Miss Philomena

I can never work on just one project at a time. It's a curse. But I did get a new hoop, TV142 1856 walking cage crinoline, mostly assembled. I made some changes to it, mainly making the hoop wider at the bottom. TV's patterns are set up that the bottom of the hoop is the same for every size, and only the top three hoop circumferences change for differing sizes. So I took put my calculator and mathed to keep that same proportionate increases from the medium size to the extra large size. It gave me a hoop about 130" at the hem instead of 110'. Just chilling in my living room it looks comically big, but I don't care! Once I finish sewing it, because right now the hoops are just pinned to the vertical tapes, I'll take some pictures. I'll be able to use it for everything but my fancy dress, because the striped skirt silk would only just fit over it, as in only a couple inches extra, and I don't want it tight over the hoop.

I've also been doing a lot of beaded knitting and crochet lately. I joined a knit-along for a pence jug purse through the Living History Knits and Crochet Facebook group, and we're currently in week two of five. This is such a small project and it knits up quickly, leaving me feeling impatient for more directions! Of course if I were just doing this on my own with no timing, it would linger, I'm sure.

First, the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's WWII weekend!

The usual suspects went, and like usual I will lazily link to their posts (Amanda, Alice, and will add Robin and Jess if they write something eventually). I actually arrived at the agreed upon time, everyone else rolled up an hour later. This is a huge and popular event, so parking was quite a distance away, and a school bur ride to get to the entrance!


I was feeling quite spiffy if I do say so myself. And immensely glad I decided on my way out the door to bring my sweater just in case, because it turned out to be chilly! I don't think it got over 68F. Not usual for early June around here, jsyk. For my hair I did Victory Rolls in the front, perhaps a little smaller than they could've been, but I didn't have a lot of space to work in with my hat. The back I just rolled up.


I'm honestly a bit meh about this dress. It was much cuter in my head than in actually sewing. I had more fun with accessories instead. I picked up my hat on eBay, and the sweater is a modern one, but I spruced it up with some antique button pins and an adorable vintage (probably 50s) chain with red, white, and blue rhinestones.

The event was definitely fun, and I'd love someday to actually drive out my 1936 coupe, but when it's an hour and a half each way, and I'd need to have the car on site for setup Thursday, and not be able to get it home until Sunday, that'd require being there the whole weekend. So maybe some year further down, but 99.9% not for next year. It's been sitting for a while and needs some work anyway. But how much fun would it be, to be able to drive around with people in costume in the rumble seat in the back?

There was a flea market there, and I bought a very cute pair of mid-length yellow cotton gloves. No idea what I'll wear them with, but they were too cute to pass on, and actually fit! And completely randomly, I also bought a Victorian black crepe mourning veil. It probably won't go to Gettyburg this year, because I don't have a mourning outfit planned, nor do I have fabric for it, so it'll have to wait.

My full flickr album is here.

On a different note, this week has been a headwear week!


While I absolutely adore my gigantic and insane silk gauze cap, it's a bit impractical for regular wear. So Monday evening I cut and started a new cap using the Kannik's Korner 1740-1820 cap pattern, and finished it Tuesday afternoon. The pattern has been in my stash for ages, along with a yard of silk organza I purchased around the same time, to make said cap. I kept it fairly simple, with a single pleated split ruffle. My construction method is not the standard hem every piece separately and then whip it all together. Instead I used the method I was taught by Janae Whitacre of Williamsburg's Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop. This method is: turn down a small seam allowance, here a hair under 1/4", on the band piece. Lay it over the pleated ruffle, then baste the pieces together, done here in black. Then cover the raw edges with a 1/4" silk ribbon, stitching through all layers on both edges of the ribbon. Repeat for the caul. This creates a single layer cap with no raw edges, and it actually gets finished in a timely manner. I constructed my giant ruffle beast cap the same way.


