The Gown

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The Gown and Under-skirt

3-10-06: I thought I would end up taking the sleeves along to fair with me this weekend to finish, but guess what? I finished the lacing holes yesterday afternoon, I'm really getting pretty efficient at those. Then last night I went ahead and set in the sleeves. It went more smoothly than any sleeves I have EVER done, I usually put them in inside out and backwards at least twice before getting it right, but not this time. See, this gown WANTS to be done... So the pics are: the finished lacing holes, and the sleeves set in from the front and the back. I'm really pleased with how nice it looks. The gown is pretty much done, but I'll wait for the chemise to decide how I will treat the lacings for now. I'm thinking possibly lucet cords, with two gimps for some pizzazz? I'll try and find the handout from that Turk's Head Knots class I took a few years back, too. Oh, I need to put in the holes for the little tie at the neckline, too.

3-9-06: OK, no more fooling around. The gown has to leave the sewing room for the closet. I can't BELIEVE this project has been hanging around for almost two years. I WILL finish this! (I really really want to wear my bundlein!) I'm almost there, how hard can this be?

A few months ago, I think before Christmas actually, yikes, I actually made it out to SG's for a sewing day for the first time in a looooong time. We rolled the Nuremberg kit back out, and executed a genius idea of SG's for the sleeve draft. It involved me putting on an old t-shirt underneath the gown so far, SG pinning it snug, and then drawing the sleeve opening lines onto the t-shirt. Then, well, basically, we cut up the t-shirt and extrapolated a full-length sleeve from that. This worked surprising well, go figure. Here are pictures of the full sleeve toile from the front and back, which we did in one of the precious undyed scraps of the turel to make sure it would drape the same. We hand-basted it in, and it actually fit perfectly, and bunched in all the same places that the artwork does. You know what? Easy is good.

So I hauled out the gown today and got back to work. Sticking my arm down the sleeve, it still fits great. Here's a picture of the sleeve taken off the gown, all nice and ironed, and a pic of the paper draft I made from that.

Next, I cut out two sleeves from the fashion fabric and two from the linen lining. After way too much thought, I have decided that the sleeve will be closed for only a small bit under the arm, and otherwise open to the wrist for loose lacing, so I can have those nice little puffs of chemise sleeve hanging out underneath like in The Foolish Virgin. I sewed a fashion sleeve and a lining sleeve together for 18" of the sleeve length and across the wrist, clipped the corners and turned and pressed them. Next, I joined the short remaining sleeve length under the arm, and pressed that all nice, too. So far, so good. At first I was going to slap those suckers on the gown right away, but further reflection has shown me that the sleeves are probably easier to deal with on their own while I do the lacing holes, so the last picture shows my lacing hole markings, and the first couple of holes done. I'm thinking that the lacings will all be separate pieces, maybe with bells, so the holes are opposite each other, not spiral. Interlude, while I stitch up lots of lacing holes. I promise, I'll be back.

2-22-05: Still no pictures, but I took the gown along with me to ARF this weekend to sew the hem that SG pinned for me, so that part's all done. I'll pin up the lining a bit better this week so that I can finish that up next weekend. Slowly but surely!

1-24-05: No pictures, but I thought I would mention that SG was able to mark the hem for me on the fashion fabric against the underskirt last weekend, and I was able to serge off some extra fabric at the bottom this weekend, so I'll be able to start stitching the fashion fabric hem now. I've also decided to go ahead and add some hook and eye closures to the front opening, and some strategic snaps. I've got the hook and eyes mostly in, still working on the tiny little snaps, but this is keeping the closure much smoother. I'm leaving the lacing rings in for insurance, so that they can still bear most of the stress, but when I tried it on real quick this weekend (over a bra, no less) it didn't seem to be that strained, so I may end up not needing to do that. Saragrace is experimenting with some sleeve ideas right now, so I haven't gone any further on that front either. Updates are probably going to be spotty, my costuming energy really got sucked out of me on A Suitable Gown, and I decided this weekend that I don't want to rush it just to force myself to finish - I'm not enjoying that so much! So, I'm no longer aiming to have this done by Estrella War.

