Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Indigo Indienne Regency Gown

The project started out as a dress from a dream. A great dream, with warm, happy feelings, handsome men, and great clothes.

Unfortunately, the dress did not want to cooperate when I actually tried to make it a reality. I had issues with fitting the entire time I was working on it. The sleeves still don't sit right at the back of the shoulder. The fabric didn't look as I imagined it would once it was all said and done.

All that being said, I still think the dress looks pretty. It may not have come out as I imagined it, but it's still rather lovely.

The fabric is the Waverly "Felicite" in indigo. The print is a bit large for typical Regency stuff, but at the beginning of the period people were remaking their old gowns into the new styles, so there are several extant examples of brightly colored, large print Regency-style dresses, and so I'm okay with the big-ness of the print. (There's even an extant red silk gown at the Met that looks a lot like my dress as far as style and print size.)

The pattern is entirely drafted to my measurements. The skirt was cut out last year and never finished. The bodice and sleeves were drafted quickly in the week before the 1812 picnic, which likely accounts for many of the fit issues. The majority of the dress was constructed in the week leading up to the picnic, and the entire dress is hand-sewn. One good thing about this project, I learned that my hand sewing is getting quite speedy! I'm also quite proud of my tiny stitches on the bodice. They're barely visible on the topside of the fabric, except for the longer stitches on the shoulder seam where I had to do a bit of size adjustment.


I want to make another indigo dress, hopefully something that's closer to my original vision of the dress. I'm hunting fabric, so hopefully it'll come together in the near future.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Flickr