12 in 12: March - Regency Evening Gown Pt 2
Continuing to be a little bit behind , but I'm still on track to finish by the event.
Spent last night draping the fabric for the skirt portion of the dress. Conveniently, I was able to use the selvage edge for the hem so one less thing to worry about!
Front of the skirt. Rather than doing some gathering all the way around like I've seen in some period dresses, I'm going the route of a smooth front and pleats in the back. Yep, fabric is still very sheer...
Back pleating. A series of about 2" stacked pleats. I kept having a problem with the fabric sticking to the felt on my form which was frustrating when trying to get a good look at the drape. Serves me right for making the overdress before the underdress.
Close up of the back pleats.
The main problem I'm having right now is some pulling at the sides. As you can see by the pictures, there's a fairly substantial difference between my underbust measurement and my hip measurement which creates pulling at the sides of the dress when the fabric is trying to lay straight down from the top and my hips are pulling extra fabric away from the back.
After searching through my copy of Fashion from the Kyoto Institute and looking at pictures of actual dresses online, this doesn't really seem to be a rare problem. You can see pull lines at the sides in a number of dresses. Luckily, I had a little extra fabric on each side, so rather than stacking extra pleats in the back, I put a deeper pleat on each side which significantly minimized the pulling.
So there we are. Tonight I'll put the bodice together hopefully and then I just need to figure out a trim for the waistband and potentially the neckline. I'm kinda tempted to do some braiding with silver ribbons or chenille.
Spent last night draping the fabric for the skirt portion of the dress. Conveniently, I was able to use the selvage edge for the hem so one less thing to worry about!
Front of the skirt. Rather than doing some gathering all the way around like I've seen in some period dresses, I'm going the route of a smooth front and pleats in the back. Yep, fabric is still very sheer...
Back pleating. A series of about 2" stacked pleats. I kept having a problem with the fabric sticking to the felt on my form which was frustrating when trying to get a good look at the drape. Serves me right for making the overdress before the underdress.
Close up of the back pleats.
The main problem I'm having right now is some pulling at the sides. As you can see by the pictures, there's a fairly substantial difference between my underbust measurement and my hip measurement which creates pulling at the sides of the dress when the fabric is trying to lay straight down from the top and my hips are pulling extra fabric away from the back.
After searching through my copy of Fashion from the Kyoto Institute and looking at pictures of actual dresses online, this doesn't really seem to be a rare problem. You can see pull lines at the sides in a number of dresses. Luckily, I had a little extra fabric on each side, so rather than stacking extra pleats in the back, I put a deeper pleat on each side which significantly minimized the pulling.
So there we are. Tonight I'll put the bodice together hopefully and then I just need to figure out a trim for the waistband and potentially the neckline. I'm kinda tempted to do some braiding with silver ribbons or chenille.