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The stunning Aidah Gown tester makes!

It’s the most wonderful part of a pattern launch: time to show off the tester makes!

Everyone loves seeing tester makes, and it’s no wonder: they show what the pattern looks like styled in a whole range of different ways, on a whole range of bodies, in different fabrics. There are always testers who do fabulous things with the pattern that never even occurred to me! So inspirational 💛

Pattern testers also ensure we deliver you the best possible pattern. They ask about instructions that are confusing. They provide feedback on the fit on a whole range of bodies. Based on their input we’re able to smooth off any final rough corners, and adjust the fit to make sure it will work for as many people as possible straight out of the packet – and that we have good fit and alteration guidance for when it doesn’t.

So we are so, so grateful to the people who are willing to pattern test, because their input is invaluable. Thank you so much!

The Aidah Gown testers were fabulous and helpful, and made the most stunning collection of makes. Here they are!

View A:

@Costuming_Drama

Noelle shares the most fun & beautiful historical and cosplay makes (Victorian Iron Man!) on her IG account. She’s made a lovely version of the Scroop + Virgil’s Fine Goods Amalia Jacket pattern too. So we knew she’d provide valuable feedback about our fit consistency – AND make a gorgeous version of the Aidah!

She did indeed, and even picked one of my favourite Colonial Williamsburg reproduction prints for it! Noelle doesn’t know this, but we almost ended up being dress twins, right down to the pink petticoat, but I ended up going with a different fabric for the sample. So when I say she has excellent taste, I really mean it!

Extra special bonus: you can follow along with her Aidah making journey on her Youtube channel!

Noelle made a Size 46, with additional length in the bodice. She chose the pinned-front fastening, slight train, and 3/4 length sleeves for her Aidah.

Caitlin @aladyofquality

I adore a good floral and play with stripes, but there’s something about the simplicity of a single coloured fabric that really shows off the gorgeous seaming and style lines of the Aidah Gown.

Caitlin utterly fabulous red wool gown is a spectacular example of this. Her back seams are just perfection, and the crisp front and back points are divine. And the colour? It just GLOWS!

Don’t you love her very wide tucker ruffle, and beautifully ruffled petticoat? And how they pop against the white!

Caitlin sewed a size 42. She used a View B back with the View A front. She chose the floor-length hem, elbow length sleeves, and pinned-front fastening for her Aidah.

Caitlin’s beautiful photos were taken by…

Mem of @starandscissor

Do you know that thing where you’ve seen a fabric and thought it was fine, but didn’t make your heart go pitter-patter, and then someone makes something spectacular out of it, and suddenly you desperately need it?

Yeah, that’s me and this @colonialwmsburg print and the incredibly beautiful View A Aidah Gown Mem with it!

The V the stripes form at the front! The interplay between the bias front stripes, the horizontal sleeve stripes and the vertical back stripes! The way the flowers spiral out at the centre of the back! The way the stripes work with the skirt pleating!

It’s all perfection ❤️❤️❤️

Mem made her Aidah in Size 50, blended down to a 48 in the waist, with Size 52 sleeves. Her sleeves are elbow length, and she chose the pinned front fastening.

Cecilia of @cecilia_theresa_design

Can you say STUNNING?

(I mean, obviously I love this, it’s yellow!)

Cecilia trimmed and styled her Aidah for the second half of the 1770s, with taller hair, and pinked and ruffled trims that are just perfection. She also added pick ups to the skirt – something we’ll be showing you how to do as a blog tutorial shortly.

I’m so in love with the whole look, and want one just like it for me!

Cecilia made a Size 34. She chose elbow length sleeves.

Carissa of @carissawakefield

Carissa is another tester who mashed up the pattern views, pairing a View A front with a View B back.

The end effect is lovely, and makes full use of her beautiful floral fabric.

Be sure to check out her instagram for lots of gorgeous detail photos of the dress!

Carissa sewed a size 36, graded down to just under a 34 in the waist. She chose 3/4 length sleeves, and the trained version.

View B

Anett of @anettveg

Anett made the most gorgeous View B without the cutaway front – and took the most fabulous, fun photos of it!

There’s a hot air balloon! And spinning!

Anett was a wonderfully helpful tester, and even changed her making plans to help us test a view that we needed coverage for. She’s also planning to make an Aidah in pink striped fabric, like our primary View B inspiration garment…

Annet made a Size 44 with 3/4 length sleeves, with no train.

