Fitting 1840s
May. 15th, 2018 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mala_14I decided to whip up an 1840s dress for a local event with my Victorian costuming friends and figured I'd document the progress since it's a new-to-me era.
I started out with the 1852-1856 pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1, combining the half-high lining with the overlays to create a bodice pattern that went all the way up to the neck. I also used the sleeve lining to figure out a starting point for the sleevehead of my sleeve. These were the measurements I got from measuring the little 1/8th scale diagram, so they may not be totally accurate, as well as my little 1/8th diagram before scaling up. (Dashed lines are where I figured I'd have to shorten the pattern.) I scaled up the pattern using radial enlargement, which can get a little bit wonky at times, but overall is the quickest way I know how to do this without using some sort of technology that is not my hands. (You can see where the little scale diagram is taped at the bottom for the process.)
Other than bust and waist, there were a whole bunch of measurements that I found really helpful for adjusting the flat pattern before I ever started the mock-ups. These included: front neck to waist, back neck to waist, bust point to bust point, shoulder to bust point, armscye to armscye across the back, and underarm to waist. You can maybe see these measurements marked out on my pattern, which has been slashed and moved around and reshaped and redrawn and had little tiny bits of newspaper added in here and there to get the curves right.
Then it was time for the mock-up. I used quilting cotton that I had lying around, cut on the crossgrain instead of the regular grain. I wanted to use the less stretchy grain around my body and the stretchier grain up and down. That way I didn't have to worry about having a stretchy mock-up that would mess up things when I got to the real thing. Overall, it was pretty good right off the hop. I had to move down the point of the bust dart, take in the shoulders at the top and close to the neck, lower the neck just a touch, lengthen the shoulder so it dropped over the arm more, take it in at CF at the top, and get more room into the bust (about 1/4").
Shoulder angles are one of those things that it's tough to get measurements for, especially when the shoulder seam is towards the back like this one is and all sorts of weird things are going on. Mine gets extra complicated because my right shoulder slopes more than my left shoulder, so the sides end up being slightly different.
Here was the pattern that I came up with next (the black lines) after cutting apart my mock-up and tracing it. The only really interesting thing I did was to cut a sort of right angle from the side to the bust point and halfway up to the shoulder and spread that a bit to get the extra 1/4" in, sort of like a weird, half-assed full bust adjustment. I did it this way because I the rest of the CF was pretty good. If it was a later style I would have done a curved CF seam, which is something I like that makes fitting much easier. I made a couple minor adjustments after this, like taking in the shoulder just a touch more and changing the armhole shape on the front piece just a little. You can also see in this picture the two different seamlines for the different shoulders and the weird curves they have compared to the original pattern.
Mock-up 2 also had a small sleeve put in to check for fit. The sleeve I'm planning will be a straight sleeve that is gathered into a cuff, so I didn't do anything fancy with it. Note: I'd lowered the bust darts a little more in this version, but realized that it wasn't right so ended up raising them back up again for the final pattern, which I did not take a picture of. I still had to take in the shoulders a bit more here near the neck because I was getting some small wrinkles from the neck down at an angle. I eventually pretty much got rid of them. Then I went and looked at a bunch of 1840s-50s photos and saw that some ladies had similar wrinkles, so that was cool.
I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out and with the fact that I didn't have to do a million mock-ups. I'm thinking that I'll use this pattern as a base for my 1870 sheer dress, which is my next project, just getting rid of the point at the front, making it have 2 darts instead of 1 on each side, raising the shoulder, dropping the neck a touch, and adding a side-back seam.
After this, I traced the pattern again onto brown paper and I patterned out an overlay for the fan front. To do this I took the front piece and copied out the CF portion, then I sort of scooched it along at intervals and marked where the shoulder was in spread out bits. I also drew a horizontal line perpendicular to the CF with the right angle at the bottom of the point. When the shoulder part seemed wide enough (I had just run out of the part of the brown paper that I had cut out. I think about 5 inches was added in width. Not very scientific.), I traced out the armhole. Then I pivoted the bottom of the armhole corner until the bottom point of the curve where the dart is met the horizontal line and traced out the bottom curve and the side seam. Sorry if that sounds confusing. There was lots of guesswork, especially with adding the right amount of height to the shoulder so that it will reach the lining properly after it's gathered. I'm still not sure it'll work, but I guess we'll see.
Up next is cutting out the fabric.
