Regency dress sewing - the skirt part

June 20, 2021


 

 

Hello lovelies, 

this part will be all about the sewing the skirt and finishing the dress. Even though it involves a huge amount of fabric, it was less time consuming and easier than the bodice. 

When I held the pattern of the skirt part onto my body, it looked huge. Or maybe I am just tiny.

I kept this length when I cut the fabric. I didn't know how long it would be when sewn onto the dress and I'd rather have it too long than too short because I did not have any more fabric left. In the end I had to shorten it by about 30cm.

paper pattern from fig leaf
After cutting the fabric, I pinned all the back seams together and sewed it. The front is made out of just one panel, therefore there was no need to sew anything. YEY. This picture only depicts the back part of the dress. No idea if I did something incorrectly but the gores look super misplaced.

back skirt panels sewed together to form a large back part

As for the front, I folded the sides inwards, pinned them, and sewed it. The instructions for the skirt were a bit clearer at this point but I still had a few questions. No idea if what I did was correct but it kind of worked out.

After the sides I folded down the top and cut it in the middle. There is still a straight line visible at the top, this is were I sewed a tunnel to thread in the white ribbon.

The picture from the original dress is below. It actually does look quite similar to what I did. I got all the pictures from Fig Leaf pattern's pinterest.

 
 
This is the front part. I used a very long linen band so I could wrap it around my body. The band was inserted with a big wool needle, they are blunt at the tip and have a huge eye, which make them perfect for the job.

So, this part was weird. This is the bodice pinned to the skirt in a half-round shape. I tried to pin it according to my body shape because the lines from the original pattern looked odd.

I sewed the bodice to the skirt part on the sides first before doing the middle because there was so much fabric at the back.

Most of the back is gathered to fit the middle of the bodice back. It makes such a beautiful train that I kept it deliberately longer than it should be for a house dress. It is also much better at lounging.

The pleats are so messy, I am not used to that in historical costuming.

Here is the look from the original dress. It looks similar to my chaos.

All that is left now, is the hemming of the dress. I don't know why, but it is always my least favourite part.  

I marked a centimeter from the bottom, ironed it, measured out 6cm, folded it, then ironed it again. 



 

And that was part two of the dress!

The picture is made about 66 years later. I just realized it after taking the pictures but that's not something I could change. Oh well.

As this was a house dress, I only did activities that I could do inside. And I am pretty sure, napping over a book was very historicaly accurate. 😂







Here is also part two of the video


I hope you enjoyed this!


All the best,


Auris Lothol

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