16th century bodice foundation

Over Easters I started over on the bodice for my 1520's court gown. I wanted to be thrifty so I went to my stash and found this linen table cloth/curtain.

The fabric has a beautiful weave, but some stains that are impossible to remove. The letters AJ means that this is from my paternal great grandmother, and I wouldn't be suprised if she has woven the fabric herself. I have used fabrics from her before, and have had to give up because the 100+ year old fabric hasn't been able to handle the strain and it has ripped. I tested it carefully by tugging on it, and it had some weak spots, but with careful placement of my pattern pieces I could avoid them.

I used my basid pattern, which is very general and then it depends on doing a lot of tweaking when  I fit the pieces on myself. With my first try with the bodice I had had big problems trying to hold the bodice closed and deciding if it fit allright or not. This time I decided to start with making lacing strips so that I could actually close the bodice properly, before doing the final fittng with the back, shoulder and side seams.

I made the lacing strips out of a sturdy linen canvas, I have probably used it for 18th century stays. The lacing holes are staggered for spiral lacing and handworked with buttonhole stitch in silk buttonhole twist. I do get better in doing lacing holes, but I am happy that these will be on the inside and not visible. It took me two days to make the lacing holes.

To get the final fit of the bodice I actually sewed all pieces together on my machine. It's a lot quicker than handbasting, and since it's going to be removed later I don't care that it's not historically accurate. Doing it on my machine allowed me to just change the seams a couple of mm at the time until I was happy.

My major issue was to get it tight enough, and that it was gaping in the neck. I am very wide over the ribs/back, and when I make a backpiece that fits comortable over the midbust line (but in the back) I get a lot of excess fabric higher up around the neck.

I solved the problem by taking in the back neckline with a dart and then after the dart finished I continued the seam just a mm in from the center back line all the way down the backpiece so that it looks like its a two piece backpiece.

I then tried the bodice in again for a final decision, and when I put it on I heard the fabric rip. I took it off and found a tear in the shoulder strap. Turns out the antique fabric was too fragile after all. There wasn't much to do except marking all the seam lines with a pen, but it up and use it as a patern.

When I cut out the silk velvet pieces for the bodice I was generous with the seam allowance to get some extra abric to work with when it's time to attach the velvet to the lining.

With that Easter was over. This weekend I started over by using the first bodice as a pattern to cut out a new lining in new linen fabric. I had thought about the fitting during the weekday break, and one thing I wasn't happy about was that the tightfitting bodice showed off all my fat rolls. This is usually not a problem for 18th century clothing, where I'm wearing stays that smootsh everything out, but for this dress I'm just going to wear an unboned underkirtle. The solution for me was to add 1 cm extra ease onto the side seam, 1 cm on each back side seam, nothing extra ont he front side seam. I didn't do any other extra fitting, but simply sewed the lining together, and added the lacing strips, using backstitches in waxed linen thread.

The extra easy in the side did wonders to let the bocide have a much smoother shape. When I'm trying on the bodice I am not using my kirtle, it's up in my storage, but I am using a long sleeved t-shirt, with no bra, and a wide skirt with an elastic waist. The skirt is important, since it has an elastic waist it automatically sits at my natural waist, and then I can draw the waistline onto the lining. It's too long right now, but I have done so many examples where I cut the bodice too short during the fitting tat now I'm going to keep those extra centimeters until the skirt is attached where it should.

There are some gaping issues at the neckline, but they disappear when I fold the edge down to where I have marked the seamline, so I think it will look good when I have added the outer layer and finished the edge. It definitely feels like a very deep neckline though, I have a lot to think about when it comes to what kind of shift I'm going to wear under it. I am planning a new one, but since I can use my old shifts it's not on my top list of priorities for the project.