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Regency

Regency Evening Gown 2012

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have some process shots of creating my dress for this year’s Jane Austen Evening. My dress was inspired by this one from the exhibit Napoleon: The Empire of Fashion – I’ve drooled over the dress ever since I bought the catalog, and when I found some sheer striped fabric in the LA garment district I decided to give it a shot.
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Inspiration
The below 3 images are found via Thomason Photography. I was happy to find this website, because the exhibit catalog doesn’t show the sleeve clearly. I never found a photo of the back, so I just made it up based on my previous Regency dresses.

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Draping

Earlier this year I bought my very first dress form, Beatrice, and she was a life saver for this project. I took all my measurements with my stays on, then put them on her, laced and padded her out to match. I draped the bodice directly on top and only had 2 fittings from start to finish, and honestly the bodice of this dress fits me better than anything else in my closet. 
I had 2 fabrics to work with, my base satin and the sheer striped fabric. First step was draping the satin underlayer – I wasn’t sure exactly where I wanted the neckline, so I marked a couple options and picked one in my first fitting. I think(?) I picked the lower one.

I like to make notes on my muslins during draping or fitting, so that I remember what to do to the pattern. I decided to have drawstring closures at the neck and waistline, and because I wanted a slight gathered effect, I added a little extra to the CB of the pattern when I traced off my muslin.
I don’t have a shot of the side view, but I kept the armhole really high, right under the armpit. High armholes are not the standard in today’s clothing but they are crucial for good movement (especially in non-stretch fabrics!), and since I would be dancing in this dress I wanted to be able to lift my arms!

Next I draped my sheer striped fabric on top of my muslin. Luckily this fabric was not expensive, so I bought extra and decided to drape directly in the real fabric, and knew I could start over if I had too. As you can see, the bodice is bias like the original. Love directional stripes! (OK, all stripes are directional, but you know what I mean.)
 I don’t even want to remember how long it took me to drape this darn bodice! Hours, literally. Getting all the tucks and poufiness placed correctly and flatteringly was really hard. I draped half, marked all the tucks, and then transfered it to the other side on the flat. The over layers of the bodice are flatlined to the satin.
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Construction

The rest was fairly easy! So of course I didn’t take process shots of it, grr. The neckline is finished with bias binding casing and trimmed with lace and a beaded trim, and I slipstitched the waistline seam allowance closed to create a casing. Here’s the inside view of the front – yes, I overlocked the inside seam allowances!
For the skirt and sleeves, I used my modified Sense & Sensibility pattern from last year and just added the striped overskirt, which was a couple of rectangles with a bunch of box pleats. I did the CB placket wrong because the edges are supposed to butt up to each other, but my placket is for edges that overlap. Oh well, that’s nothing a little hook and eye can’t fix!
The Finished Dress!!
Whew! Thanks for indulging me that post, and congrats if you made it to the end! 😉

Jane Austen Evening 2012

This past Saturday Chris and I attended the 14th Annual Jane Austen Evening in Pasadena, CA. This is our 3rd time attending, and I think we have a better time every year! It’s such a fun event – we see a few people regularly at other events, but lot of attendees we only see at the dance practices and the event, and then we all disappear for 11 months until the following January.
I got a fancy-pants camera for Christmas, and I’m still just learning how to use it (where’s the zoom again?), and this was it’s first official outing. Hopefully this means I’ll have lots of fab pictures for you in the future!
This year we were greeted by the rabble protesting us 1% who are high-falutin’ enough to attend a sumputous tea and ball…

Chris and I shared tea with Post-Captain Paul and his lovely partner, Kendra. 
(hope I got the rank correct! I’m hopeless about military things.)

Chris wore the same ensemble I made for him last year – I was hoping to make a pair of trousers for him this year, but didn’t have enough time. That’s why the photo is from the waist up. 😉

My dress was inspired by a gown from the exhibit Napoleon: The Empire of Fashion. I fell in love with this gown when I bought the exhibit catalog, and when I found the sheer striped fabric I knew I had to give it a try. It’s not intended as an exact copy, but I guess it turned out pretty darn close – several people recognized it from the original, which was a pleasant and unexpected surprise!

I did take some process shots of creating my dress – I guess I should post those soon, right?
The hall filled with dancing.

Lauren looked amazing as always, and had a new turban and accessories to go with a dress from last year. I’m so glad she wore this dress for another outing, it’s just stunning!

