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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