1750s Travelling Diary Sometime in the year 2001: I found a fabulous piece of mystery natural fibery green fabric that has an interesting texture, weave, and look. I immediately snatched up the rest of the bolt for $1/yard out of some extra ‘allowance’ money, intending to make something from the Renaissance era from it. September 2004: Well, after several years, I’ve finally decided to overcome indecisiveness on what to do with this green fabric. I picked a 1750s traveling ensemble since my new goal is something from every century and quite frankly I really like those clothes. I have found a picture of what I want to make here. I am trying to narrow down the time period, as it is cited as being from 1745-1760. That's a pretty big time frame as far as clothing is concerned. It has lovely lines and I really like the way the pleats on match up with the seams on the back of the coat. Since the garment actually exists, it is an excellent extant source although only the back is shown. I do believe I'll leave off the hood and I'll have to scour more garb from the same time frame to create the front. I will not be attempting the complicated embroidery since the fabric already has quite a bit of texture on it's own. December 2004: I have come to the conclusion that all previous work on the skirt has been in vain as I am completely unhappy with the result. Therefore I have taken the liberty of completely taking the entire thing apart (about ˝ hour quality time spent with my trusty seam ripper) and starting from scratch. After turning the skirt pieces into gores due to the fact of having 160 inches of skirt as opposed to the more 80-120 inches which was normal I sewed them together again, adding a hidden pocket on the right side which I found was accurate in Colonial era dresses, and would be handy for things like eighteenth century chapstick. I decided to use cartridge pleating, since the skirt in the picture looks to be 'gathered' and not pleated from what I can tell. I cut a skirt band, which will lace closed as I prefer my skirts to not fall off me. The cartridge pleating took much less time than I thought, even though I had to take it all out and re-do it once I found out that I put too much space between each pleat. Of course that could be because my watch broke today... but that's another story. Cartridge pleating from the outside 1/23/05: After the sewing machine went kaput today, I needed something to keep me busy, so I set about trying to get my mom’s serger to work properly since this fabric freys like nothing I've ever seen. I am thrilled to announce that we have resolved our differences, and so I spent a grand total of a minute or so serging around the entire bottom of the skirt fabric so that it will no longer fray due to the unique weave of the fabric. Now that it works properly, I find serging a very enjoyable experience! All that’s left is to hem the skirt properly, which embarrassingly enough, will be my first truly proper skirt hem. Ditto from the inside 2/6/05: The skirt is hemmed - all 160" worth - and is now complete. Pictures coming soon. 2/10/05: I have found another picture of a travelling petticoat here. I believe it is of a bit later style than my inspiration piece, however there are too many similarities (same grape quilting patterns, same skirting on the 'coat,' same type of pleating around waist, etc) to disregard it as another source. Although the sleeves are quite different and the coat skirt is a bit shorter, I believe this will give a better idea of what to do for the front of the outfit. Unfortunately the only information provided is the picture itself - no dates, and no location for where it is. 2/12/05: Well, here is the skirt in all it's glory. Keep in mind there are no petticoats, etc under it so it looks rather flat at the moment. I've made a muslin mock-up of the coat bodice using a pattern I made from scratch for another outfit a long time ago. By moving several of the seams, bending a few curves, and turning 5 peices into 4, I think I've come up with something that is really close (amazingly enough) to what I'm producing. However, after a few hours working with the mock-up, I've grown exceptionally tired of pinning and trying the thing on (I really need a better dress form) to make sure it's right, so the final fitting will probably have to be put off until next weekend. I'm really close to my final pattern though, which is rather exciting as I figured that would be the hardest part of the whole project. 2/16/05: Big update! I found another project I would like to work on, and since I make myself finish one project before beginning another, I decided to apply myself and get this finished. The result was the final fitting of the muslin mock-up of the bodice. I took that apart and used it as a pattern to cut the fabric and lining. I sewed the muslin (used it as interlining) and lining pieces together and used a method from someone who runs my absolute favorite costume site found here to lace the front closed by using bias tape and ribbon. (Seriously people, that site is incredible!) The outside was also sewn together and then attached to the lining. Then, I cut sleeves using an old pattern, adjusting them to my arm size and the length I needed them to be. The fabric and lining sleeves were attached separately to provide a very clean look to the inside of the bodice. Then, I played around with a circle of scrap fabric to find the shape for the sleeve ruffles. It turned out that the shape I liked best was a large circle with an off center smaller circle. I rummaged through the scrap pile (it's a mess at the moment - been through a lot the past few days) and found a lace curtain valence that I had made from an old table cloth. After cutting out the acorn design along the edge, I had something that I ended up really liking for the sleeve lace. Looks quite pretty if I do say so, myself. I gathered the lace onto the the circles and then serged them onto the sleeves, because frankly, this fabric really enjoys fraying even if you just look at it. I also sewed with the regular machine right above that just to be safe. Now for what I am officially dubbing 'Creative pleating 101.' All that's left is the smaller skirt on the bodice and it has to be gored in a way that will hide the seams inside the pleats. Should be interesting as I only have 60" of fabric left... I'll be taking pics to post this afternoon (hopefully). 2/17/05: I figured out the pleating, only to discover that I had a bit of trouble creating the gore-shaped pleats in my target garment. However, last night I dreamt about a way to do it correctly, so now I've got to take the coat skirt back off and re-work it before putting it back on. I thought I'd post a few pics anyway to show how not to pleat. I will try my best to post instructions on pleating gore-shaped pleats, but not until I know if my dream method works. A nice side view, including sleeve Acorn motif on sleeve lace Ironing boards don't make a very good farthingale... The incorrect rectangular pleats 2/26/05: Lot's more accomplished! I have successfully produced the necessary 'gore-shaped' pleats and will post instructions as soon as I get them written down. The ensemble is almost finished now since I've made a shift, a lace scarf to tuck into the neckline, and drawers (I insist on having something underneath it all, and yes, they're accurate - if you need to ask what I mean about that, then you need to do more research). I just need to finish the binding around the pair of stays based on this pair and make a petticoat. Final pics coming soon (I need more camera batteries...)! The 'gore pleats' from the inside Pinning the pleats, again... A blurry picture of the lacing inside Gore Shaped Pleats: This may be hard to describe, but the picture up and to the right will hopefully provide enough information. Basically the front parts of each pleat have to sit higher than the underneath pleats. I ended up playing around with each pleat to get the specific line and drape of the fabric that I wanted. The higher the front pleats are, the bigger the 'gore' that's created. 3/2/05: I made the petticoat today. I just used 4 yards of white fabric cut 30 inches wide with an added 8 yard by 10 inch ruffle along the bottom. I made it this way so it could be used for a variety of periods. I like things that are capable of multi-tasking. The ruffle is pleated onto the petticoat with rather wide box pleats as I only had a 2 to 1 fabric ratio. The waist was gathered to a band, ripped out completely, and then pleated using stacked pleats onto the waistband. It laces closed on the side. All in all a functional garment. 3/4/05: I finally made myself sit down and finish the stays, so everything is officially done! Here are some final pics of the outfit and its layers. :-) All original content of this site © www.aflightoffancy.com, 2005-2011.  For more information on the use of anything contained on this site, please see my Copyright Information page.