Lucile, a dress in a week, 5

So, the final article!

Lucile, a dress in a week, 4.

With the bodice finally, if not complete, at least all layers existing, on to the skirt!

First the bottom layer: (not seen, so I used cheaper acetate satin for this)

 Unfortunately I got really rushed/absorbed in what I Was doing  at this point, so didn't take many more photos!
Anyway, once the inner skirt was fitted, the next layer of satin was draped and attached, then the front curve cut and edged, and the fur sewn on.  Once this was in place a chiffon panel could be attached to the underskirt, which adds fullness without bulk.


Once that was attached I was able to drape the top layer of lace into the skirt!

Once bonus of tight schedules and early mornings is pretty sunrises!

The top layer of lace needed draping several times to get it to hang correctly. That artless, loose look is a lot of artifice!

Pretty close to finishing draping:

The big bow on the back contains a lot of artifice too.  Not only is there the silk bow, but inside is an organza lining, onto which is sewn a wire figure 8 (I used 3 lengths of thin wire inside some boning channel).  

I couldn't find any large lace that looked remotely right, so went with attaching a thinner lace to a chiffon strip.  It could probably have done with a little stiffening, but period lace does tend to be softer than modern lace, so I decided it would suffice.

The final construction, adding lace collar and cuffs, fur edging on the bodice,  bow and sash, didn't get photographed unfortunately. The original dress had the skirt attached to the bodice on one side, and the sash and bow attached and hooked into place,  As I had no way of doing a final fitting I elected to leave the pieces separate, so they could be adjusted on me.  The next entry has the final dress complete!

Lucile, A dress in a week, 3.

The next layer of the dress is in chiffon and satin, and is all about hold everything up and covering the underbodice with a looser, fashionable shape.  Using the pattern pieces an adding where needed, a toile isdone in calico, then when happy with the fit the chiffon and satin cut and made up.  Fit here mainly involved more at the shoulders.

Check how the lower sections go together with their related underbodice pieces.  If you don't understand it on paper, you'll be even more confused in fabric!

This toile fits somewhat better than the previous layer!

Comparing the original with the size modified:

Checking fit in the real fabric:  

No pictures of this bodice layer in the making, I'm afraid, so on to the top layer!
In calico: (before and after enlarging)

and in chiffon: (lace underneath for next stage).

This is definitely a dress which is unconvincing until the whole lot is put together!

Lucile, a Dress in a Week, 2

The fitted Underbodice.

Using the original pattern from the book, I added about an inch all round just to get a start on enlarging, then made a toile using scrap cotton.

Trying the toile on Doris the dummy. Well that's too small!  At this stage I only had access to a poorly made victorian corset, bu better than nothing at all.

The toile fits at the back, but is way too small at the side. The front is actually ok, as it is  supposed to be on a drawstring.

This is too large a gap to fill with piece expansion in the time I have available, so I decide to add an extra piece.  

Once I'm happyish with the fit, the pieces can be cut out in the "lining weight" fabric, and made up.

The extra again edges are seam allowance.

I bound the whole lot with ribbon, but the ribbon was far too thick for this really, as it was gathered, so became a bit of a compromise.  I eventually cut the back down as the shape didn't come out quite right when it was fitted to the next layer up. If I make this again I would use binding of the same fabri as the bodice.

This ended up being the section I was least happy with.  The fabric was too light, and I ended up taking out nearly all of the extra panel, and returning to the original pattern.  Eagle eyed observers may notice what has changed and why the fit changed....

The moral of this is that rushing fitted pieces is the road to stress!  It needs to be snug, which I acheived eventually in final fitting, after adding a Petersham waist tape to support everything, (no pic).

Ah yes, boning.  This dress would have had whalebone, not steel, so I went for the quick modern replica... cable ties!

Cut them, sand the edges round and smooth, voila!

Lucile, a dress in a week, 1

I wasn't going to enter the YWU costume competition; not good enough, not inspired, no time etc etc. Then Cathy ran a business course. I was inspired, I was confident, I found time!  There was a week to go!

Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline, so here is my Lucille dress diary :)

I chose the 1914 day dress from Janet Arnold's patterns of Fashion 2.  It's in the V&A collection, so I was able to at least get a glimpse of the original:  http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O14017/afternoon-dress-lucile/

I went with the original colour scheme, but in modern fabrics, as sourcing that much silk would have been a huge investment!

So, fabric purchased, first things first, pattern. My main challenge with this garment was going to be upsizing it from a 26 inch waist to a 39 inch one.

Stage 1, draft the pattern up.  Takes too long. Enter technology.  Take your book page

Scan it into your computer, open it in photoshop, save as a pdf, load into adobe reader, print out at 800% (original scale is 1:8). Voila, full size pattern!

Sellotape them together to make one big one, cut out the bits:

Voila, a pattern.

Fairy Banquet 2013

Some of the favourite things I've ever made.  Husband's is part premade stuff, hat made by a lovely friend (oh, actually, I made the shirt).  My dress and everything the children are wearing apart from the fur coat, I made. (Including the facepaint).

Random Re-enactment stuff.

Stuff I've made myself for re-enactment over the years (all these pics I think are by Pat Patrick, thanks Pat!)

Kaylee Shindig dress.

Made for the Firefly banquet, November 2014.

Test post (with pictures)

Trying a test to work out how to get pics onto this blog easily.  These are a few of the costumes I designed and made for our musical earlier this year. (I styled the wig too, quite pleased with that).

This will hopefully be a blog of the costumes I make, both for DODS and professionally as well as for myself. It may be just pictures though, no promises for text!