Civil war era dress - Bonnet

Okei. Next challenge - bonnet. I think at first I was seriously considering buying it as despite my luck with tricon hat foor Robe a'la francaise, hats are scary.. Hats sound like very complex things and I have no honest idea how to make. And the last hat - I mean, I actually had the base. This time there would be nothing.

But again, I decided to brace the challenge, google around and then I found a blog post how someone made bonnet out of cereal box. Apparently the creativity was the key.

I started with newspaper and trying to make myself the patter (as I was running out of time and if I had ordered a pattern it would not have reached me on time). Then cutting it out and trying the "paper" bonnet. I found a very small pattern out of internet and I used the "square method" to enlarge it.

Then, I had artificial leather that I thought to be heavy enough to support my main fabric. I was totally wrong. I spent some more time in google and I learned that originally those were made using wire. Luckily I had wire in my basement that I once used to make chainmail. It was strong and I used tuck tape to "tape it" in place. The result was quite sloppy but at least the bonnet was holding its shape.

 I then added some extra wired to the "middle" part of the hat to help those parts also in shape.

Then, it was back for sewing, that I felt more comfortable. I used the main fabric for the outer layer of bonnet and then the lining for inner layer. I got pregathered laced and added a layer of it into the lining and two lines of the black ribbon I used everywhere on the outer layer to match the style.

And as you can see, I added a black rose and velvet ribbon.

The tricky part, I would say, was putting the fabric over the frame. As I had that white pre-gathered lace at the end, I had the only option that the "opening" will be at the back end. Sewing the "circle" into the place was another nightmare and in the end, it took a lot of sewing by hand to fit it there. Also, I then basted the edges by hand to make sure it would not start moving. A lot of hours. Trying to get the needle through that thick artificial leather and tape was a nightmare.

Result:

 

 As you can see, the back is not perfect here. It took some time playing with the fire to get rid of that fold. But overall - I made a bonnet.

(But I never thought how to wear it.. when I actually got to the larp and put the dress on with proper hairstyle, the bonnet was falling off my head all the time. I tried hair clips to hold it but no.. so, in the end, I just put the bonnet over my bun but I was not sure it was meant to be worn like that)

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Civil war era dress - undergarments

As this dress was made not for the re-enactment but for larp, the "correctness" was not so vital. I think proper undergarments are important for the dress to have right "shape", so I still try to make them but I am not so worried how they look and usually I am quite sloppy when I make them. They have to be easy as the main costume will take most of my effort anyway.

So, for this dress the undergarments I needed were the pannier, petticoat, shirt and corset.

For the a knee length shirt I had  piece of really fine cotton and nice cotton lace for the sides. It was sloppy without a pattern shirt I made. Took hour at maximum.

 

I opted the easy choice with corset - I ordered one very cheap pure white corset online. I was looking at more authentic ones but I had put already so much money into this project that I was just trying to do rest of it as cheap as possible. I was ready to receive some horrible "made in china" corset but to my surprise, it was really nice. The fabric was not as reflective as I thought. It wasn't cotton but it was matte.

For the pannier, also, a cheap way around. I have that kind of very simple and quite cheap modern wedding dress pannier that I bought like 10 years ago and never really used. It has been sitting in the closet but it was perfect. It is little bit too weak as the main fabric for the dress is very heavy but it was fine. It hold the dress perfectly and saved me the trouble of making the pannier.

As the pannier had three rings that were very visible without petticoat, I decided to make extra large petticoat. So It has a lot of ruffles, lot of fluffiness. I got really nice black cotton fabric for amazing price for it. Again - main effort went to working with the edges.. but I could use this petticoat with other dresses and I think it was time well invested.

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Civil war era dress - skirt

So, the next step in the project was the skirt. Compared to the jacket, this was easy. Easy but just time consuming. Just make the pleads. It took a day.

Then, as I had those skirt and jacket separately, I needed something that would be able to hold all this massive fabric that made the skirt. I tried to make "more neat" looking waistband but it could just not hold it.. so I went with this massive ugly solution but as it will be under the jacket, it will be fine.