Beautiful lineup of costumers and their creations, including Katherine of The Fashionable Past, Loren of The Costumer’s Closet, and Lauren of Wearing History. Chris saw our group of ladies lined up for a photo op and spied all the cameras sitting on a table, quickly grabbed all of them and started shooting. And who says that chivalry is dead? 😉
All in all, the Jane Austen Evening was a huge success, like always. It’s growing more and more popular every year, and tickets sold out this year in less than a week! The date for next year is already set for January 26, 2013, and if you are interested in attending I recommend joining the email list and buying tickets as soon as they go on sale!

Regency Stays Part 2

My Mantua Maker stays are nearly done (finally! I did most of the work last spring, then left them unfinished for months!), and they’re good enough to post about now.
Overall, I like this pattern – I recommend it with only slight reservations. It fits well and goes together easily, and has thorough instructions. My version is a new printing, so it’s even been updated to increase the size of the back (a common complaint on internet reviews). Originally I was going to leave the length, but I did end up reducing it 1″ because I’m shortwaisted.
But – the shoulder strap placement drove me NUTS. It’s so wide in the back that they dug into the back of my arms, and constantly fell off. I scoured the internet for pics of these stays made up, and every picture I saw has the same issue, so I decided to just go with it – no one else seems to complain, so maybe I should just shut up and deal.
Then I went to see the Fabulous! exhibit at FIDM, and they had a pair of regency stays on display. The straps on these stays were much closer together in the back, but still sat wide at the shoulder and at the front. The shape reminded me of a racer-back tank, though less severe.
I did more internet research of extant stays, and over and over I kept seeing the same thing –
the way these stays from the MFA are displayed show this concept – see how they’re narrow in the back and wrap around the shoulder to be wide in the front? Seemed like it would solve the strap-falling-off problem.
So even though my stays were all but finished, I just wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t try to fix them.
Here’s how I tried my new racer-back concept – remember, my stays were basically finished, so I had to get a little creative to attach the new straps. I had even done the binding at the top and had to remove that. ARGHH!!! 🙂
I put the stays on Beatrice, and tossed last year’s Jane Austen Evening dress on top and marked the neckline with pins to use as a guide for how wide to set the straps. 
I kept the shoulder strap on grain, and wrapped it from back to front. It’s basically just a rectangle with a little flare at the back seam. The angle of the strap at the seam is the important part to get right.
Shoulder strap trimmed down.
This side view shows how the original strap placement in the Mantua Maker pattern is under my armpit. No wonder they’re so uncomfortable!
New strap placement.
Here’s the finished version, on my properly padded form – they are much more comfortable, don’t fall off as easily, and hopefully are still wide enough for a nice evening neckline! My new straps are slightly too long now because the stays were sitting too low on Beatrice when I “draped” the strap, but oh well. Adding another hole won’t make a big difference to these frankensteined straps!
(As previously mentioned, I did choose to do cross-lacing instead of the period-correct spiral lacing at the back. Without a maid, it’s just too hard to lace up a spiral-back-lacing corset!)

Sense and Sensibility Chemise

Today is the end of the long Thanksgiving weekend here in the US, and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it! We visited with family on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday Chris and I met up with friends to go see the Debbie Reynolds costume auction preview in Beverly Hills. (other) Chris from wacky tacky and Lauren from Wearing History did write-ups of our visit, so pop over to check those out!

In other news, I’ve been buckling down and starting to work on some Regency wear in earnest – the annual Jane Austen Evening is at the end of January, so it’s time to get going!
This week I made a chemise from the Sense and Sensibility Underthings pattern. It was nice to work on such an easy-going garment – I tend to get wrapped up in fitting, make 3 mockups, and then burn out before getting to the real thing! I’m usually of the tank-top-is-good-enough opinion when it comes to undergarments that won’t be seen, but someday I want to make a nice sheer white gown, so having a proper chemise is important. It was very easy to put together, and I even did the flat felled seams. Loose fit and cotton? I might have to make more clothing like that…
I only have 2 comments regarding this pattern:
1) Even though I technically fall into the Medium size category, I made the Small chemise. It’s plenty big enough! On the next one I might even remove some of the fullness – I’d rather have a slimmer chemise and add more fullness with a petticoat, if necessary.
2) For the bias casing around the neckline, the instructions say to stitch the bias tape to the neck, then fold back 1/4″ on the other side of the bias tape. That’s insanely hard! Press back the 1/4″ BEFORE you stitch the bias tape to the neckline and you’ll be much happier.
Here some photos of Beatrice wearing my chemise over the Mantua Maker stays…the stays are basically done, but I’m not entirely happy with them and still want to tweak them. But that’s for another post!
Blurry Photo – whoops! :o) I shortened the chemise hem length only about an inch, and probably shouldn’t have even done that. It rides up a little with the stays on.
I really like the drawstring at the neckline – it’s adjustable so you can raise or lower the neckline depending on your gown. The strings are on the inside, and you tie it at the front.
Obviously, the back neckline is adjustable too. 🙂 (Re: the stays, yes I did cross-lacing instead of spiral. I think it would be nearly impossible to get dressed in rear opening spiral laced stays without a maid!) 
Side View illustrating how the stays only come halfway up the breast, and the chemise holds in the top – here’s a great post about the proper fit of stays on the Oregon Regency Society blog.