1-12-05: I'll be getting some help draping in the sleeves finally this weekend, but I decided to go ahead and throw together an underskirt for the gown, so we'd have something to work against for marking the hem on the gown. I want the underskirt to show just a bit at the bottom, so I figured this would help. The skirt is from some dark olive light-weight silk noil I found in the closet, hopefully it won't be too "sticky" under the linen lining of the gown. Construction was pretty down and dirty, I simply gathered about 5 yards of fabric to a simple plain waistband, and the hem is even a selvedge edge, so I really didn't need to do much for this. Sorry to show it on a hanger, but my dress form is doing double duty right now as the underpinnings form for A Suitable Gown down at the library.

10-3-04: OK, I got the lining put together today, and fitted into the fashion fabric. Looking pretty good, I think. I'm not too thrilled with my execution of the pleat panel insertion still, but after some strategic hand-sewing repairs, I think it looks a bit better. I think I'll make another one of these eventually, so I'll take this as a lesson learned for next time. Here's a shot of the hand-sewing in action on cleaning up the actual insert seam. After I had done one seam, I got to thinking that I may have had to do this anyway, because of how the gathering thread tails would hang out... I don't know, it hurts my brain to try to think it through, I should have considered that at the pleat mock-up stage, and didn't. In origami speak, it makes a difference if you end with a valley fold or a peak fold on the edges, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'm happier with that aspect now. I set in the lining, turned it, and went ahead and basted the armhole openings to the lining on a quarter inch seam. I'm trying to calm down how much the lining moves around while I finish up the final details, it will probably be a bit before I can get with SG to work on new sleeve drafts. Then I went ahead and put in the lacing rings. I was careful to go through to the coutil layer when I tacked these in, I learned that the hard way on the Flemish outer gown! I've never worked with lacing rings before, I ended up sewing them down a little less than halfway around the ring. They went faster than I thought they would. Then, of course, I had to rush over and try the thing on. For some reason, I was paranoid that it would be too small, I think a residual fear from how hard it was to get the thing on and off the duct tape form, but it actually fit great, with enough ease for the chemise, and a bit of breathing room, and good bust support. In the last picture, which is not intended to be a gratuitous cleavage shot, I'm trying to show how smooshable the pleats are, and how a strategic hook and eye will help me out quite a bit there at the top. I think I will go ahead and do some tiny snaps, and I'm hoping some careful top-stitching along the opening edge will help with the tendency of the lining to roll out at the edge. I laced this up today willy-nilly with some leather thong, which shed all over the place, natch. The rings are set up for spiral lacing. Getting there, slowly but surely!

9-26-04: Unbelievable, I actually got the fashion fabric together today. This has taken longer than I thought it would due to a hit and run visit from my folks, who were really only here to see my daughter anyway... So, I REALLY wanted to get going on this today. I started by pleating the pleat panel inserts, in the classic smocking manner, as you can see to the right. I laid in the pleating stitches from the back, through the double layer of batting, which I marked in pencil with 1/2" wide columns, to use for the stitch length guides. This really gave me smooth and even pleats in the finished panels. Next, I set the pleat panels into the appropriate fashion fabric pattern pieces. It was kind of exciting sewing over all the pleats at the tops of the panels. There's a picture of that here on the left, on my machine. So anyway, I really suck at clipping corners for turning, as I've said before, I could never be a quilter. Next, I took apart the shoulder and side seams of the coutil, so I could baste them individually to the fashion fabric before sewing it all back together. For the back panel, I left in the center seam line of the coutil. I'm hoping this reinforcement at the seam lines of the coutil will give a bit of extra stability to the pleats when I'm actually wearing the gown. Then I sewed it all together, adding the side gores after putting together the bodice portions. Here are some views of the front and the back on the duct tape dummy.

