With my design worked out and my fabric sorted, it was time to drape a pattern for my tea gown. First though, I had to figure out how it was going to go together and fasten. So here is my basic design (on the right): After confusing you all by asking how you thought the one on the left got put on (that’s easy – under the flap on the PL front) when I meant the right, and getting every possible suggestion on how it might go together, (my favourite being “drink the bottle labelled ‘drink me’, shrink to size, climb into the dress, and then eat the cookie labelled ‘eat me’ and grown until you fit it again”) I decided on what I thought was the most likely historically-accurate option. My tea gown will have a basic bodice support which will fasten up the centre front with hooks.  The lace overbodice will be sew into the gown on one side, and will wrap over the bodice support and fasten on the other side with …

When I decided to make a 1900s tea gown I also decided that I didn’t have the budget to go buy fabric for it.  Whatever I made was going to have to be stash-based. I kept what I had in-stash in mind as I looked at designs.  My primary inspiration is this satin and lace extravaganza from 1899: I bought almost 15 metres of a really amazing poly-cotton sateen with a little metal woven through it in ivory last year. I know you are all gasping in horror and thinking “poly-cotton!?!  Ewwww!!!”, but really, this fabric is fabulous.  I’ve had dozens of fabric snobs inspect it, and not one has guessed that it has a synthetic content.  Most guess silk, or a silk-cotton or silk-linen blend.  I looks rich and sumptuous and not at all synthetic-y, and it acts rich and sumptuous and natural and not at all synthetic-y. When I bought it I first bought 3 metres, and took it home and ran it through a number of tests, determined that it fits my …