Blair of @goodwiveslinens

Blair has tested Scroop + Virgils Fine Goods patterns before, and we know she’s a wonderful pattern tester: detailed and thorough, and not afraid to tell us about things that didn’t work for her.

So we always love having her be part of a test group, and when she told us what she wanted to do as an Aidah Gown test make, we knew we had to include her!

What did she want to do? Re-make her Aidah from one of her first 18th century gowns, made back in 2010!

I think you can easily see that the re-make has been a resounding success – it fits beautifully, looks absolutely charming, and is perfectly 18th century both in its styling, and in its philosophy! It makes me so happy that we were part of the journey of this beloved gown, keeping it wearable for (hopefully) another 12+ years!

She also did another very cool thing – mashing the Aidah gown up with the Angelica Gown laced front. It’s just another example of how the two patterns can be used together. Check out her reels to see the whole making process.

Blair made a Size 38 View B without the cutaway front and with elbow length sleeves. Her fabric is from Den haan Wagenmakers, and her hat is a pattern she’s just released!

Erika of @chesapeakecostuming

Erika had a little delay with her photoshoot, so we only get to see in-progress photos so far – but those are very interesting too! Look at all that pretty pleating…

Her gown has the sweetest story. It’s a inspired by the very first historical costume her mother made her.

Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever?

Erika made View B with the cutaway front in size 50 chest, 44 waist, 44 sleeve.

Lucy of @sewsanah

This may not be what she intended, but there’s something very fairytale-esque about Lucy’s Aidah. It’s almost 1780s Sleeping Beauty, with the pink petticoat and the floral print like climbing roses.

I have a huge soft spot for Sleeping Beauty because of Robin McKinley’s Spindle’s End, and I can definitely imagine Peony in this!

Lucy made a Size 30. She chose the cutaway front and long sleeves for her Aidah. She also chose to cut her tabs so they are almost twice as long as the pattern, for a very dramatic silhouette.

Dee of @the_needle_woman

Dee originally had a different fabric picked out for her Aidah, but went for this lovely pastel striped cotton at the last minute, as she felt it would be perfect for a Georgian pastoralism – and the sweltering summer we’ve been having down in the Southern Hemisphere.

She’s absolutely right! I feel cool just looking at the photos of her. The delicate shade is so light and refreshing, and the stripes add just enough interest to the gown, and highlight the slight V at the centre front of the bodice.

I particularly love Dee’s photos, because they are actually somewhere I’ve been! Dee took her photos in the the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne at the 1755 cottage owned by Captain Cook’s parents. The cottage was disassembled and brought to Australia in pieces in the 1930s and reassembled in the gardens. They even took cuttings from the ivy growing on the house in England and planted them! It’s slightly bonkers, but does mean we can visit an 18th century English house in a city that didn’t exist when the house was built.

Dee made a View B without cutaway matched with a View A back, with elbow length sleeves. Her Aidah is Size 44 bust, 40 waist, 42 sleeves

Gorgeous, all of them! A huge thank you to these testers for all their work and feedback.

Get your Aidah Gown here!

The Scroop + Virgils Fine Goods Aidah Gown scrooppatterns.com

The Aidah vs the Angelica: what’s different

Published by The Dreamstress

We’ve just launched the Scroop + Virgil’s Fine Goods Aidah Gown pattern, and I’ve introduced it as the ‘sister’ pattern to the Angelica Gown. There is a lot in common between the two pattterns: they cover the same timeperiod, are both Italian gowns, and they have interchangeable elements.

But, like real sisters (or at least my sisters – the youngest likes to say of me: “she’s nothing like me“), they are also very much their own distinct individuals.

So, how are the patterns different?

In brief, they have:

Side seams (Angelica) vs no side seams (Aidah).
Different front necklines
Different front points/tab options
Different back necklines
One piece sleeves (Angelica) vs two piece sleeves (Aidah)
Different back point lengths
Different seaming in the four-panel back option
Different front-fastening options: lacing for the Angelica, hooked or pinned for the Aidah
Different construction details in the instructions whenever there were multiple historically accurate options for how to construct an Italian Gown – we picked one technique for each pattern.

I’ll go into each of these differences in detail below.

