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Scroop Patterns + Virgil's Fine Goods Amalia Jacket scrooppatterns.com

It’s here! Meet the Amalia Jacket pattern!

We are so excited to announce the arrival of the Amalia Jacket pattern: a fashionable late 18th century jacket pattern:

Buy the pattern here! – and get 10% off for the first week!

We know it’s been a long wait for the second Scroop Patterns + Virgil’s Fine Goods collaboration, but we think it will have been worth it.

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!

The Amalia Jacket pattern features two views, with different front, sleeve, and skirt options. Mix and match the views for a whole range of looks.

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!

The pattern comes in bust sizes 30â€³-52â€³ (76-132cm). To help you get the perfect fit there’s a 7-page fitting and pattern alteration guide.

Both views feature a fitted bodice designed to be pinned closed at the front, curved side and back seams which flare out in pleats on the jacket’s skirt, and slim two-piece sleeves.

The sleeves may be snug, but clever patternmaking means they don’t restrict movement.

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, like the three-quarter instead of elbow length sleeves, and the slightly higher neckline seen in many extant garments of this era.

View A has a longer skirt joined to the bodice at the waist with box pleats at the back and knife pleats at the sides. It has a smooth one-piece bodice front, and the fashionable three-quarter length sleeves of the 1780s.

View B features a shorter ‘pierrot’ style skirt. It has a two-piece cutaway front, and full length sleeves with vents at the wrist.

Buy the pattern here! – and get 10% off for the first week!

The Amalia Jacket is the second 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 super proud of this pattern, and are so excited to see your versions!

Check back tomorrow to see all the gorgeous tester versions! Their makes are so inspiring. They combined views, used our trim suggestions, and styled the jackets to their own taste.

1780s hat and chemise a la reine thedreamstress.com

A 1780s hat and a chemise-a-la-reine refashion

Published by The Dreamstress

The Costume Construction course at Toi Whakaari gets a whole range of amazing guest teachers every year. They teach specialised classes on things like millinery, worbla and thermoplastics, dyeing, tailoring, etc. One of the perks of my job is that if I can work it around my teaching schedule, I can sit in on other classes.

It’s fun for me: I get to learn new skills, or new approaches to a skill I have. It’s also good for the course: it means I’m more familiar with all the work the students are doing, and can step in if a teacher can’t make it for a session.

My goal for 2020 was to sit in on the millinery course and make a late 18th century hat along with the students. Happily for us, the millinery class started after lockdown ended, and was able to go on as normal.

The guest teacher was Sarah Carswell, a former graduate of the Costume Construction course whose done a bunch of work with the Royal NZ Ballet, amongst other fabulous places. I really like Sarah’s teaching style: she covers both the ideal way to do things, and then some hacks that are necessary because of time, budget, or what’s available in New Zealand.

We used a standard 1780s hat pattern, and I made mine a little taller, and a little narrower, inspired by this fashion plate:

The construction is all based on modern millinery techniques: shape wire, stitch to buckram, assemble crowns and rims, cover in ice wool to smooth out the surface, cover in fabric, attach crowns and brims, bind.

And above all, mark and mark and mark everything as you work! Meticulous marking and cutting are the key to hatmaking. Get your centre fronts and backs off and the whole thing goes squiffy.

It’s mostly handsewn, but there are a few bits you can do by machine.

The handsewing is hard work, and at the end of it your brand-new-when-you-started-the-hat needle looks like this:

My hat is covered in black linen (backed in interfacing for strength and durability) and I love it. I want to make another one exactly like it so I can trim one in black and one in red and white striped ribbon inspired by this:

But for now, I trimmed in black, partly because I love a good classic black hat, and partly because I first wore it for Hallowe’en at our historical retreat this year:

Who doesn’t love a good historical witch hat for Hallowe’en?

And what to wear with a witch hat? My decade old chemise-a-la-reine, re-trimmed with black ribbons and sash!

I’m really enjoying wearing previously made costumes, and getting as much use out of them as time I put into them. It’s both mentally satisfying, and takes a lot of the stress and pressure off: no more feeling like you have to make something new every time.

Although the chemise is more adjustable than some other costumes, I’ve definitely gotten wider in the last 10 years, particularly in the arms, and I think it’s going to need a re-make if I’m going to wear it again.

But it was certainly fun to wear! It’s so lush and swishy.

I cast greenwitch spells (aka waving your hands artistically at the plants while your friends take lots of photos of you) to make the plants grow:

There aren’t many examples of crowned hats worn with chemise dresses, but there are a couple. In any case I was approaching this outfit as a costume, rather than as a strictly historical accurate ensemble.

My hair, in case you’re wondering, is 1/2 mine and 1/2 a curly wig altered to be a hairpiece. The wig was a lockdown stress-buy and slightly impulsive hack, but it turned out beautifully and I’m madly in love with it. The ‘tail’ is all my hair.

The earrings were a gift from the Toi Costume class of 2019, and the shoes are American Duchess Dunmores in black wool. My friend Averil did my makeup, and I immediately rushed out and bought every product she used on me.

You will be seeing more of this hat…

Morning Dress, England, 1834-1836, cotton, National Gallery of Victoria, CT13-1987

Rate the Dress: Good Morning in the mid 1830s

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve got a real soft spot for 1830s day dresses. I like how romantic they are, and how ridiculous they are. Most of all, I like the fabric. It was such an inventive period in textile design, with new technology contributing to a profusion of interesting experimental textiles. Today’s dress features one of those fabrics: a cotton print with geometric and floral patterns in fawn and green.

Last Week: a late 1910s dress with very modern embroidery

Ratings on last week’s dress started with rave reviews, and gradually slid down the scale, so that the last batch of ratings were pretty mediocre. There’s some interesting psychology there.

Those who loved it liked the experimentation and modernity, and could imagine family members wearing it. Those who weren’t so impressed found it awkward and uninteresting.

The Total: 8.6 out of 10

Exactly the same as last week! Although, unlike last week there was actually one rating for 8.5

This week: an 1830s morning dress of printed cotton

This week’s Rate the Dress was rather a random choice: I had an idea for something quite different, but went through my ‘Rate the Dress’ possibilities album it instantly caught my eye:

Morning Dress, 1834-1836, National Gallery of Victoria — Morning Dress, England, 1834-1836, cotton, National Gallery of Victoria, CT13-1987

I’m not sure exactly why, but I like the juxtaposition between this week’s dress, and last week’s. Both garments are from eras when fashion was undergoing a huge change, and when there was a lot of experimentation, both in silhouette, and materials.

There’s a great contrast between the silhouette of this dress and the 1910s embroidered frock. The latter so sleek and simple, the former so full and romantic, all puffs and gathers.

And yet, in the way both play with geometry and lines, and use a fairly restrained palette for impact, there are similarities as well.

This week’s dress is slightly less formal than last weeks: it’s a morning dress, for wearing earlier in the day, to less formal events. You’d put it on to look nice while receiving visitors, to go visiting yourself, or for running simple errands or doing your shopping. It would be worn with a pelerine, fichu, or chemisette with large falling collar. It might be paired with a shawl if it was cold enough, and would need a bonnet if you were going outside.

Here’s a similar, but slightly more formal and fashionable, morning dress for visiting:

Morning Visiting Dress 1830-1840 hand-coloured etching National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1926 Photo: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

What do you think?

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. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. 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.