Dress for Dickens Faire (unders)

Dickens Fair is set in the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria. The fair specifically focuses on 1840s - 1860s. Last year I decided I would try to dress up and go for a day, but alas. There were a few issues with the underpinnings that put a halt to things (and then I went on to work on the Magpie Dress for last year's 12th Night Coronation).
I spent hours working on a new corset. I bought this sweet charming nursery print calico from JoAnn Fabrics and tirelessly pieced the whole thing together so that it was carrying the motif around the body of the corset. I was actually very pleased with the results. This is it just before binding the edges (with satin bias binding).

Then I started researching corded petticoats for the support structure of the skirt. After looking at several people's work on the Internet I decided to do the method of sandwiching the cording between two layers of muslin and spiral the cording up and around. This method was tiresome and infuriating. I promptly put the corded petticoat into the UFO pile to think about what it had done wrong. It sat in the corner for a very long time. In fact, I didn't get it out again until about 3 weeks ago and even then I took the whole damn thing apart. I decided to not do the spiral and instead did straight lines across the two panels (that I then sewed together with the serger because...workhorse). Even this took flippin' forever and I still had to do a lot of fiddly working to get the cotton cording to nestle up against the previous row of stitching. I was just about ready to die of frustration and embarrassment when I thought I'd give the double needle a try. This went so quickly that I declared loudly on Facebook "I HATE LEARNING" because [sigh]. Then I starched it with Sta-Flo and made a quick petticoat out of a full sheet.

Just prior to starting the petticoat this year, I made a new chemise. I bought some of the lightest weight sheer cotton tissue this summer with the exact purpose of either a new chemise or a new veil. Or maybe both. I think there might be enough. And while the chemise pattern is not the most accurate for 19th century (I used the free pattern generator from Elizabethan Costume Net), it works just fine. That pattern goes together super quickly and is sized for your measurements. I just put in a shorter sleeve length into the generator. I chose to flat fell all the seams to both enclose the raw edges and to give them a little bit more strength. When I say sheer, this fabric is SHEER!!! No shots of the front unless I'm in my corset...it's that sheer.

Don't part with your partlet

The wise words of my Uncle G - "don't part with your partlet" followed by other sage advice "don't discount your family" when I offered to sell him my over-partlet at a discount.

One of the items on the to-do list was partlets. I made an overpartlet out of black velvet an black linen back in December to practice sewing in velvet before I tackled actually sewing the Magpie Dress for 12th Night. I used Margo Anderson's pattern because I as using it for the Henrician dress. I was a stupid idiot did not pay attention to the fact that I'm "man sized" (as I've taken to styling myself lately) and didn't lengthen the pieces. So it's just a smidgen too short. It works with a bunch of fussing and fiddling and many many pins. It does keep the chesticles warm. I learned to sew velvet with it before I cut into my $300 worth of black-as-midnight super plush dress fabric. Lessons learned. BTW, if you're interested in buying a gorgeous black on black velvet overpartlet, let me know. I'm selling it for $50.

Me, Jorgen, and Vittorio - you can see the partlet is a too short and doesn't come to the edge of the kirtle

For West-An Tir War this year (and garb in general), I decided that I need more underwear (please read this as underpinnings, when I talk garb I never mean mundane underthings like panties). When I was washing up the wool for the EFG, I had also come across about a yard of forgotten linen/rayon blend. Plenty to make an underpartlet. This time I didn't use a commercial pattern but I decided to my recent body toile that Treasach helped me to draft up during Master Charles de Bourbon's class back at the beginning of March.

I dropped the armscye about 1 cm, added about 1" of ease to the back panel, and took the side seams straight down rather than follow the contour of the body block.

Patterning took about 30 minutes. Then I was off to the sewing room (that I've carefully avoided packing up in the home buying/losing our lease disaster). Yes, I did the whole thing by machine. My seams are over locked. What? It took me 90 minutes total. Just know that I can hand sew, I have hand sewn, and I'll choose to do it when I want to, but right now the accumulation of underwear is important. Layers people!!!

Of course, the serger was threaded with black which necessitated a change

Boom. Just like that, I have a new underpartlet.

Now all that's left is to loop up a tie for the bottom channel and a couple of laces for the collar. I think next time I'll add just a little more ease (I hadn't done any for the front) and drop the armscye a bit more because I'll be wearing my smocks under this. Also, please note that it's still not freaking long enough because I'm a stupid idiot I apparently do not believe in measuring twice/cutting once (or measuring at all and just winging it). But I'm not wearing any historical support structure, just modern bra (which I was not wearing at the time of pattern drafting). Also, my boobs are bigger than I think they are. Having two kids will do that to ya I guess but in my mind I'm still that barely B-cup gal I was when I met Hubster.