All in all, I'm pleased with how this part has come out, but there's some hand-sewing clean up I'll need to do, mostly because I'm so bad at the corners of the pleat set-ins. I'm really happy with the fullness of the skirt, as well. A problem I'm having is that the back opening of the dummy had popped open when I took the coutil off, so the shape is a little too big now. It's also hard to get the dress on over the arms, and the armholes aren't clipped yet, so that makes it even harder. It will probably be most useful to model this gown on myself from here on in. I didn't feel like putting the lacing strips back on, I'm going to be adding the lining layer this week, and I'll probably go ahead and put in the final lacing rings after that. It DOES fit me, even over a t-shirt, so that's no problem. As you can see from the picture of the back, I need to fix one of the pleat seams, but the gown really isn't as wonky as it looks on the dummy, the dummy shape just got distorted. That's really too bad, I had been planning on using this dummy for a while on other gowns, but that may not be possible. Must have been cheap duct tape, I guess.

9-19-04: Another step forward, finally! I finished cutting out the fashion fabric for the gown this afternoon, I may have time to start sewing it together later on tonight, but we'll have to see, it's my bath night for Lindy, so who knows if I'll have time. I was able to run over to SG's yesterday to pick up the lining fabric, but I didn't feel like ironing all that linen today, so I haven't cut out the lining pieces yet. Here are a few gratuitous shots I took today. Yes, I know I said I got this giant dining table so I could seat 10 at Thanksgiving, but a girl can have more than one reason for doing things, right? There's also a fluff shot of my new cat Adso unwittingly taking his life in his hands, and on the end we have a shot of the new lining fabric behind the new fashion fabric. The re-dye on the linen came out a perfectly beautiful deep plum, weird, huh? I'm still using it, but funny how I would never be able to get this color if I was trying for it...

9-13-04: I was able to get the fabric dyed yesterday when I was at SG's for a fitting. I'm really pleased with the re-dye, the color is much deeper and richer, and of course, much more uniform. The lining fabric came out pretty purple, but I don't have a picture of that yet, as I had to leave it for a final rinse cycle. Anyway, I should be able to cut out and start sewing the fashion fabric this week.

9-3-04: What a pain in my butt. I was ironing all the fabric today to prep for cutting out the pattern pieces, and I must have done something wrong when I dyed the fabric. It has gone totally streaky and patchy, almost like a tie-dye job. I am so frustrated right now. I've called Dharma and ordered the supplies to over-dye the fabric, and they can't ship until Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday. At first I was only going to re-do the fashion fabric, but I noticed a bit of bleed-through onto my ironing board cover when I was ironing the linen, and I don't want to take a chance that it isn't really set. I must have totally screwed up the fixative. So my nice long weekend of sewing (I figured I could practically finish the gown this weekend) has just gone down the tubes. I guess I can put together that other gold-edged vach set and finish an outer veil.

8-29-04: I was able to finish up the pleat experiments on Friday. I liked the look of the felted wool padding best, as I said, but was still concerned about how rigid the pleats were, so I experimented with a double layer of the cotton quilting batting. Success! To the right I'm showing the wool padded pleats alongside a longer version with the double layer of cotton batting. Not bad at all. The cotton batting provides enough structure, while still preserving a "drapey" quality that I like. I think there will be enough "natural" movement and flex to the final pieces this way. Next I wanted to work on the seams for the panel insert, to see if I could keep from adding that rigidness right back in. I wanted to try to insert the pleats into the fashion fabric, without having the inter-lining included in those seams, and then I thought I wanted to try to trim out the extra padding too. Would the fashion fabric hold up? I started by placing the padding a half inch down from the top edge of the fashion fabric, as you can see to the left. I went ahead and pleated the fabric, using sewing thread, on the half inch mark. In the final gown, I think I'll use Otfried's silk for the pleat gathering, it would be a major fiasco if that thread gave way after the gown was done, and I plan on leaving the gathering threads in. So, I figured the 1/2" allowance without the padding at the top might help ease that seam transition, and then I got to thinking, do I need the padding at the sides either? So I trimmed that off, too. I then decided I wanted to try to insert this piece, so I trimmed off the sides to a seam allowance on both edges, and compared this dimension with what I had sketched onto the paper pattern. The red lines are the final pleat dimensions, not too far off what I had hoped for. So I traced off a new bodice front pattern piece, and cut out the insert area, then added seam allowances to that. I cut a bodice piece out of some scrap turel, and inserted my little experimental pleat block. On the finished panel, I will control the pleats for a bit longer, this one is a bit shorter than I like. Then I slapped it up on the dummy to take a look. Again, not too bad. I'll have to leave the padding longer in the finished panels, so the turel doesn't try to poof out right away like this one did. The sewing is horribly sloppy, sorry. I realized right away I was going to have to use a different sewing foot on my machine, so that I could sew right up against the pleats. I think I used a zipper foot, anyway, it kind of freaked me out for some reason, I've only ever used a general purpose presser foot. Hm, I just flipped through my sewing machine guide, yeah, it was a zipper foot. I guess I should check out more of these sewing machine accessories, I've never known what any of them were for. What's a "Blind Hemstitch Guide"? I bet SG could tell me... Anyway, once I get used to sewing with that foot, I think the seams will look better, but all in all, I'm pleased with how the seam bulk was reduced, which will only get better with grading. So this is what I'm going to do for the pleats, yay!

