The Dreamstress

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How to add a drawstring waist to the Scroop Henrietta Maria Dress

I’ve already shown how to add an elastic waistband to the Scroop Henrietta Maria dress, but there is another way to add waist definition (other than the simplest of all: wearing a belt, of course!): with a drawstring.

Here is how to create a drawstring on the Henrietta Maria. This technique will work on any loose, straight-cut dress, so feel free to adapt it for other garments.

You’ll be marking the waistband, working buttonholes for the drawstring to enter and exit through, sewing a casing channel, and then threading the drawstring through. Easy!

You’ll need:

Ribbon or twill tape for a drawstring – under 1/2″ wide, and long enough to go around your waist, tie in a nice bow, and hang down an attractive amount.
2.5cm/1″ wide single-fold bias tape, as long as the finished waist measure of your Henrietta Maria (measure around your finished dress, or refer to the Finished Garment measurements in the pattern) + 15cm/6″.
Chalk or fabric markers for marking
A french curve or ruler.
A scrap of lightweight fusible interfacing, approximately 5cm/2″ square.

First, you need to mark a waistline on your Henrietta Maria. You can use the waistline marked on the pattern, or create a custom waistline, as explained in the Henrietta Maria with an elastic waist tutorial, or in this video:

The waistline can sit anywhere you choose, as long as it’s least 1″ above the top of the pockets. If you’ve made a dress without pockets, it can sit anywhere at all!

Take the dress off, and use a french curve or ruler to draw over your marked line, smoothing out any rough bits, and making sure it is clearly visible. I marked my original line in a pink Pilot Frixion highlighters, and re-drew it in a black Pilot Frixion pen:

Next, fuse your interfacing to the exact centre front of the dress, placing the square of fusing so the top edge sits 1cm/3/8″ above the marked waistline

Mark 6mm/1/2″ high buttonholes on the right side of the dress. Their center lines should sit 1cm/3/8″ on either side of the center front line, with their top edge 3mm/1/4″ below the marked waistline.

Now, work your buttonholes as marked:

Next it’s time to sew on the bias tape to form a casing for your drawstring.

Starting at a side seam, place the bias tape just below the marked waist line, with one long edge just on the line.

Sew 2mm/1/8″ from the edge of the bias tape.

When you get back to where you started, cut your bias tape off so there is a 3cm/1.25″ or so overlap. Fold under half the overlap just before you finish sewing, so there are no raw edges of bias showing on the interior.

Now sew the other edge of your bias tape:

I decided that I wanted a little more definition to my channels, so I stitched an additional line of stitching 1/8″ inside the first stitching lines:

Remove any pen/chalk marks that are visible on the outside of the dress, and then it’s time to drawstring!

Cut open your buttonholes, taking care not to cut through the bias tape. Use a safety pin or a bodkin to thread your drawstring through the channel, in one buttonhole, all the way around, and out the other.

Finish off the edges of your drawstring by heat-sealing (if they are synthetic), tying them in tidy knots, or string a bead on to each end, and then add a knot, for a little bit of extra flair.

Ta da! You’re done! Enjoy!

Rate the Dress: Cherry Bad or Cherry Good?

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week, rather than having a standard Rate the Dress, I did my annual Rate the Oscars post. So we have to go back a fortnight to Henrietta Cavendish Holles, Countess of Oxford, and her blue-striped riding habit. While some of you really loved it, and most of you agreed that she was wearing it with confidence, the universal opinion was that it just wasn’t working, and the riding habit came in at 6.5 out of 10 – which is right where most of the votes were clustered.

For this week’s Rate the Dress I’ve picked one based on my recent obsession with 1890s-1910s gored skirts, thanks to the Scroop Fantail skirt. You could get a very similar shape to the dress below from the Fantail by adding a second side gore, and gathering the side and back gores, instead of pleating. And adding lots, and LOTS of petticoats! (yes, I’ve been looking at museum catalogues for four months while I worked on the Fantail, thinking ‘yes, if you just did x and x very simple adaptations, you could make it from the Fantail!)

I have mixed initial feelings about this dress whenever I look at it, because I usually hate cherry patterned things because they are such a cliche in vintage fashion. However, after the initial reaction, I try to do what I always do with period fashions, and envision it within the context of its time: before anything with cherries was an instant cheap, lazy way to make something ‘vintage’.

Evening dress, House of Worth (French, 1858—1956), Jean-Philippe Worth (French, 1856—1926), 1898, French, silk, rhinestones, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.1099a, b

The fabric of this dress is warp-patterned silk, and would have been anything but cheap and cliched in its time. It’s a slightly unrealistic depiction of cherries, showing both the fruit and flower at the same time, but each is depicted with an attention to detail worthy of a botanical print.

Evening dress, House of Worth (French, 1858—1956), Jean-Philippe Worth (French, 1856—1926), 1898, French, silk, rhinestones, Met 2009.300.1099a, b

(can we all pause for a moment of utter happiness while we note that the above photo gives a rare glimpse of how the skirt opens)

Evening dress, House of Worth (French, 1858—1956), Jean-Philippe Worth (French, 1856—1926), 1898, French, silk, rhinestones, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.1099a, b

Though the skirt is a classic, timeless style, the bodice of the dress is very much of its time, transitioning towards the soft frills of the Edwardian styles, and already displaying a pronounced pigeon breast. Aptly for a ball gown, the dress is as extravagant from the back view as from the front, as that is what would be on display to the room as the wearer was held for a waltz.

