Sabrina

I never really posted much about the white voile round gown that I made last year. I ended up really liking it. I decided to make it as an English gown, with the pleats on the back extending into the skirts (en fourreau is the term most costumers use). It looks good, but I accidentally made a mistake with it and had the pleats sewn down to the bottom of the lining, which meant that I couldn't turn the lining edge in at the bottom to sandwich in the top of the skirts. So I ended up adding a piece to the lining at the bottom of the CB to fix it and it's very unobtrusive. Problem solved! And I took a couple quick pictures of the back pleats yesterday night because I happened to have a little bit of time on my hands, outside and inside.

It's too bad I don't have more occasions to wear it. It's such a great dress for summer and 18th century pastoral-ness.

The real reason I was taking pictures was because I realized I didn't end up taking any of my final bodice pattern, even though I took pictures of the fitting process. I find it's always helpful to see what other people's pattern shapes look like and how they work. (A reminder that this was originally diagram XXII from 1775-1780 in Cut of Women's Clothes by Norah Waugh.) So here are some pics with my quilting ruler for scale. The first has all the bodice pieces, including a 1-piece back and a 2-piece back. (I used the 1-piece for this gown and the 2-piece for my yellow gown). I'm actually planning to make a couple more small adjustments to the angle around the back shoulder and to the strap to get a more accurate look for c.1780. The second pic is of the sleeve, but the 3 small pleats at the top of the sleevehead aren't marked. All arrows are places where things need to be extended a bit. If it needed to be smaller, I just cut into the paper pattern itself, which is why the lines are a bit wonky compared to the actual outline of the pattern pieces.

It was the Lady Detalle's birthday, so we had an 18th century chemise gown tea at Green Spring Gardens. It was a lovely venue in a historic building. I didn't want to have to deal with making a chemise gown, so I did a white voile round gown, which I figured was appropriately pastoral. So many gorgeous ladies in their many variations of the gown! It was really interesting to see the different takes of what is essentially the same thing.

I loved all the sashes! This is just walking to the building from the parking lot.


My gown ended up being just a touch too scooped out in the neckline, so I kept having to pull it up in the centre front. Wearing a fichu or having a tucker would totally fix this and I do plan on making a suit of ruffles in the future to avoid this problem. I wore my Dames a la Mode necklace and earrings plus a beautiful sash and buckle borrowed from the Lady Detalle. The sash was really the perfect shade of pink. Reminded me of the portraits of children from the end of the 18th century like this and this.


The back of my dress is cut en fourreau. Here's a picture by In the Long Run Designs, who was nice enough to do some mini photo shoots of people when we were wandering about the grounds after the tea. :)


There were some great flowers and they really attracted the butterflies. I saw this little guy and managed to get a couple of shots before he flew away.


And here you can see us milling about on the lawn with the historic building in the background:


After this, we headed back to the Lady Detalle's house and hung out, ate more food, drank champagne, and watched a couple of movies. It was great! The next day we had a photoshoot with the Lady Detalle's jewelry and then went out for a bit of shopping and then I headed home.

( The costuming loot I brought home with me )