My other bit of headwear this week is a spoon bonnet! It's mostly finished, and was intended to wear tomorrow for a Victorian Picnic here in Philly, but we've switched from hoops to natural form so it'll have to wait for it's first outing. I'm going to put the crown lining in after lunch, as well as the ties and curtain. But I'm going to hold off on trimming it for now, and wait until I actually need it. mandie_rw made the buckram frame for me, and mulled it as well, so all I had to do was cover and decorate it. I used a shot blue and pink semi-slubby dupioni for the outside, and the same pink taffeta from my gown for the big-ass hat tea earlier this year. The ties are the pink silk as well, and I'll probably put white feathers and flowers of some color on the outside eventually.

Okay, so I'm super far behind, but now that I've successfully imported all of my lj posts here I'm gonna start working on the list.

Things I Need to Write Up:
New Castle, Dec '16
Regency Tea, Jan '17
Victorian Skating, Feb '17
Suffragette, Feb '17
Big Ass Hat, April '17

I am, of course, going to skip over all of that and jump to my current project, which needs to be finished for Sunday.



Back in November at Burnley and Trowbridge's hat making workshop I picked up two and a bit yards of this lovely pink and blue crossbarred silk with vague plans to make some sort of jacket with it eventually. Well, 3/4ths of the usual suspects are going to a tea demonstration this Sunday, after having made most of a dress in a day for robinsnest there this past Saturday. Apparently it's to be silk day, and I decided I wanted something new, so into the stash I went!

I opted for a pet en l'air, as they're fun and light and a fairly quick make, though I've had to redo a few things when I decided I wasn't happy with how it looked. But for having started Sunday evening and only putting in 3-4 not very dedicated sewing hours in the last two days, it's close to done. Today's plan is to finish trimming the sleeves, and then set them along the bottom so I only need to put my stays on once to finalize the shoulder straps and set the top of the sleeve. Then it's only the shoulder pieces to cover, and a hem! (And a good pressing)


Back pleats pinned into place // back panel completely attached to lining // front pleats pinned into place

For the weekend I plan to wear it over my plain white taffeta petticoat and my baby pocket hoops, made for my 1740s mantua a few years back. I'm not looking for a super hippy shape in this, just a little extra oomph. There might be pictures over the next couple days, if not, finished pictures after Sunday!

What better to use for an 1860s dress than very bright lemon yellow faile? It's a cotton/rayon blend, and a little shiny, but I really don't care. I'll be visible for a mile. It'll be awesome and hilarious. I might even glow in the dark. I'm not sure yet. I've got a whole bunch of vintage navy petersham ribbon to trim it with, but I don't think that'll tone it down all that much. I'm frankenpatterning two Simplicity patterns for this bodice. I'm using the body of 3791 and the sleeves (and skirt) from 7212. I plan to make the bodice two separate layers instead of just a front overlap, and have a vest and removable jacket. I'm still trying to decide if I want the vest in a different fabric. I have ivory silk satin, but it looks too dull with the yellow, and I don't have enough white silk, unless I can find the piece that went missing. 3791 also has gigantic coat sleeves, so I'm going to use the sleeves from 7212 instead. I don't have a lot of fabric, and I'm hoping to cut an evening bodice eventually too. I'm using the 7212 skirt as well because it's straight panels rather than gores, which means less waste.

( mini mom update )

It's getting there!

 Bodice mockup! I dug out some really random Joann's red tag cotton I have several yards of for reasons unknown, and cut pieces on whichever grainline they fit, which is why the sleeves aren't cut cross. The bodice fits perfectly! I tied my petticoats a little loose by accident, which is why there's a little bit of gaping at the waistline.


The sleeves, on the other hand, are a little too tight, and managed to be too long as well. To double check the length I just opened part of the seam to get the sleeve on, which is why it looks baggy here. The point of the dart wound up sitting well below my elbow. So I will redraft the sleeve with about 3/4" of an inch extra in width, and about two inches shorter above the elbow. The sleeve cap and below the elbow are fine, so I'll just make the angle down to the elbow a little less extreme.

