Making Progress

1. Finish petticoat.
2. Box up petticoat and batiste.
3. Take to the post office.
4. Get the envelope chemise printed.
5. Make the 1920s bandeau. - More than halfway done! Just need to do some binding and the hooks and eyes.
6. Fit the robe de style bodice.
7. Draft templates for the beading areas.
8. Sketch at least one beading pattern.
9. Make the pannier.
10. Order the rest of the crepe de chine and some extra lawn from Dharma.
11. Draft the skirt.
12. Make the 1910s brassiere.
13. Assemble the 1910s corset (as far as possible until the busk/boning arrives).
14. Learn the new sewing machine feet: ruffler, tucker, and hemstitcher.
15. Make 1810s strapped petticoat from pimatex.
16. Start on beading a test piece.
17. Gather pieces for 1780s shift and cut neckline.
18. Wait to finish corset before drafting/cutting the princess slip, the petticoat, and the negligee.

I've also corralled all my remaining pattern pieces into the nice new baggies I ordered off ebay last week. It's awesome to have all my patterns and instruction sheets put away finally, or at least in a neat stack for those I'm planning to use.

Currently I'm alternating between Hogan's Heroes in the living room (and, uh, Starsky & Hutch when it's on TV) and the A&E Nero Wolfe series on DVD in the sewing room. It's a really great series. If you can look past the women's costumes (which are very stylishly Vintage Inspired slash Retro and rarely include any actual vintage pieces, except for occasional awesome 1940s hats with vaguely 50s-styled clothing) and hair (which is almost always too long and too loose, except for random marcel waving on the 50s stage actress) and music (which is mostly modern big band swing with occasional forays into the 30s and even 20s).  But I'm used to that now. The acting, sets, and filming are great, the stories are extremely faithfully adapted, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

And although it'll be well into the 80s today (probably upper 80s at my house), it's still early enough in the year that the mornings are pleasantly cool. It's 10 AM and still in the mid/low 70s! I love sewing with the windows and doors open.

Dispatch from the Front

The bandeau is finally done, whoop! It's definitely not perfectionist work, but I'm super proud of it nonetheless. Everything but the binding material is vintage, and all of it is the perfect vintage peachy-pink. The fit is... interesting... but I think pretty accurate. It's the seamed-cup bandeau from Women's Wear of the 1920s. Marked size 34, it fit me (32D/30DD) reasonably well. Although the cup is seamed, it's not very curvy; so when the straps have any tension on them, the effect is flattening. I added a little tuck/pleat at the top of the cup to keep from too much distortion. A D+ has to go somewhere when you flatten it, and for me that was toward the sides. Ahem.

Anyway, I love it. I took pictures, but for now I'm just taking a break after making the first bodice muslin. Verdict? Very bad indeed.

I have two base patterns I'm playing with: a Pictorial bouffant dress pattern from fancyfrocks's collection, and the Lanvin from Women's Wear. (It's not really a knock-off; the donor said she had it made in Paris by a member of Lanvin's staff. Sounds like a shady business arrangement, but certainly gives me more confidence in the construction and patterning.)

I studied both Met dresses for construction lines. Neither has any visible darts whatsoever; they also both close under left arm with hooks.  I also did a lot of measuring and proportions with my dividers, ruler, and calculator. It was so mathematical and awesome. I love doing stuff like that! I now know the hem length, pannier width, hem shape, waist seam in comparison to true waist, etc.

The Pictorial bodice pattern is quite straight, with no darts. The WW20s pattern has bust darts in front, and double fisheye darts at the waist in both front and back. I'm pretty sure the latter would give me the better shape, but the Pictorial was closer to the original, so I just tried that one.

It didn't work at all! There was some weirdness at the shoulders and I made the armholes too small, but that was mostly my messing around. The worst was, of course, the waist and hip. I lack the shoulder width for a true hourglass, but other than that I qualify in every sense. I don't even have a high hip; it's just such an extreme change that nothing below the waist fit remotely close.

I snipped enough out to get a smooth-ish line; but I'm pretty sure I'd have to add at least a center back seam. Even with my bandeau, too, I was getting bust wrinkles when I moved. Most importantly, though, the waist was very big, particularly in the back. And this design is actually fairly fitted just below the waist, for the "belt" of beading has little slack in it. Maybe all the original wearers truly had no hips, or more likely there is some super clever patterning and some hidden darts going on.

In any case, I'll make notes of this pattern (because it might be good for a more shift-like dress in the future), and then just start again with the darted pattern.