends through. 

So what I did is I stitched just one side and then I pressed in the seam allowances on the other side and whip stitched them together.

Here is the front of the finished piece.

Here is the back, you can see my very coarse whip stitching. Coarse is ok because no one will even see it. :-)

Once all my little pieces were stitched together I laid them out on the muslin to make sure I was headed on the right path. Now it was time to cut out the back bodice pieces. I decided to just cut out the back bodice in case this all went sideways I would still have enough fabric to head in another direction. 

After sewing the center back seam I began stitching all the little pieces down leaving about 1.5 inches in the center of each piece open so I could lace the fabric tie up the center back when it was time. The rest of the bodice construction was pretty standard. I did change the neckline and drafted out a different collar, I also made the sleeves 3/4 length. At this point I tried on the bodice and I didn't like how the top two bow pieces looked. My upper back curves forward (bad posture) and those top two pieces really drew attention to my upper back curve. So I took them off and I really prefer how for me, less is more. The thing to give thought to as you are contemplating design elements is your frame size. I'm not very tall and some design elements are too much for my frame. Also I am short waisted and all that detail going down the back was a bit much. Another example, I have a short neck so when I'm making garments (even modern ones) I normally will shorten the collar stand and sometimes the collar piece itself just to make it fit my frame better. Sleeve cuffs are another one. Sometimes they are too big visually for my small wrists so I will make them smaller so they don't overwhelm me. Hopefully this makes sense. :-) 

Once the bodice was completely finished I used an extra long piece of ribbon and wound it up thru the center back openings to see how long to cut my fabric. I essentially made a narrow tube the length needed and just threaded it up through the center back. For the bottom of the fabric tube I just copied the original dress as best as I could interpret it. It looks like 3 loops, 1 knot and then three hanging streamers of fabric. That was my best guess.

There are other style details I added to the bodice that aren't part of the pattern. I just looked at fashion plates to find things I liked and then played with tracing paper and the pattern pieces. It all came together very well in the end.

TV221

Tie back underskirt is just that. I added pleated trim to mine and the top part of the skirt is actually cheap home decor cotton so I didn't waste any good silk on a part of the gown no-one would see. This skirt goes together easily and I had no issues with it.

TV324

Long draped overskirt. This is another simple make and my only dislike is how droopy it is. Even with nice crisp taffeta. I tacked some of the pleated gathers to make it drape better and overall I like the finished result. 

The eggplant colored fabric like to photograph brown but it's really not. I think the camera picks it up as closer to Aubergine which does have brown tones to it. The green is pretty spot on in color. Both fabric were bought from Silk Baron.

Well I hope you enjoyed this post. I quite like natural form and will certainly make other garments. Thanks again for tuning in to the chronicles of Mimi.

Butterick 6093 Downton Abbey dress

I just finished making this dress in time for a Downton Abbey themed garden party at Dunn Gardens in Seattle.

I chose view "A" because I think the envelope picture of view "B" is ugly. However, The Pragmatic Costumer made a revised view "B" that was fabulous.

This is a fairly easy dress to sew. I would not say it is for a beginner, but if you have a few dresses under your belt and can do some pleating, sleeves and a zipper, go for it.

Sizing. This runs true to size as far as the finished measurements go. I graded several sizes together to make my dress. My FBM is 42 inches D cup. High bust is 36. I did not want to do a FBA (full bust adjustment) so I did a cheater FBA. I cut size 14 in the neck and shoulders. Size 16 on the side seams.

But wait! If Mimi's bust measures a 42 how can she cut a size 16 and not do a FBA? Size 16 is for a 38 bust. Well, you see all those gathers on the under bust of the dress. Those are your friends. I just used less gathers for my under bust seam. Simple!

I do have a D cup and we know most patterns are designed for a B cup. But I found there was plenty of room. Now, if you needed to do a FBA you would just rotate the FBA dart down into the under bust gathers. Still easy, but I was super lazy.

Skirting the issues:
Where I could have gotten into big trouble is the waist/hip area. Luckily I read The Pragmatic Costumers review BEFORE I cut my fabric. This dress is a very columnar style. And even though my hips are never a fitting issue for me, on this dress they would have been. So I sized up the skirt to about a 20 (44 hips). My hips are 43, fyi. I sewed the darts and did the pleating. And I just used less gathers on the bodice once I attached it to the skirt.

There were some changes:
View "A" is a fabric hog. I did not realize it is a double skirted dress (over skirt and under skirt). TWO WHOLE SKIRTS!!! Duh! Well of course I ran out of my floral fabric...And no more to be found either. So I needed to think outside the box. One of the things I did not like about this pattern is the vent on one side of the skirt. I understand why it is there, but it is a very modern solution for the narrow skirts of that era. So I decided to make the under skirt a separate garment. I used the provided underskirt pattern and added a few inches to the back seam. I used a simple drawstring waist to finish it. By adding that extra fabric to the back I did not need the side vent for walking. My under skirt has ample room but still kept the column shape of the time period. My underskirt is also a false bottom skirt. I wasn't going to go buy 2.5 yards of fashion fabric when I could buy .75 yards and use muslin for the top of the underskirt. No one is going to see that part of the skirt anyway. You can't see in the picture but the visible underskirt is a light green and white check linen.

Updated pictures 8/11/2020

The quick and dirty round up:
Make a muslin. If you are over a D cup you may want to do a FBA. Really pay attention to the waist/hip size and make adjustments. I give this pattern a thumbs up and it has gone in my favorites drawer. I will certainly make it again.

And......

Yes, Sean Bean...since you asked...Ahem 

I'm wearing a Titanic era corset (purchased) a princess petticoat and Edwardian combinations under my corset.