Regency Gown
started - end of October 2006
cost - 151.06
worn - Halloween 2007, Costume Con 2008
3
November 2006 - I know this dress is going to be a ways out from now but I might
as well start the diary in the
planning stages. While looking at dress dairies
online I stumbled upon this Magnificent dress (Maroon overdress with golden bee
design) done by Jenny La Fluer.
This struck a desire to make the same dress (or very close to it). More
searching produced one other dress similar to it.
Click to enlarge pictures: So now... armed with no knowledge of this era and just a desire to re-create this dress.... the madness has begun.
23
December: For Christmas my husband took me to the fabric store to buy
fabric. YEAH!!! I was able to get 5 yards of silk, (I think it is a gauze but I
am not sure). It has a gorgeous striping that made me think it would be perfect
for this dress. I am not sure how I will do the embroidery on it now or if I
even will still. To left you can see the fabric. I placed a black piece of
fabric behind so you can see the striping. If you place a piece of paper with
writing behind it you can read what is written. Because of this I either need to
line it with something less sheer or make a bodied petticoat. I will probably do the
first one since I have that fabric already.
6 March - I finished the Dress yesterday!
Yeah I was bad about keeping track of it. It went together so easily. All I
have left is to hem the bottom of both the petticoat and the dress but those
might go on hold. I am letting them hang for now, so the hem drops? I have read
to do that so I am actually trying it now. Better pictures will have to come
later after I can talk my husband into actually lacing me into the corset. Avien,
(she is the best!) sent me some Spring steel in the mail so I replaced my center
back boning with those, and put the pieces I had there one more out. So now I
have three pieces of boning two spiral steel and one spring steel in the center
back around the grommet holes. I am hoping this will prevent the back from
bowing as much. Again something I have to wait for my husband to lace me into my
corset for. I still can't believe I ordered the wrong boning when I placed my
order. Some how spiral steel in my mind was the right one when it
was suppose to be Spring steel. But the place I was ordering from calls their
spring steel white boning. I guess the sp was enough to convince my mind.
I
am happy to say I placed my first button holes in a costume! I think they look
halfway decent for my first ones. I put a two layers of scrap fabric behind it
to help stiffen the fabric. I have no bases for this besides the fact that the
material didn't seem sturdy enough to me to be able to hold a button hole and
not tear. It feels a lot better now. I cut away all the excess material
and
it looks good to me. I also included a picture of the sleeve trim. Pretty lace
with pearls in the middle. I tried to keep all the extras 'simple pretty'. I
hope I succeeded.
19 March - Over the weekend I was able to get a friend to lace me into my corset, and take pictures of the dress. See anything wrong? I do! ARGH!!! I can see the corset! So what now? Corset cover? Do they have them this time period? I guess I will have to do some research. Or a new all white corset. I could play with the fit a bit more... AHHHHH!!!!!
15 April - My break from the Regency dress is over. I started drafting the overdress pattern yesterday. This could prove to be interesting, as I really have no clue what I am doing. I took about 20 different measurements and I am hoping that with all the figuring I did it works. I will cut a muslin out today and pin that all together. We will see from there what needs to be adjusted.
16 March - I couldn't sleep last night so I took advantage of this to do something productive. I pinned Mock up #1 together and after about two hours of fiddling, readjusting, cutting, and re-pinning, (repeat this several times) I think I have what I want. I am sure this would of been a lot easier if I had a dress dummy for the initial fittings just to get the shape right. Then I could of used me to get the actual fit right. *le sigh* One day hubby will either help me with the duct tape dress dummy or buy me one like he promised. ANY WAY (can you say tangent). I unpinned all the pattern pieces traced them onto the original pattern. Cut the new pattern pieces and finally retired to bed. Today I am going to cut out Mock up #2. I think I will machine baste this one together because it should be close to right so I won't be redoing to much. I hope, famous last words I am sure. Pictures to follow when hubby gets home.
Later- Not the best but here are pics of Mock up #2. The front is perfect! I finally figured out how to do the folds right. The sides will be held together by a strap so I am not to concerned with how the front sticks out in the last picture. The back I think might need a little more adjusting. I think the top of the center pieces needs to be a wee bit wider and the sleeve portion that goes under the arm needs to be taken in so there is no gap like that, that can be seen in the third pic. Any other suggestions are more then welcomed!!!!
