All posts filed under: Sewing

Things I sew – historical and modern

Ninon’s dress: angels out of tune

Published by The Dreamstress

Not everything is going perfectly with the 1660s dress for Ninon.  I think it’s the fabric.  If it’s not golden yellow silk satin, problems are still possible. I mentioned yesterday that the centre front point of the bodice was looking a little dorky. Now, I could have let this go, because, to be perfectly honest, some of the historical examples are pretty dorky themselves. Definitely dorky. But, Maria and her ‘look, my bodice point is so long and dorky I have to sit in a slump with my legs apart’ aside, I didn’t want a dorky dress.  Ninon was not dorky!  I want a beautiful dress! So I took inspiration from some non dorky dresses. Like this one.  It’s a tiny bit dorky, but definitely heading towards the less dorky area. And this one is definitely not dorky.  In fact, I love it. I can’t take inspiration from my main inspiration dress, because Elisabeth has her hands elegantly arranged in her lap,  but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have a dorky point. To fix my …

Ninon’s dress: boning the bodice

Published by The Dreamstress

Making a mid 17th century dress is interesting – the bodice is fully boned, so it’s basically a corset with sleeves.  I guess it saves making a corset to go under the outfit 😀 Anyway, this means I had to make an inner boning layer, and figure out a boning pattern to present the right 17th century torso silhouette. For my inner boning layers, I used a fairly rough unbleached linen that I found 4 metres of at an op shop for $5.  This really has been a fortunate dress! For boning, I’m using 3/8″ black plastic cable ties.  Not exactly whalebone, but no-one is offering me a piece of the poor whale that beached itself locally over the weekend (not that I’m really sure I’d take it if they did! And do humpback whales even have the right kind of baleen for boning?) I started researching my boning patterns using two sources: the German bodice, and Norah Waughs 1660s jacket bodice.  Unfortunately, neither was a completely satisfactory guide.   The German bodice pattern was …

Ninon’s dress: draping and fitting the bodice

Published by The Dreamstress

I used three main sources to drape and bone the under-bodice for my 1660’s gown: the patterns for the 1660’s bodice in the downloadable book on 17th fashion (in German, which I don’t read, but ‘pattern’ is a universal language!), Janet Arnold’s 1660 bodice pattern, and the under-bodice pattern in Corsets and Crinolines. The German bodice was the most helpful, as it is almost exactly like the bodice I want to make, and it has the boning patterns.  If you do download the book for yourself, I believe the pattern is on page 232. Janet Arnold’s pattern was also helpful in the initial drafting, because her scale is so easy to use. Unfortunately, it’s only easy in some ways – Arnold notes that the bodice pattern drapes over a fully boned foundation, but doesn’t provide a boning layout or tell you if the under-bodice has the same seams as the over bodice.  Grrrr! Anyway, using a combination of Arnold and the German pattern, I draped a pattern.  I was very daring and did it straight …