Here’s a helpful overlay of the pattern line drawings to show the differences. The Angelica is in pink, the Aidah is in black:

Our goal with making the Aidah pattern was to make it as different from the Angelica in cut and construction while still having elements, like the sleeves and fronts/backs, that you could mix between the two patterns, to have as many options as possible if you had both patterns.

The Differences:

Side Seams:

The biggest difference between the two patterns, although it’s one that is very subtle in the line drawings, is that the Angelica has a side seam, and the Aidah does not. So the Angelica is constructed with a front piece and a separate side-back piece, while the Aidah has a front piece that wraps around and joins the back with no side seam.

Both options are accurate ways to pattern an Italian Gown, but they result in very different pattern pieces.

The lack of side seam means the Aidah is a faster make (one less piece to cut and seam to sew actually makes quite a difference!), but the Angelica is easier to fit and adjust.

If you’re new to 18th century fitting I’d actually recommend starting with the Angelica, as the side seam makes it an easier pattern to adjust.

The Aidah Gown: See Ma, no seam!

Front Fastenings:

The second biggest (or at least, most obvious) difference between the two patterns is how they fasten. The Angelica features an interior lacing, with flaps that hide the laced fastening.

Image shows the interior of an 18th century gown in gold striped silk

The hidden front lacing of the Angelica Gown

The Aidah has instructions for a pinned-front closure (the most common closure in the 18th century) or a hooked front closure (a less common closure, but one that did exist, and one that is easier to do if you’re not used to pins).

Georgian Frolics in the country thedreamstress.com

Angelica View B (purple check) with a hooked fastening borrowed from the Aidah, next to an Angelica View A (floral).

Here’s an Angelica gown (View B, in lilac checked linen) made with the hooked front instructions from the Aidah, to check that the instructions are transferable across the two patterns.

Sleeves:

Another major difference between the two patterns is sleeves. The Angelica has a single-piece sleeve with an elbow dart for shape. The Aidah has a two-piece sleeve. The two piece sleeve allowed us to include three sleeve lengths in the Aidah, including a full length sleeve (the pattern includes a detailed discussion of the historical accuracy – or not- of this length).

Aidah View B with full length sleeves

The Front Neckline:

The Angelica gown has a scooped curve that joins the shoulder straps at an angle. The Aidah, on the other hand, has a straighter, squarer neckline, with straps that join the neckline with almost no upward curve of the neckline.

The Scroop Patterns + Virgils Fine Goods Angelica Gown 1775-1790 scrooppatterns.com

The Angelica Gown, with its more scooped out neckline

The Front & Waist Edge:

The difference between the View B Aidah and the Angelica is super obvious. The Aidah has a tabbed front, with the option of a cutaway effect.

A blond woman with her hair styled high above her head in a 1780s style stands facing straight on. She holds a flower in her right hand, and is looking down on it. She is wearing a late 18th century dress in cobalt blue silk with a fitted bodice with tabs below the waist, full skirt, 3/4 sleeves, and a white ruffle around the low square neck.

Aidah View B with tabbed front and cuttaway effect

While it’s not as immediately obvious, the View A Aidah is also different to the Angelica.

The View A Aidah’s point is longer and less abrupt than the View A Angelica, and shorter and curvier than the View B Angelica. It also comes to a slightly pointier and less squared-off point than either Angelica view.

Compare this:

A fair skinned woman in a ruffly white cap topped with a bow stands in 3/4 view, her head turned over her left shoulder. She is wearing a late 18th century dress in bright florals on white with a fitted bodice with a blue bow at the bust, full skirt, elbow length sleeves, a white fichu filling in the neck, and a teal skirt. Her right hand picks up her floral overskirt, and her left is resting on a dark cane with a silver handle.

Aidah View A

To this:

Angelica View A

The Back & Back Neckline:

The Aidah has a lower back neckline than the Angelica, with the straps meeting the neck edge in an almost straight line, compared to the steep angle of the Angelica back:

Aidah View B with a four-panel back

Angelica View A with a four-panel back

The Angelica also has a deeper back point than the Aidah, and the four-panel Angelica back features curved lines that swoop in and out at the waist, whereas the seams of the four-panel Aidah a head straight down in a V.

Constructions:

Finally, wherever possible we tried to cover different construction techniques in the Aidah and Angelica patterns, so if you have both you’d know a whole new set of techniques which could be applied to other 18th century garments.