Now that I have that little worry out of the way, I have gone ahead and drafted out the rest of the gown pieces. That makes it sound all complicated, but basically all I did was add skirting to the bodice pieces, and do cutting guides for the pleating panels. I hope there's enough fullness! The side gores are meant to be cut on the fold, adding an extra 30" on either side. I was tempted to cut the back piece on the fold, too, but there's a slight curve to my back that I didn't want to throw away. Why else did we do all that fiddling fitting anyway? Besides, I couldn't do that for the lining anyway, and I want this thing to stay pretty tailored. I should be able to start cutting out fabric and assembling this week, I'm taking my coutil over to Saragrace's today in case we have time to take another stab at the sleeves. We're supposed to be doing a fitting for the QE1 dress, wooo! It's kind of strange to go back and forth between these two dress styles, I have to say...

8-25-04: I have finished some small samples of possible pleating materials. I'm trying to figure out what I will end up using to "pad" the pleats, like I did for the Flemish gown, to give them a bit more substance. I'm not too thrilled by the results, and surprised by what looks the best: the fulled wool felt.

I pleated samples of some undyed scrap turel over garment weight wool, a second layer of turel, a piece of the washed and fulled wool felt, and a piece of the soft quilter's cotton batting that I used on the Flemish dress. I also have a mock-up/sample that Saragrace had done of the turel over unwashed wool felt, and already backed to a piece of canvas interlining while she played with some piecing ideas.

I am frankly really surprised that I like the look of the fulled wool felt best, but I like that the pleats are fatter, I think that looks like more of the artwork that appeals to me most. The Katerina Frey portrait only has ten pleats, including the center front closure seams! I don't think I can achieve the right proportion without making the pleats fatter like this. Part of what surprises me about liking the fulled wool best is that Saragrace and I both are pretty unhappy with the mockup she did over the unwashed felt. The pleats are so rigid you could park a small VW on them, and I'm thinking now that this is a side-effect of how they are backed to the canvas.

Above, I have some pics that show some detail of SG's mock-up. In the first picture, you can see that she has tacked the pleats to a piece of canvas in even perpendicular (to the pleats) rows across the back. This contributes most to how firm the whole arrangement feels. I had been thinking that I would need to do some of this, but why else does it feel so rigid? On closer look, I realized that each piece of the mockup is faced to a separate piece of canvas, creating extra rigidity around all the seam lines, from the seam bulk. I think this also contributes to how noticeable the seam transitions are from the front, as you can see in the last picture. Now, I had been thinking that I would be assembling the pleats and bodice transitions from the fashion fabric (and pleat padding material) and then tacking that assembly onto the coutil, without creating extra seams in the coutil. I'll have to give SG a call today and ask what she thinks. I thought that this would allow for more natural looking movement to the fabric drape around the pleated area, but after playing with these pleat samples, I'm worried that it wouldn't hold up. Maybe that's why on SG's mock-up she faced each piece separately. I hate when she starts school, it interferes too much with our playtime!