Regency Stays Part 1

I’ve been making progress on my Regency stays and Edwardian corset, very very slowly, but there it is. In case you hadn’t noticed, I jump around a lot with projects and hobbies – I try to do a good job on all of it, but if I have 3 dance rehearsals in a week, the sewing slows down. And vice versa. Ahh well, it keeps me interested, and hopefully doesn’t make you crazy with all the jumping around!

I’m working on the final version of my Regency stays now – I did a mockup, and didn’t really make any changes to the pattern. I considered playing with different bust gusset sizes and shortening the length because I’m short-waisted, but in in the end I left the pattern alone. The only adjustment I made from the original pattern was cutting straight across the top of side piece, instead of dipping down at the armhole. It looked awkward, was already plenty low for comfort, and keeping it straight will make binding easier.
Mantua Maker pattern copyright 2010 (updated version with the wider back)
 Busk at CF, no bones or cording yet
The brown part is my lacing strips at CB, not part of the finished project. I don’t love that it comes up at CB, but I didn’t see that until right now, so I won’t change it for these stays. The back panel is on the bias, so the pattern piece is cut straight but then stretches slightly, causing it to veer upward.
Here you can see the “lift” that the Regency period is known for. The stays do the upward pushing, and the chemise (or in my case, the tank top) holds in the top to prevent spillage.
I was a little surprised at how this fits – people keep saying that Regency corsets are just like a really good miracle bra and Spanx, but I also felt a huge difference in my posture – the wide straps force my shoulders back and chest out, which explains why the clothing of the period has such small backs. Or else I just have rotten posture.
When I fit this the other night, I was kind of unhappy with it – the buck wasn’t staying put (maybe it’s too wide?), I had trouble keeping the shoulder straps on, etc. And then I tossed on my most recent Regency dress and it looked TERRIBLE . *sigh* They just weren’t fit to go together. But these pictures look pretty good, so here’s hoping a little cording and boning help everything settle in better. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated!

Jane Austen Evening

Last Saturday we attended the 2011 Jane Austen Evening – as most of you know, I’ve been sewing for this event for weeks, and the projects inspired me to start blogging. Whew! What fun, but I’m glad that now I get to enjoy my memories instead of worrying about what else I should be sewing!
My dress is from the classic Sensibility pattern, but I’ve fit and altered the bodice quite extensively. My version has a lower and wider neckline, I added to the bust height so that it can stay down around my ribcage and not ride up, I interlined the sleeves with organza to make them pouf, and updated the back closure to lacing instead of buttons.
Catching a few rays of daylight outside the ball.

 
Closest pictures I have to a front and back view of my dress. 
I’m pretty sure I got more compliments on my jewelry than my dress. As it should be!

With one of my dearest friends, Ashley. It was her first Regency Ball, and I think she’s hooked too!

Adam (Ashley’s husband) was a great sport. I think he was my favorite dance partner of the evening – he really got into the spirit, and took every opportunity to strike a dapper pose. 🙂

I think Chris and I usually look like this when we dance – him teasing me, and me looking mad. 😉

High Tea before the ball.
Sweets – sweet!
The Tea Master at work – all the servers wore period outfits, which was a nice touch.
One fellow setting up his table.

A couple of the nicely decorated tables. I don’t want to bother bringing all that china, but on Ashley’s suggestion I’m going to bring a tablecloth and centerpiece next year.
I have more pictures of the impressive menswear at the Ball that I’ll be sharing soon over at Fashioning Beau Brummell – please check that out too!
I don’t have many pictures of the dancing (I was too busy having fun!), but if you want to see more, check out the Jane Austen Evening Facebook page – there is loads more eye candy there!