Scroop patterns summit dress

 I rarely make clothes for everyday wear. I simply think that my finishes aren't good enough. But when Scroop patterns released the "Summit dress" I felt that this was a pattern that I really wanted to make.

With my changing body after my gastric bypass last year I need some new clothes. I wanted a new autumn/winter dress. I have also wanted a dress that is  nice and neutral, but gives an air of historical fashion when doing lectures. The pattern is based ont he 14th century Herjolfsnes finds, but with modern construction methods and an option between modern lantern sleeves and historical sleeves, and different skirt lengths. I have made a simple medieval gown by measuring and cutting rectangular and godet pieces, with this pattern I also got a medieval pattern that I can use if I want to make another one, I only need to replace the machine sewing with handsewing and lengthen the 3/4 length historical sleeves.

The basic pattern is a very loose fitting dress. The size chart contains both your body measurements and the measurement sof the finished garments. I was exactly on the size 44, but having seen the tester makes I went down a full size to 42, and it is still very loose. I could probably have gone down another size on the main gown, but then the arms would have been on the small side. If I make this as an historical pattern one day I will probably go down to 40.

With the original pattern there were two things I wanted to change and that was the length and the sleeves. To shorten the dress I used the view B length, but I also shortened it 8 cm by the "shorten/lengthen" line on the lower part of the pattern. I didn't just cut off everything at the hem since I wanted the full width at the bottom. The sleeves, both the historical and lantern version, are 3/4 length, and since I wanted to use this in the autumn/winter I wanted to have full length sleeves. The lantern sleeves would make it hard to wear a cardigan or something over them to keep warm.

I made a quick pattern for where the bottom part is the length of the sleeve opening on piece K - lower sleeve, the lenght is the length of my forearm and the width at the top is width around my wrist. In a spur of th moment I added the point at the end of the sleeve. I added a facing in the same fabric instead of hemming it, to keep the nice point, and then sewed my pattern piece to piece K before sewing pieces J and K together as the pattern called for. 

The finished sleeves

The pattern for the bottom of the sleeve

The sleeve right side out

The sleeve wrong side out, with the facing

The sleeve is just enough wide at the wrist that I can get my hand through, so I don't need any closures there.

I definitely prefer to wear the dress belted, and that also gives some oppportunities to give some pop of colour to this rather plain dress. I usually wear a lot more colours and patterns in my everyway wear, this dress I can match with different belts and thights to keep it fun.

The dress is made up of a wonderful wool/viscose blend that I found at a real bargain online, so in the end the dress cost around $35. The patterns instructions were easy and good to follow, the mistakes that I made were totally up to me being sloppy. The one advice I would give for anyone making the dress is to switch the order and insert the back godet before the front godet. That was the most fiddly part of the pattern and my back godet went in better than the front, since it was the second one I made.

If you are curious about the pattern Leimomi/the Dreamstress and creator of Scroop patterns has one post about the pattern and two full posts about tester makes, here and here. 

And for full disclosure I have been a pattern tester for Scroop patterns and it is probably my favorite pattern makers out there, I bought this pattern with a discount code that I got from answering a customer survey earlier in the summer. This was the first time I made something from its range of modern patterns rather than historical patterns.

More fitting and sleeves for the jacket

 I tried the jacket on after I had sewn it together. I was not happy with the fit. I had once again done the mistake of making things too big. As a large woman I'm used to clothes being too tight, and I really wanted this jacket to be big. The problem is that when you add too much fabric and make it too many sizes too big, well it looks bad and I felt really downhearted about it all. It was obvious that the problem was with the back.

This was the integrated pleat in the back. It was hardly visible, because there was so much fabric around it. So I turned it into a folded pleat, like the side pleats.

It was a bit fiddly, but the process was the same as on the side pleats. Cut a straight cut into the bodice and fold the excess fabric in under it.

This was the finished pleat in the back. I also took in several cm on the back seam to make the whole back pieces smaller. That is a reason why I always have a back seam, instead of a one piece back, it is always a lot easier to make adjustments with an extra seam.

So then it was on to the sleeves. And I could only realize that I didn't have nearly enough left of the pink fabric.