I started out with the 1852-1856 pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1, combining the half-high lining with the overlays to create a bodice pattern that went all the way up to the neck. I also used the sleeve lining to figure out a starting point for the sleevehead of my sleeve. These were the measurements I got from measuring the little 1/8th scale diagram, so they may not be totally accurate, as well as my little 1/8th diagram before scaling up. (Dashed lines are where I figured I'd have to shorten the pattern.) I scaled up the pattern using radial enlargement, which can get a little bit wonky at times, but overall is the quickest way I know how to do this without using some sort of technology that is not my hands. (You can see where the little scale diagram is taped at the bottom for the process.)
Other than bust and waist, there were a whole bunch of measurements that I found really helpful for adjusting the flat pattern before I ever started the mock-ups. These included: front neck to waist, back neck to waist, bust point to bust point, shoulder to bust point, armscye to armscye across the back, and underarm to waist. You can maybe see these measurements marked out on my pattern, which has been slashed and moved around and reshaped and redrawn and had little tiny bits of newspaper added in here and there to get the curves right.
Then it was time for the mock-up. I used quilting cotton that I had lying around, cut on the crossgrain instead of the regular grain. I wanted to use the less stretchy grain around my body and the stretchier grain up and down. That way I didn't have to worry about having a stretchy mock-up that would mess up things when I got to the real thing. Overall, it was pretty good right off the hop. I had to move down the point of the bust dart, take in the shoulders at the top and close to the neck, lower the neck just a touch, lengthen the shoulder so it dropped over the arm more, take it in at CF at the top, and get more room into the bust (about 1/4").
Shoulder angles are one of those things that it's tough to get measurements for, especially when the shoulder seam is towards the back like this one is and all sorts of weird things are going on. Mine gets extra complicated because my right shoulder slopes more than my left shoulder, so the sides end up being slightly different.
Here was the pattern that I came up with next (the black lines) after cutting apart my mock-up and tracing it. The only really interesting thing I did was to cut a sort of right angle from the side to the bust point and halfway up to the shoulder and spread that a bit to get the extra 1/4" in, sort of like a weird, half-assed full bust adjustment. I did it this way because I the rest of the CF was pretty good. If it was a later style I would have done a curved CF seam, which is something I like that makes fitting much easier. I made a couple minor adjustments after this, like taking in the shoulder just a touch more and changing the armhole shape on the front piece just a little. You can also see in this picture the two different seamlines for the different shoulders and the weird curves they have compared to the original pattern.
Mock-up 2 also had a small sleeve put in to check for fit. The sleeve I'm planning will be a straight sleeve that is gathered into a cuff, so I didn't do anything fancy with it. Note: I'd lowered the bust darts a little more in this version, but realized that it wasn't right so ended up raising them back up again for the final pattern, which I did not take a picture of. I still had to take in the shoulders a bit more here near the neck because I was getting some small wrinkles from the neck down at an angle. I eventually pretty much got rid of them. Then I went and looked at a bunch of 1840s-50s photos and saw that some ladies had similar wrinkles, so that was cool.
I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out and with the fact that I didn't have to do a million mock-ups. I'm thinking that I'll use this pattern as a base for my 1870 sheer dress, which is my next project, just getting rid of the point at the front, making it have 2 darts instead of 1 on each side, raising the shoulder, dropping the neck a touch, and adding a side-back seam.
After this, I traced the pattern again onto brown paper and I patterned out an overlay for the fan front. To do this I took the front piece and copied out the CF portion, then I sort of scooched it along at intervals and marked where the shoulder was in spread out bits. I also drew a horizontal line perpendicular to the CF with the right angle at the bottom of the point. When the shoulder part seemed wide enough (I had just run out of the part of the brown paper that I had cut out. I think about 5 inches was added in width. Not very scientific.), I traced out the armhole. Then I pivoted the bottom of the armhole corner until the bottom point of the curve where the dart is met the horizontal line and traced out the bottom curve and the side seam. Sorry if that sounds confusing. There was lots of guesswork, especially with adding the right amount of height to the shoulder so that it will reach the lining properly after it's gathered. I'm still not sure it'll work, but I guess we'll see.
Up next is cutting out the fabric.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 01:05 pm (UTC)It's looking great! The 40s cut with just the two pieces and that one single freaking huge dart seems so scary. So few places to adjust! Thanks for walking through your process.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 04:31 pm (UTC)But it makes it SO much faster to sew together! I was actually kind of surprised that there was only one dart because I'm so used to Victorian having two. But looks like in the 1840s-50s there was both. You're very welcome! :)
no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-16 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-17 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-17 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-17 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-17 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-17 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-18 01:54 am (UTC)