The Dreamstress

In making my Frou Frou Francaise, I knew I wanted extremely lush, frilly, lace engageantes. It matches the overall aesthetic of the dress, and is by far the most common type of engageantes represented in artworks featuring francaise in the 1750s & 60s.

Engageantes in Art

There are exquisite lace examples like this:

And embroidered net examples like this:

And generally just lots of lush froth like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And, of course, most of all, the glorious example of lace engageantes shown in the portrait of Queen Charlotte that was one of my original inspiration images for my francaise:

Finding suitable lace:

The first thing I was going to need to make really gorgeous, lush engageantes was gorgeous, lush lace.

Perfectly in time for my search for the ideal lace, silkworld.com.au began selling fabric retail, not just wholesale, and they offered me some lace to make something out of to help advertise their new retail line.

I was phenomenally excited by the offer and delighted to help, because SilkWorld is the only place in the Antipodes that sells silk tulle (aka, the holy grail of historical costuming) and its equally covetable cousin, cotton tulle, on a regular basis.

(I’m just popular enough to get a fair amount of offers of free products in exchange for blog and instagram posts, but I turn most of them down, because I’m not going to tell you about something unless I’m pretty excited about it.)

Knowing I was making engageantes, I chose this gorgeous lace in ivory.

It is nylon, but not at all scratchy and stiff, and the motifs and overall amount of motif and open space was the best match to my inspiration images.

The lace arrived, and it did not disappoint (neither did the silk tulle I also got, which is like unicorn dreams and angel kisses and was clearly woven by fairies – I can’t wait to use it)

So, now that I had wonderful lace to work with, how was I going to get a lace fabric with a straight scalloped edge to work as engageantes, which usually have curved edges?

Figuring out the Pattern

Some of the examples of frilly engagenates that I showed above are clearly embroidered net with edgings of straight lace attached, and it’s possible that other examples are cotton lawn with extremely lush whitework, like this example from the Met:

Both of those construction styles allow the shaping of the engageante to be built into the construction: cut a straight edge to gather to the sleeve, and a scalloped or rounded edge to finish with whitework or a lace edging.

The lace edging method is similar to the type of engageante shown in the American Duchess 18th century book, which is what I used for my first attempt at sleeve ruffles for this francaise. Pretty, but not quite what I’m going for:

I want a fully lace engageante, which means working with lace with a straight scalloped edge – not something that can be cut to curve in along the scallops.

So, how to make that type of engageante?

In-period the lace would have made specifically for engageantes, with narrower ends, and wider centres, as surviving examples show:

But that isn’t possible with standard purchased lace, because the decorative scalloped border is along a straight edge.

To create the curve of engageantes, what I did is flip the standard engageante shape.

Here is a pattern for engageantes, from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion. The original is made in embroidered lawn:

I traced off the basic shape (in blue) and then reduced the changes in height, to match what you see in extant examples, resulting in my pink pattern pieces.

I wanted a three-ruffle engageant, so I used my two pattern pieces to create a third piece, halfway between the two – I also extended the top ruffle’s circumference length by an inch, so all three ruffles were the same, as it made them much easier to work with.

This gave me a basic pattern template:

Then I flipped the template:

And cut my ruffles with the straight edge of my template/pattern along my scalloped lace border:

Cutting & Sewing:

I cut my bottom two ruffles with the extremely detailed, scalloped border, and my uppermost ruffle with the slightly simpler border on the other edge of the fabric – just to give a bit more dimensionality to the engageantes.

Then I stacked my three layers together:

And gathered along the curved edge:

I sewed the curved edge to a tape, and basted the tape into the sleeves of my francaise, so it’s easily removable for washing, or to put on another francaise.

And there are my engageantes!

I’m really happy with what an extravagant bit of froth they give at the ends of the sleeves. I could have made them even fuller – but they are rather glorious as they are.

The Challenge: #12 Neglected Challenge — re-doing #9 ‘Hands & Feet’. It seems only right to include this for that challenge, as I literally re-made the engageantes I did for it!

Fabric: 1.5m lace

Pattern: my own, as above

Year: ca. 1760

Notions: thread, cotton tape 

How historically accurate is it?: Nylon lace and a re-think of how to cut a pattern? Maybe 40% However, it’s as close as you’re going to get unless you are embroidering silk tulle or doing elaborate whitework on lawn.

Hours to complete: 2

First worn: for photos in early December

Total cost: Free, but only because I was given the lace (thank you silkworld.com.au!

Just in time for the heat of the New Zealand summer, I’ve made a velvet winter bonnet.

The Wellington historical sewists and I had been working on 1790s-1810s garments all 2018, with the goal of each of us creating at least one full outfit.

For our Sew & Eat Historical Retreat we wanted to do a group sewing project. We decided on bonnets based on Lynne McMasters 1810s Regency bonnet pattern.

We all went searching for fabric and inspiration. I decided I wanted a bonnet to wear with my 1813 Kashmiri dress, now that I have enough more of the fabric to make day sleeves and a spencer to wear over it.