That is one sleeve cut out in the black fabric, and the total amount of pink fabric that I had left. Since the pink version is supposed to be a lower class garment I didn't mind piecing together, that would actually bring some character to the jacket. The black version is going to be more of a middle class garment, possible lower upper class, so to make that look better I decided to keep the pink fabric at the bottom of the sleeves. That meant that even if the pink was visible when wearing the black side out, it would look like the whole sleeve was just one piece of pink fabric.

I filled out the upper part of the sleeves with orange wool flannel. The piecing is done in a mix of machine and handstitching. A good thing with using the wool flannel at the top is that it's thinner and lighter than the pink wool, so it was easier to ease it into the armscye, without getting too much bulk.

Since the jacket is going to be reversible I had to attach both layers of the sleeve, without any raw or ugly edges. I did that buy sewing the black sleeve to both layers of the bodice, and then I placed the folded edge of the orange/pink sleeve over the seamline and prickstitched it in place. At this moment I realized that the orange fabric had become a bit larger than the black, but I decided to live with the sleeve on that side not looking quite as good as the black one.

With that I had finished the main part of the jacket, now it's the closure and hemming left.

1520's courtgown - starting the sleeves

I have started the sleeves of the court gown. It's going a bit slower now, in a way I always slow down when I'm getting closer to actually putting the garment together. I'm simply afraid that I will screw it up.

I want to make a a sleeve that was split at the elbow, like this yellow dress by Lucas Cranach

A HD version of this painting is avaiable at the digital Cranach archive - http://lucascranach.org/DE_SKD_GG1906BB

For the pattern I used my standard S-sleeve pattern, that I now can't find the link for but I made it sometime in 2018. I simply cut it off at the elbow to create an upper and a lower sleeve. 

So far I have made the upper sleeve by first tacking the velvet to the linen lining and then sew it together. I felled the sleeve and hemmed the bottom. The hem at the botto is folded double, because I want it to be sturdy when it's time to add the lacing holes. I am definitely worried about the lacing holes. The HD image of the painting shows a very neat lacing hole, and I can do functional lacing holes but they rarely get totally nice and even. 

Pet en l'air sleeves

I'm not sewing a lot at the moment. I'm busy planning and working on redoing my whole kitchen, meaning throwing everything out and get new stuff, including floor and all appliances.

Still this weekend I got the chance to do two things. The first was that I invited some friends for a party on Saturday, and everyone should come dressed up/out. In the end it was more like a girls' film night, but it was fun and relaxed. I wore my old printed cotton Anglaise, but before we started to watch a film I slipped into something more comfortable. That's when I discovered that I couldn't get out of the Anglaise by myself. The sleeves were so tight, and with my lost flexibility in one of the shoulders I couldn't wiggle out as I usually do. Thankfully I had friends there who could help me undress. (We also discussed the lack of chambermaids in today's society, and that they wouldn't be satisfied with just room and board if I hired one).

With the problems of getting undressed in mind I set out to finish the sleeves of my pet en l'air. I had already sewn them on before Saturday, but it felt more important than ever to make sure that they are big enough.

For the sleeves I went back to my very first 18th century jacket. It's been long since I threw away the jacket, but before doing that I cut out the lining o the sleeve, since that was a well-fitting sleeve, and the most accurate thing with the jacket.

I used the old sleeve as a pattern, but also added a bit at the bottom to make it longer. The sleeves are unlined and I sewed them together on the machine.

I attached the bottom part by hand, using backstitches. I feel as if I have more control of tricky seams when I sew them by hand, and instead of a faster seam that I might have to rip up and redo I took the slower approach.

The top part was pinned on, and the excess fabric was gathered into a small pleat at the back of the sleeve.

A strap, in the shape of simply a rectangular piece of fabric, was pinned on top of the shoulder lining and sleeve seam. As you can see the strap is bigger than needed, I didn't measure it beforehand but simply folded and cut away fabric until there was just enough to cover all the raw seams. As you can see I'm working on my dressform. Even if I can't fit my 18th century bodices on it, I think it's a lot easier to pin curved shapes, like shoulders, on it, than trying to do it flat on the floor or a table. The strap was topstitched in place with running stitches.

