Italian Working Class Dress, complete!
Wooot! I have been working on this dress for a while (March 27th to May 13th), and got to wear it all finished and pretty at Damsels in Distress. I was thinking about entering it into the Baronial A&S, but didn't have enough time to get the documentation finished.
Yay for starting new dresses! Here's the pattern for the bodice part. I only had 3 yards of this blue linen. See the width between seams on the bodice? That's how wide the 3 yard piece was after I cut enough for the skirt. I'm not sure if i am explaining clearly. I should have taken pictures of the layout when I was cutting it out :p. The result is that I made this dress with exactly 3 yards of 55' wide fabric. There was literately only a single handful of waste in the end. I had to piece the bodice together, hoping that once I put guards on, the seams wouldn't be noticeable. I think that they are called flat-felled seams.
I sewed the entire bodice together, leaving only the neckline open, so I could flip it right side out.
Here you can see that the neckline is not closed, so I turned the allowance back on itself and pinned it in place. Next I whip stitched it closed.
Sorry for the blurry picture, but you can see that I am whip stitching the edges in the back together.
I placed all the guards and pinned them in place until I liked them, and started stitching them down. I tried to make the stitches as invisible as possible, by only just barely picking up the outside edge of the black guards.
And now the bodice is done! You can see the guard pattern pretty clearly below.
I love love love the back. The extra guard on top just adds something special to it, super sexy :D
As you can see below, I chose to only make one side-back opening, instead of two. If I get fat enough that I need the extra room, I can pick out the seams and add lacing holes for the additional openning, but until then, I really don't need it.
The skirt is just a rectangle, no trapazoid/triangle gore shapes at all.
The skirt was cartridge pleated all the way around, although I tried to put more of the material in back than in front.
I love the back! So damn pretty.
Camera free pictures!
And here's the back lacing again, but not reversed by a mirror lol. I am pulling the fabric aside to show the slit in the skirt (it is actually where the seam of the skirt is too). That slit helps you get in and out of the dress. I actually ended up making it bigger later on, because it wasn't big enough to slip my hand inside to use my pocket bag (saccoccia, more info here: http://katerina.purplefiles.net/FlorenceFiles/FLAccessoriesSOCCACCIA.html)
Oh no! The skirt is not hemmed yet! Also, it doesn't have the guards yet that I plan to put on it :3
Done! The dress is all finished, and I got to wear it out to Damsels in Distress/ A&S. So here are some pictures of the complete outfit.
I really need to take that string off my hat, I don't use it anyways, I have hat pins to keep it on.
I put some random pretty things on my apron, like past site tokens, and the cute little brooch for teaching at Pennsic :D
Backview! Ignore the red nailpolish :P
I tried hairtaping too! Started two braids on either side of my head, right behind my ears, and then overlapped them over my head. Used a yarn needle to 'sew' the ribbon around the braids.
And of course, the FB pic. And I flower to match my dress from a cute boy :D
I seriously love this style of dress. As you saw in the very first image, I made the front flat, not curved, which I think works well enough, even uncorseted, but I might try a curved front seam version of this next. Maybe even in wool if I am extra spiffy :p
Images of this dress style
Bunch at Festive Attyre: http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/wkclass/portfolio.html
Scenes from the Life of the Artist's Family, by Federico Zuccaro: http://www.wga.hu/html/z/zuccaro/federico/scenes.html
EDIT: a few more pictures of this dress, a little more neatly put together!
Yay for starting new dresses! Here's the pattern for the bodice part. I only had 3 yards of this blue linen. See the width between seams on the bodice? That's how wide the 3 yard piece was after I cut enough for the skirt. I'm not sure if i am explaining clearly. I should have taken pictures of the layout when I was cutting it out :p. The result is that I made this dress with exactly 3 yards of 55' wide fabric. There was literately only a single handful of waste in the end. I had to piece the bodice together, hoping that once I put guards on, the seams wouldn't be noticeable. I think that they are called flat-felled seams.
I sewed the entire bodice together, leaving only the neckline open, so I could flip it right side out.
Here you can see that the neckline is not closed, so I turned the allowance back on itself and pinned it in place. Next I whip stitched it closed.
Sorry for the blurry picture, but you can see that I am whip stitching the edges in the back together.
I placed all the guards and pinned them in place until I liked them, and started stitching them down. I tried to make the stitches as invisible as possible, by only just barely picking up the outside edge of the black guards.
And now the bodice is done! You can see the guard pattern pretty clearly below.
I love love love the back. The extra guard on top just adds something special to it, super sexy :D
As you can see below, I chose to only make one side-back opening, instead of two. If I get fat enough that I need the extra room, I can pick out the seams and add lacing holes for the additional openning, but until then, I really don't need it.
The skirt is just a rectangle, no trapazoid/triangle gore shapes at all.
The skirt was cartridge pleated all the way around, although I tried to put more of the material in back than in front.
I love the back! So damn pretty.
Camera free pictures!
And here's the back lacing again, but not reversed by a mirror lol. I am pulling the fabric aside to show the slit in the skirt (it is actually where the seam of the skirt is too). That slit helps you get in and out of the dress. I actually ended up making it bigger later on, because it wasn't big enough to slip my hand inside to use my pocket bag (saccoccia, more info here: http://katerina.purplefiles.net/FlorenceFiles/FLAccessoriesSOCCACCIA.html)
Oh no! The skirt is not hemmed yet! Also, it doesn't have the guards yet that I plan to put on it :3
Done! The dress is all finished, and I got to wear it out to Damsels in Distress/ A&S. So here are some pictures of the complete outfit.
I really need to take that string off my hat, I don't use it anyways, I have hat pins to keep it on.
I put some random pretty things on my apron, like past site tokens, and the cute little brooch for teaching at Pennsic :D
Backview! Ignore the red nailpolish :P
I tried hairtaping too! Started two braids on either side of my head, right behind my ears, and then overlapped them over my head. Used a yarn needle to 'sew' the ribbon around the braids.
And of course, the FB pic. And I flower to match my dress from a cute boy :D
I seriously love this style of dress. As you saw in the very first image, I made the front flat, not curved, which I think works well enough, even uncorseted, but I might try a curved front seam version of this next. Maybe even in wool if I am extra spiffy :p
Images of this dress style
Bunch at Festive Attyre: http://www.festiveattyre.com/research/wkclass/portfolio.html
Scenes from the Life of the Artist's Family, by Federico Zuccaro: http://www.wga.hu/html/z/zuccaro/federico/scenes.html
EDIT: a few more pictures of this dress, a little more neatly put together!