And I could wear the bonnet when I wear the spencer (which doesn’t yet exist), over a plain white dress (which also doesn’t exist. I’m doing so well here…)

I realised that if I made a bonnet with a shorter crown than that given in McMasters pattern, and a slight adjustment to the brim angle, I could wear the bonnet for 1790s as well, if I wasn’t being too specific about total accuracy. Most 1790s hat brims seem to angle off and end at the sides, rather than going all the way around the back of the brims, but there are a few plates, like this one, which appear to show a brim that extends around the back:

I settled on a dark brick red velvet to cover my bonnet, and black trimmings with a grey feather.

The Pattern:

The ‘Regency Bonnet Pattern’ was one of Lynn McMasters earlier patterns, dating back to 2013.

It’s obvious from the pattern how much McMasters knows her craft as a milliner, but the pattern itself is a little disorganised, and lacks clarity in places.

Some of the instructions are extraordinarily detailed. Other places are extremely brief – attaching the brim to the crown is covered by “sew the brim to the crown” (what stitch? Both pieces are fully finished, how do you do it without leaving marks on the outside? What happens to the tabs – how do you affix them to the interior?). Other spots are so wordy and convoluted that the four of us making hats (all with extensive sewing experience) each came to a different conclusion as to what we were meant to do.

Many steps in the pattern give you multiple options of what to do: it’s nice to know there are many ways to achieve a reasonable end, but does make the pattern quite difficult to read.

But…despite a few rough spots, we all made successful hats (albeit by slightly different routes, depending on how we read the instructions)

I went off pattern in a number of spots, most notably cutting all my fabric on the straight grain rather than the bias because I didn’t have enough fabric, and that didn’t cause any problems.

There are a few spots that are a bit wibbly, especially on the inside, but hey, no one looks like the inside.

To celebrate our finished bonnets, we had a picnic and wore our regency dresses and the bonnets. It was too hot for spencers (I always seem to schedule picnics on wildly windy or unseasonably hot days), and none of us has made a chemisette yet, so we aren’t exactly properly attired – but we had cherries and strawberries and salmon rouleaux and marmalade cakes and fun.

I went for a sort of 1790s look, because it matches better with no chemisttes and spencers.

And, although it was finished a teeny-tiny bit into 2019, this completes my 12 challenges for the Historical Sew Monthly 2018:

The Challenge:  #12 Neglected Challenge – re-doing #10 ‘Fabric Manipulation’, which I had a pretty lame entry for (a Regency petticoat with tucks round the hem, which I haven’t even blogged about yet…). There is a lot of amazing fabric manipulation involved in millinery: shaping the buckram, shaping the fabric around the buckram, pleating or gathering the brim lining…

Fabric:  .4m of velvet ($3, thrifted), .3m of silk habotai ($2, thrifted)

Pattern:  Lynn McMasters 1810s Regency Bonnet Pattern

Year:  ca. 1810

Notions:  1/2m buckram ($15), 3m millinery wire ($6) thread ($1), velvet ribbon ($10), a vintage feather ($3 – part of a bulk lot).

How historically accurate is it?:  I don’t know a huge amount about Regency millinery techniques, but I did use the machine for one step, and some modern glue (glues may have been used historically, but they would have been much harder to work with). Plus synthetic ribbon, and a questionable hem binding technique…. Maybe 40%

Hours to complete:  18ish. Hat’s take a long time!

First worn:  To a picnic, 5 January

Total cost:  NZ$40 or thereabouts. Whew. Hatmaking isn’t cheap!

I know I just did a 1920s dress for Rate the Dress the week before last, but this week’s 1920s day dress, in printed silk, is so different from the gold and orange evening number, that I don’t think it’s too much of a repeat

Last week:  a ca 1870 dress in deep raspberry pink, with two types of fringing

I feel like last week’s Rate the Dress was an apple. All December I fed you a diet of decadent treats: chocolate, and puddings, and cakes, and sugarplums. And then the first week in Jan comes, and I hand you a piece of fruit, and no-one is interested! Those who did rate liked the dress well enough, but it certainly didn’t set any records.

The Total: 8.1 out of 10

However, if I could find a way to factor how many comments and votes a dress got into it’s rating, this would have fared much worse. It did not attract your interest!

This week: a 1920s day dress in printed silk

This mid 20s frock may be a day dress, but it is anything but informal. The style and embellishments would have made it suitable wear for a wedding guest, or at the most formal of garden parties or afternoon dances.

The printed pattern of the silk is embellished with glass beads, which add glitter and movement to the fabric. They are more than just decorative though: the weight of the beads is helping to hold the hem in place, and to keep the waistband sitting properly.

The overall effect is both bold and subtle. It attempts to balance extremely trendy and extreme tasteful.

Does it succeed?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment.  Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting.  It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5.  I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it!  And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10.  Thanks in advance!)