W.I.P.: Striped robe à l'anglaise

Here's a little post about my progress with the striped robe à l'anglaise as promised! First off this week, I sewed up the petticoat. I'm really starting to think it needs some ruffles but I haven't decided yet. I'll have to see how tight I'm with fabric at the end anyway so that decision is saved for later.

Next, I drew the pattern for the bodice and made a mock-up. It was pretty good in the front. I just wanted to make the center front a little longer.

However, the back side of the bodice was a mess! So many wrinkles everywhere!

Problem solved: The back was too baggy and it needed to be tightened. Also, I had to change the shape of the armholes (see on the left side).

After making the changes to the pattern, I finally started cutting the dress itself and this is where I'm at at the moment:

 I think I still need to tweak the the back side since I'm not happy with the stripes not forming 100% similar pattern on both sides. Though, I noticed that the stripes weren't that perfect in the original (via Romancing the Tome blog) either. I guess it would be "period" to leave it this way, too, but I'm too much of a perfectionist to do that. I also think I need to add a waist band to the inside of the dress in order to keep the back tightly in the right place. I'm going to be gone for the weekend but hopefully I can continue sewing the dress on Moday. "See" you next time!

Liebster Blog Award!

I'd like to thank Angela from The Merry Dressmaker for surprising me yesterday with the Liebster Blog Award! I'm so happy to receive my very first blog award and now it's time for me to pass it on. It was so hard deciding only five favorite bloggers because there are so many awesome bloggers that I truly admire and who would definitely deserve to be presented with this award. 

Liebster Blog Award rules:

1) Add the award icon to your blog!
2) Link to your awarder to say "Thank You".
3) And most importantly, award five (5) of your favorite bloggers with less than 200 followers with the award! 

And the Liebster Blog Award goes to... 

Rebel's Haven: Vera's Costume Journal: I admire Vera's patience and determination with all of her costume making projects. Especially, I'm in awe with all the work she puts into a costume to make it perfect, down to the smallest details. 

Isis' Wardrobe: I know I'm breaking the rules here because Isis already has over 200 followers. However, it's only two followers above the limit as I'm writing this so I thought to give this award to her anyway. Her blog is so inspiring to me and she's so supportive towards others so I really think she deserves to get this award! 

Les Choses Délicates: Yet another inspiring blog with so many pretty pictures. I love all of her 18th centruy outfits, but her blue zone front gown must be one of the prettiest dresses I've ever seen! 

L'eventail, la Rose et L'Edelweiss: This is a blogger that I originally found on deviantArt. Few years ago she was one of the first 18th century costume makers that I ever stumbled upon on the net and her works have inspired me since the very beginning. 

Sweet Threads, Dude!: What can I say? This blogger simply makes awesome costumes and I really admire her accuracy with details.

For closure, I'd like to thank all of my readers for your support and especially those who constantly leave comments. I really appreciate it - it keeps me going even when I feel like giving up with my sewing and throwing the unfinished garments to dumpster! :) Well, that's all from this time! I'm making progress with the striped robe à l'anglaise so you can expect to see some W.I.P. photos very soon! 

Underwear for 1770s and 1780s

Last week was all about making underwear for the striped robe à l'anglaise. I sewed a new big bumpad, shift and an under-petticoat. My old shift was in a very bad condition and a way too loose around the arms for 1770's and 1780's sleeves so that's why I needed a new one. I've always been quite lazy about underwear because all those garments won't be seen but it was just recently when I realized that you actually need proper underwear for good costumes. I've been in a hurry because the deadline for the 1780's robe à l'anglaise is in 19 days so I just machine-sewed pretty much all the undies.

First off, the shift. Sorry for the modern underwear showing but the fabric is just so sheer I had to wear something there under for the photos for the sake of modesty. The shift pattern is based on the variation A of  chemise in Garsault's L'Art de la Lingerie, found on La couturière Parisienne.

The new bumpad. I made it a lot bigger than my earlier two bumpads. Also, there's a ruffle around the edges because I thought might give the skirts more smoother line. It works. The bumpad is cotton and stuffed with some old pillow stuffing.

The first under-petticoat. I forgot to wear stockings for the photos. It doesn't matter, though. I just wanted to see the effect of the new bumpad and petticoats.

The second under-petticoat. It's an old one, made to be worn with the smaller bumpads so the hem isn't even with the new one.

I'm actually a bit ashamed to admit that I still don't have a pair of hanging pockets after five years in this hobby. I will sew them... eventually. But now I'm off to start making the dress itself!

Upcoming project: Striped 1780's dress

I'm finally about to start to make a new dress. This is a gown of which I've been dreaming of since I saw a picture of a striped 1780's robe à l'anglaise in the book Fashioning fashion a few months ago. There's only a back view photo of the dress (below) in the book if I remember correctly. I tried to find the dress in LACMA digital collection but it wasn't there. Later on, I saw some pictures of the said dress on a flickr set of Fashioning Fashion exhibit and thought I'd love to sew the dress for myself because I'm absolutely crazy about stripes and purple is one of my favorite colours.

Picture via Fashion is Poison blog.

The dress instantly made me think of another very similar anglaise gown on MET.

Unfortunately I couldn't start making the dress as soon as I would have wanted to because it took me a couple of months to find the fabric. I knew I probably wouldn't find white and purple striped silk fabric but luckily I did find the fabric in cotton! It looks almost blue when photographed but it's actually purple. Here's a sketch of my version of this type of dress. I'm not yet sure whether I'll add ruffles to the petticoat like in the Met dress. I'll have to see about it later on. Changes in the design are very probable anyway.

At the moment I'm making a humongous bumpad to be worn under the petticoat because I realized my earlier bumpad was much too small. I'll post photos of the progress on the dress as I get there.

Pattern for robe à l'anglaise (1787) found via the Costumer's Manifesto. 

By the way, I started a facebook site for Rococo Atelier so that I can share interesting links with you. I'll also post links to my recent blog posts there so you can follow the blog more easily if you don't have a blogger account. Like Rococo Atelier here.