To finish the neckline I added neck binding. It's also strip of fabric that was sewn to the right side of the back and then folded to the inside to hide the raw edge.

This is the finished back of the jacket.

As for the sleeve fit. It was really roomy until I added the neck binding. There must have been enough bulk of the fabric, the cotton that I'm using is very thick, so that the back width has shrunk a bit, and that affects the sleeves. I can get in and out, but I need to be careful about this for my next project, and possibly add a bit to the back to avoid the issue.

Pierrot bodice and sleeves

The work on the pierrot goes on. After I had finished the muslin I decided that I was going to make the pierrot as accurate as possible, meaning fully by hand. I have done handsewn garments before, but this is the first really fitted garment where the seams will be under some strain.

This is what the finished pattern looks like. The one major thng I did was to shorten it with around 3 cm, so that the peplum will be at the proper waistline.

I started with the bodice, and it went together quite easily. I'm using the method in Costume Close-up where you sew the two outer layers and one lining together from the outside, and then then fold the second lining over the raw edges.

The bodice was quite perfect over the bust, but I need to take it in a bit at the waist when I finish the front edges.

With a nice bodice it was time for the sleeves. I've never managed to make a sleeve that I've been happy with. They've always been both poofy and restrictive at the same time. I've said that one of y challenges this year is to create an actual working sleeve pattern. I've spent quite a lot of time googling for sleeve trouble shooting, and the one tutorial that comes back, and is linked back to from various other sites is ikatbag's. Then The Dreamstress linked to a tutorial on medieval sleeves from The completely dressed anachronist. And even if was a medieval sleeve I read through it and there were a couple of things that I got out it.

From ikatbag I took, among other things, the notice that the armscye needs to be snug, you don't get more mobility by making a bigger armscye. From the other tutorial it was the realisation the upper arm's is usually widest a bit down from the sleevehead, meaning that you need to make allowance for that. Looking at the sleeves I've tried to draft it was clear that they were way too narrow in the sleevehead. I wasn't sure on how to start making a new sleeve, but then I realise that I do have a working sleeve pattern that I could adjust. looking at the shape of the sleeve from TV493 it had the same basic shape as a the two piece sleeve in Creating Historical Clothes, just wider. So I traced the smallest size of that pattern and cut a muslin of it. The sleevehead was still bigger than the armscye, but I kept cutting it down until they fit each other.

My new sleeve pattern is in blue, and you can see what a difference it is compared to the previously drafted sleeve pattern. The old sleeve pattern also had a giant dart at the elbow, since with a better fitting sleeve I could make it more snug even without the dart.

The sleeve isn't perfect. Ther are some issues I need to work with when it comes to the fit around the elbow, it's actually bit too big and bunchy there. It's still the best sleeve I've ver made though, and I have gotten rid of the poofyness around the shoulder.

I set the sleeve according to the instructions from American Duchess. I have not finished the neck edge though, so the strap is only attached over the sleeve. For the net time I would like to make the strap longer as well.

I finished the sleeves by covering the raw edges with tape. Not necessary, since the edges were quite often left raw, but I think it looks so much better.

Handmaiden lining is done

I've finished the lining as far as I can do. Now it's just to calculate the amount of fabric needed for the pleated overlayer and to start draping/patterning the robe and hood.

Even if it's just pinned together on my dressform I'm quite happy with the general shape. I'm not exactly tall and willowy, as the photomodels that wore the gown originally, but I think I've manged to create quite a sleek silhouette.

This photo, taken with flash, shows that the lining is actually quite shiny. I'm hoping that some of that shine will be visible through the outer fabric, at least in photos.

The playing around with the lining and how the light works on it has also made change my mind on what fabric was used for the original. I'm now pretty sure what I'm going to order, but it's going to be a lot more expensive than the cotton voile I had planned for. It also of course means that I can't do anymore dye tests until I get the actual fabric that I'm going to use.

I also need to go and measure my largest suitcase to make sure that the roundel will fit inside it. I think it's a tad on the larg side now so I am going to cut it down a bit, but it would be nice not having to do that because it will be unpackable.

