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A pink cotton Victorian dress

 This dress. Oh boy, this dress. Where do I even start? I guess, the very beginning is a very good place to start. This dress has been in progress since 2016. It’s made of a pink quilting cotton with a blue and cream floral design. The garment consists of a separate skirt and bodice. It closes down the front with hooks and bars, and the skirt attaches to the blouse in the same way. It started its life as Simplicity 5442. It has gone through several changes since then.


Originally, this was made for a college broadway revue show. I made this for Joanna from Sweeney Todd.  My voice teacher from college was teaching voice at another school and needed some costumes. This was when I was starting to get really interested in historic dress and costumes. The pattern was for a sheer dress, fashionable in the Victorian era. I used the pieces marked for the sheer layer and just made it in the cotton. The pattern has a lot of gathering and is very pretty. I knew that I wanted to keep it, so I bought the fabric myself instead of having the college buy it. I did a few other costumes for that show. It was a good time.



A few years after that, probably in 2018 or 2019, I decided to remake it to fit me. The actress that first wore it was taller than me, if I recall. I took out the pattern again and realized I didn’t fit the pattern anymore. I was 2 sizes larger than the largest size. Cue multiple frustrated sighs. I think I did a few things, like adding some hooks and eyes, but I didn’t do a lot. I couldn’t decide what to do with it. Back it went into the naughty project pile. Basically, I just left it in my unfinished projects bin for another few years.


I’ll try to explain what I did to it, but I didn’t take pictures. It will probably be incredibly confusing and not at all helpful. The first step was to take apart the bodice. I used another pattern to make a lining for the bodice. Since it was a different pattern, it didn’t quite match up. But it was close enough. I should have made it one size larger. I can corset down to the size, but it’s a tight squeeze. The original pattern has gathers controlling the fullness of the fabric under the bust. I decided to change the gathers to tucks to match the tucks I had already done on the shoulder seams. It was a major pain to sew the tucks to exactly match the lining layer. Finally, I got it close enough. I serged all the edges and reassembled the bodice.


The skirt is two panels of fabric the width of the fabric by 2.5 yards (I think). I folded down the top edge and attached it to the waistband with cartridge pleats. This was my first attempt at cartridge pleats, and it worked very well. Otherwise, it’s a simple skirt. It doesn’t quite fit over my larger hoop skirt, unfortunately. But I can just wear multiple petticoats and maybe a small hoop skirt.


I am very pleased overall. I wish I had made it a little bit bigger, but it’s ok. 


Yours in hard work, creativity, and a dash of Pixie Dust


Sarah





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