I think I'm doing my pleats differently than Myra did hers: I'm doing mine as a fairly simple inset straight pleated panel, and hers are all gored or triangular-shaped, which gives her that awesome fullness around the hem-line. Emails from her are reminding me that I didn't think too far ahead about how the gown would drape at the hemline (which is kind of funny, that was a real driving factor in the construction of the Flemish outer gown!) Now, I plan on my gown being shorter than hers, but I'm thinking that I will have to insert gores from the waist down at the side seams to keep the hem looking full enough. I'm not too worried about the fullness at the front and back, I need to be able to keep my hands free for carrying stuff while I hike around Estrella, not busy holding my skirt up. I wonder if I have enough fabric dyed for this? I am also scrapping the weird open sleeve constructions I have been playing with, I've decided to go with a closed sleeve shape that I leave open for lacing along the underarm seam. I may even do the Moybog gown sleeve construction as Myra has done on her Housebook dress, but woo, I've never done anything like that, I'm a bit nervous about it.

8-18-04: Now that the dress form is done, I went ahead and put together the coutil interlining. I also went ahead and made my very first set of lacing strips to use while I noodle out the front closure. Below are pictures of the coutil from the front and back. In a fit of enthusiasm, I stay-stitched every edge that wasn't part of a seam, but didn't trim anything back as this will still need to connect to the fashion and lining layers somehow. I also left on the center front 1/2" seam allowances and simply basted them under, just in case I need them for the final closure method. I am thinking along the lines of lacing rings on the inside, with tiny snaps at the pleat edge if they are needed. Have I said that before? That's why the lacing strips are basted to the inside for now, I folded one side back so you could see them, but they actually sit butted together pretty well. Hm, looking at these pictures, I'm reminded that I need to clip the seams on the arm openings at least. Now I can get to some pleating mockups of the fashion fabric.

8-16-04: Hasn't been much going on with actual dress construction lately, but I was able to finally finish my dress form. There's a couple shots below, in case anyone has never seen this in progress. It's very strange to see the form in my sewing room, and it has freaked my husband out a couple times already. The first picture is what I settled on for the internal armature. I worked as an electrician in college, so steel conduit is what I know how to use. The second shot is of the stuffing in progress, and the last one is the final form, with my last fitting bodice on it. I need to make some lacing strips before I go any further in the final gown pieces. All in all, though, I'm happy to have the form finally. Yay!

7-23-04: Well, I was ready with this update yesterday morning, but then the ever-loving computer needed a little attention, and I had to do some re-installs. I SO hate it when that happens, the one thing I miss about working at a regular office is the IS team... What a drag to do it myself. Anyway, I have finished the final draft on the bodice and have it ready for the next sleeve draping. Pictures below. Isn't the sleeve shape funky? I haven't cut out fabric for the next sleeve draft because SG and I want to do it in turel, to check the drape, and the extra turel is at her house. I guess I could go ahead and cut out a linen one for lining though. I have left the center and side seams of the bodice at 1" to add more ease, SG and I both thought that perhaps a bit more room would be better for the social class I hope to depict.

On another note, Saragrace and I have both come to the conclusion that we'll have to tape a new dummy over this bodice, something about the other one just isn't right. She's hoping she can use the first one for the Elizabethan she's making, but where the breasts ended up (don't ask ME how it happened, I couldn't move my arms) is just too low to count on for draping the fashion fabrics on the Nuremberg gown. She'll be able to use it with an Elizabethan corset on it, she thinks. We think the new dummy will be OK for future gowns for me, too. So now, we have to do that part over again, drat.

7-11-04: SG was able to come over today to help with the next round of fitting for the bodice. We made some cool discoveries today! I was pretty good about stopping to take pictures as we went along, so I'll just work through them so you guys get dragged through that process with us.

Comparing my paper drafts and the artwork, and even allowing for forgetting to mark the front armhole line on the last fitting, we could tell that there was something "weird" about the armhole. The dramatic back seam-line just didn't seem to correspond visually with the front seam-line, when it was even visible in the artwork. It wasn't something I really noticed too much until I started re-examining the artwork after reading Tasha Kelly McGann's grande assiette article. Looking at the artwork with today's fresh eyes, we decided that the sleeve inset was potentially an elliptical shape, skewed to the back of the bodice. I think this detail to the right from the Housebook Master's Two Card Players best illustrates what I mean, though we did actually look at several pictures.