My main issue was once again the sleeves. I used the basic sleeve pattern from Construction Historical Clothes, but I'm not too happy about it. I'm starting to think that my sleeve fitting issues aren't just due to the sleeves though, I need to work with the shape of the sleeve head and the armhole as well. I definitely think that I need to work with a shallower sleevehead to fit my chubby upper arms. Since the sleeves aren't going to be visible in this gown I didn't feel like starting over with a new pattern though. This one works well enough.

Gaulle is done, with some bad photos

So one week ago I thought I was almost finished with the gaulle for my revolutionary costume. It was just the bib and the sleeves left. Well famous last thoughs of a costume, I've struggled for a week now to get those things done, but now I'm satisfied enough. There are plenty of things I will do differently next time, so it has definitely been a learning process.

The first step of the learning process has been handsewing. The sleeves, the shoulders, and all the visible seams have been done by hand. This is my first project where I can say that more than half of the gown is handsewn. I've kept to the basic running stitch, with a few backstiches, regular backstitches and then I had to do whipstitching on some places.

I started out last Sunday with cutting out the shape that I wanted for the bib/drop front. Since the cotton voile is so flimsy I wanted to attach it to a layer with a bit more structure, that would also help me in keeping the outer fabric gathered evenly by sewing the gathers to it.

The basic shape is actually a scrap piece from when I made my linen cap. The rounded edge was the left over from the cap. I added two small darts to make it follow the bust better. I then just gathered a length of fabric and pinned it on to the foundation. That looked bulky and really ugly, exactly the look that I didn't want to have. I took away the gathering stitches and started to box pleat the cotton. I panicked a bit when I reallized how much boxpleating I would had to do, but then I took a look at the portrait I'm using as inspiration, and the bib there is gathered quite irregularly. I then made irregular boxpleat, without measuring, just folding the fabric between my fingers. That was a lot easier and went pretty fast. In order to get a nice finishing edge at the top I sewed a narrow cotton tape to the top and folded it over, like half a bias tape. This meant that I now had quite a sturdy top edge of the bib, which was also good for when I had to decided how I should attach it to the bodice.

Here I have finished the top edge, pressed the pleats in the middle, but I've left a lot of fabric at the sides, so that I would have more fabric to work with when it was time to place it.

I stopped there and started to working on the sleeves. I had my 18th century sleeve pattern, and a bodice that felt comfortable over the upper sleeves. I handsewd the sleeves, felled the seams added them to the sleeve openings, only to find out that something was severly wrong. I couldn't move, I couldn't close the bodice at the front. It was a total disaster. After some advice I tried to turn the sleeve for a better placement, and it got better when I shifted the placement downwards, but it was still something that I couldn't wear. The only thing to do was to start over. I ripped off the sleeves and tried the bodice on again. I now realised that there was a crease of 1,5-2 cm all around the arm openings. As long as now sleeves were attached the fabric had folded there and made the opening big enough, with the sleeves on the opening was too small. I cut a long the crease to make the opening bigger.

The problem of course now were the sleeves. I ripped them up and sewed them together with the smallest possible seam allowance. The problem was that the seam allowance was now so small that I couldn't fell the seams. I whipped stitched the seam allowance and hoped that it would be enough to keep them from unravelling. Unfortunately I have already discovered a place where it has burst, so I've had to do some mending there, I don't think it's very visible though. And after all clothes back then were worn and mended as well

I attached the sleeves and now I could both move my arms, not a lot but enough, and I could close the bodice. The altered arm opening had some consequences though. The smallest one was that the sleeves lost around 2 cm in length, and they are now a touch too short for my liking. Worse was that the neckline had changed considerable. The piece of fabric over the shoulders was not wide enough to cover the straps of my stays, and it was gaping and not lieing flat against the skin. My first idea was to make a loose strap to go from the shoulder seam until it met the bib front. Since I hadn't planned that from the start, and sicne I had been working with several layers of fabric that looked quite bulky though. Thankfully I discovered that if I can push the straps of the stays down over the shoulders that problem got solved in that way.

The gaping meant that I had to make a little dart and crease at the shoulder. I thought that i would be able to hide it under the bib. Well the big didn't fit as well now either, since I had changed the neckline.