This does mean that the Aidah is a HEFTY pattern. With two front fastening options, a cutaway option, and the rather tricky tabbed front of View B, it has a full 8 pages of instructions more than the Angelica (44 to the Angelicas 36), and an additional page of fitting instructions.

Even with all the differences, we were determined to make sure that the Aidah and Angelica still had enough points in common that they could be mixed and matched. You can switch the sleeves between both patterns. You can also pair the Angelica front with the Aidah back at the side-back seams, and vice versa.

So mix and match, buy either, buy both.

Whatever you do, either pattern will give you all the information you need to make an absolutely stunning Italian gown!

Three women in 18th century dress: a blond in cobalt blue, a woman in a cap in floral, and an woman with auburn curls in black, stand with linked arms and turn towards the camera and laugh.

Introducing the 1775-1790 Aidah Gown

Published by The Dreamstress

We’ve hit the point in the Scroop + Virgil’s Fine Goods pattern collaboration where all our hard work in setting up the foundations of patterns is paying off! We’ve refined the our base patterns, our graphic designs, and our instruction layouts, and we can now put together new patterns much more quickly (although we’re still make extremely detailed, labour intensive patterns, so not that quickly).

What does that mean? It means that only 6 months after launching the Angelica, we have a sister pattern to the Angelica: the delightful Aidah Gown!

Wondering how to say it? It’s pronounced Aye-da, like Ada or Adah. Aidah was a variant 18th century spelling of Ada that we came across in our research.

Buy the pattern here! – and get 10% off for the first week!

Like the Angelica, the Aidah is a fashionable late 18th century Italian gown. It’s not just a repeat of the Angelica though: it has a different front and back necklines, different back panels, and two piece sleeves with three length options instead of one-piece sleeves with two length options.

View A has a different front point to either of the Angelica options, and View B features a tabbed bodice with optional cutaway front. Fasten either View’s front with pinned or hooked front closures, instead of the laced front closure of the Angelica.

Plus, the Aidah instructions include more historical information, and different construction techniques to the Angelica whenever there are multiple period-accurate options for how to construct this type of gown. Both patterns instructions are complete and accurate on their own, but if you have both, you’ll have a whole set of new techniques to add to your 18th century making skill basket.

But wait, there’s more! The Aidah is specifically designed to complement the Angelica, so that both patterns work as ‘expansion packs’ for each other. The sleeves of both patterns are interchangeable. Made the Angelica with the Aidah’s two piece sleeves, or the Aidah with the Angelica’s one-piece sleeve.

Additionally, the curved side-back seams of the two patterns are an exact match to each other, so the Aidah front can be fitted to the Angelica back, and the Angelica front + side front can be fitted to the Aidah back.

The detailed historically accurate sewing instructions cover everything you need to make your own beautiful versions, from first fitting to final trimming. There’s even a guide to making sleeve ruffles, tuckers, and fichu!

We’ve even developed an extremely clever pattern method for the skirt based on 18th century patterning techniques.

The pattern comes in bust sizes 30”-52” (76-132cm). To help you get the perfect fit there’s a 9-page fitting and pattern alteration guide.

We put so much work into this pattern to make it as well fitted, historically accurate, easy to make, and fun to wear as possible. Hopefully you’ll like the result!

Thanks to Amber’s historical knowledge the patterns are filled with meticulous historical details that will help you get the late 1770s-1790s look just right.

View A has a plain bodice front with a medium pointed front curve that ends in a truncated V, a two-panel back, and a skirt that finishes just above the floor (although we made this sample with the slightly trained skirt of View B).

View B features a tabbed bodice front with an optional cutaway front, full length or ¾ length sleeves, a four-panel back, and a slight train.

Buy the pattern here! – and get 10% off for the first week!

The Aidah Gown is the seventh collaboration between Scroop Patterns and Virgil’s Fine Goods. Our patterns combine Amber of Virgil’s Fine Goods’ extensive mantua making skills with my patternmaking skills.

Our goal is to bring you easy-to-use historical patterns with comprehensive size ranges and detailed historically-accurate instructions. The patterns are available as downloadable print-at-home patterns, to make historical sewing more accessible to sewists everywhere, and as paper patterns through Virgil’s Fine Goods and other stores.

We’re extremely proud of this pattern, and are so excited to see your versions!

All the gorgeous tester versions will be coming shortly! Their makes are so inspiring. They combined views, used our trim suggestions, and styled the gowns to their own taste.