Something Victorian-ish for the kid

I sewed something new! And we went out and had historical dress-up fun!

The Kid has really grown and absolutely none of the old historic outfits still fit. :( 

Plus we are now in a phase where dresses and frills are not so popular. That's tough for me, as a frilly-dress lover, but I can compromise if it means my kid will still attend events with me! 

I had a gorgeous piece of dark warm-grey wool with a very subtle red plaid stripe, and I decided to go for a look inspired by late 1890s bicycle wear, like these ones (more on my pinterest board):

 

Now it's true most of them include a jacket of some kind, and I really just wanted to make a vest and blouse. (And I even ran out of time before our event and just pulled an old blouse out of my closet. Oops!)

The pants pattern is just a basic pajama pattern that I added width to, then made my own pieces for waistband, kneebands, placket, and pocket. The vest is from a Burda pattern for a girl's school uniform jacket. In retrospect I could've made the front opening much higher. Both pieces are the same subtly-plaid wool. The vest is lined in black linen and the pants are unlined.

The boots were a lucky find at Target. The wool flat cap is an old one I made my husband. Most of the time we were out in the cold we added the capelet and muff. There's also some serious long underwear because brrr.

We had a good time playing with friends!

I wore my patterned wool polonaise.

It's definitely not perfectly historical, but it's historically-inspired and a lot of fun! Hoping to get some re-wear opportunities out of it for anything Victorian or steampunk we do in the next year.

1870s Dress for an 8-year-old

A few months ago I made a new 1870s dress for my 8-year-old for our Victorian summer picnic.

First, The Foundation Garments. I made her a new very plain and simple chemise and drawers. I made up the chemise with a small cut-on sleeve. The drawers I made following Elizabeth Stuart Clark's instructions, but I sewed the crotch seam completely closed and also added a little elastic in back so they wouldn't slide down. She wore white, knee-high modern stockings with this.

Next I made the foundation bodice. I made it from cotton twill, stiffened with cords and a little boning. It has adjustable straps and laces closed in back. There are buttons along the lower edge to attach the petticoats and skirts. 

Here are a couple examples I used for reference. I omitted the front buttons on mine because it was a little quicker and I was on a deadline!

To make the pattern, I wrapped her up in tape, over an old t-shirt, then (carefully!) cut the tape away at CB, marked my desired seamlines, and cut on each to make pattern pieces. I removed a little from the CB for a lacing gap, traced them onto paper, and added seam allowances.

Onto The Dress. Here's a few images I used for reference. The white blouse under a sleeveless dress seemed to be a pretty popular look.

Here's another, with short cap sleeves instead of a sleeveless overdress.

One more, hiding between these two ladies. Similar blouse/bodice look.

This catalog page from 1873 specifically calls these sleeveless, low-neck dresses "overdresses," implying they go over something else, like one of the waists on the previous page, or another dress.

For simplicity's sake I decided to make the blouse/overdress fake, and sewed the white sleeves and yoke right to the purple dress.

The dress has buttons all the way down the front, white on top and grey mother-of-pearl on the purple part. The bottom 5 or 6 buttons are non-functional.

The sides of the overskirt are pleated up a bit to make it more bustle-y. I tied a dark purple petersham ribbon around the waist at the last minute.

The purple linen fabric has a small white stripe. The faux-neckline and hem are trimmed with pleats made of bias strips of the linen. The neckline and wrists are trimmed with lace and there is a little white ribbon around the faux-neckline also.

The underskirt is white muslin trimmed with wide knife pleats. A little of the pleats stick up above a trimming of white petersham. This underskirt came out far too long initially, so I sewed a tuck to the inside to take up a little length, The tuck is hidden behind the upper part of the pleats.

I liked this dress a lot, and so did she! The bustling at the sides and back didn't come out perfect, but what ever does? She really enjoyed wearing it and my only regret is I couldn't get her to stand still long enough for a few nice, serious pictures. Hopefully she will still fit into this one next year!

An 18th Century Gown and Bonnet for an 8-year-old

Last week I sewed this 18th century style gown and bonnet for my 8 year old kid. We had planned a picnic which got canceled due to rain, but dressed up and went out for a little lunch anyway. Here she is! 

The restaurant had the fireplaces lit in the basement.

Working hard at something!

We stopped at a small park on the way home for some more photos.

The Making:

I started with 2.5 yards of 60" wide poly taffeta. I am usually a fiber snob but, a.) this was reaaaaallly nice poly taffeta, I promise, and b.) it's kid clothes. The pattern was drafted from another old pattern, which I enlarged (because she has grown) and also made new/different seams. You can just barely see the curved back seams here.

An inspiration image from Costume In Detail. The girl's dress is plain, open in front. I also loved the bonnet.

Here's the shift, which I made from an old cotton sheet.

Pockets and petticoat. I got this embroidered fabric for free. The petticoat is just some very cheap muslin I had laying around.

The petticoat is your typical drop-front construction. No bum pads or stays, just these.

 I machine-sewed everything I could. The whole petticoat, almost all of the shift. I hand-hemmed the shift neckline just because it was easier on the curves. The lower lining seam of the dress is sewn down by hand. There is no closure because I just used pins.

I trimmed the dress with pinked, self-fabric pleats and some fine dotted netting. All applied by machine. (See above: kid clothes.) I made the pleated strips on the machine with the fork method.

I shaped the net at the elbows to be longer in the back. I had to apply the sleeve trim by hand because it was too tiny to get into the machine.

The Bonnet:

I liked the one in the image above, as well as those little silk market bonnets that everyone is making these days. See A Fashionable Frolick, or American Duchess blog. I made this one out of some grey silk taffeta from the stash.

I've been trying to make one of these for myself for ages, but making up my own brim shape was challenging. It always looked dorky, no matter what. Here's what I ended up with for The Girl. Please feel free to copy this if it helps you at all!

Like the dress and undies, I machine-sewed as much of this as possible. First I cut the brim shape out of Peltex (not buckram! I'm such a cheater!) and sewed millinery wire to the edge using a machine zigzag. Then I cut two silk pieces for the brim (adding seam allowance) and sewed the front seam. I clipped the seam allowances and inserted the wired Peltex piece. The I folded the back seam allowances over and machine-stitched them down. Brim done.

For the crown portion, I made a drawstring casing along the straight back edge and put in some cord, stitching it down at the sides and bringing the ends through a small space I left open at the center, making a drawstring to adjust the size.

I zigzagged the raw edge, then moved to hand sewing. I whip-gathered the curved edge of the crown and hand stitched it to the brim.

It looks a little messy from the inside, but it doesn't show when worn.

I pinked a few strips of the silk and made a big bow attached to the center front. I did her hair in a soft bun at the back and frizzed up her natural curls in front a bit. 

The brim shape isn't entirely how I anticipated, and maybe the crown is too wide on the sides, but I love it anyway.

I am so in love with how this whole outfit turned out! She had requested a fancy dress with ruffles and I think this did the job. 

Kid Pants

I made 5 new pairs of pants and shorts for The Girl over the past week.

It is terribly difficult to get her to take nice pictures lately. She always wants that tongue sticking out! (The Girl would like me to inform you all that she likes her tongue out and it looks cool.)

All of them were made from stash leftovers. That's getting harder all the time since she's growing so big!

I put pockets on ALL of them (even though it takes so much longer to sew!) because she likes pockets. The pattern is basically a pajama pant, just cut a bit narrower. Elastic waists on all of them. Everything machine-sewn and serged.

Here are the other four:

This is the first thing I've completed for Me Made May! My goal was at least 3 new modern garments but I think all these together count as one thing. They're just so simple!