I’m stitching away at the ca. 1760 robe à la française, in between teaching classes and giving lectures and marking papers and re-fashioning shoes and drafting patterns and being a human being.
I started with drafting a pattern:
Then I sewed up a linen support bodice, and worked eyelets down the back, so that I could tighten it with laces:
Then there was a great deal of sewing huge lengths of fabric together with teeny-tiny hand stitches. Time consuming, but not very interesting!
Then I pleated the back pleating, and hand-stitched it down with silk thread.
Then I basted at the shoulder seams, and down the side seams, and cut the fabric down to the waist, and out for the front skirts:
I’ve figured out the side pleating, and marked the lines to cut down for pocket slits, and finishing those is my next task. Then on to side pleating, front bodice attaching, hemming, sleeve construction, sleeve insertion, finishing, and trimming. Makes it sound so simple!
I’ve dubbed it the frou-frou française, because the fabric is just so deliciously scroop-y.
Felicity loves the scroop. The taffeta is like catnip to her. It figures that I’d manage to have a cat that is totally indifferent to catnip, and goes mad over silk!
Every time the fabric comes out, so does the cat:
Yes indeed, this shall be mine…
I shall lie on it…
…and hide under it…
…and sleep on it…
…and play with it…
And generally be utterly adorable and totally annoying!