Then the ruffles. I first had got myself some lace as on the sleeves and I thought I could use it. I tried. Main problem: it was totally wrong color. I got myself a silk color (as it was best I could find) and I did a try with a small piece of lace. Yes, I got it to better shade that would match the lace on the sleeves better. I think I had like 9-10 meters of that lace. I just started to calculate how much silk color I would need and how much time it would take and how much would it all cost.. so, in the end, I dropped the idea of using lace and went to cheap fabric store and got really nice and really light fabric that cost like 4 euros per meter and I could get so many ruffles out of it. I was just mad that I had spent something like 40 euros on that lace :S I still have the lace.. I could use it with some other projects but.. I was just mad as I had the fabric idea at first but then I thought it would take so much time to work the edges..

Anyway.. so it took my I think at least a day to deal with the ruffles.. most of it being zik-zaking over the edges with very small step. But the result with that kind of very light fabric is always amazing. Then I added two lines of black ribbon over the ruffles and opted out of making another line of ruffles. I think the one is fine. Totally happy with the result:

Skirt done.. At least I had the dress.. now everything else was up to me how much time I can put into this costume before I have to wear it.
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Civil war era dress - the jacket

I started this civil war area dress with the jacket.

As always with me and simplicity patterns, I cannot understand the instructions. I cut all the pieces from the main fabric and then I used quite strong linen I have tons off for the lining of the jacket. When I tried to combine together main back piece and the back side pieces they just would not. I tried to read the instructions and figure it out again but no help. So I just used my own imagination and aligned the pieces so that the arm wholes and the bottom part of the back fit and there is some overlap in the middle. I still think there was some clever trick how to give wearer a better mobility but I was not able to see it. Also, the pattern did not seemed to care too much about the lining and all the seams were left visible from the wrong side. Correct me if I am wrong but I honestly think the point of lining is to make the gown look gorgeous also from the inside. Therefore I again took some liberties from the pattern and combined pieces together so that all the seams are hidden.

Trying to figure out the back

I also had some great time adding the boning. This time, in contrast to my Robe ala Francais, I knew what I was doing and I made some nice tunnels for the boning plus I made sure that the sides are all well supported by tucktape (I haven't figured out any other easy way).

Back starts to come together

The next major thing were the sleeves. At this point I tried to follow the instructions and make the ruffles from the same fabric as the dress. I spent whole evening with that mess. The fabric was too stiff and too hard for that and I wasted many hours.

Next day I was off to a fabric shop again and my plan was to get similar color really light fabric that I could use to make ruffles. I was still really mad about all the edges that took hours. So, I decided to go with easy way out and buy quite expensive lace that I used for the sleeves. They had it on very limited amount so I did not managed to save anything for later part of the dress - all the lace I got when to the sleeves.

I also got the black ribbon and I started to like where this is going. It looked gorgeous and lace was easy to gather - no worrying about the edges.

When I used the white linen as lining for the bodice to keep it strong, I used that nice black lining fabric for lining on the sleeves.

The next step was the collar. I planned to use the organza with embroidery as the top layer of the collar. The middle layer or the main layer was the purple fabric and it had black lining on the other side. 

The main trouble with the collar was that the pattern had really small opening for the head. I was not sure if it was my sewing margin do I have larger neck that the pattern assumed.. I had to do a lot of fixing and I was really scared to cut too much or cut from the wrong place.

I first planned to have a purple ribbon with the same style as the black I used on the sleeves over the collar but I could not figure where it would be best - on the side of the collar or little bit inside and in the end I really started to love my collar without it. So, the ribbon was left out in the end.

Those pads were very funny. I have no idea what were their point. I just followed the instructions and sewed them in, being really worried that they will make the dress look weird. I am not sure if they made it better or if they had any effect at all. I think that they probably should have helped to compensate that at the front the top part of the jacket had a lot of space. If I had needed to fill those pads so that there is no space left, I would have needed much more than three layers of cotton batting inside.

Sleeves added to the jacket

Trying the jacket on the mannequin

When I had sewed the bodice and the sleeves together I tried it on the mannequin and tried it on myself and realized that I had not done it before and ofcourse, it did not fit. The waist was too small and I mean - I have very small waist. Because all of those waist seams had tunnels and boning it was horrible to undo it. I left it like that currently and hoped that when I wear the corset and I add the snap fasteners and buttons maybe it will be fine.

