With my dress form "batted" and corseted to my client's measurements, I started working on her pattern. I drafted this pattern with help from a little scribble I made in my journal years ago (from The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600-1930
) and referencing the Tudor Tailor: reconstructing sixteenth- century dress
.Pleased with myself, I cut the pattern out of some freshly-harvested muslin and quickly zipped in all 7 gussets, sewed the back to the front, and tested the fit on my dress form.
It didn't fit.
Why? but how? but WHY!?
Mmmm, gussssssets. I love this style of jacket because it's perfect evidence of how fabric was so precious; the pattern literally uses scraps and bits of fabric to create the width and fullness of the skirt.
Ladies, take note. For those of you who ever draft/drape/create a gusseted Elizabethan or Jacobean jacket, it is *very important* that you do *not* cut the slashes for the gussets too high! They do *not* go up to the waist, but instead allow the jacket to flare over the hips, which are a good many inches below the waist. I had to recut the front and back pieces, and do all the gussets over again (despite this being just a toile, that was still annoying), because I got my engineering wrong! The slashes end at least 2" below the waistline.
The side w/o sleeve and w/o gussets. The width of the gussets will determine the flare of the peplum. Already it's deciding its own self.
The toile was still a little big through the waist, so I pinched the front edges and marked the new center front line, which when spread out flat will form a distinct curve. I will need to adjust the front placket, for the buttons, before sending this out for my client to try on.
Pinching the excess through the back seams, to tailor it to the form.
