I've been procrastinating on, well, everything costume-related, and with Costume College a mere month away, it's time to get down to business with this striped gown.
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| My material - I have enough for both a gown and a matching petticoat |
The gown is really for our trip to Williamsburg in October, but I might as well get it done for CoCo in August, lest I continue to procrastinate and truly run out of time.
So here's a start...
I've hmmm'd-and-hawwww'd on the design, but have finally settled on a simple pin-front Anglaise from
Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen's Dresses & Their Construction C. 1660-1860
, page 37-39, that can be polonaise'd up in back. Here is the original dress from the Snowshill Collection, National Trust:
And here is Janet Arnold's sketch:
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| Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 1, pg 37 |
And lucky me, here is also Nancy Bradfield's drawings and notes from
Costume in Detail: Women's Dress 1730-1930
"
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| Costume in Detail, pg 57 and 58 |
Now to draping.
I decided to drape this pattern instead of scale it up from the Janet Arnold gridded pattern, because I find it quicker and more accurately fitted to my measurements.
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| Back draped |
I tried out some draping techniques from
Period Costume for Stage & Screen
, primarily in correcting my bad habit of not leaving enough at the waist and in the armscyes to accommodate adjustments when finishing the paper pattern.
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| Front draped, without corrections to CF, or grainlines |
Here is my paper pattern:
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| Front, Side, Back, and for the first time, a proper sleeve draped and corrected as the pattern calls for, and specifically for this dress. |
The back piece is quite a bit different from Arnold's pattern, due to my sway-back-edness. I also made sure this time to lay the center front on the bias, instead of the straight grain, a mistake I made in the
Revolution Dress. I've given 3/4" seam allowances, to be safe, and plan to tailor out any excess through the back, on Franken-Lilly, hopefully resulting in a super-awesome-accurate fit, and no warps. Fingers crossed. :-)
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| Arnold's pattern - you can see the CF on the bias. |
Now for the cutting!