After we fiddled with the paper drafts for a while trying to do something about the front seam-line, I said to SG, essentially, "Screw it! Let's do a fitting with my back bodice pieces cut showing the new seam-lines we drew on the last fitting, and just leave the side seam on the front pieces at the basic block mark and cut it off under the arm and in the front after we fit it on me again." That's what we ended up doing. It worked out well that on the last fitting, we managed to mark my waistline on both the front and back pieces so we could match up the side seams correctly with confidence. The pictures below are what we took at this stage. On the left is the best "front" shot, I can't remember now why we didn't take one from straight on. It sure wasn't to protect my modesty, from the side it looks like half my boob is hanging out on the far side! In reality, everything was safely covered, and I remember mentally noting when I was looking in the mirror at it that the center will also be covered by smocked chemise fabric under the future string-and-button closure. The center picture is from the back, obviously, and really shows the dramatic back armhole openings. Woo, don't that look nice! In the last picture, I am trying to show the elliptical shape of the armhole. Funky, but it really works, and seems to most closely approximate what I see in the artwork. For insurance, we will add reinforcement at the shoulder seams since they are so narrow.

At this stage of the fitting, I started grousing about the creasing that was forming at my waistline. So Saragrace started playing with the gores and slashes trying to figure out how we could ease the creases out. First we opened the side seams to my waist, which eliminated the front crease, but did nothing for the back. So SG opened the center back seam up to my waist and that didn't fix the back crease either. In the course of the fiddling we discovered that re-pinning the side seams while leaving the center back open didn't re-introduce the front creases, so we re-pinned the sides. More tweaking just couldn't seem to get rid of the back crease, so then we started wondering if we really still needed to fit this down over my hips. At the sketching stage of this project, we conjectured that this bodice length, which will eventually become my "interlining," and will be of super-stable coutil, might be necessary structurally to support the fashion fabric pleats. Now that we're at the stage of seeing on a real fitting where those pleats will be placed (we've been sketching them in for visual reference during fitting) we decided that maybe all that length won't be necessary. At this point, we decided to leave the center back open to the waist and move on to draping a sleeve, to give me some "wearing" time. After that, we would go back and fold up or cut off everything below the waistline, if I still felt comfortably supported. If I didn't, we would work some more on correcting the fitting over my hips to try and re-support the bust. That must sound strange, but when you have a "fitting" bodice on, the fabric is fine enough that you can feel "tension lines" in the fabric that provide support or strategic binding in various places. At least, I can feel it, that may not be true for everyone.

So we started draping in a sleeve. Here on the left you can see that we started by inserting a piece of fabric into the armhole, that opened under my arm. In this picture, we trimmed off some of the bulk from the bottom to make it a bit more manageable before we tackled trying to shape the sleeve according to my latest sketches. Here on the right is the same stage seen from the back. You can see also that we have re-pinned those side seams and left open the center back seam as I mentioned earlier. Saragrace then loosely pinned in the inserted fabric around the sleeve cap to keep it from sliding around too much while we played with the shaping. You can see on the first picture where she put in the first fashion line down the length of the sleeve. When I turned around to do the back line, we started tweaking the fabric more to figure out if we wanted the sleeve to actually meet under my arm before shaping the rest of the sleeve. I decided I wanted to try to shape a sleeve that has no underarm seam at all first. So we developed the back line based on that premise, trimmed it all off, and pinned on narrow fabric strips to serve as the lacings that I show in my sketches, at approximately the same points that I show in my sketches. That brings us to the pictures below. The front views of these afford a bit better view of the bodice front, too. Anyway, interesting sleeve appearance, huh? While this was not a good marriage of different fitting fabrics, excess bulk is formed under my arm in the same places and in a similar shape as I see in the artwork. Also, in the second picture, where it appears that the sleeve wanted to rotate back on my arm when I lifted my arm straight out, I would guess that potentially this kind of movement may be minimized by this being a linen on linen layering in the final gown; that is, my chemise sleeves will be linen, and the lining of the gown will be linen, so maybe this wouldn't move around so much on the final fabrics. Just conjecture at this point, really, but, this still makes an interesting first sleeve draft.