Another problem was how I would attach the bib to the front. My first thought was pins, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. Instead I decided to go for buttons. I made two self covered buttons and added them at the crease. I then practiced and managed to make two decent button holes by hand. When I tried to attach the bib through the buttons it didn't look that good though. There was gaping between the bib and bodice, and the bodice neckline kept crawling up and be visible. So I finished with ripping away the fabric with the button holes that I had struggled with, and now I'm going for pins instead. Sometimes it's better to stick to the original idea.

Here is a bad shot of the finished gaulle. It ended up being a bit too short, so I think I'm going to buy some more fabric and make a ruffle to lengthen it a bit. The big is also a bit too bulky over the stomach. It looked better when I just tied a scarf around the waist, so I don't think I will mind that when I've made a sash to go with it.

Things I would do differently next time:
1. Change the arm opening on the pattern pieces
2. Construct a new sleeve pattern from scratch
3. Do not cut or finish the neckline until the sleeves are attached
4. Make sure that you and the dressform have the same height (that's where the issue with the length comes from)

I'm hoping to take better pictures when the whole ensemble is finished, but now I can go with the hat for the revolutionary costume.

Bonus pictures.

My first ever try with making a buttonhole by hand.

A finished buttonhole on the bib, that was later cut away.

Snow White II - sleeves

As mentioned in my posts about my other two robe anglaises I had a big problem with the sleeves. For Snow White I wanted that fit well and went down to below the elbow. I also knew that some day I want to make a gown with a full length sleeve. So for the first time in a really long time I decided to take my time and draft a pattern that fit me, and that I would be able to use for other projects as well. I didn't start from scratch though.

 To the left is the lining of the sleeve for my 1760s jacket, that i ripped out, and to the right is my modified sleeve pattern for the RH822 gowns. The 1760's sleeve had a good size and the other one had a good shape, but was too big in the sleeve head and too short after my modifications.

I measured the length of the sleeve head from the good fitting sleeve and put markers on the good shaped sleeves. Then I took a good look at the sleeves in Arnold and freehanded a line that followed both the markings and the shape of both sleeves.

The sleeve was still too short though, so I cut it in half and spread it out, I think I added around 10-15 cm.

This is the final pattern for a full length 18th century sleeve. I didn't just measure though. It took a lot of pinning and marking with pen until I had a good fit.

The resulting sleeve goes all the way down to my wrist, is shaped so it doesn't just hang straight down but has a nice curve, and I have no problem getting my fat over arms into it.

Here are the sleeves attached to the bodice. As you can see these sleeves are just 3/4 sleeves. In order to shorten them I folded away the middle of the sleeve pattern above, so I would keep the curves at both ends of the sleeve.

Unfortunately the sleeves didn't fit perfectly, but it has more to do with shape and size of the armscye. It was too small, so I had to make more pleats than planned to get the sleeve the fit, and I got a bit of a bulge in the back as well

Still I'm happy with the sleeve pattern, and this one of the most self drafted pattern pieces I have ever made, so it has given me confidence in trying to do more of that in the future, as well as managing better with scaling up patterns from books.

Read more in Snow White III

Schadenfreude, but not really

Today I was really tired and I put one of my oldest favorite films in the DVD-player. It's The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1982. This was one of the first films that I watched obsessively as a kid, and I still know quite a lot of the lines by heart. Well knowing the film that well gives makes me look at other tings, like the costumes for example. This film has definitely shaped my interest in the late 18th century fashion.

One thing that made quite happy was actually to see the sleeves of Marguerite's gowns. Quite a few of the had a bit of hump on the back, say from the middle of the shoulder and down. There was also some serious wrinkling going on. This makes me really happy since all my 18th century gowns have suffered from those b´humps and wrinkles, but apparently professional costume makers have that problem too. I am getting better, and hopefully by the next time I sew something 18th century I will be able to eliminate the sleeve hump, it's a matter of easing and gathering the sleeve towards the armscye in the best way. My sleeveheads have simply been too large compared to the armscyes.

Here's a picture that I found, and I've circled the top of the shoulder. It was more visible from the side and the back, but for some reason I couldn't find any screen caps of that.