22nd April - Was able to talk hubby into lacing me into my corset to try it on under the mock up. Mock up is still good so tomorrow I will be cutting into the fashion fabric. Wish me luck! I have decided that the front panel The part that closes in the front and the little side parts that hold the pleats will be made out of burgundy velvet because the flowers middles are velvet. I also decided on a black cotton lining. I haven't decided if I will be lining the skirts of the over dress or just the bodice. As I was playing with the Mock up today I realized I needed to make sure I didn't wear it to far up. That is probably why the back of it looks off in the above pic. It needs to be pulled down in the back. I am trying to wear the seams at the shoulder and that is not what is done in this time period.
26th April - I have been working on
the Regency overdress,
Slowly but steadily. I finished the basic shell last night. I love this fabric!
Which is unusual for me to say because it is in no way soft, its actually pretty
crisp. BUT I love how the color changes. It is one of those fabrics that has one
color running one way and another the other way. This one is black and red
resulting in a changing maroon color. Which the picture actually picked up very
well. I love it. It makes matching fabric and trim to it a bit difficult but I
still love it. I have over 3 yards left, but absolutely no idea where I will use
it again. I don't see to many Regency dresses in the future and its not very Rennie.
The
picture to the right is the Fabric cut out with the pattern pieces up top. I had
broken the original design (which can be found in Janet Arnolds book,) into
three sections to better fit the fabric width.
The difference in length between the back two and
front piece is so I can add a train. I felt a need for a train with this dress.
More pictures later. Hopefully on my new dress dummy that is coming in the mail!
29th April - My dress dummy came in
the mail yesterday. Hubby helped me set it up and name it before he left for his
deployment. *pout* We came up with the name DiDi. Well D.D. short for Dress
dummy but that looks silly so its name is DiDi. Pics to come. I also got some
buttons for this dress. So the total has been updated. Other then that nothing
to interesting has happened with this costume.
later - I have pictures! Ignore the messy sewing room. I am having to readjust and move everything to make room for the new Dress Dummy. The front still looks pretty rough. It's just pinned in to I could get the spacing right. I am having a little problem with trying to figure out the lining. This is the fun with drafting your own pattern I guess. The rest of this came together really really easy so hopefully the lining problem does too. I might be changing the lining fabric. When I was sewing it earlier today it just wasn't playing nice. We will see. I am on a tight budget right now, and I really wanted to use what I already had in my stash.
9th
May -Not a whole lot done. I am starting to lose my momentum with this
one. 
I
just can't wait to get my hands on the Autumn dress! So I am giving myself till
Friday to get as far as I can with this one. Then I will start on the Autumn
dress but two days out of the week I still have to work on this until its done.
I seem to work better and faster when I have lists so I figured I would list out
what I still have left to do and show you all a few pics. You can't really see
much difference but for those who can they may appreciate them.
1.
Do
a sleeve mock up, cut them out of fashion fabric and attach to bodice.
2. Finish lining the 'skirt' part of the
overdress. Line sleeves.
3. Make another petticoat so corset doesn't show.
4. Tack existing petticoat to dress so it doesn't
slip and show at the neck.
5. Hem bottom of both the Regency dress and the
petticoat.
6. Make side closures smaller, possibly move them up.
7. Finish hand sewing the hems for
the neck and sleeves of the petticoat.
15 May - I worked a little past Friday on this one. The sleeves continued to be a mystery on how to do them until Saturday. I am use to the top being an upside down 'U', the peak being the shoulder and the legs being the bottom. Easy to figure out what goes where. Not this one.... Finally I just plugged in measurements, drew it up and hoped for the best. Now they may not be exactly to Janet Arnold's design but they work for me. Today I will sew them to the bodice and hopefully get some pictures. The sleeves are a bit on the tight side so I won't be adding a lining for fear they will become to tight. I am going to use bias tape to bind the cuff though. Don't want that fraying and looking icky.
24th May - The dress is finally at a 'finished' point. As the above list shows I have a few more things I still need to do but is at a wearable state. YEA!!!!
<---- Halloween 2007