So then we returned to the waistline issues. The girls still felt secure up front, and didn't seem to have moved, even though I had made a conscious effort to windmill my arms around a lot while we draped the sleeve. I had been worried that maybe the deep set sleeve shape of the back would release tension in the wrong places in the front for good bust support. Maybe I just happen to line up right proportion-wise, but as it turned out, that didn't happen. So then I started questioning how much support we might need for the fashion fabric, and we decided that the fitted hips might be over-kill after all. So we decided to trim everything off below my natural waist line. This felt like a potentially reckless move at the time, but intellectually, we couldn't see why it would be a problem, so we ran with it. Thank goodness we started with the back! You see, while Saragrace was trimming away at the waistline behind me, we were talking about how, on the actual gown, I will probably need to control the fashion fabric pleats all the way down to the waist line, not just for 3" or 4" like my sketches show. So while she was cutting, I was doing a quick flip through Housebook Master to verify that that's what the artwork mostly shows. I happened to stop on Departure for the hunt, and happened to notice how fitted around the waist the gown appeared, as you can see in the detail on the right. It's nice that this sleeve looks a lot like what I'm aiming for, too, though I want a full-length sleeve. When I turned around for SG to start trimming the front waistline, I showed her the picture, pointing to the waist line fitting as well as the pleat control. This triggered a flash for her (thank goodness it did!) that we needed to consider how the dress would open, and, this is much more key, was I going to be able to get in and out of the gown and still maintain the integrity of the pleat appearance past where they are controlled. Yet another awesome example of why I love working with SG on costuming: between the two of us, we make a whole brain! Anyway, in other words, the gown needs to be able to open past my waistline in the front enough for me to be able to get in and out of the dress. If we hack off what will eventually be coutil interlining below my waist in the front, will just the fashion fabric and lining be stable enough to take that kind of stress and still hang right in the "starting to fall open zone" of the pleats? The answer is, no, it won't! So we remembered to shape the front waistline along the center seam to be a simple facing for the purposes of stabilizing the dress opening, instead of just cutting it straight across. Now that I sound completely insane, below is the picture to illustrate. After this picture, we pinned the bottom point of the front closure, un-pinned the center seam and the front pins of the sleeve tapes, and confirmed that I can pull this gown on and off over my head. You don't get to see pictures of that, you'll just have to take my word for it! So, this has turned out to be a doozy of an entry, quite a day's work, but time to call it a night. I'll un-pin everything to start the sleeve paper draft tomorrow.

7-1-04: It being a ducky 105° out yesterday, it seemed like a good time to stay inside and clean up the drafts from the last bodice fitting. I now have a nice basic block for later use, and a bodice draft ready for the next fitting. Here's a nice shot of how I beat the heat - I stay inside! I realized while I was finishing up the front draft that SG and I forgot to mark the armhole lines on the front to match the dramatic line from the back. Now, however, she has drawn my attention to Tasha Kelly McGann's The Tailoring of the grande assiette. Argh! I think I'm starting to suffer from TMI syndrome. Anyway, this is an amazing article, she really does great work. I'd be willing to do this type of sleeve, but I'm unsure how well it would work for what I have in mind. Given the provenance of some of her examples from her article, I'd say it's reasonable to guess that this type of set-in could have been used. However, in reviewing the artwork I have accumulated, and digging around on-line some more, I can't find any artwork that shows the corresponding seam-lines on the front that help to indicate the grande assiette in the settings I have been looking at. Instead, what I see is stress-lines, bunching and general untidiness under the arms, which I understand the grande assiette was meant to alleviate or eliminate. I think I'll still end up draping this sleeve.

