A mid 19th century wardrobe
The clothes in this wardrobe will be presented in the order they were fineished, which is why I start with:
The bonnet
Well, it isn't actually the first item. The first items my drawers and my blouse, which I have learned from Katherine's Dress site was called
a shirt-waist in english. But there is no way I'm going to pose in just my drawers and a blouse.
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Click on the pictures for a larger picture. |
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Made in 2005
The bonnet is from circa 1855. Like any normal person I prefer the earlier styles of bonnets, say from 1820-1845, but the dress I'm going to make is from the 1850s so I had to make a matching bonnet.
There were bonnets that were even smaller and showed more of the head, so this can not be considered an ultra-fashionable bonnet. That may on the other hand be quite fitting for a woman of 36.
The bonnet is made from home-made buckram. The shop where I was going to buy buckram was closed and I was impatient, so I decided to have a go at making my own buckram.
So, I couldn't get any buckram. Since buckram is linen drenched in glue, I took some medium linen, not really coarse, but too coarse for shifts in my opinion, and put it
in a mixture of water and PVA-glue. Lots of glue, not so much water.
Then I dried it and ironed it when it was not quite dry. It turned out stiff, but not stiff enough so I cut two of every piece and glued them together with the same glue.
This was stiff enough. There is a piece of wire sewn to the front edge of the brim and in retrospective I think I should have sewn wire along the sides too. All the rough
handling of the bonnet while sewing on fabric and trim has made the buckram weaker and it would have been nice to have a wire there to make it keep
its shape better. But I'm probably just nervous without reason since it's going to be treated much more kindly now that it's finished.
It is covered in a grosgrain fabric with a slight moire pattern. It's som kind of cellulose fibre, like rayon or viscose. It's the same fabric as for my edwardian corset.
It is lined with thin silk satin and there are two rows of off white linen lace gathered on the inside of the brim. The trim on the outside is a navy and white braid/ribbon,
quite old, that I got from Anna and flowers from two of those little garlands you can
have as decoration around candles. You might notice a small lilac rose on the right side of my face on the inside too. The ribbons are polyester satin and may eventually be replaced by
taffeta ribbons if I find any that I like.
The underwear
I have now finished the underwear, at least my first set of 19th century underwear. The corset is made from the same pattern as Jenniefer Thompson's.
The Lavinia H. Foy-corset.
It is not as well made though, I made several mistakes, the woes of making this corset can be followed through my March LiveJournal posts.
It is made from two layers of thin but firm cotton and one layer of gorgeous silk taffeta. The bones are 11 mm german bones, mainly because I had a lot of them from an old project and
no money to buy narrower plastic whale bone which was my first idea. The german plastic boning has the advantage of havin soft ends that doesn't tear your fabric though and give enough support even for my G-cups.
My main mistake was to try to alter the size and shape of the basque. After making the mock-up I thought I needed bigger basques, which I didn't. I tried to correct the initial mistake, but
unfortunately both the basque and the front piece are a little to wide where they meet, creating wrinkles. It might have been possible to correct this, but I was tired of unpicking seams and decided that
this is underwear and nobody will see it and I can live with wrinkles over my tummy and prefectionism will have to wait until my next 19th century corset (that will be made by hand dammit!).
Other things I don't like: My topstitching doesn't look good, partly because my 34 years old machine really isn't up to it. I placed the boning channels over the seams
when the should have been beside the seams. I also split the seams allowances instead of felling them to one side, which makes the seams more likely to tear.
To prevent this I have stitched a ribbon on the inside to take some of the strain from the seams (this was commonly done both on corsets and bodices).
In the picture on the back you can see the bulge caused by my wide ribcage. As said in other places, my ribcage is c. 10 centimetres wider at the lowest rib than just under my breasts. So while I have no problem pulling the
corset close in the waist my rib cage just won't be pressed together. Probably a good thing. But this is why renaissance and 18th century corsets fit me better (even if you can see my ribcage there too), because they go with a
straight line from my wide bust measurement and to my not too impressing waist measurement and thus leaves more room for my ribcage than 19th century corsets which curve in under the bust.
I tried on my drawers too, and I don't like how they look when worn on top of the corset. The waist is of course way too big, but if should wear them under the corset I needed
them to fit me without a corset. And under the corset they will be! Or I will discard them altogether since I plan to do mostly 1840s and early 1850s when there were plenty
of ladies who never wore drawers.
Oh, and you should note that I've taken the pictures by my "victorian-esque" bed to give the right "mood" for the pictures.
