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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

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.

A marvellous monster dress

Published by The Dreamstress

If you’re into 18th century costuming and/or dinosaurs, you’re probably familiar with the absolutely awesome Vincent Briggs and his pterribly cute Pterrible Dinosaur Drawings (on tumblr, facebook, instagram, or with the world’s best patreon tier level options – pick your favourite poison).

You might even be aware that he also does really fantastic fabric designs. (it’s so unfair that anyone is that talented!).

I looooooove his fabric designs. After a really rubbish first half of 2022, I decided that while a wardrobe full of ridiculous monster dresses wasn’t going to fix things, it would definitely give me a reason to smile when I opened my closet doors. And I was going home to Hawai’i in August – so I could take advantage of shipping to the US, instead of to NZ!

After dithering for ages over which fabric I wanted (because they are ALL so awesome) I settled on Monster Pattern #3 in green…

Image shows a sewing machine stitching white fabric with a pattern of green monsters …and Monster Pattern #1 and Monster Pattern #2 and Crinoid Fossils (I’m going to make something 18th c out of that!) and Polka Dot Monsters in rainbow. They were all too fabulous to get just one!

And I talked a bunch of friends into getting some too! So it’s going to be a monster invasion in Wellington!

I got the biggest amount of Monsters #3 in green. I had a specific dress vision in mind. Something a bit artist smock, a bit chef jacket, a bit 1950s inspired…

The Marvellous Monster Dress thedreamstress.com

I had fun pattern drafting, tested the dress in a cheap fabric (shown above, glamorously paired with tabi mudboots in Hawai’i), made some adjustments, and set to work.

Fiss helped, as she always does:

A calico cat lies on brown pattern paper and white fabric with green monsters, a yellow measuring tape wrapped around her.

There was topstitching:

Image shows a sewing machine topstitching in green on white fabric with a pattern of green monsters

And some very precise seam matching:

Image shows two seams meeting to form a perfect intersection.

(it’s under my arm so you’ll never see it, but it gives me great joy)

And button choosing:

Not those ones…

And a bias tape hem with blind hemming:

And a bit of hand finishing:

And gathering on cuffs:

And finally, done!

I’ve wore it for a pre-holiday picnic at the beach, and for Christmas + Hanukkah celebrations, and for a dozen other special events over summer, because it’s officially my favourite dress ever.

But every time I wear it I’m having so much fun I forget to take photos

The only time I’ve gotten any was the picnic at the beach:

(Did I mention that it has enormous pockets?)

Since I only got two dress photos, here are some fabulous beach images featuring a seagull, which is very on-theme, because Vincent and I both share a love of Our Flag Means Death, and every time I see a single seagull now I say “Carl!”

In the interest of full transparency, while the monster print is available from Spoonflower, my fabric was actually from a Canadian company that Vincent works with that only does artist-direct sales. Vincent helped me order from them as a friend (and then I paid him a higher commission than he would have gotten from Spoonflower, because that’s what friends do).

So you can order the prints, but you won’t be able to get the exact fabric I used, but Spoonflower still has lots of great fabric options.

If you get some, may it make you as happy as my monster dress makes me…

A woman in a black hat trimmed with ruffles and feathers looks to her left. Her expression is slightly mischievous. She holds a strawberry, and is wearing a black wool mantle tied at the neck with a ribbon over a dress with a large cyclamen pink bow at the front.

Tutorial: ribbon binding for hoodless Scroop + VFG 18th century mantles

Published by The Dreamstress

When Amber and I designed the Scroop + Virgil’s Fine Goods 18th century mantle patterns we tried to keep the amount of extra specialist notions you’d need to have to make a beautiful mantle to a minimum.

So the pattern includes pattern pieces and instructions for mantles with fabric bindings, but…you can also bind your mantles with purchased ribbon!

We used this technique on the hoodless View B Marie Mantle in black wool that Averil models:

This particular technique is for hoodless Marie and Charlotte mantles, but I’ll be doing another tutorial later for versions with hoods.

Here’s how to do it!

You’ll need:

Silk ribbon
Your mantle finished up to the neck pleating step, with the pleating basted in place:

I’m using the 1” wide single faced silk-satin ribbon from Burnley & Trowbridge. If you want something a little wider and lusher (like the cyclamen pink bow Averil is sporting on her dress) Virgil’s Fine Goods carries beautiful silk satin ribbon.

Anything under 3/4”/2cm is tricky to use as binding.

I don’t recommend silk taffeta ribbons, as all the ones I have tried were extremely lightweight, more habotai than taffeta, and will wear through very quickly (if you know someone selling silk taffeta ribbon with a decent weight, please let me know!).

To bind the neck edge:

Measure across 1/2 of the pleated mantle neck edge:

You’ll need this measure + how long you want your ties to be, x2 (or, this measure x 2 + the ribbon requirement given in the Marie or Charlotte patterns) for your binding.

Cut your length of ribbon, fold it in half to find the centre, and mark the centre point:

Match the centre point to the centre point of the mantle neck edge, and pin in place.

At this point I like to fold my ribbon over the neck edge of the mantle and pin, so I know that when I sew the ribbon on I will be binding the neck edge evenly, with equal amounts of ribbon on both the right side, and wrong side of the mantle. However, this does mean I have to do a rather tricksy manoeuvre where I re-pin the mantle through only one layer of ribbon, and take out the original pins, so I can sew through only one layer of ribbon. Eyeballing it or pressing in a centre fold are also good options. It’s up to you.

With your ribbon pinned to your mantle, sew. Sew the ribbon to the right side of the mantle first. I like to use a whipstitch, but you could also use an edge stitch or a backstitch.

When you reach the end, turn the mantle over, fold the ribbon over the raw edge, and stitch the other side of the ribbon. This edge should always be sewn with a whipstitch or edge stitch.

When you are done sewing on the binding, finish the edges of your ribbon by cutting them into Vs, pinked scallops, zig-zags, or by hemming.

I like to hem as I find modern ribbon tends to fray or unravel, but cutting definitely seems to have been more common based on extant examples and period images.

Pinked scallops (although it’s not entirely clear if we’re seeing her mantle ties or dress bow):

Catharina Charlotta l’Estrade by Ulrica Fredrica Pasch, 1780, (Sinebrychoffin taidemuseo – Helsinki, Finland

V’s:

Zig-zags:

Georg Desmarées (1697–1776), Portrait of Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony (1728-1797), Museum im Wittelsbacher Schloss Friedberg

And, you’re done!