Next step: the bottom part of the jacket and uncharted territory as I had no guide nor no patter. I just improvised and at first it looked like I can pull it off. The front two panels were the ones I did twice. The bodice at the front has those really nice seams in the middle and I had hard time figuring out how to match them at the bottom part. At first try, I did not take them to account and I think it looked off without those seams. So, I remade the first panel so that it has those seams and it was much better. I used the black fabric for lining.

Next step was to sew bottom and top together and to make that "overlap" at the front to match was a trouble. It looked lovely (and I am confused why I do not have any photos of that on its own.

So, I left the jacket for a while and went to deal with the skirt.. and horrible meters of ruffles.
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Civil War area dress 1

At the end of last year I signed up for western style larp taking place in Czech republic. I was reallye xcited when I got my casting as I got to play high society lady and that meant I could do one of those fancy dress projects. The story takes place 1866 so I decided I will go with the civil war area dress as it should be almost fine. 

The LARP was inspired by TV series "Hell on Wheels" so my first source of costume ideas was from the tv series. I really loved Lily Bell on the show and would have loved to play her but its fine. Playing char (who to my knowledge has not been in the show) gave me more freedom to choose my costume. 

The costumes from the TV series were all very practical and quite simple. I do understand that as they were living in that wild west. So, I did not get any specific good ideas from shows screencaps.

I started with gathering some general idea of the dresses and fashion of the area. I first thought that I do not like those dresses or.. I loved ball gowns but for that kind of out door event I needed something more casual. I did a lot of sketching and I think I finally fell for the era's fashion when I saw photos of Ada's dresses from movie "Cold Mountain". I particularly fell in love with the following:

So that was my starting point. I loved the ornaments at the sides and I really wanted to add them.

Then I started to look for a pattern. At that moment I did not know that simplicity has almost perfect pattern (4900) for that costume and the pattern I found was 4510:

So, I did some sketching to figure out what exactly do I want. I went to the fabric shop with following sketches:

So, I decided to use the pattern I got and add the bottom part of the jacket myself. I tried different options for skirt but decided to go with layers of ruffles. I also decided not to make it as a dress but more like separate parts: jacket and skirt. As I had no idea what kind of weather awaits me at the start of May, I might have needed to add layers below the costume or I was worried it may be too hot to wear and I might want to remove the jacket and wear simple blouse under it.

I actually spent a lot of time finding suitable fabric. I went to different fabric shops and returned empty handed. I wanted something that wouldn't be very thin and would be strong. I wasn't sure about the color either. I love bordeux red but I was worried that on that time it would be more suitable for "other kind of ladies". The shot on the pattern was done using purple fabric. My boyfriend tried to suggest me dark blue. I was still amazed by that amazing green fabric I found for my robe ala francais dress. I was torn until I walked to that amazing purple fabric with amazing pattern and texture on the clearance sale. 70% off. Wow. It was very expensive fabric still but I thought it is perfect.

Fabrics used in the project

 The pattern also stated that i needed contrast fabric (I went with the black lining fabric I have used before) and organza for the sleeves. I managed to find amazing piece of organza with gorgeous embroidery that I used for the sleeves and decorative layer on the collar.

So, after the research I figured out I need the following pieces:

• Jacket
• Skirt
• Blouse with organza sleeves (pattern had the sleeves as stand alone but I wanted them to be connected to a blouse I could wear without the jacket)
• Underskirt
• Bonnet
• Corset
• Pannier

With the corset and the pannier I took the easy way out: I had that kind of cheap "made in China" wedding pannier on my costume stack. Actually, it was good choice as I needed to travel on plane and other girls were having horrible time managing to make their pannier fit into their luggage. With my "wedding pannier" I was able to wrap it around itself three times and fit it without troubles. I ordered a cheap white corset and first I planned to change the overall fabric on it as on the image it looked to be really reflective horrible white material. In the end, it came out, it was really nice and matte so I used it the way it was.
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