6-17-04: We've started fitting the bodice for the gown. The final fitting will be in coutil and serve as the interlining for the gown. We want this layer to bear all the weight of the pleated panels, so we're trying to get a good fit! I'm thinking we'll keep it as long as is comfortable for me, to add as much structure as we can get. The first fitting produced a pretty standard bodice block as you can see to the right. I have a pretty big bum slope combined with a narrow waist that make longer bodices kind of a pain for me. To the left is the pattern draft from the first fitting with extra seam allowances added in preparation for the second fitting. In doing the second fitting, we decided it would be better to go ahead and add slashes from the bottom edge to my waist line to accommodate my butt slope. It's not pretty but it fits great. On the other hand, I have a perfect shape for most traditional tabbed corsets, so easy come, easy go, I guess. Here's the second fitting from the front and from the back, with supplemental fabric pinned into the slashes. (As you can see, I'm still faithfully practicing the hair taping, but I can't tell if it's making me any better at it. At least maybe my arms will get stronger!) Isn't it weird to see yourself all fitted up? I look at this and think, gee, I didn't know my shoulders slanted like that! Too funny. After this fitting, we also sketched in some seams lines that we're thinking about for draping the outer gown. We started by sketching the Katarina Frey neckline, even though I knew I wanted to shape it a bit better for my larger bust. We then added where we thought we would do the center pleats on me, which are a bit lower than the Frey painting. I want to emphasize the neck line shaping a bit more than that painting so we re-drew the neckline after we added the pleats. The dress will open in the front, between the two center front pleats, and I'll be doing a button and string fastening at the neck points, but I don't expect the fastening to be under stress like the paintings appear to be. Then SG got a ruler and drew in pleats on the back to approximate the same level as the ones on the front. I still need to redo my design sketch, but I have decided to lower the back pleats and show the center seam line and dramatic armhole seam lines. On the back, the seam placement I would like to go with are the lower neckline marking and the larger armhole marking. From this fitting, I will re-draft an adjusted basic block for later use, and then a draft of the proposed shaped pieces for this specific gown. We'll have to drape in a sleeve shape on the next fitting.

5-23-04: I made my first stab at dyeing solo yesterday afternoon. I think that technically it came out OK, nice and even, no streaks, but I'm not too thrilled with how the color came out, which is a bit brighter than I had planned. I suspected that the linen and turel would color up differently, and I was right! Darn synthetics! I'm trying to decide if I want to over-dye the fabrics to get the red on the turel at least to darken up a bit. On the other hand, the color is not that off from the silk noil I was originally planning on using, as you can see here. The turel is on the left, the linen on the right, and I laid the noil & white linen samples on top for comparison. You know, the more I look at it in the natural light, the more it's growing on me as is. I think I'll keep it how it is, and keep moving on the dress. I wanted more color in my costume wardrobe anyway!

5-19-04: Well, we were able to get the taping done for the uncorseted dress dummy I need to drape this gown. Some pretty amusing pics can be seen here. I've left the finished tape structure at SG's, she's getting her husband to make a stand for me. I was missing one of the chemicals I need for the dye process, so I'm waiting for another shipment from Dharma before I get that done.

5-12-04: Haven't been doing too much on this gown. I did order the dyes today from Dharma Trading Co, some lovely dark maroons to blend in their Procion fiber-reactive dye. I may dye the outer gown fabric at SG's next week. I think I have decided to go with the turel she offered. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't done sketches yet, because, well, I found out there's this book for bad sketchers like me, called Figure Templates for Fashion Illustration, by Patrick John Ireland. It, um, finally arrived from Amazon today, so I guess I will use my cheater book and get some sketches together tomorrow. I also plan on getting together with SG and Lonnie this weekend to do up my "duct tape dummy." We're thinking I will have to drape the outer gown.

4-12-04: For the gown fabric, I had originally thought I would use this dark rose raw silk noil from Super Silk, Inc., along with the basic light-weight white linen from Fabric-Store.com for the smock and bundlein. I was figuring I would have to pad the inserts for the pleated areas with a thin batting maybe. However, yesterday, SG suggested that I give some turel she has a try, which is a bit heavier a fabric. It looks just like wool, which I am allergic to, but it's not. Construction-wise, she suggests that I do the turel for the fashion fabric, an interlining of something heavier, like maybe couteuil, though that might be too heavy, and then an inner lining of linen against my skin. It all made sense to me, and if I use her turel, I can dye it and the lining linen in the same bath so the colors match. That's probably what I'll end up doing, in some kind of red similar to the dark rose noil. So, sketches soon! For now, I'm off to the UK for two weeks, with two awesome days in Bath for the V&A. Who knows how badly I'll get side-tracked after this trip!