Next I'm going to do the petticoat and gown skirts before bouncing back up to the bodice. The pleats will be the last step. The Denmark piemontaise appears to show the pleats are sewn at the shoulder. One of the piemontaises in the Imatex collection, on the other hand, clearly shows hooks and eyes where the pleats attach at the shoulder. I'm actually leaning more towards this kind of construction, because when I'm not wearing the robe, as will be the case 99.9% of the time, being able to detach the pleats from the shoulder will keep them from pulling the skirt and lower bodice up while being stored. And lends more weight to my belief that the pleats are sewn to the skirt below the waist. Why else would the top need to be detachable like this, if it was only a cape-like piece? Also, if you look at the outer pleats in the second picture, you can see where the edge rolls in, where to me it appears to connect back to the skirt below the waist.


Click on these for very lovely hi-res shots, with the hooks and eyes clearly visible at the top of the pleats!

And so I start my next big project, with 18 days on the clock, to see if it can be done for the Française Dinner on March 1st. A gown I've been planning to make for years. Five and a half years, to be specific. I first made a post(private) about this gown in October of 2008, and it's finally happening.

Robe à la Piémontaise

(Yes, that was indeed worthy of sparkly text. Just because.)

According to "Dress in France in the Eighteenth Century" by Madeleine Delpierre,

The robe à la piémontaise, made fashionable at the time of the marriage of Princess Clotilde of France, sister of Louis XVI, to the Prince of Piedmont, was a variation on the robe à la française: the loose, flowing pleats at the back were added later to form a kind of cape attached behind. [source]

This indicates that the back pleats were attached only at the shoulder and left completely loose the rest of the way down. I'm working primarily from the extant robe à la piémontaise held in the collections of the National Museum in Denmark, which includes a pattern taken from their robe. Their pattern clearly shows where the back pleats rejoin the skirt, and there is a noted and marked seam in the skirt. See look, I drew on the diagram as proof. And to add to that, from the few others I've seen photographs of, if the back hem is visible, there doesn't seem to be a break in the hem in any of them that would indicate there is a separate piece where the pleat 'cape' overlaps the skirt back. More picture analysis and doodles to possibly come at a future date?

But anyway, my goal is to do as faithful a recreation of that dress as possible. I pinned a width of the silk (that will actually be the petticoat when I get to sewing) into the pleat configuration to get an idea of the look, just because, and here it is.

(Very wrinkly silk: what happens when it accidentally winds up under a large piece of brocade. Good thing I know how to operate an iron. )

The Danish robe is very simple. with trim only along the center front of the bodice, and because my fabric is so bold on it's own, I don't intend to trim it more than that. The only thing I'm a bit unsure of is the sleeve cuffs. Should it have ruffles? I feel like there should be something there, even if it's a narrow lace frill. But that will be decided when I get closer to the end point, I think.

For now I need to focus on the under bits. The 1780s is more of a rounder silhouette than earlier, without the hoops, and more emphasis to the rear, which will make the gap between back and pleats stand out more, so I think I'll make a rump for this, one that adds some width to my hips as well, instead of the solely rear-heavy one I made for my linen round gown last year.

Stay tuned for more robe à la piémontaise progress! Since this is such a rare style, I intend to document as much of my process as possible.

I spent somewhere between six and seven hours stuffing bones into my stays today, and I'm still not done. Of course it's my own fault for deciding to make a fully boned pair that has 12 pieces. :x But I took a picture of what's done so far!



I'm going to do the eyelets before I bone the center back pieces, so those haven't been touched yet, and I have most of the left side back panel to bone still as well, but I was tired and my hands were getting pretty sore at that point. I'm using 1/4" cane for my boning, except for the channels on either side of the eyelets, which will be steel bones. And I might put a busk in as well, but I might wait until I wear them to decide.

The yellow bustle is (almost) wearable! I might be pinning myself into it tomorrow, because the thought of making all those buttonholes right now is not a fun one. >_> But otherwise, it's good to go~