Evening dress, House of Worth (French, 1858—1956), Jean-Philippe Worth (French, 1856—1926), 1898, French, silk, rhinestones, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.1099a, b

What do you think? Is it three cheers for cherries, or all a bit over-ripe? (I should really love fruit-themed historical things. The puns are all so deliciously (har har) bad).

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

1917 combinations and petti-slips thedreamstress.com

Combination-a-thon, or how I came to have more wearable combinations than anyone else alive in 2017…

Published by The Dreamstress

When I was planning my wardrobe for the Fortnight in 1916 I knew I needed lots of combinations to wear under corsets: enough to have a reasonable week’s wearing before I did laundry.

I was using Wearing History’s fantastic 1917 combination pattern. Mid-1910s combinations are serious fabric hogs, so I rummaged around in my stack of vintage sheets, and unearthed half-a-dozen of the thinnest and most seamed.

On my first round of cutting I cut out three, carefully folded them all in one parcel, and set them aside for sewing.

(who can guess where this is going?)

The next night I cut out another 4, which would give me 8 in total (I already had a completed one): near the upper end of what my research suggested was a normal amount of first-layer undergarments for a middle class woman to have in any single season.

A few days later I sat down to sew all the combinations.

My first three? Nowhere to be found! Determined searching and re-organising failed to unearth them, so I persevered with the four I had, and decided I’d have to settle for having only 5 pairs of combinations in total for the Fortnight.

Guess when I found the first three combinations I’d cut out?

The day after the Fortnight ended. (of course)

In a perfectly logical place, right next to my sewing table, in a bag I had assumed was something else, so hadn’t looked in! (of course)

I had no need of the combinations after the Fortnight (because what reasonable historical costumer, however enthusiastic, really needs 8 late-1910s combinations!), so they have languished in my UFO pile since then.

The UFO pile has been getting a little out of hand though, and I’m trying to reduce it to a reasonable level, so I decided to tackle these as a very-slightly-late HSM Challenge #2: Re-make, Re-use, Re-fashion. They are re-made from sheets (which had been seamed, turned, and patched in their turn, for double re-use!), so fit the challenge perfectly. I did start them during the challenge month, but I knew I wouldn’t manage to get them done in February with everything I had on. Still, less than a week late isn’t too bad!

(shown here with most of my other pairs hanging on the line behind them).

Because I have so many combinations already, I decided to turn two of the three into petti-slips, to make them a little more versatile.

One of the petti-slips has the standard curved neckline, the other has thin straps:

There is lots of evidence of the re-use. The strapped one has a centre-front seam, plus piecing from the old sheet at the side:

The petti-slip ended up even more into the spirit of re-use and making do when I got to the end of sewing the lace I’d chosen around the hem, and realised I was 2cm short! I pieced the gap with a little scrap of leftover beading lace.

All three combinations are pretty quick-sewn, rough and ready examples, and I didn’t worry too much about historical accuracy. The sheeting was just too worn to make it worth getting fussy over hand-worked buttonholes etc.

I even got pragmatic enough to trim them with the few bits of poly-cotton beading lace and broderie anglaise trim I have in my lace stash, and the ribbons are all poly satin.

Sooooo…now I’ve got more wearable reproduction late 1910s combinations than probably any other private person alive in 2017!

What on earth am I going to do with them?

Ideas proposed by my friends include:

Costume a 1910s musical with an ensemble of combination-clad chorus girls (no high-kicks please!)
Slice open the front, add ties, turn them wrong-way round and massively improve the comfort and cover-ability of hospital gowns.
Assist with the undergarments for the inevitable A Farewell to Zombie Arms (whoever designed the little ruffled knickers in P&P&Z is going to love these: even skimpier, AND historically accurate).
Convince a gullible celebrity fashionista that these are the logical follow-up trend to rompers, AND are eco-friendly, because they are recycled, and then sell them all for squillions (I’ll have to get a commercial license from Wearing History first though ) (also, if people complain that ‘leggings aren’t pants’, I can’t wait to see the ‘combinations aren’t rompers’ argument!)
Wear them as shirts, and pretend that the flap that buttons under you is some high-fashion, artsy, intellectual statement
Find some hairless dogs/sheep/goats/miniature ponies that need sun protection or warmth, and provide the most adorable cover ups.

What do you think? Any more suggestions for the list?

And, since these are my HSM ’17 Challenge #2 entry, the proper information:

What the items are: a 1917 combination undergarments, round-necked petti-slip, and thin-strapped petti-slip, respectively.

The Challenge: #2 Re-make, Re-do, Re-fashion

Fabric/Materials: recycled vintage sheets, given to me by a friend.

Pattern: Wearing History’s fantastic 1917 combination pattern

Year: 1916-21 (the pattern dates to 1917, but I’ve found nearly identical patterns advertised in NZ newspapers in Feb 1916)

Notions: cotton thread, poly-cotton beading lace and lace trim, poly-satin ribbon, buttons.

How historically accurate is it? Accurate pattern, accurate construction techniques, there are mentions of making undergarments from old sheets during the 1910s, so that’s accurate, but less than accurate lace and ribbons. 80%.

Hours to complete: Around 6

First worn: Not yet